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\author{David Golombek}
\title{Changing Times, Changing Problems}
\date{\today}
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To the contrary of the popular saying "The more things change, the more 
they say the same'', the percieved problems in China in the period from 
1922 to 1937 changed very rapidly as the rest of the country changed.
This was the period in
which the Nationalist Party, occassionally teamed with the Chinese Communist
Party (CCP), siezed control of government and tried to stabilize it's reign.
This time sequence begins in 1922 because that year marked the union
of the Nationalist and Communist Parties.  Here, I shall assume the place
of an officer in the Communist Party, and express my changing concerns.

In 1922, the Soviet communist party approached the Chinese
Nationalists, led by Sun Yat Sen, and offered financial assistance, 
military advising, and general aid, in return for allowing the 
Chinese Communist party to ally with the Nationalists.  This was the
beginning of the my party's large scale influence on national politics, for
before this point we had not been a power to be noticed.  Up to this point,
I have been worrying about my political party every achieving enough 
political clout to bring about the revolution that Karl Marx had taught
about.  In this time, warlords in the various provinces
were the true driving force in politics, and before anyone could hope to
change the political system, we must first remove this large power.
Thus, my party (the CCP) has  decided to ally with the Nationalists in 
order to gain power, despite our differences in ideology.  The medium-term 
problem of how to work together with another group with different final 
goals was put aside in hope of achieving short term successes versus the
warlords.

From 1922 to 1926, little happened, as the combined Nationalist and Communist
party prepared for war with the Soviet funded ''Huang Pu'' Military School
and stabilized the chain of command among their organization.  During this
time, there was little we could actually do to effect the world.  However,
we are firmly against the warlords, whom we believe to be giving away our 
country to foreign powers (especially Japan, as in the World War 1 
reparations).  However, we still needed to wait for our military force to do
anything about it.  Of more immediate concern was the lack of knowledge
among the people of China about Communism.  This we could, and did, begin
to solve by publishing lots of papers on the subject, and sending speakers
to towns and cities all over, to tell people about how they were being
used by the capitalists and warlords, and about the perfect communist state
that existed elsewhere.

Finally, in 1926, we struck out against the warlords.  We and the Nationalists
launched our Nothern Expedition, led by Chiang Kaishek.  We met with
phenomenal military success, as well as political welcome.  As we freed 
the peasants, we held lectures telling them about how much better life would
be under communism, and were thus often greated with food and shelter as
we reached towns that had heard of our promises.  However, our situation
with the Nationalists was beginning to look shaky.  As we did more and
more proseletizing, the Nationalists began to disagree with us more and
more, especially the heads of their leadership.  

Disaster struck in 1927, as Chiang Kaishek decided he no longer wished
to associate his Nationalist party with us.  He suddenly arranged to 
betray us, and turned his troops against us.  Those of us who escaped
the initial raids began to group together and flee, in what ended up
becoming the Long March, led by our various leaders, including the up
and coming Mao Tse Tsung.  Little did we know at first, but this march was
to last for many months and end up killing most of our army.  For this 
time, most of our worries were about how to survive, and what our
future, if any could be in a country that looked to be controlled by
the Nationalists, with the speed their Northern Expedition was 
continuing.  

Once we were able to settle down in North Eastern China in Communist
strongholds, we began to rethink our strategies.  Our basic problem was
that our power base had been destroyed.  Thus, we decided to rebuild, 
working in rural areas first, instead of the cities.  We were becoming
increasingly worried about the Japanese, whom were already beginning
to make motions in Manchuria about wanting more, due to their losses
from the global depression.  Although we began to rebuild our army,
Chiang Kaishek continued to press down on us, and our prospects looked
dim for ever leading a revolution of the workers and peasants.

Our luck returned with the Shanxi Incident, in which a disgruntled
general decided to force Chiang Kaishek to negotiate with us once
again.  While he was in the area to finish his campaign to completely
erradicate my party, one of his own generals took him hostage, and
demanded that he negotiate with us in order to turn his attention
to dealing with the Japanese.  This coup was pulled off successfully,
and once again we were teamed with the Nationalists.   By this time
they had mostly finished removing the last of the warlords from power,
so we were once again free to think about bringing about a revolution.
We had begun a policy while rebuilding our forces of working from the
rural areas then too the cities, a minor change on Marx's original
"workers revolution", but one that made more sense in China.  Mao Tse
Tsung was one of the main proponents of this plan, and his leadership
during the Long March had put him in control of our party.  Thus we
were once again sending out lecturers to cities all over the country,
to begin to spread our word again.

Even combined with Nationalist forces, the Japanese encroachment was
still a major concern, and one to which there was no easy solution.
Japan had a very strong military, and in a flat conflict, there was a
good chance we would come out the losers.  Thus our best chance of
dealing with the problem was a unified front against the Japanese,
which we had now achieved.  The Nationalist party was beginning to
experience financial difficulties, but our party was still strong.
However, there was a decline in the strength of the agricultural
sector that worried us, because that was quickly becoming our power
base.  Increasing rent rates and reduction of plot sizes weakened our
followers.  On the other hand, it brought more followers to us, and
made our arguments more convincing.

The years covered had a lot happening during them, and so no one set
of problems concerned my party for all of them.  The turbulent state
of my party's survival caused much concern, as well as the general
worries about the success of our plan to lead a workers and peasant
revolution in China.


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