In the first half of the XIX century. Qing China entered a period of crisis and decline. Under military pressure from European powers, the ruling Qing dynasty abandoned its policy of self-isolation. The economic and political backwardness of the Chinese state was demonstrated to the whole world. Peasants' War Taiping, which broke out in the 50s, shook the foundations of the Qing Empire to the ground.
Territory and population growth
At the turn of the XVIII - XIX centuries. China was a huge empire, which included Manchuria, Mongolia, Tibet and East Turkestan. Korea, Vietnam and Burma were vassals of the Qing Dynasty. More than 300 million people lived in this country. The population grew so rapidly that in fifty years it had increased to 400 million and made up almost a third of humanity.
Aggravation of social contradictions
The rapid growth of the population was not accompanied by a sufficient increase in the area under crops. In densely populated areas, there was not enough land, which was one of the reasons for social tension in Chinese society. Another reason was the arbitrariness and extortion of officials.
In China, the emperor was considered the unlimited ruler of the entire state, the "father and mother" of all Chinese. Officials, in turn, are the "parents" of the entire ward population. Parents-rulers were real despots. They administered judgment and reprisal according to their own arbitrariness. Under various pretexts, indirect taxes were introduced (on tea, salt, tobacco, rice, bread, sugar, meat, firewood), appropriating a significant part of them.
And grief was a peasant who dared to ask for protection from a higher authority. The complaint was still returned to the offender for consideration. Whipping was the most common punishment. “Empire officials are worse than robbers,” one of the leaders of the Taiping peasant uprising spoke of them.
First Opium War
At this time, the Europeans increased their pressure on China. They sought to "open up" the country in order to conduct unlimited trade with it and gradually turn it into their colonial appendage.
England was the most active. She was even ready for military action. But the first breach in the wall of Chinese self-isolation was made not by a weapon, but by a drug - opium. The history of its distribution in China is very dramatic and instructive.
Europeans used to supply this poison to China, paying with it for Chinese goods. But in the first third of the XIX century. opium imports increased significantly. The English merchants were in a particularly advantageous position. They supplied the drug from newly conquered India. Opium smoking has become widespread in China. Government officials and soldiers, owners of workshops and shops smoked, servants and women smoked, and even future monks and Taoist preachers. The health of the nation was in serious danger. In addition, the opium trade contributed to the siphoning of silver from China, as a result of which the country's financial situation worsened.
The harm from opium was so obvious that in 1839 chinese emperor banned from bringing it into the country. All stocks of drugs belonging to English and other foreign merchants were confiscated and destroyed. In response to these actions, British troops landed in ports in China. Thus began the Anglo-Chinese, or the first "opium" war of 1839-1842. The American president called the war unleashed by England fair.
During the war, the negative consequences of the policy of self-isolation appeared. The Chinese army was armed only with tiny junks (boats) and edged weapons. The military command was weak and helpless. It knew almost nothing about the international situation and about the country with which it was at war. During the war, a Chinese governor finally made a "discovery". It turns out that the wheels of steamboats are not rotated by bulls, but by cars. It is not difficult to guess what the above fact testifies to.
Is it any wonder that the defeat of the Chinese troops followed one after another. Fearing complete defeat, the Qing government hastened to capitulate. Under the peace treaty, England secured for its subjects the right to free trade in five Chinese ports. English goods were subject to low customs duties - no more than 5%. China paid England a huge indemnity (21 million liang) and ceded to her the island of Xianggang (Hong Kong), which only in 1997 became Chinese again. The British also received the right not to obey Chinese laws and courts.
Following England, similar treaties with China were concluded by other states of Europe. As a result, China was open to foreign intrusion and interference.
Taiping Rebellion 1850 - 1864
The defeat of China from the "European barbarians" led to a decline in the prestige of the Qing dynasty and an increase in anti-Manchu sentiment. The ruling dynasty was dissatisfied not only with ordinary Chinese, but also with part of the landowners. Military expenses, indemnity paid to the winner, were paid by additional taxes from the population. The peasants found themselves in a particularly difficult situation. Many of them were begging and eked out a half-starved existence. Some abandoned their households and joined the ranks of the robber freemen, which became widespread in China. Secret anti-Manchu societies sprang up everywhere, and the air clearly smelled like a thunderstorm.
A powerful anti-feudal uprising broke out in the summer of 1850. It engulfed the central regions of China and lasted almost 15 years. During the uprising, a "welfare state" - Taipingtianguo - was created. Therefore, the rebels were often called Taipings.
The leader of the uprising was Hong Xiuquan - a native of a peasant family, a teacher in a rural school. Being strongly influenced by Christianity, he called himself younger brother Jesus Christ and preached the idea of equality. He dreamed of creating a "world of great tranquility" and justice. To achieve this goal, in his opinion, it is necessary to overthrow the Qing dynasty. All Manchus - even commoners - were subject to extermination.
In 1851, Hong Xiuquan was proclaimed emperor of the Taiping state. He and his associates tried to put into practice the idea of universal equality. The "Land Law" adopted by them proclaimed the joint cultivation of the land and the equal distribution of material wealth.
Britain and France closely followed the development of the civil war in China. They decided to use it to penetrate deep into the country. The Qing government tried to counter this. Then England and France went over to open aggression. The second "opium" war began (1856-1860). In the autumn of 1860, Anglo-French troops entered Beijing, abandoned by the emperor and his nobles. The Europeans plundered the city and exterminated the civilian population.
Their special attention was attracted by the Emperor's Summer Palace. It was one of the most magnificent architectural structures in the city. It consisted of 200 buildings filled with luxury goods, Chinese arts and crafts. During the division of the booty, so that everyone gets "equally" and "according to merit", the Europeans created a commission. Special gifts have been selected for English queen Victoria and the Emperor of France. However, a civilized division did not work out. Blinded by the splendor of wealth and mad with greed, the soldiers began to plunder the palace. Then, in order to hide the traces of the barbarian robbery, the palace was burned. The place where he stood turned into a wasteland.
The Qing government, busy fighting the Taipings, refused to continue the war with foreigners. It capitulated, making new concessions. Only after that did the European powers assist the Manchu feudal lords in ruthlessly suppressing the Taipings, who, unlike the Qing, called foreigners "brothers" and not "barbarians". The Taiping uprising, in many ways similar to the uprisings of Razin and Pugachev in Russia, ended in defeat.
The Taiping Peasants' War was the longest-running uprising in Chinese history. Many millions of people died. Much of the country was devastated and destroyed. The civil war ultimately weakened China and the ruling Qing dynasty.
THIS IS INTERESTING TO KNOW
"Holy Letter" in China
"Hieroglyph" in Greek - "sacred letter". Chinese writing using hieroglyphs is the oldest in the world. It originated in the 18th century. BC e. This is indeed the most complex and difficult letter. To understand it, let's use this comparison. If we need to write, for example, the word "man", then we will write the letter "h", then "e", then "l", etc. And the Chinese draw a symbol denoting the concept of "man". There are many words in the language and each needs an icon, i.e. hieroglyph. At the dawn of the emergence of hieroglyphs, at first they simply drew a person with a head, arms, legs. However, when quick writing there is no time to draw all the details of the human body. Therefore, after a while, the drawing turned into a conditional image, vaguely resembling its progenitor.
References:
V. S. Koshelev, I. V. Orzhehovsky, V. I. Sinitsa / The World History New time XIX - early. XX century., 1998.
In the first half of the XIX century. Qing China entered a period of crisis and decline. Under military pressure from European powers, the ruling Qing dynasty abandoned its policy of self-isolation. The economic and political backwardness of the Chinese state was demonstrated to the whole world. The Taiping peasant war that broke out in the 1950s shook the foundations of the Qing Empire to its foundations.
Territory and population growth
At the turn of the XVIII - XIX centuries. China was a huge empire, which included Manchuria, Mongolia, Tibet and East Turkestan. Korea, Vietnam and Burma were vassals of the Qing Dynasty. More than 300 million people lived in this country. The population grew so rapidly that in fifty years it had increased to 400 million and made up almost a third of humanity.
Aggravation of social contradictions
The rapid growth of the population was not accompanied by a sufficient increase in the area under crops. In densely populated areas, there was not enough land, which was one of the reasons for social tension in Chinese society. Another reason was the arbitrariness and extortion of officials.
In China, the emperor was considered the unlimited ruler of the entire state, the "father and mother" of all Chinese. Officials, in turn, are the "parents" of the entire ward population. Parents-rulers were real despots. They administered judgment and reprisal according to their own arbitrariness. Under various pretexts, indirect taxes were introduced (on tea, salt, tobacco, rice, bread, sugar, meat, firewood), appropriating a significant part of them.
And grief was a peasant who dared to ask for protection from a higher authority. The complaint was still returned to the offender for consideration. Whipping was the most common punishment. “Empire officials are worse than robbers,” one of the leaders of the Taiping peasant uprising spoke of them.
First Opium War
At this time, the Europeans increased their pressure on China. They sought to "open up" the country in order to conduct unlimited trade with it and gradually turn it into their colonial appendage.
England was the most active. She was even ready for military action. But the first breach in the wall of Chinese self-isolation was made not by a weapon, but by a drug - opium. The history of its distribution in China is very dramatic and instructive.
Europeans used to supply this poison to China, paying with it for Chinese goods. But in the first third of the XIX century. opium imports increased significantly. The English merchants were in a particularly advantageous position. They supplied the drug from newly conquered India. Opium smoking has become widespread in China. Government officials and soldiers, owners of workshops and shops smoked, servants and women smoked, and even future monks and Taoist preachers. The health of the nation was in serious danger. In addition, the opium trade contributed to the siphoning of silver from China, as a result of which the country's financial situation worsened.
The harm from opium was so obvious that in 1839 the Chinese emperor forbade it from being brought into the country. All stocks of drugs belonging to English and other foreign merchants were confiscated and destroyed. In response to these actions, British troops landed in ports in China. Thus began the Anglo-Chinese, or the first "opium" war of 1839-1842. The American president called the war unleashed by England fair.
During the war, the negative consequences of the policy of self-isolation appeared. The Chinese army was armed only with tiny junks (boats) and edged weapons. The military command was weak and helpless. It knew almost nothing about the international situation and about the country with which it was at war. During the war, a Chinese governor finally made a "discovery". It turns out that the wheels of steamboats are not rotated by bulls, but by cars. It is not difficult to guess what the above fact testifies to.
Is it any wonder that the defeat of the Chinese troops followed one after another. Fearing complete defeat, the Qing government hastened to capitulate. Under the peace treaty, England secured for its subjects the right to free trade in five Chinese ports. English goods were subject to low customs duties - no more than 5%. China paid England a huge indemnity (21 million liang) and ceded to her the island of Xianggang (Hong Kong), which only in 1997 became Chinese again. The British also received the right not to obey Chinese laws and courts.
Following England, similar treaties with China were concluded by other states of Europe. As a result, China was open to foreign intrusion and interference.
Taiping Rebellion 1850 - 1864
The defeat of China from the "European barbarians" led to a decline in the prestige of the Qing dynasty and an increase in anti-Manchu sentiment. The ruling dynasty was dissatisfied not only with ordinary Chinese, but also with part of the landowners. Military expenses, indemnity paid to the winner, were paid by additional taxes from the population. The peasants found themselves in a particularly difficult situation. Many of them were begging and eked out a half-starved existence. Some abandoned their households and joined the ranks of the robber freemen, which became widespread in China. Secret anti-Manchu societies sprang up everywhere, and the air clearly smelled like a thunderstorm.
A powerful anti-feudal uprising broke out in the summer of 1850. It engulfed the central regions of China and lasted almost 15 years. During the uprising, a "welfare state" - Taipingtianguo - was created. Therefore, the rebels were often called Taipings.
The leader of the uprising was Hong Xiuquan - a native of a peasant family, a teacher in a rural school. Being strongly influenced by Christianity, he called himself the younger brother of Jesus Christ and preached the ideas of equality. He dreamed of creating a "world of great tranquility" and justice. To achieve this goal, in his opinion, it is necessary to overthrow the Qing dynasty. All Manchus - even commoners - were subject to extermination.
In 1851, Hong Xiuquan was proclaimed emperor of the Taiping state. He and his associates tried to put into practice the idea of universal equality. The "Land Law" adopted by them proclaimed the joint cultivation of the land and the equal distribution of material wealth.
Britain and France closely followed the development of the civil war in China. They decided to use it to penetrate deep into the country. The Qing government tried to counter this. Then England and France went over to open aggression. The second "opium" war began (1856-1860). In the autumn of 1860, Anglo-French troops entered Beijing, abandoned by the emperor and his nobles. The Europeans plundered the city and exterminated the civilian population.
Their special attention was attracted by the Emperor's Summer Palace. It was one of the most magnificent architectural structures in the city. It consisted of 200 buildings filled with luxury goods, Chinese arts and crafts. During the division of the booty, so that everyone gets "equally" and "according to merit", the Europeans created a commission. Special gifts were selected for the English Queen Victoria and the Emperor of France. However, a civilized division did not work out. Blinded by the splendor of wealth and mad with greed, the soldiers began to plunder the palace. Then, in order to hide the traces of the barbarian robbery, the palace was burned. The place where he stood turned into a wasteland.
The Qing government, busy fighting the Taipings, refused to continue the war with foreigners. It capitulated, making new concessions. Only after that did the European powers assist the Manchu feudal lords in ruthlessly suppressing the Taipings, who, unlike the Qing, called foreigners "brothers" and not "barbarians". The Taiping uprising, in many ways similar to the uprisings of Razin and Pugachev in Russia, ended in defeat.
The Taiping Peasants' War was the longest-running uprising in Chinese history. Many millions of people died. Much of the country was devastated and destroyed. The civil war ultimately weakened China and the ruling Qing dynasty.
THIS IS INTERESTING TO KNOW
"Holy Letter" in China
"Hieroglyph" in Greek - "sacred letter". Chinese writing using hieroglyphs is the oldest in the world. It originated in the 18th century. BC e. This is indeed the most complex and difficult letter. To understand it, let's use this comparison. If we need to write, for example, the word "man", then we will write the letter "h", then "e", then "l", etc. And the Chinese draw a symbol denoting the concept of "man". There are many words in the language and each needs an icon, i.e. hieroglyph. At the dawn of the emergence of hieroglyphs, at first they simply drew a person with a head, arms, legs. However, when writing quickly, there is no time to draw all the details of the human body. Therefore, after a while, the drawing turned into a conditional image, vaguely resembling its progenitor.
References:
V. S. Koshelev, I. V. Orzhehovsky, V. I. Sinitsa / World History of the Modern Times XIX - early. XX century., 1998.
In the middle of the 19th century, the one and a half thousand-year era of feudalism (IV-XIX centuries) ended for China. The history of pure tradition ended with the Opium Wars (1840-1842, 1856-1860) and the Taiping Peasant War of 1850-1864. With the formation of the People's Republic of China in 1949, another era began - the movement towards socialism. Between these two frontiers Chinese history lies a period of complex transformation, which led to the emergence of a transitional multiform society and the transformation of China into a semi-colony of European, American and Japanese imperialism.
The Europeans, who first introduced China to the West, saw the empire as equal, if not superior, to their home countries. The empire was the most extensive in the world, seemed to Europeans and the richest. In the next century there was a sharp turn. Internal rebellions and destructive external wars followed one after another, often giving rise to each other. The 19th century, which for the West was a century of mechanics and the rise of science, was for China a period of stagnation, mismanagement, weakness, and decline. The empire, which in the 18th century delighted the Jesuits, by the end of the 19th century was considered a decrepit and backward country, doomed to predatory plunder by foreign powers.
The real reason for the decline of the empire was the intellectual stagnation caused by the dominance of ruling class based on a frozen cultural tradition. The growing discontent, the progress of external enemies, identified with change and the choice of a different ideology, only confirmed their belief that Confucianism is "to the Chinese what water is to fish" -- vital necessity. Any excitement was associated with a different, hostile doctrine.
The history of China in the 19th century for the Manchu dynasty was a period of constant decline and catastrophe. In 1803, it was not without difficulty that the White Lotus uprising was suppressed. And in 1839-1842 in China, as a result of the smuggling and sale of opium by English merchants, the Anglo-Chinese war began, which went down in history under the name of the first opium war. China suffered a crushing defeat, as a result of which the British received practically unlimited rights to trade in the southeast of the country and large monetary compensation for trade losses and military expenses.
Ten years after the first opium war, the great Taiping Rebellion followed, which began in the south, but soon captured many regions of China and did not reach only a hundred miles to Beijing, almost ending in the overthrow of the Manchus and the accession of Chinese dynasty. For nine years, the leader of the Taipings, Hong Xiuquan, ruled half of the country from Nanjing. Using this situation, the British in 1856 unite with the French and start the second opium war. As a result, Europeans, including Russia, receive in China the right to conduct almost uncontrolled trade, significant monetary compensation and territorial concessions.
In 1864, the Taiping Rebellion was finally crushed. Over the next 50 years, China was destined to drag out existence under the rule of a mediocre court with Empress Cixi and eunuchs at the head. As a result, in 1885 France seized Indochina from China in its favor, in 1886 England seized Burma, and in the 1870s a military confrontation with Japan began. Its first tangible result was China's loss of Formosa in 1895 and the payment of a substantial indemnity. As a result, before the end of the 19th century, China was forced to cede almost all seaports to the Europeans, the Japanese receive large concessions in the country, and the United States raises the issue of introducing an "open door" regime for all foreign powers in China.
However, most Chinese did not want to put up with the arbitrariness of foreigners. Therefore, at the very end of the 19th century, another popular uprising broke out in China, which went down in history as the "uprising of the Yihetuan", or "boxers", since its organizer was the secret society "I he tuan" ("Fist in the name of peace and justice"). This performance quickly acquired an anti-foreign orientation. In response, in 1900, England, Italy, Austria, France, Germany, Japan, the United States and Russia began to intervene in China. The rebels were defeated, and a huge indemnity was again imposed on China. In addition, now the Chinese were obliged to maintain significant foreign military contingents on their territory.
By 1910, two years after Cixi's death, revolutionary activity reached unprecedented proportions, and the throne was still occupied by the child Pu Yi. On December 29, 1911, Sun Yat-sen was elected interim president of the proclaimed Republic of China. In February 1912, the last emperor of the Manchu dynasty abdicated, and China became a republic, but already in April, the revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen was forced to transfer presidential powers to the military dictator Yuan Shikai. The revolutionary organization of Sun Yat-sen, which emerged from the underground, became the National Party (Kuomintang), but the nationalists did not have the strength to fight Yuan Shikai, and he ruled as a dictator until his death in 1916. Sun Yat-sen tried to create a government in the south of the country in Canton (Guangzhou), but by that time almost all of China was under the control of local warlords. Pursuing nationalistic and political goals, Sun Yat-sen was not alien to the ideas of social and economic transformations. In 1921, a group of activists, including the humble assistant librarian Mao Zedong, founded the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Shanghai. At first, the nationalists and communists, who were at war with each other, entered into an alliance in 1923, when Sun Yat-sen realized that only the USSR was ready to help the Kuomintang in the matter of state building.
In 1925, Sun Yat-sen died, but his successor Chiang Kai-shek brought his plan to the end and captured Shanghai without much difficulty. Promising financial support to Chiang Kai-shek, local industrialists persuaded him to get rid of unwanted allies, and in April 1927, thousands of Communists fell victim to mass repression, and the weakened CCP was driven underground. Inspired by success, Chiang Kai-shek took Nanjing and established a republican regime headed by his own person. However, his power, acquired only through deals with local militarists, was very shaky even before open armed confrontation with the Communists and the Japanese.
Meanwhile, in the mountainous regions on the border of the provinces of Hunan and Jiangxi, the Communists were preparing for a retaliatory strike. Having come to the conclusion that the peasant masses should become the driving force of the Chinese revolution, Mao Zedong, together with his comrades-in-arms, created a communist state and a new "Red Army" here. In the eyes of the peasants, the nationalists, steeped in corruption, were hopelessly losing out to the honest administration and land reforms of the communists. In an effort to "suppress the bandits", Chiang Kai-shek carried out several punitive operations against them. In 1930-34, despite the effective communist guerrilla tactics, about a million people died in this area, and during the fifth campaign, government troops closed the encirclement around the communist base in Jiangxi. In October 1934, the Red Army broke through the ring and fought its way to the northwest. Thus began the North-Western campaign through the mountains and rivers, 9600 km long, in which the Red Army made its way to the special region of Yan'an with grueling battles. The chief strategist of the legendary Long March, Mao Zedong became the undisputed leader of the CCP, and Zhou Enlai became his right hand. Having captured Manchuria and invading Chinese territory in a number of places, the Japanese provoked an armed incident in 1937, which grew into a full-scale, albeit undeclared war. By the end of 1937, the Japanese had taken Beijing and Nanjing, subjected many cities to severe bombardments, and committed monstrous atrocities against civilians. The whole country rose up to fight the invaders, and Chiang Kai-shek agreed to reconcile with the communists in order to fight the aggressor as a united front. Under the onslaught of the heavily armed Japanese army Chinese troops had to retreat, and the invaders occupied the entire east coast, although they could not capture the hinterland. However, in 1941, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor radically changed the situation, and China became one of the participants in World War II.
At the end of the war, Chiang Kai-shek seemed to have all the cards - a large and well-equipped army, control of cities and generous financial assistance from the United States. However, in the flaming civil war powerful popular support, high morale and tactical superiority quickly brought success to the communists.
In 1949, Chiang Kai-shek stepped down as president and was replaced by Vice President Li Zongren. As acting president, Lee began negotiations with the communists. As the Communists advanced, the Nationalists moved their capital from Nanjing to Canton, then to Chongqing, and finally to Taipei on the island of Taiwan.
“Meanwhile, from September 21 to 30, 1949, the 1st session of the People's Political Consultative Council of China was held in Beijing, which was attended by the chairmen of various parties, people's organizations and sections of the population, as well as non-party democratic figures. The session adopted general program”, which played the role of an interim constitution, held elections for the Central People's Government Council, of which Mao Zedong was elected chairman. Zhou Enlai was appointed Premier of the Administrative Council of the People's Republic of China and Minister of Foreign Affairs. On October 1, Chairman Mao Zedong officially proclaimed the formation of the People's Republic of China.
Such is the history of China in the 19th - first half of the 20th century. This hundred-year period (1840-1949), most often referred to as the period of semi-feudal, semi-colonial China, was a turning point that separated the era of medieval traditional society from the period of socialist transformation and the beginning of socialist construction on a modern basis. In Chinese history and culture, this period is also called "Old China". This term was first proposed by Vladimir Vyacheslavovich Malyavin.
By the end of the 19th century, China was a semi-colonial country, where the power of the national government of the Manchu Qing dynasty, which had ruled China since the 17th century, only formally remained. In fact, the country was entangled in enslaving treaties imposed by the Western powers and Japan. The beginning of the semi-colonial enslavement of China was laid by the first "opium" war with England in 1840-1842. The participation of the capitalist powers in the suppression of the Taipik peasant uprising (1850-1864) created favorable conditions for intensifying European penetration into China.
By the end of the 19th century, the regions of northern, southwestern, northeastern China, as well as the Yangtze River basin, were territories that were influenced by England, France, Germany, tsarist Russia and then Japan.
The strengthening of the position of foreign capital in China was manifested in the accelerated growth of trade on an unequal basis for China (low import duties), the construction of railways, the opening of banks, insurance companies, the strengthening of the powers' control over the customs apparatus, and, as a result, over the country's finances.
The brake on the development of capitalism was feudal relations in the Chinese countryside. Peasant farming was extremely backward, natural and semi-natural forms of farming prevailed.
The peasant was subjected to monstrous exploitation not only by the landowner, but also by the kulak, usurer, merchant, and merchant. 70% of the peasants were landless or landless. They were forced to rent land from the landowner and the kulak, giving them more than half of their crops for this. In addition, the peasants were entangled in taxes and requisitions. The mass ruin of the peasants led to the creation of a huge army of cheap labor, which China's weak industry could not absorb. The ruined peasants replenished the army of the unemployed, the destitute and the poor.
Kai Yuwei believed that in order to improve the situation in his country, it is necessary to borrow some reforms from the West. However, even the moderate proposals of the reformers, who called for improving, but not destroying the existing system, met with a sharp rebuff from the monarchist groups. The reformers were subjected to repression and persecution.
The defeat of the reformers showed that the Qing monarchy would not voluntarily limit its undivided rule. This was also understood by the revolutionary democrats, led by Sun Yat-sen, who expressed the interests of the petty and middle national bourgeoisie. They sympathized with the common people, they wanted to alleviate their plight. - a doctor of the profession, studying the program of the reformers, came to the conclusion that China needs not constitutional, but revolutionary methods of struggle. In 1895, he created a secret revolutionary organization, the Chinese Renaissance Society, whose goal was to expel the Manchu dynasty. However, the revolutionary democrats were still weak and inexperienced, and therefore in their actions they did not go further than an armed anti-government conspiracy.
The struggle of the masses for national liberation. 1900 uprising
In the late 1990s, the situation in China became increasingly tense. Following the predatory treaty imposed on China by Japan in 1895, Germany's aggressiveness intensified, new enslaving loans appeared, taxes increased, and rent increased even more. The situation of the peasants became unbearable.
The activities of traditional peasant "secret societies" in China, which appeared in the Middle Ages, intensified. In 1898, in the province of Shandong, where the Germans ruled, a secret society "Ihetuan" arose, which meant "detachments of justice and peace." The slogans of this society were of a pronounced anti-imperialist nature - "the expulsion of foreign invaders." In 1899, the Yihetuan created an armed force and extended their activities to almost the entire province of Shandong. The foreign powers demanded from the Qing immediate control of the masses, otherwise they threatened to launch an armed intervention. The impudent ultimatum of the imperialists outraged even the Qing government.
The Manchu court and the Chinese nobility, dissatisfied with such behavior of foreigners, were ready to some extent to use the Yihetuan movement in order to intimidate the imperialists. But they themselves were most afraid of the rebels, the mass manifestation of popular anger, so they maintained secret communications with the Western powers and sought to control the movement.
In response to the ultimatum, the Manchu court, not wanting complications, replaced the liberal governor of Shandong with a reactionary warlord who, using German troops, began repression against the rebels. But the uprising continued to grow. The repression only increased popular anger. The detachments began to replenish with thousands of peasants and townspeople. The armed detachments of the Yihetuan occupied Beijing and Tianjin. They blockaded foreign embassies in Beijing. It went down in history as the 56-day "Beijing seat" of foreign diplomats. The Chinese authorities used this fact to slander the Yihetuan, who allegedly tried to destroy all Europeans.
The uprising was crushed by the joint efforts of foreign powers and the Manchurian monarchy. A predatory treaty was imposed on China. In September 1901, the government and representatives of 8 states signed the "Final Protocol", according to which China had to pay a huge indemnity for 39 years. According to the agreement, foreign states received the right to base the fleet, and all speeches against them were to be punished by death.
The Yihetuan uprising was the first major anti-imperialist uprising of the masses of China. It was of a spontaneous nature. The rebels did not have a clear command structure. The Chinese proletariat was still in its infancy; it could not lead the movement. The ideology of the rebels was of a religious nature, typical of the Chinese "secret societies". This determined the ideological and organizational weakness of the Yihetuan.
After the suppression of the uprising, the exploitation of semi-colonial China by the Western powers intensified even more. Foreign investment grew rapidly, foreign banks almost completely controlled the country's finances. Opposition to Qingam from the bourgeois-landlord circles of China intensified. The Qing monarchy was forced to carry out some reforms and even adopt a draft constitution. But this could no longer change the situation. A revolutionary situation was growing in the country.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, social contradictions intensified in China. The Manchu Qing Dynasty fell into decline. The urgent reform measures taken did not improve the situation in society. In China, the contradiction between the development of industry and the backward production relations inherent in land ownership, which turned into an obstacle, was aggravated. A movement against the rule of the Manchus intensified among the masses. Chinese national industry is far behind in development. Despite this, more than 50 businesses opened each year. As a result, the country's exports doubled. Among the place for the exchange of goods (50%). China's debt to foreign countries increased more and more.
Sun Yat Sen
Democratic revolutionary Sun Yat Sen (1866-1925) was a well-known figure in the national liberation movement in China. He was born into a peasant family near Guangzhou (Canton). Sun Yat Sen graduated from the English Medical Institute in the early 90s in Hong Kong (Xianggang). He connected his later life with political activity.
Sun Yat Sen founded the Tongminghai (United Union) political organization in 1905. AT major cities appeared secret societies this Union. The union in November 1905 began to publish the newspaper "Mingbao" (People's newspaper).
The union, led by Sun Yat Sen, adopted a program that included such demands as the overthrow of the Qing Empire and the declaration of China as a republic, the equalization of land rights, and the restoration of independence.
According to Sun Yat Sen, in an underdeveloped socio-economic With regard to China, by equalizing land rights, a socially just system can be created.
Formation of the Provisional Government of the Republic
Sun Yat Sen's organization set as its goal the creation of a republican system of government. This idea further strengthened the movement against the Manchus, which adopted the tactics of armed confrontation after drawing up an agreement in 1911 on taking a foreign loan for construction. railway. Even in the army, discontent began.
In the city of Wuhan, soldiers killed supporters of the Manchu administration who entered the barracks to check the soldiers, and seized the armory. Other military units also joined them. On October 11, the revolutionaries completely captured Wuhan. They formed the government of the Republic and called on all the prefectures of China to unite around it. The end of the Manchu dynasty was announced. This revolution went down in history as the Xinhai Revolution. Thus, the Xinhai Revolution overthrew the Qing Dynasty, which had dominated China since the 17th century, through an armed uprising.
Subjected to constant persecution and persecution, Sun Yat Sen was forced to emigrate.
In 1911, after years of exile, Sun Yat Sen returned to China. The Chinese people gladly accepted it. On December 29, the National Assembly was held in Nanjing, where the deputies of the revolutionary provinces were represented. The National Assembly declared China a republic and elected Sun Yat Sen as interim president. The constitution, adopted by the National Assembly, proclaimed equal rights for all and various democratic freedoms. But the motto of the peasants - "To be equal in ownership of the land" - expressing the desire of the peasants, did not find its reflection there. The reason for this was the high position of the opposing forces.
Yuan dictatorship
As a result of the revolution, a dual power was formed in China: the power of the Chinese Republic and another - the power of the emperor, preserved in the north. Yuan Shikai was the head of the imperial power in Beijing.
Foreign monopolists were alarmed by the situation in China. They began to interfere in the internal affairs of the country under various pretexts. Foreign invaders, in order to suppress the revolution in China by force of arms, achieved the unification of their forces.
The purpose of supporting the Beijing government by developed foreign states was to interfere at will in the internal affairs of China. But this led to general discontent in China. The population began to boycott foreign goods. With this development of the situation, the reaction united around Prime Minister Yuan Shikai.
The Beijing courtiers looked at him as a liberator, patron of the monarchy. But Yuan Shikai February 12, 1912 under pressure revolutionary movement forced the Qing Emperor to abdicate. The ruling elite tried to transfer all power to him. Yuan Shikai formed the government in Nanjing. Meanwhile, foreign states also openly demanded the resignation of Sun Yat Sen as head of government and began open preparations for intervention in China. Under the threat of intervention, the head of state, Sun Yat Sen, was forced to transfer the post to Yuan Shikai.
Yuan Shikai, who came to power, nullified democratic freedoms. He first of all began to disarm the revolutionary troops. The fate of the members of any group created against the government ended in death. Punitive expeditions began to operate in every village.
Despite this, in 1912 the democratic forces created the Kuomintang (National Party), with Sun Yat Sen elected as chairman of the party board.
Encouraged by the victory of the counter-revolution, Yuan Shikai forced the National Assembly to elect himself as president for a five-year term. Yuan Shikai signed an enslaving agreement with the great states on a new loan. After that, foreign states announced that they recognized the Republic of China. The economic situation in the country worsened. Sun Yat Sen called on the Chinese people to revolt. In 1913, an uprising called the "Second Revolution" began in southern China, opposing the reactionary policies of the government.
But since the forces were not equal and the rebels were not provided with modern weapons, the Second Revolution uprising was suppressed by the troops of the government, which received military support from foreign states.
In 1914, Yuan Shikai convened a constitutional council that adopted a new constitution for China. Yuan Shikai as president had unlimited power. A military dictatorship was established, the administrative bodies of the republic were liquidated.
Xinhai Revolution - in translation, "xinhai" means "year". The revolution lasted a whole year according to the lunar Chinese calendar, hence it got its name.
The Qing Dynasty is a dynasty that dominated after the Ming Dynasty, which was destroyed as a result of the peasant movement of 1628-1644. The Qing dynasty dominated from 1644-1911.
