POD 1927.
Chiang Kai-Shek is getting ready to liquidate the Communists out of the Kuomintang. The blow will be struck in Shanghai, long a center of both nationalist and labor activism.
To set the stage, though, he needs at least the passive cooperation of the international community in Shanghai. After all, more than half of the city -- including the commercial core -- is in foreign hands. So Chiang uses one of the most important Shanghai gangsters, Du Yueshing, as a go-between. (This being Old Shanghai, back in the day, Du is considered half-respectable... indeed is something like a city father.) Du sits down with an American named Stirling Fessenden, who is de facto mayor of the Anglo-American district, the largest international enclave. The details of the meeting will never be known, but the result is pretty clear: when Chiang moved against the Communists a couple of weeks later, the international community sat quietly by. Indeed, they allowed arms and Nationalist soldiers to move through their districts, as long as men and arms moved separately and decorum was maintained.
So, the POD: let's say Fessenden is a Communist.
That's a stretch, I agree. Fessenden was a long-term expat, a State department employee who had become "our man in Shanghai", a respected and senior member of the rather ingrown community of long-term western administrators there. The surge of Communism among educated Americans was still several years away, and Fessenden, born in 1875, was probably the wrong generation for it anyway.
But Fessenden lived a discreetly decadent lifestyle, and might have been vulnerable to blackmail. Failing that, he had a White Russian girlfriend who could have been a plant. Whatever the reason, let's say Fessenden leaks. He immediately warns both Moscow and the local Communists about Chiang's impending strike.
OTL, the purge was a complete success. Indeed, "purge" is too nice a word. "Massacre" is probably more accurate. Over 5,000 people were killed or disappeared. Although most of the CP leadership escaped, the Party's middle ranks were almost wiped out.
In the short run, the Communists were kneecapped and marginalized. Attempted counter-strikes in 1927 and 1928 were failures. They were forced almost entirely out of the cities and into rural obscurity. By 1928 Chiang was master of all China outside Manchuria, and the Communists had been reduced to no worse than a nuisance.
In the long run, though, the 1927 purge may have served the Communists well. In the years following the purge, Mao Zedong emerged as a ruthless and competent leader. Pushed out of the cities, the Communists were forced to evolve into the world's first effective peasant guerrilla force. They were -- to borrow a biological term -- preadapted to the 1930s war with Japan; the Japanese could bomb and capture cities, but were largely at sea in the countryside. The rural exile of the Communists put them in an excellent position to dominate resistance on the ground, and so to gain legitimacy and build power.
But if the plans for Chiang's purge leak... well, there are several possibilities. One is, no great change. OTL the Communists were taken utterly by surprise. They may have been so complacent that even a clear warning wouldn't have sufficed.
A second possibility would be for the purge to go off, but to be much more of a fair fight. TTL the Communists, forewarned, organize themselves and Shanghai sees a week or more of brutal street fighting. (The purge happened in other Chinese cities too, but it was biggest and bloodiest in Shanghai.) Chiang still wins -- he controlled an actual army, with artillery and all -- but loses much face. The international community is annoyed with him, the warlords are much less impressed. More of the Communist middle management manages to escape.
A third possibility would be that the Communists challenge Chiang and he backs down, at least for a while. That strikes me as unlikely, though. Chiang was stubborn, and there were powerful incentives pushing him towards a purge.
So let's go with #2. Now what?
(One minor change: Andre Malraux probably never writes _Man's Fate_.)
If the CP decides to continue fighting in the cities, it's probably too bad for them. Other hand, if they switch to the countryside as iOTL, but with more prestige and more surviving cadre, they might grow faster.
If Shanghai gets thoroughly trashed in a civil conflict, Western powers might pay a bit more attention to China. Or maybe not.
Thoughts?
Doug M.
Chiang Kai-Shek is getting ready to liquidate the Communists out of the Kuomintang. The blow will be struck in Shanghai, long a center of both nationalist and labor activism.
To set the stage, though, he needs at least the passive cooperation of the international community in Shanghai. After all, more than half of the city -- including the commercial core -- is in foreign hands. So Chiang uses one of the most important Shanghai gangsters, Du Yueshing, as a go-between. (This being Old Shanghai, back in the day, Du is considered half-respectable... indeed is something like a city father.) Du sits down with an American named Stirling Fessenden, who is de facto mayor of the Anglo-American district, the largest international enclave. The details of the meeting will never be known, but the result is pretty clear: when Chiang moved against the Communists a couple of weeks later, the international community sat quietly by. Indeed, they allowed arms and Nationalist soldiers to move through their districts, as long as men and arms moved separately and decorum was maintained.
So, the POD: let's say Fessenden is a Communist.
That's a stretch, I agree. Fessenden was a long-term expat, a State department employee who had become "our man in Shanghai", a respected and senior member of the rather ingrown community of long-term western administrators there. The surge of Communism among educated Americans was still several years away, and Fessenden, born in 1875, was probably the wrong generation for it anyway.
But Fessenden lived a discreetly decadent lifestyle, and might have been vulnerable to blackmail. Failing that, he had a White Russian girlfriend who could have been a plant. Whatever the reason, let's say Fessenden leaks. He immediately warns both Moscow and the local Communists about Chiang's impending strike.
OTL, the purge was a complete success. Indeed, "purge" is too nice a word. "Massacre" is probably more accurate. Over 5,000 people were killed or disappeared. Although most of the CP leadership escaped, the Party's middle ranks were almost wiped out.
In the short run, the Communists were kneecapped and marginalized. Attempted counter-strikes in 1927 and 1928 were failures. They were forced almost entirely out of the cities and into rural obscurity. By 1928 Chiang was master of all China outside Manchuria, and the Communists had been reduced to no worse than a nuisance.
In the long run, though, the 1927 purge may have served the Communists well. In the years following the purge, Mao Zedong emerged as a ruthless and competent leader. Pushed out of the cities, the Communists were forced to evolve into the world's first effective peasant guerrilla force. They were -- to borrow a biological term -- preadapted to the 1930s war with Japan; the Japanese could bomb and capture cities, but were largely at sea in the countryside. The rural exile of the Communists put them in an excellent position to dominate resistance on the ground, and so to gain legitimacy and build power.
But if the plans for Chiang's purge leak... well, there are several possibilities. One is, no great change. OTL the Communists were taken utterly by surprise. They may have been so complacent that even a clear warning wouldn't have sufficed.
A second possibility would be for the purge to go off, but to be much more of a fair fight. TTL the Communists, forewarned, organize themselves and Shanghai sees a week or more of brutal street fighting. (The purge happened in other Chinese cities too, but it was biggest and bloodiest in Shanghai.) Chiang still wins -- he controlled an actual army, with artillery and all -- but loses much face. The international community is annoyed with him, the warlords are much less impressed. More of the Communist middle management manages to escape.
A third possibility would be that the Communists challenge Chiang and he backs down, at least for a while. That strikes me as unlikely, though. Chiang was stubborn, and there were powerful incentives pushing him towards a purge.
So let's go with #2. Now what?
(One minor change: Andre Malraux probably never writes _Man's Fate_.)
If the CP decides to continue fighting in the cities, it's probably too bad for them. Other hand, if they switch to the countryside as iOTL, but with more prestige and more surviving cadre, they might grow faster.
If Shanghai gets thoroughly trashed in a civil conflict, Western powers might pay a bit more attention to China. Or maybe not.
Thoughts?
Doug M.