Modern Chinese History The Chinese Revolutions Of 1900s. History Essay

The Chinese Revolutions of 1900s
The revolutions of 20th century China that helped shape the nation to what it is today can be broken down into three major events: The Chinese Revolution of 1911, the Northern Expedition of 1926, and the Chinese Communist Revolution that ended in 1949.
Although many events happened since the first revolution of 1911 up to the unification of the country under the Communist rule, these three revolutions have left lasting effects to the people and transitory governments that ruled the nation.
Encyclopedia Britannica defines revolution as constituting a challenge to the established political order and the eventual establishment of a new order radically different from the preceding one (Revolution). It is a reaction towards oppression, driven by a desire to change the status quo.
For all its worth, the Revolution of 1911 reflected this sentiment. The continuing widespread dissatisfaction with the Qing dynasty, rumors of corruption, coupled by their inability to stop foreign encroachment in the nation snowballed into a national revolt that finally put an end to China’s 4000 years of dynastic reign.
In a matter of months, a series of provincial uprisings had broken out, the Qing Dynasty was collapsing, and a republic was being established (Schell and Delury, 155).
The revolution was able to overthrow the Manchus and build a new order which was patterned on the republic governments of United States and Great Britain. It had all the good intentions, with Sun Yat-sen, the Western educated revolutionary at the helm. Unfortunately, without help from foreign powers and cooperation from local warlords, unification was impossible. Dr. Sun was forced to relinquish leadership to the stronger Yuan Shikai who controlled much of what was left of China’s military in hopes that he will gain more support, which was at best, a desperate hope.
Dr. Sun went on to form the Kuomintang (KMT) party which was critical of the leadership of Yuan. As their relationship disintegrated, Yuan continued solidifying his base and finally had himself elected as president while publicly labelling the KMT a seditious organization and evicting all its members from Parliament. Sun Yat-sen and some of his supporters had to flee to Japan and call for a Second Revolution, this time against the rule of Yuan Shikai. This fledgling revolution, however, was firmly squashed by Yuan Shikai.
Yuan’s ambition was to be his downfall, and his desire to proclaim himself as the emperor intensified uprisings and infighting within his court. Upon his death on 1916, the already chaotic nation became embroiled in another widespread chaos without a leader and his former military governors scrambling to establish their own power bases, ushering in a decade stretch known as the warlord era (Pruitt).
In 1926, another revolutionary campaign was waged by the combined army of the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) under the leadership of Chiang Kai-Shek against the local warlords. The campaign, known as the Northern Expedition proved victorious, and the abolition of the semi-feudal states established by the local warlords made unification and centralization of...