The Taiwanese Communist Party (Japanese: 台湾共産党; Traditional Chinese: 台灣共產黨, Taiwanese: Tâi-oân Kiōng-sán-tóng, pinyin: Táiwān Gòngchǎndǎng) was a revolutionary organization active in Japan-ruled Taiwan. Like the contemporary Taiwanese People's Party its existence was short, a mere three years, yet its politics and activities were influential in shaping Taiwan's anti-colonial enterprise. For a brief time after World War II individual members continued to play a role in anti-Kuomintang activities, most notably in the aftermath of the 228 Incident in 1947. Traditional Chinese characters are one of two standard character sets of printed contemporary Chinese written language. ... Taiwanese (Chinese: 台語, 台灣話; Taiwanese pe̍h-oÄ“-jÄ«: Tâi-oân-oÄ“; Hanyu Pinyin: TáiyÇ” or Táiwānhuà) is a dialect of Min Nan spoken by about 70% of the Taiwanese population. ... Hanyu Pinyin (Simplified Chinese: 汉语拼音; Traditional Chinese: 漢語拼音; Hanyu Pinyin: , lit. ... The Taiwanese Peoples Party (Taiwanese: Tâi-oân Bîn-chiòng Tóng; Japanese: Taiwan Minsyuto; Traditional Chinese: 臺灣民眾黨, pinyin: Taiwan Minzhongdang), founded 1927, was nominally Taiwans first political party, preceding the founding of the Taiwanese Communist Party by nine months. ... Combatants Allies: Poland, British Commonwealth, France/Free France, Soviet Union, United States, China, and others Axis Powers: Germany, Italy, Japan, and others Casualties Military dead:17 million Civilian dead:33 million Total dead:50 million Military dead:8 million Civilian dead:4 million Total dead:12 million World War II... The Chinese Nationalist Party (Traditional Chinese: 中國國民黨; Simplified Chinese: 中国国民党; Hanyu Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Chung-kuo Kuo-min-tang; Tongyong Pinyin: Jhōngguó GuómíndÇŽng), commonly known as the Kuomintang (KMT), is a conservative political party currently active in the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan. ... During the 228 Incident, a crowd of angry people gathered in downtown Taipei. ...

Inception

The party was officially formed on April 5, 1928. Its planning went back to as early as 1925, when Moscow-trained Taiwanese students began to contact like-minded individuals in China and Japan. By late 1927 Comintern had instructed Japanese Communists (organized since 1922) to draft political and organizational charters (綱領) for a "Japanese Communist Party, Taiwanese National Branch". Following the draft, Lin Mu-shun and Hsieh Hsüeh-hung secretly met in Shanghai with seven others -- of whom three represented the Chinese, Korean, and Japanese Communist Parties, respectively -- to form the nascent organization. April 5 is the 95th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (96th in leap years). ... 1928 (MCMXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... Moscow (Russian: Москва́, Moskva, IPA: ) is the capital of Russia and the countrys principal political, economic, financial, educational and transportation center, located on the river Moskva. ... The Comintern (from Russian Коммунистический Интернационал (Kommunisticheskiy Internatsional) – Communist International), also known as the Third International, was an independent international Communist organization founded in March 1919 by Vladmir Lenin, Leon Trotsky and the Russian Communist Party (bolshevik), which intended to fight by all available means, including armed force, for the overthrow of... The Japanese Communist Party (JCP) (日本共産党), in Japanese known as Nihon Kyōsan-tō is a political party of Japan based on communism. ... For other uses, see Shanghai (disambiguation). ...

In 1931 Comintern elevated the group's status from party branch to that of a full-fledged party directly answerable to it.

Organization and ideology

Organizationally the 1928 charter subjected the Taiwanese Communists to the Japanese party. Politically it described the "Taiwanese nation" (Taiwan Minzu) as those descendants of Koxinga's army and later settlers from southeastern China. Both Koxinga and the Manchu rulers established a feudal system, which in its view began to disintegrate with the introduction of 19th century Western capital into the island. The Republic of Formosa represented a revolutionary movement of feudal landowners, merchants and radical patriots, but one doomed to failure given the immaturity of the native capitalist class. It saw Taiwan's capitalism as utterly dependent upon its Japanese counterpart. The proletariat revolution would be driven by the "contradiction" between the dominant Japanese capital and the native (and poorly developed) capital and rural feudalistic elements. The goal of the party was to unite the workers and the peasants. Toward that goal the party would use the left-leaning Taiwanese Cultural Association as a platform and legal front, as well as expose the "lies" of the Taiwanese People's Party, which had been moving toward the left under Chiang Wei-shui's leadership. Koxinga (Traditional Chinese: 國姓爺; Hanyu Pinyin: ; Taiwanese: Kok-sèng-iâ/Kok-sìⁿ-iâ) is the popular name of Zheng Chenggong (Traditional Chinese: 鄭成功; Hanyu Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Cheng Cheng-kung; Pe̍h-oē-jī: Tēⁿ Sêng-kong) (1624 - 1662), who was a military leader at the end of the... The Qing Dynasty (Manchu: daicing gurun; Chinese: 清朝; Hanyu Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: ching chao), sometimes known as the Manchu Dynasty, was a dynasty founded by the Manchu clan Aisin Gioro, in what is today northeast China, expanded into China proper and the surrounding territories of Inner Asia, establishing the... The flag for the Republic of Formosa, 1895, depicting a tiger. ... The Taiwanese Cultural Association, founded 1921-10-17, was an important organization during the Japanese rule of Taiwan. ... The Taiwanese Peoples Party (Taiwanese: Tâi-oân Bîn-chiòng Tóng; Japanese: Taiwan Minsyuto; Traditional Chinese: 臺灣民眾黨, pinyin: Taiwan Minzhongdang), founded 1927, was nominally Taiwans first political party, preceding the founding of the Taiwanese Communist Party by nine months. ...

Although Japanese Communists had been entrusted with the task of guiding the Taiwanese branch, massive repression in Japan proper, starting in 1928, left the Taiwanese adrift. Some leftist students were also forced to return to Taiwan. Leadership fell to Hsieh Hsüeh-hung to re-organize in light of the development.

Activities

The party sought to organize workers in as-yet unorganized key industries, including the transportation sector and mines in northern Taiwan. Party cadres were sent to work and propagandize in the logging ranches of Yilan and the mines in Chilung, with mixed success. In Taipei the party led a failed strike by print workers. In the island's south cadres sparked a strike by railroad workers in Kaohsiung. Overall, however, the TCP was neither as active nor as successful as the Alliance of Taiwanese Workers (affiliated with the Taiwanese People's Party). Yilan City (宜蘭市), commonly and historically spelled Ilan or I-lan (Wade-Giles), is the capital of Yilan County in the Taiwan Province of the Republic of China. ... Keelung (基隆 Pinyin: Jīlóng, Wade-Giles: Chi-lung) is a county-level city of Taiwan Province, Republic of China. ... City nickname: the City of Azaleas Capital District Xinyi Area  - Total  - % water Ranked 16 of 25 271. ... Abbreviation: Kaohsiung (高雄) City nickname: The Harbor City Capital District Linya Dist. ...

The party had more success organizing peasants. Earlier a bottom-up farmers' movement had spread rapidly in 1925, leading to the creation of the island-wide Taiwanese Peasants' Union. The TCP was able to cultivate its faction within the Union and by late 1928 the Union had openly declared its support for the Communists. At that time the Great Depression of 1930 was seen by many Communists worldwide as a sign that the proletariat revolution was on the verge of exploding. Japan's war efforts in China had also bogged down. By 1931 the TCP-led Peasants' Union was secretly training farmers (many of Hakka ethnicity) in preparation for armed struggle to form a soviet -- one that some believed would soon elicit support from the Chinese Communists. A leak allowed the authorities to liquidate a key group, putting a halt to the plan. Dorothea Langes Migrant Mother depicts destitute pea pickers in California, centering on Florence Owens Thompson, a mother of seven children, age 32, in Nipomo, California, March 1936. ... Hakka (Traditional Chinese: 客家; Simplified Chinese: 客家; Pinyin: kèjiā, lit. ... A soviet (Russian: сове́т) originally was a workers local council in late Imperial Russia. ...

From its inception the TCP had plans to infiltrate the Cultural Association, already left-leaning after a group of moderate and conservative leaders had left in 1927. It was a convenient platform that could serve as a legal front. The third congress (1929) saw the Communists succeed in electing several cadres to the Association's central committee. They proceeded to purge the leadership of the remaining conservatives and non-TCP leftists, particularly Lien Wenqing.

Between 1931 and 1933 authorities arrested 107 TCP members, who were sentenced to terms up to fifteen years. A few died in prison.

Factionalism within the party

Initially the party had been under the sway of the Japanese theorist Yamakawa Hitoshi, who advocated uniting the workers, peasants, and the petty bourgeoisie to form a mass party. Comintern also initially favored Communists uniting with "bourgeoisie forces" to wage an anti-imperialist war of national liberation. The TCP's 1931 charter, however, reflected new assessment that downplayed the revolutionary potential of the bourgeoisie. Class struggle was to be the priority. Hsieh, who had been leader up to this point, was opposed to the new turn. She and her supporters were forced out of the party. Petit-bourgeois or Anglicised petty bourgeois is a French term that reffered to the members of the lower middle social-classes. ... Wars of national liberation were those conflicts fought by indigenous military groups against an imperial power in an attempt to remove that powers influence. ... Class struggle is class conflict looked at from a Marxist, libertarian socialist, or anarchist perspective. ...

Post-World War II

There is no evidence that surviving members of the party managed to re-constitute the TCP after Japan's surrender to the Allied Forces. However, during the two-year period between 1945 and the aftermath of the 228 Incident, individual Communists (most notably Hsieh Hsüeh-hung) resumed activities. The bloody repression of anti-Kuomintang dissent led them to flee to the Mainland, where they merged into the ranks of the Chinese Communists. Communist activities subsequent to the Nationalist "retrocession" to Taiwan, in 1949, were therefore directed under the auspices of the Chinese Communist Party. During the 228 Incident, a crowd of angry people gathered in downtown Taipei. ... The highlighted area in the map is what is commonly known as mainland China. Mainland China (Simplified Chinese: 中国大陆; Traditional Chinese: 中國大陸; Hanyu Pinyin: , lit. ... The Communist Party of China (CPC) (official name) or Chinese Communist Party (CCP) (Simplified Chinese: 中国共产党; Traditional Chinese: 中國共産黨; Pinyin: Zhōngguó GòngchÇŽndÇŽng) is the ruling political party of the Peoples Republic of China. ...

Recent attempts at forming a Communist Party

After the lifting of martial law in 1988, attempts have been made to re-establish a legal party of the same name. However, these applications to the ROC Ministry of the Interior have been rejected on the grounds that Article 2 of the Civic Organization Law forbids civic organizations and activities from promoting communism. [1] The various attempts to create a communist party on Taiwan are largely considered to be eccentric and have been generally ignored. Martial law is the system of rules that takes effect (usually after a formal declaration) when a military authority takes control of the normal administration of justice. ... 1988 (MCMLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

The Chinese Communist Party, too, has shown no recent interest in promoting communism on Taiwan, and as of 2005, most of its efforts are directed at promoting Chinese nationalism on Taiwan and this had led to increasingly warm relations with the pan-blue coalition. Nevertheless, in 2000 one Dai Chung, a Taiwanese resident, self-proclaimed a "Taiwan Province branch" of the Chinese Communist Party without applying for official status as a political party and without any support or interest from the Communist Party of China. [2] The May Fourth Movement in 1919 marked a turning point in the history of Chinese nationalism. ... The Pan-Blue Coalition (Traditional Chinese: 泛藍聯盟; Simplified Chinese: 泛蓝联盟; Hanyu Pinyin: ), or Pan-Blue Force (Traditional Chinese: 泛藍軍; Simplified Chinese: 泛蓝军; Hanyu Pinyin: ), is a political coalition in Taiwan, consisting of the Kuomintang (KMT), the People First Party (PFP), and the smaller New Party (CNP). ... This article is about the year 2000. ... Communist Party of China flag The Communist Party of China (Simplified Chinese: 中国共产党; Traditional Chinese: 中國共産黨; pinyin: Zhōnggu ngchǎndǎng) is the ruling party of the Peoples Republic of China. ...

References

• Yang, Bichuan. 1987. Jianming Taiwanshi (A concise history of Taiwan), Diyi Chubanshe, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.