The Second United Front became an example of how even the existence of the Japanese as a common enemy could not overcome the fundamental fragmentation of Chinese society. The United Front was an agreement for the Nationalists to stop CCP persecution in return for troops and the CCP abiding by the Nationalists ‘Three Principles’. For Chiang, who stated in 1941 “the Japanese are a disease of the skin, the Communists are a disease of the heart”, the Second United Front was only ever a military manoeuvre in the face of two enemies. The Communists too committed the Second United Front more for the opportunity to advance their political interests than to fight the Japanese. Mao stated a policy of “70 percent expansion, 20 percent dealing with the
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However, the Japanese as a common enemy did become a rhetorical tool for the CCP and Nationalist Party to unite the nation under their particular ideological and governmental banner in their domestic struggle. Japan’s aggression was used to mobilise in anticipation of the civil war. The CCP used the Japanese as a common enemy to mobilise the peasants in the North and induct them into their political philosophy. The communists used propaganda to argue the Nationalists were appeasing and collaborating with the Japanese, while it was the CCP who had resisted from the beginning, but this was not really true. Volunteer armies made up of patriotic Chinese sprang up in Manchuria in 1931 to resist the Japanese. They were generally raised by junior army officers, gentry, police and intellectuals and recruited from peasants, workers, bandits and shanlin, demonstrating the possibility of unity against the Japanese. The CCP cadres in Manchuria, discouraged these armies, believing as Zhou Enlai proclaimed "landlords, capitalists, warlords, all manner of counter-revolutionaries and the running dogs of the yellow unions" were attempting to spearhead the struggle instead of the oppressed workers. The Second United Front forced the abandonment of class struggle, and instead lead to the incorporation of rural mobilization into the anti-Japanese struggle. However, it is debated to what extent the classic thesis of Chalmers Johnson on ‘peasant mobilisation’ is accurate in stating that it was largely anti-Japanese nationalism that mobilized the peasants in joining the CCP. Li Lifeng argues that Chinese peasants had been cut off from politics for centuries, and likely joined generally for protection and the promised redistribution of land. While modern works have therefore moved away from monocausal explanations, it was
However, the Japanese as a common enemy did become a rhetorical tool for the CCP and Nationalist Party to unite the nation under their particular ideological and governmental banner in their domestic struggle. Japan’s aggression was used to mobilise in anticipation of the civil war. The CCP used the Japanese as a common enemy to mobilise the peasants in the North and induct them into their political philosophy. The communists used propaganda to argue the Nationalists were appeasing and collaborating with the Japanese, while it was the CCP who had resisted from the beginning, but this was not really true. Volunteer armies made up of patriotic Chinese sprang up in Manchuria in 1931 to resist the Japanese. They were generally raised by junior army officers, gentry, police and intellectuals and recruited from peasants, workers, bandits and shanlin, demonstrating the possibility of unity against the Japanese. The CCP cadres in Manchuria, discouraged these armies, believing as Zhou Enlai proclaimed "landlords, capitalists, warlords, all manner of counter-revolutionaries and the running dogs of the yellow unions" were attempting to spearhead the struggle instead of the oppressed workers. The Second United Front forced the abandonment of class struggle, and instead lead to the incorporation of rural mobilization into the anti-Japanese struggle. However, it is debated to what extent the classic thesis of Chalmers Johnson on ‘peasant mobilisation’ is accurate in stating that it was largely anti-Japanese nationalism that mobilized the peasants in joining the CCP. Li Lifeng argues that Chinese peasants had been cut off from politics for centuries, and likely joined generally for protection and the promised redistribution of land. While modern works have therefore moved away from monocausal explanations, it was