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New Fourth Army

Initially the Chinese Red Army was organized into a number of "armies" that enjoyed only brief combat experience. During the Second United Front Period, the Red Army was nominally integrated into the National Revolutionary Army of the Kuomingtang (KMT) as the Fourth and Eighth Armies. These soon became known to history as the New Fourth Army and Eighth Route Army. When the Red Army set off on the Long March, after three bloody years, the Communist rear guard that stayed behind regrouped as the New Fourth Army, which was its "officially" disbanded in January 1941, following the Wannan Incident.

From 1927 to 1936 the Chinese Red Army survived attacks from external military forces and also successfully overcame the threats to its existence posed by changing Chinese Communist Party (CCP) policies. During this period, the CCP attempted to develop, expand, and professionalize the Chinese Red Army as a way to defend Communist base areas from a series of Kuomingtang (KMT) Extermination Campaigns. Also during these years, changes in the CCP leadership often placed the Red Army in dangerous situations by underestimating the KMT military threat and overestimating Red Army capabilities.

The term “Extermination Campaigns” is used to describe five specific Chinese Nationalist military campaigns that occurred from 1930 to 1934 to encircle and destroy the communist forces. The term Extermination Campaign is synonymous with “Encirclement Campaign.” The Extermination Campaign does not included the battles and skirmishes conducted prior to 1930, when the Nationalist Revolutionary Army and provincial forces also conducted military campaigns to encircle and destroy the communist forces.

On 12 October 1937 the KMT Kuomingtang [Chinese Nationalist Party] Nationalist government announced that all Communist army units and guerrillas in Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Guangdong, Jiangxi, Fujian, Zhejiang, and Anhui will be reorganized as the New Fourth Army of the NRA [Nationalist Revolutionary Army] and will operate along the Yangzi River. Japanese forces captured large areas during the latter part of year, including Shanghai and the capital city of Nanjing.

On January 6, 1938, the New Fourth Army Department was formally established in Nanchang. Ye Ting was appointed army commander, Xiang Ying deputy army commander and Zhang Yunyi chief of staff by the CPC Central Committee, they exercise administration over four detachments, the whole army totalled 10,200 people. The New Fourth Army was composed of Red Army guerrillas who insisted on guerrilla warfare in eight southern provinces. The establishment of the New Fourth Army was a major event in the early days of the War of Resistance Against Japan, marking the development and growth of the anti-Japanese armed forces. The Communist New Fourth Army, which had been created in the lower Yangtze, never reached the size and influence of its sister unit, the Eighth Route Army. For one reason, the terrain did not permit the' Fourth to develop secure base areas. Most of the valley was open plain, criss-crossed with waterways and irrigation canals But, if a permanent camp could not be built and defended, the Reds could still avoid major engagements with the Japanese and continue an active program of political indoctrination of the countryside. In the rainy season, the technological superiority of the Japanese Army was especially nullified, and the Reds could move about much more freely and openly.

The New Fourth Army enjoyed great success in its detachments led by Chen Yi and Liu Shaoqi in building a strong base in Subei (North Jiangsu). But a tragic fate met its main forces in Wannan (South Anhui), including its headquarters, led by its commander Yi Ting and its commissar Xiang Ying.

In addition to failing to challenge the Japanese in conventional warfare, Chiang never seriously attempted to organize a guerilla effort in the Japanese-occupied areas. A possible reason for this failure was a fear that the required mobilization of the masses would create a basic change to the social and economic structure. Again, as during the Northern Expedition, Chiang limited the participation and avoided the mobilization of the peasant masses. It appears that almost all of Chiang's actions contributed to the destruction of his image as the focal point of national unity. He actively isolated the Communist forces and through deception, as during the Northern Expedition, destroyed the Communist New Fourth Army.

During the Long March, while out of contact with Moscow, that Mao attained a dominant leadership status in the Chinese Communist Party. During the Sian Incident the Chinese Communists persued the policy directed by the Comintern -- to create a united front, keep China in the war and Japan occupied - but which was also in their own interest. As a result of Soviet interference, Mao continued to have trouble consolidating his power until Chiang, through the New Fourth Army Incident, assisted Mao in attaining undisputed leadership of the Chinese Communist Party.

In March 1938, the New Fourth Army proceeded northward and advanced eastward to fight Japanese aggressors. They opened up anti-Japanese base areas in Jiangsu Province and other places and persisted in anti-Japanese guerrilla warfare in north and south of the Yangtze River, giving a telling blow to Japanese troops. Under the leadership of the CPC, the New Fourth Army, in the anti-Japanese flames of war, the New Fourth Army developed from small to big and from weak to strong, gradually becoming the main force persisting in fighting Japanese aggressors in the enemy rear areas in central China. Certainly the major threat to the Fourth Army was the Nationalist troops to their south and west. Clashes had occurred as early as 1938, and they grew in size and frequency as the months passed. The Communists focus on self-development and expansion and establish local governments that were not subservient to the Nationalist government in Chongqing (Chungking). Nationalist suspicion of Communist intentions grows. Scattered fighting breaks out between GMD and CCP forces. In May 1939, the Nationalists institute a blockade of the Communistcontrolled area in Shaanxi.

The New Fourth Army (N4A) Incident is the name given to the destruction by the Chinese Nationalist government of the headquarters of the N4A, one of the two legal armies under the command of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) during the Sino-Japanese War, in southern Anhui province in January 1941, By late 1940 Chiang was upset with the political machinations of the Fourth, and since this was taking place in an area felt to be a Nationalist stronghold, Chiang Kai-shek ordered the Fourth to move north across the river. On 07 January 1941, most of the Red Army had crossed over; its headquarters and perhaps 8,000 - 10,000 troops remained behind. Chiang, claiming that the army was refusing his orders, attacked the forces on the south bank, capturing the commander, Yeh Ting, and inflicting 9,000 casualties on the surprised Reds. On 17 January, the Nationalists announce the dissolution of the New Fourth Army due to its failure to follow orders. The GMD-CCP united front was shattered.

Chiang's blockade of the Communists and the New Fourth Army Incident tended to portray the Communists as having a monopoly on patriotic resistance. The Fourth reorganized after this incident and consolidated its position in North Kiangsu. The facade of a "United Front" between the Nationalists and the Communists had finally been shattered. Although influential through the Autumn Harvest Uprising and the "Fourth Bandit Suppression Campaign," Soviet prestige and control steadily declines after the fifth campaign until Mao gains complete control after the New Fourth Army Incident.

A brilliant romantic poet named Chen Yi founded the New Fourth Army with a group of brilliant young men and led peasant guerrillas to the victory that broke the Kuomintong's back. Chen Yi went down south with the Nanchang Uprising Army and met with the military forces led by Mao Zedong, First Chairman of the new China, in Jinggang Mountains, Jiaxi Province in 1927. Served as Commander of the New Fourth Army and pioneered anti-Japanese revolutionary bases in the south and north of East China's Jiangsu Province during the country's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1937-54); Successively served as Commander of the New Fourth Army, Commander of the East China Military Area Command, and Commander and Commissar of the East China Field Army during China's War of Liberation, and organized and participated in a series of campaigns such as the Huaihai Campaign; Took part in and commanded the Crossing Yangtze Campaign and other campaigns aimed at liberating Nanjing and Shanghai in 1949 as Commander and Commissar of the Third Field Army. Acted as Mayor of Shanghai from the founding of the new China to 1958, and then Vice Premier and Foreign Minister.

Liu Shaoqi(1898-1969) was a Chinese revolutionary, statesman, and theorist. In 1932 Liu became the Party Secretary in Fujian Province. Two years later he accompanied the Long March at least as far as the crucial Zunyi Conference, but was then sent to the so-called "White Areas" to reorganize underground activities in North China. As Central Plains Bureau Secretary, Liu Shaoqi spent the latter part of 1939 and most of 1940 with various New Fourth Army units in Hunan, Anhui, and Kiangsu. In 1942 Mao brought Liu Shaoqi in from the New Fourth Army to organize and train the political cadres. It became Liu's responsibility to see that all the developing base areas had trained party officials who were loyal to Mao and who "thought" and could be expected to "perform" along the party line. He was elected as one of 5 CC Secretaries at the 7th National Party Congress in 1945. Liu was thus the supreme leader of the communist forces in Manchuria and North China.

Liu Shaoqi served as Chinese president from 1959 to 1968. Liu maintained a sizable presence in the CC even after 1956. The start of the Cultural Revolution brought about the destruction of Liu’s faction. After the Eleventh Plenary Session of the Eighth Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Congress in August 1966, Liu Shaoqi, having been criticized, no longer had any part in the work of the Central Committee leadership. And after the October Working Conference of the CCP Central Committee, when the whole country was enveloped by a repudiation of the "Liu-Deng bourgeois reactionary line, " Liu Shaoqi found himself being repudiated as well. Yet in this period and for a fairly long time to come, Mao Zedong still treated Liu Shaoqi's case as an inner-Party issue and a contradiction among the people and he had no intention of striking him down or of instituting an inquiry against him.

Among those who had some ties with Liu, the only survivors at the Ninth PC were those who had worked with Liu in the New Fourth Army such as Chen Yi, Deng Zihui, and Zhang Yunyi and those who had worked with Liu in the 1920s such as Xiao Jingguang. In 1980, the CPC Central Committee announced the restoration of Liu's reputation and held a solemn memorial meeting in Beijing, where then leader Deng Xiaoping delivered a memorial speech. Xi Jinping delivered a speech at a symposium at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing to commemorate the 120th anniversary of Liu's birth. CPC members, generation by generation, have been encouraged by the firm belief of being dedicated to communism and have worked hard to strive for the goal, Xi said.

Like the Three-Year War from which it stemmed, the New Fourth Army was for many years neglected by historians, mainly because of the absence from it of Mao Zedong, around whom the story of the Chinese Revolution was largely written until his death in 1976. With the downgrading of the Mao cult and the return of some power to the regions (where New Fourth Army veterans held power) in the 1980s, new sources on the New Fourth Army became available.