If Chiang Kai-shek waited a year after OTL April 1927 to crush the Chinese Communists

If Chiang Kai-shek waited till April 1928 (one yr more than OTL) to crush the Chinese Communists

  • e) Warlord counteroffensive of summer 1927 would not have been possible

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • n) Chiang would become unable to ever expel the CCP from the United Front

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • o) CCP or left-KMT would have overthrown Chiang before a year passed

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    12

raharris1973

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All other things being equal if instead of massacring the Communists when his troops entered Shanghai, Chiang Kai-shek neither expelled nor purged the Communists in April 1927 what would have been the positive or negative consequences for him and the Chinese Nationalist Party? He may use persuasion, commands, tactics and party discipline to try to constrain or limit Communist measures he deems inappropriate, but not wholesale suppression or expulsion.

Here's the wiki on the OTL anti-Communist purge -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_massacre

Here's the wiki on the northern expedition it interrupted -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Expedition

a) Chiang could have put more warlords out of business permanently

b) Chiang could have advanced into Manchuria with his own forces

c) Chiang could have advanced to Beijing with his own forces

d) Chiang could have gotten the fealty of all northern warlords sooner, by December 1927

e) Warlord counteroffensive of summer 1927 would not have been possible

f) Warlord counteroffensive of summer 1927 would have been shorter or less tactically successful

g) The marriage alliance with the Soongs would not have been possible

h) Gaining donations from Shanghai capitalists or shaking them down would have been harder

i) Britain would have intervened to stop the United Front in 1927 because of CCP participation

j) America would have intervened to stop the United Front in 1927 because of CCP participation

k) Japan would have intervened to stop the United Front because of CCP participation

l) more northern warlords would resist Chiang harder if CCP not purged

m) KMT right-wing would have overthrown "too soft" Chiang

n) Chiang would become unable to ever expel the CCP from the United Front

o) CCP or left-KMT would have overthrown Chiang before a year passed
 
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raharris1973

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An interesting feature of the few early votes is that there's a vote each for a British and an American intervention against the KMT-CCP United Front, but not a Japanese one.
 

Japhy

Banned
There was a massive amount of Naval Force being set up in the Yangtze valley at the time, carriers off the coastline and a massive uptick in troop deployments. American, British, Japanese, French and Italian forces all cooperating with each other because the KMT was in the United Front. Had there not been a split its likely that all those colonial powers would have gotten involved in combat engagements with the KMT. AND at the same time you had the KMT Left and the CCP playing separate regime games as soon as they took Wuhan while the KMT right was playing games in the deep South. And of course even outside of Wang Jingwei's mechanizations in Wuhan the Communists were always planning on the United Front not being permanent and were simply using it to develop their own powerbases and armies.

If Chang waits, whatever happens, it won't be good.
 

raharris1973

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There was a massive amount of Naval Force being set up in the Yangtze valley at the time, carriers off the coastline and a massive uptick in troop deployments. American, British, Japanese, French and Italian forces all cooperating with each other because the KMT was in the United Front. Had there not been a split its likely that all those colonial powers would have gotten involved in combat engagements with the KMT. AND at the same time you had the KMT Left and the CCP playing separate regime games as soon as they took Wuhan while the KMT right was playing games in the deep South. And of course even outside of Wang Jingwei's mechanizations in Wuhan the Communists were always planning on the United Front not being permanent and were simply using it to develop their own powerbases and armies.

If Chang waits, whatever happens, it won't be good.

Interesting. Once when this was brought up before I think@Faeelin thought keeping the United Front would be a net positive for the KMT. not sure why. perhaps for retaining momentum of northward advance, Soviet aid and popular support and enthusiasm.

Personally I regard the risks of foreign intervention as the most serious. The foreigners could bring overwhelming power to bear against the core KMT and CCP urban support areas.


Despite long term intentions of Communists I think Chiang coukd have played with them longer while continuing to master the situation. I just do not see either the USSR judging the time is ripe socially or geopolitically for proletarian revolution and Communist takeover, in the 1920s and before unification occurs and is consolidated.

At least in 1926 CKS demonstrated he could handle both the CCP and Left KMT. He always seemed able to outmaneuver Wang Jingwei.


I wonder why it would not have been possible for Chiang to control Wuhan in addition to Shanghai. Maybe he did not have enough military loyalists to spread around to both places.

That said Wang Jingwei and the left KMT winning out in Wuhan While Chiang fails or gets taken out ib Shanghai is an interesting idea.

Maybe Wang would be stuck with being a patsy of the USSR and CCP by the 1930s. or maybe he could have collaborated wigth whoever was most threatening, accepting a deal with the Japanese and purging the Communists when Tokyo says "do it, or else".
 
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raharris1973

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@Japhy - your post is interesting. Essentially staying in the United Front makes the western and maritime powers all regard the rise and advance of the KMT as another Boxer Rebellion, to be suppressed accordingly. The anti-KMT/CCP front would consist of American, British, Japanese, French and Italian forces. However, Russia would of course not be part of the coalition and provide aid to the Chinese (though less efficiently once the coalition restricts them to land-routes only).

This starts in late 1927, China becomes a fine mess for the Coolidge, Shidehara (or Tanaka), Baldwin, Poincare and Mussolini Administrations.

I wonder how it ends, or if the coalition decides to extend this into an attack on the Soviet Far East (a suggestion more likely to come from Japan than anywhere else). It's probably not consuming enough industrial production to put off the Great Depression, but perhaps it could by butterflies.

Perhaps the Americans and British never come to prefer the Chinese over the Japanese.

Everybody's thoughts?
 
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