China at the Crossroads: Nationalists and Communists, 1927-1949

Concentrating on a transitional epoch, 1927-1949, when China was at the crossroads of revolution, the contributors analyze the Kuomintang's inherent weaknesses as a revolutionary force and the Communists' success in the quest for new formulas to guide the modernization movement. Rejecting the suggestion that external factors determined the outcome of the Kuomintang-Communist conflict, they stress instead the more fundamental issues of the Chinese revolution, pointing to problems such as factionalism in Nanking, the weakness of the New Life Movement as an experiment in thought control and mass mobilization, the failure of land reform in Chekiang, and the ineffectiveness of the anti-Japanese boycott of 1931-1932. The regional power in Sinkiang and the rural problems in Chungking are also emphasized.