Autumn Harvest Uprising

Autumn Harvest Uprising
Part of Chinese Civil War
The location of Autumn Harvest Uprising.
Date September 7, 1927 Location Hunan and Jiangxi Result Uprising defeated, communists forced to retreat to the Jinggang Mountains
Belligerents
Nationalist government Nationalist Party National Revolutionary Army	Soviet Zone Communist Party Chinese Red Army
Commanders and leaders
	Mao Zedong Li Zhen

The Autumn Harvest Uprising (simplified Chinese: 秋收起义; traditional Chinese: 秋收起義; pinyin: Qīushōu Qǐyì) was an insurrection that took place in Hunan and Jiangxi provinces, China, on September 7, 1927, led by Mao Zedong, who established a short-lived Hunan Soviet.

After initial success, the uprising was put down. Mao continued to believe in the rural strategy but concluded that it would be necessary to form a party army.^[1]

Background[]

In support of the Northern Expedition, Mao was sent to survey conditions in his home province of Hunan. His Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan urged support for rural revolution.^[2]

The uprising[]

Initially, Mao struggled to garner forces for an uprising, but Li Zhen rallied the peasantry and members of her local communist troop to join.^[3] Mao then led a small peasant army against the Kuomintang and the landlords of Hunan. The Soviet government he established there lasted two months. The uprising was eventually defeated by Kuomintang forces within two months after the Soviet was established and Mao and the others were forced to retreat to the Jinggang Mountains on the border between Hunan and Jiangxi provinces, where emerged an army of miners which would help him in later battles. This was one of the early armed uprisings by the Communists, and it marked a significant change in their strategy. Mao and Red Army founder Zhu De went on to develop a rural-based strategy that centered on guerrilla tactics. This paved the way for the Long March of 1934 (the first Long March in 1918 not accountable).

Notes[]

References and further reading[]

• Hofheinz, Jr., Roy (1977). The Broken Wave: The Chinese Communist Peasant Movement, 1922-1928. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674083912. Reprinted: De Gruyter, 2014 eBook
• Li, Xiaobing. China at War: An Encyclopedia (ABC-CLIO, 2012) pp 15–16.