Xinhai Chinese Revolution

French Revolution, Russian Revolution, American Revolution

1911 Chinese Revolution or the Xinhai Revolution (1911 is a Xinhai Year in the sexagenary cycle of the Chinese calendar) or Hsinhai Revolution or the Chinese Revolution, started with the Wuchang Uprising on 10th October, 1911 and ended on February 12, 1912 when Emperor Puyi abdicated. The conflict was between the Imperial forces of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911), and Tongmenghui, the revolutionary forces of the Chinese Revolutionary Alliance.

The Chinese Revolution was motivated by frustration with the government's inability to restrain the interventions of foreign powers, and by majority Han Chinese resentment toward a government dominated by an ethnic Manchu minority.

The Chinese revolution resulted in a weak provisional central government over a country which remained politically fragmented. The monarchy was briefly and restored twice, and there was a period of military rule. Though the Republic of China formally replaced the Qing Dynasty, internal conflict continued. After another failed Revolution, the 1913 revolution or Second Revolution, the Warlord Era and the Chinese Civil War, the People’s Republic of China was finally established on October 1, 1949. Chinese Revolution in 1949 refers to the final stage of military conflict (1946–1950) in the Chinese Civil War. Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong declared the creation of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The announcement ended the costly full-scale civil war between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang (KMT), which broke out immediately following World War II and had been preceded by on and off conflict between the two sides since the 1920's.

The creation of the PRC also completed the long process of governmental upheaval in China begun by the Chinese Revolution of 1911. The "fall" of mainland China to communism in 1949 led the United States to suspend diplomatic ties with the PRC for decades.

Teaching About the Chinese Revolution - Chan, Sucheng
Asian American Review, 83-95, 76
Abstract: Notes that the Chinese Revolution is a complicated subject to teach. On top of the issue of a western versus a third world perspective, and the issue of whether China has anything in common with most of the formerly colonized world, one must come to terms with a Marxist perspective and its influence on Asian thinkers.

Moving the Masses: Emotion Work in the Chinese Revolution - Elizabeth J. Perry
Available online at mobilization.metapress.com/
Abstract: Previous explanations of the Chinese Communist revolution have highlighted (variously) the role of ideology, organization, and/or social structure. While acknowledging the importance of all these factors, this article draws attention to a largely neglected feature of the revolutionary process: the mass mobilization of emotions. Building upon pre-existing traditions of popular protest and political culture, the Communists systematized “emotion work” as part of a conscious strategy of psychological engineering. Attention to the emotional dimensions of mass mobilization was a key ingredient in the Communists’ revolutionary victory, distinguishing their approach from that of their Guomindang rivals. Moreover, patterns of emotion work developed during the wartime years lived on in the People’s Republic of China, shaping a succession of state-sponsored mass campaigns under Mao. Even in post-Mao China, this legacy continues to exert a powerful influence over the attitudes and actions of state authorities and ordinary citizens alike.

Mao and the Chinese revolution in philosophy - K. T. Fann
Studies in East European Thought, Volume 12, Number 2 / June, 1972
Abstract: There is a unique relationship between Maoist policies and philosophy. This uniqueness is idue, on the one hand, to the pedagogical orientation of the CPC, and to the essential role of the cultural revolution, on the other.
The research here reported was assisted by a grant awarded by the Joint Committee on Contemporary China of the Social Science Research Council and the American Council of Learned Societies.

Ideas of revolution in China and the West Export - by: Ping He
Frontiers of History in China, Vol. 3, No. 1. (7 March 2008), pp. 139-147.
Abstract Revolution is an event that had taken place in many countries in the 20th century. Revolution was not only imagined in Western historical writing as a radical change of social life, but also perceived as representing a return to the old form of social rule in the end. The Chinese ideas of revolution in the 20th century evolved from the traditional idea that the change of dynasties was due to the change of mandate. The modern Chinese idea of revolution also incorporated the European idea that revolution would lead to a higher form of social development. The interpretation of the aim of Chinese revolution in the 20th century China shows that Chinese theorists had a misunderstanding for a long time regarding revolution as representing an ultimate social state and not as a means to achieve political modernization. A theoretical rethinking of the concept after the Cultural Revolution has resulted in an advance in China's social evolution.

The Original Chinese Revolution Remains in Power - by Edward Friedman
Journal Article Excerpt, Journal article by Edward Friedman; Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, Vol. 13, 1981
The Chinese revolution fundamentally changed state and society. State power and control over much of the more industrial and financial economy were transferred to the hands of Marxist socialists dedicated to using the surplus to improve the life of the many. In the countryside, the landlord system was exploded.
A basis was set for future progressive developments. There was still much good and important work to do. But the revolution was over. There no longer was social dynamite to explode or a hated state to topple. It makes little sense to discuss what occurred afterwards as a second revolution, a revolution after the revolution. There is even less sense to the idea that in China people associated with a capitalist road have been struggling with those committed to the socialist road. Socialism is a rah-rah word in China among ruling groups. Therefore whoever is defeated is almost by definition a capitalist-roader, a bad person, someone who would have led society astray. But surely, the defeat of this or that faction is not a revolution.
Revolutions are not everyday occurrences. They happen seldom, if ever, in the life of a nation. The forces that make for revolution take time and circumstance to accumulate, and have not been present in China since the establishment of the People's Republic.

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