Chinese Revolution topics

The following pages contain informative but concise summaries of key Chinese Revolution topics. All pages have been written by Alpha History authors. We expand and update these pages on a regular basis. If you would like to contribute or suggest a topic article, please contact Alpha History.

The Kingdom of Heaven

Introduction to China
The Mandate of Heaven and Confucianism
The Manchu and the Qing Dynasty

The late Qing period

Dowager Empress Cixi: the ‘Dragon Lady’
The Self-Strengthening Movement
Foreign imperialism
The Hundred Days reforms
The Boxer Rebellion

The early republic

The 1911 Xinhai Revolution
Sun Yixian: father of Chinese republicanism
Yuan Shikai: the first warlord
The Warlord Era

Nationalist China

The Guomindang
The Generalissimo: Jiang Jieshi
May Fourth Movement
The Shanghai Massacre
The Nanjing Decade

Chinese communism

The Chinese Communist Party
The rise of Mao Zedong
The Jiangxi Soviet
The Long March
The Yan’an Soviet
The Rectification Movement

The struggle for China

The Sino-Japanese War
The Second United Front
The Chinese Civil War

Remaking China

Agrarian reform
‘Speak Bitterness’
Social reforms
The First Five Year Plan
The Great Leap Forward
The great famine

The People’s Republic

Forming a new government
Dealing with opposition
The Hundred Flowers campaign
The Korean War
Sino-Soviet relations

The struggle for control

Economic recovery
The ‘Learn from’ campaigns
The Cultural Revolution begins
The Red Guards
The Cult of Mao
‘Down to the Countryside’
The Gang of Four


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