Autumn Harvest Uprising
{{Short description|1927 Chinese revolt led by Mao Zedong}}
{{Refimprove|date=July 2023}}
{{Infobox military conflict
| conflict = Autumn Harvest Uprising
| width =
| partof = Chinese Civil War
| image = August Seventh Conference plans for insurrection 1927.png
| image_size =
| alt = Map of planned insurrection in Hupeh and Hunan.
| caption = Planned insurrection locations by the August Seventh Conference.
| date = September 7, 1927
| place = Hunan, Jiangxi and Hubei.
| coordinates =
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| result = Uprising crushed, Communists forced to retreat to the Jinggang Mountains
| status =
| combatants_header =
| combatant1 = {{flagicon image|Flag_of_the_Republic_of_China.svg}} Nationalist government
- {{flagicon image|Naval_Jack_of_the_Republic_of_China.svg}} Kuomintang
- {{flagicon image|Flag_of_the_Republic_of_China_Army.svg}} National Revolutionary Army
| combatant2 = {{flagicon image|National_Flag_of_Chinese_Soviet_Republic.svg}} Soviet Zone
- {{flagicon image|Flag_of_the_Chinese_Communist_Party.svg}} Communist Party
- {{flagicon image|中國工農紅軍軍旗.svg}} Chinese Red Army
| combatant3 =
| commander1 =
| commander2 = {{flagicon image|Flag_of_the_Chinese_Communist_Party.svg}} Mao Zedong
{{flagicon image|Flag_of_the_Chinese_Communist_Party.svg}} Li Zhen
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| casualties2 =
| casualties3 = About 390,000 Hunanese civilians were killed{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ABOMDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA182 | title=Mao: The Man Who Made China | isbn=9781786730152| last1=Short | first1=Philip | date=18 December 2016 | publisher=Bloomsbury | pages=182–183}}
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{{Chinese
| order = st
| s = {{linktext|秋收|起义}}
| t = {{linktext|秋收|起義}}
| p = Qīushōu Qǐyì
| w = Ch’iu1-shou1 Chi3-yi4
}}
{{Campaignbox Chinese Civil War |state = expanded }}
The Autumn Harvest Uprising was an insurrection that took place in Hunan and Jiangxi provinces of China, on September 7, 1927, led by Mao Zedong, who established a short-lived Hunan Soviet.
After initial success, the uprising was brutally put down by Kuomintang forces. Mao continued to believe in the rural strategy but concluded that it would be necessary to form a party army.Li, Xiaobing. China at War: An Encyclopedia (ABC-CLIO, 2012) pp 5–8.
Background
In support of the Northern Expedition, Mao was sent to survey peasant conditions in his home province of Hunan. His Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan urged support for rural revolution.{{sfnb|Hofheinz, Jr.|1977}}
The uprising
Initially, Mao struggled to garner forces for an uprising, but Li Zhen rallied the peasantry and members of her local{{where?|date=December 2023}} communist troop to join.{{cite web|last1=Wu 吴|first1=Zhife 志菲|title=Li Zhen: cong tongyangxi dao kaiguo jiangjun 李贞：从童养媳到开国将军|url=http://www.people.com.cn/GB/paper81/8389/789549.html|publisher=Renmin Wang|date=2003|access-date=27 November 2011|archive-date=8 July 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150708185501/http://www.people.com.cn/GB/paper81/8389/789549.html|url-status=dead}} Mao then led a small peasant army{{where?|date=December 2023}} against the Kuomintang and the landlords of Hunan, successfully establishing a Soviet government. The uprising was eventually defeated by Kuomintang forces within two months after the Soviet was established. Mao and the others were forced to retreat to the Jinggang Mountains on the border between Hunan and Jiangxi provinces, where he encountered an army of miners which would help him in later battles. This was one of the early armed uprisings by the Communists, and it marked a significant change in their strategy. Mao and Red Army founder Zhu De went on to develop a rural-based strategy that centered on guerrilla tactics. This paved the way for the Long March of 1934.
Reasons for the uprising's failure
The uprising shows the overwhelming importance of an organized military force to the success or failure of an insurrection, the failure reveals that the role and question of military force was given different emphasis by operatives of different levels in the communist party and came to be a topic of serious contention and disagreement which led to the disorganization. An obvious lack of appreciation for rudimentary pre-insurrectionary military organization hints that Mao was more "putschist" (to a point) than his Chinese or Russian superiors.{{Cite journal |last=Hofheinz |first=Roy |date=1967 |title=The Autumn Harvest Insurrection |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/651405 |journal=The China Quarterly |volume=32 |issue=32 |pages=37–87 |doi=10.1017/S0305741000047214 |jstor=651405 |s2cid=154891728 |issn=0305-7410}}
=Mass killings against Hunanese civilians=
Nationalist anti-communist mass killings were directed against all Hunanese civilians. About 80,000 Hunanese were killed in Hunan's Liling and about 300,000 Hunanese were killed in Hunan's Chaling County, Leiyang, Liuyang and Pingjiang.
See also
References
=Citations=
{{Reflist}}
=Bibliography=
- {{cite book |last = Hofheinz, Jr.|first = Roy|author-link = Roy Hofheinz, Jr.|year = 1977 |title = The Broken Wave: The Chinese Communist Peasant Movement, 1922-1928 |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=dtFS_NmqOtAC|publisher = Harvard University Press| location = Cambridge, Mass. |isbn = 9780674083912}} Reprinted: De Gruyter, 2014 [https://www.degruyter.com/viewbooktoc/product/254566 eBook] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180609184416/https://www.degruyter.com/viewbooktoc/product/254566 |date=2018-06-09 }}
- Li, Xiaobing. China at War: An Encyclopedia (ABC-CLIO, 2012) pp 15–16.
{{Chinese Civil War}}
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Category:September 1927 in Asia
Category:Military operations of the Chinese Civil War (1927–1937)
Category:Military history of Hunan
Category:Military history of Jiangxi
Category:Chinese Communist Revolution
Category:Massacres committed by China