| |
| 1927, Jan. 11 |
| |
| As the Wuhan-Nanchang standoff grew ever more troubled, Jiang went to Wuhan to try to resolve the differences, but he was snubbed and sent packing. | 1 |
| |
| Feb. 19–20 |
| |
| From the British, who were tired of the Chinese boycott and hopeful of wooing the Chinese away from the Soviets, the GMD extracted the rendition of the concessions at Hankou and Jiujiang. | 2 |
| |
| Feb |
| |
| The Shanghai General Labor Union and labor leaders called for a general strike to support the surging National Revolutionary Army, which had just taken Hangzhou. Militarist armies broke up the strike, executing 20 and arresting many more. | 3 |
| Having observed on several trips to his native Hunan province the rising tide of peasant unrest, Mao Zedong published in a Communist journal his essay “Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan” (Feb.). He lauded the radical actions of the peasants, seizing landlords' lands and property, and forming “poor peasants associations.” He allotted 70 percent of the leftist movement's success up to that point to the peasantry, not the urban proletariat, and he praised the especially difficult predicament of women peasants, who strove against all the same things the men did, as well as against male oppression. Most of these associations were later destroyed by militarist or GMD forces. | 4 |
| |
| March 21 |
| |
| The CCP and the Shanghai General Labor Union called a general strike. Some 600,000 workers participated. On March 22, troops of the National Revolutionary Army began to enter Shanghai. The General Labor Union held a meeting of delegates (March 27). The workers were effectively in control of the city. Jiang Jieshi entered the city at the end of the month. | 5 |
| |
| April 12 |
| |
| Members of the underworld Green Gang attacked the offices of all the major unions in the city, often with the help of Jiang's military forces. Numerous workers were murdered. Protests the next day led to more killings. | 6 |
| |
| April 18 |
| |
| Jiang and the rightist members of the GMD split with the leftists, based in Wuhan, and set up a new government in Nanjing. The CCP was commanded by the Comintern now to try to continue working with the “left” GMD, under the leadership of Wang Jingwei, who felt he (not Jiang) was heir to Sun Zhongshan's mantle and who publicly asserted the CCP-GMD alliance. Surface harmony was restored by a purge of Soviets and Communists from the Wuhan regime in return for the (temporary) retirement of Jiang from public life (Aug. 8). Chen Duxiu was blamed for the year's catastrophes and dropped from his leadership position in the CCP; he was later expelled from the CCP altogether. Qu Qiubai was named to replace him. | 7 |
| |
| April |
| |
| Zhang Zuolin (1875–1928), the right-wing militarist in control of southern Manchuria (since 1911 and later with Japanese assistance) who had his headquarters in Beijing, sent his troops to attack the Russian embassy and arrest all the Chinese holed up there. Li Dazhao and 19 others were taken and hanged. | 8 |
| |
| Sept |
| |
| Mao, with a force of some 2,000 men, attacked villages around Changsha in the “Autumn Harvest Uprisings.” They were quickly put down. Mao took the remnants (about 1,000 men) into the secluded Jinggang Mountains at the Hunan-Jiangxi border (Oct.). He was joined there by a larger force under the command of Zhu De (1886–1976). Mao was dropped from the CCP's Central Committee (Nov.). | 9 |
| |
| Dec. 11 |
| |
| Under orders from the Comintern (Stalin needed a victory in China to bolster his attacks against Trotsky), the CCP attempted to capture the city of Guangzhou. The so-called Guangzhou Commune (Canton Commune) was decimated within two days, and countless lives were lost in the wholesale executions following it. | 10 |
| |
| Dec |
| |
| Jiang Jieshi married Song (Soong) Meiling (b. c. 1897; Wellesley College class of 1917) in Shanghai. | 11 |
| |
| |
