The Shanghai Uprising was an attempted revolution in the city of Shanghai and the surrounding Neutral Zone in July 1932 by Kuomintang remnants and syndicalists, with the aim to topple the new political power structures in China. Similar events occured in other major cities in Eastern and Southern China. It came about as a result of rampant LEP corruption and general restlessness in the city and rural surroundings, and resulted in dangerous precedents being set, as well as showcasing the delicate balance upon which the Legation Cities rest.
Sparks of a Revolution[]
For a long time, Shanghai had been the soul of the left in China, however the failed Northern Expedition of 1926/27 dissuaded any hopes for a general uprising - but only for a while. The Shanghai Syndicalists, a broad term for the city's many leftist groups, were a heavily disorganized troupe, with the anarchists blocking one move, while the syndicalists would stop another, and the moderate socialists wouldn't go for anything. This carousel of disorder in the left continued until the summer of 1931.
Nanjing Warlord Sun Chuanfang's League of Eight Provinces, formally the Southern Zhili Clique, had always been a contender with Wu Peifu's Northern Zhili Clique, and with the Xuantong Restoration, the balance of power had begun to scare Sun. Seeking to counterbalance Wu's national government in Beijing and maintain autonomy within the Qing Empire, Sun agreed to a series of increasingly exploitative deals with the German East Asia Society (which would later form the Aufsichtsrat der Ostasiatischen Generalverwaltung (AOG)), ceding land in coastal ports to exclusive German economic development in return for arms and capital. As a series of tacit agreements instead of formal treaties, these various concessions allowed Sun and the Germans to sidestep both Wu, who maintained his strong stand against further concessions, and the terms of the Shanghai Conference of 1928, which enshrined the “Open Door Policy” of open and equal access to the Chinese market.
Though German aid strengthened Sun’s position within China, it came to have a series of serious repercussions. The Germans were not content to deal only with Sun Chuanfang, and soon their money found its way into the pockets of his subordinates, often in return for favors. Soldiers and officials at almost every level of the hierarchy, many already predisposed to corruption, became complicit in everything from arms smuggling to the stolen antiquities trade. As its generals grew fat and rich, the League’s already limited popular support plummeted.
At around the same time, Kuomintang remnants in the countryside of Jiangxi and Fujian, where LEP authority was very sparsely spread and anarchist structures were easy to establish, began to reemerge and cohere. Old rifles and grenades, buried for nearly three years, were dug-up. Command structures, long set aside, were re-established. These groups, at most small bands of men linked by networks of contacts, would never be able to start a revolution alone, but they could plant the seeds for one. The skills and know-how of these former NRA troops would prove essential to training a new generation of soldiers, both in the countryside and in the cities.
A Powderkeg lit[]
In mid-1932, amid rampant corruption and restlessness, the Shanghai Syndicalists and the rural rebellious elements launched a premeditated general uprising in and around Shanghai, inspiring uprisings in other places like Nanjing, Wuhan, and several cities along the Southern Coast.
The International Mandate of the Legation Cities was designed as a compromise between two competing, hostile powers. It was made to be satisfactory, nothing more. This uprising suggested to the foreign that their compromise wouldn't stand the test of time. The mandate was meant to be guaranteed by the threat of intervention, which would be enough to dissuade even the most belligerent warlord. But rebels weren't warlords, and they were fighting on different terms.
Due to the uprising occurring within the Legation's 30km neutral zone, LEP troops on the border were unable to smash the rebels, only contain them. Rebels could dart across the border, and then quickly jump back over to avoid retaliation, all the while besieging the city's old mainly foreign-inhabited international settlement. The Consular Council was slow to act, and the Shanghai Municipal Council was stretched thin to guard the thirty-mile zone they were meant to protect. After some time and despite fierce Japanese protest, LEP troops were permitted to enter the zone under the command of German military officers, with the German diplomatic corps arguing that this made them “German” and not “Chinese”. This set a precedent for increasingly direct German interference in Chinese affairs, enraged the Japanese, and deeply embarrassed the Legation authorities.
After Effects[]
Though the “German” troops eventually succeeded in crushing the rebellion in Shanghai through excessive violence (stories tell of rebels being thrown alive into locomotive fire-boxes), serious problems were also demonstrated within the League of Eight Provinces. The League was shown to be virtually at the AOG’s beck-and-call, further harming its already poor popular perception, and creating serious issues among its own generals. Lu Xiangting, governor of Zhejiang, outright refused to move against the rebels, followed by Anhui Governor Chen Tiaoyuan and several other generals. Though Sun removed Governor Lu from office, removing two leading figures at the same time would seriously destabilize his regime, and Chen Tiaoyuan’s capital at Anqing was fairly close to Wuhan, Wu Peifu's sphere of influence; If sufficiently threatened, he might turn to the Beijing government for protection, threatening Sun's own position.
Additionally, despite the failure of the uprising, it clearly demonstrated that leftism was by no means dead in China. The survivors retreated yet again into the coastal concessions and provincial peripheries, the largest groups finding relative safety in the mountains of Fujian. It was plain that the League would need to struggle with these revolutionaries for some time to come.
Many criticized Wu Peifu in the aftermath for not acting in a time of strife in the south, and most observers took this to mean that he had little control beyond his northern territories. Though the various warlord cliques (excluding Fengtian) had recognized his government as solely legitimate several years before, the Fengtian to the north, their Japanese supporters and internal competition seemed to remain enough of a threat to keep him confined to the North China Plain and unable to intervene directly in Southern affairs. This, political analysts assume, could have serious consequences in case of another Chinese large-scale conflict in the future.