The Kuomintang left in opposition, 1928-1931 : the leftist alternative in Chinese politics
type: CreativeWork
description: The debacle of the Kuomintang regime in Mainland China in 1949 showed that the political course pursued by Chiang Kai-shek had completely failed to meet the challenges of the time. Since then there has been much speculation on whether the Kuomintang regime would have survived in China if a different political course had been pursued by the party. This kind of curiosity has now drawn historians’ attention to the Kuomintang Left, which during 1928-31 had initiated an opposition movement against Chiang Kai-shek’s regime in Nanking; it had expounded its own ideological stand and offered an alternative programme to the official policy line. This thesis is a study of the opposition movement of the Kuomintang Left in 1928-31 and attempts to answer the question of whether the Kuomintang Left had propounded a viable alternative to Chiang’s course within the political context of the time. The opposition movement led by the Kuomintang Left started in late 1928 when the Leftist leadership was displaced from the Party Central in Nanking and its positions in the party at regional level were being challenged. The Leftist opposition movement against Nanking can be divided into two important phases. The first phase began with the “Party-Defending and National Salvation Movement” in mid-1929 and culminated in the Enlarged Party Conference in Peiping in July 1930. The second phase started with the summoning of the Extraordinary Party Conference in Canton in May 1931 and ended with the beginning of the “Wang-Chiang cooperation” in January 1932. In these two phases of opposition movement, the Kuomintang Left not only had obtained support from other opposition groups in the party but, more importantly, also had secured alliances with major regional militarists who launched several large-scale military campaigns against Nanking. In the end the opposition movement failed to bring down Chiang Kai-shek’s regime in Nanking; ironically its only notable result was to usher in an era of “Wang-Ch…
abstract: The debacle of the Kuomintang regime in Mainland China in 1949 showed that the political course pursued by Chiang Kai-shek had completely failed to meet the challenges of the time. Since then there has been much speculation on whether the Kuomintang regime would have survived in China if a different political course had been pursued by the party. This kind of curiosity has now drawn historians’ attention to the Kuomintang Left, which during 1928-31 had initiated an opposition movement against Chiang Kai-shek’s regime in Nanking; it had expounded its own ideological stand and offered an alternative programme to the official policy line. This thesis is a study of the opposition movement of the Kuomintang Left in 1928-31 and attempts to answer the question of whether the Kuomintang Left had propounded a viable alternative to Chiang’s course within the political context of the time. The opposition movement led by the Kuomintang Left started in late 1928 when the Leftist leadership was displaced from the Party Central in Nanking and its positions in the party at regional level were being challenged. The Leftist opposition movement against Nanking can be divided into two important phases. The first phase began with the “Party-Defending and National Salvation Movement” in mid-1929 and culminated in the Enlarged Party Conference in Peiping in July 1930. The second phase started with the summoning of the Extraordinary Party Conference in Canton in May 1931 and ended with the beginning of the “Wang-Chiang cooperation” in January 1932. In these two phases of opposition movement, the Kuomintang Left not only had obtained support from other opposition groups in the party but, more importantly, also had secured alliances with major regional militarists who launched several large-scale military campaigns against Nanking. In the end the opposition movement failed to bring down Chiang Kai-shek’s regime in Nanking; ironically its only notable result was to usher in an era of “Wang-Ch…
author: So, Wai-Chor
language: en
date published: 1986
date modified: 2026-07-24T00:54:54Z
provider: Australian National University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Australian National University

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/1885/112017