People of the Revolution and the USSR

Activity(set)
Any Political and party leadership 3 Government and administration 1 Monarchs and royalty 1 Military command 3 Diplomacy and international organization 1 Economy, finance and planning 1 Scholarship and theory 2
Affiliation

Most people

Any Kuomintang 2 Beiyang government and warlords 1

All 2 affiliations

China

Kuomintang 2 Beiyang government and warlords 1
Position
Any Counter-revolutionary forces 1 Monarchy and royalism 1
Citizenship
Any China 3
Background
Any China 3
Era(set)
Any

People of the Soviet Union

The old regime and its challengers1905–1917 27 The revolutionary generation1917–1940 60 People of the Stalin era1929–1953 33 People of the thaw and the stagnation1953–1985 46 The last generation1985–1991 67

People of the Chinese revolution and the People’s Republic

The old regime and the Nationalists1894–1949 3 The Chinese revolutionary generation1911–1949 16 People of the Mao era1949–1976 13 The reform generation1976–현재 8

People of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era

The Revolution and the Napoleonic era1774–1830 17

People of the wider world

The age of the Internationals and empires1820–1917 16 The revolutionary wave and the world war1917–1945 148 The Cold War and decolonization1945–현재 174
Political and party leadership The old regime and the Nationalists 1894–1949 Clear all

Yuan Shikai

袁世凯
Beiyang government and warlords Monarchy and royalism China China 1859–1916 ○ Illness

The Beiyang strongman who took over the 1911 revolution and tried to make himself emperor

Recalled after the 1911 Wuchang Uprising, he pressed both the Qing court and the revolutionaries, winning the emperor's abdication and the provisional presidency in 1912. He proclaimed a monarchy in December 1915, abdicated in March 1916, and died that June.

A soldier-official who built the Beiyang New Army in the late Qing. When the 1911 revolution broke out he pressed both the court and the revolutionaries, securing the Qing emperor’s abdication and his own installation as provisional president of the Republic in 1912. He then hollowed out parliament, dissolved the Kuomintang and, in late 1915, proclaimed himself emperor; provincial revolts forced him to cancel the monarchy in 1916, and he died months later. His death fractured the Beiyang army and opened the warlord era.

Career timeline
  • 1901–1907Viceroy of Zhili and Minister of Beiyang
  • 1912–1916President of the Republic of China
  • 1915.12–1916.03Self-proclaimed emperor of the “Empire of China”

Wang Jingwei

汪精卫
Kuomintang China China 1883–1944 ○ Illness · Nagoya

Sun Yat-sen’s heir and Kuomintang left leader who ended as head of the Japanese-sponsored Nanjing regime

In 1927 he led the left-wing Wuhan government, then purged the Communists that July; in 1940 he headed the Japanese-sponsored Nanjing regime. Arrested in 1910, he wrote: “With heroic abandon I sing in the market of Yan…”

A Tongmenghui revolutionary famous for a failed attempt on the Qing regent, and the confidant who took down Sun Yat-sen’s political testament. He led the Wuhan Nationalist government in 1927 and briefly kept the alliance with the Communists before breaking with them that July. After years of rivalry and cooperation with Chiang Kai-shek he left Chongqing in 1938 to advocate “peace” with Japan, and in 1940 became head of the Japanese-sponsored Nanjing government. He died of illness in Nagoya in 1944 and is remembered in China as the archetypal collaborator.

Career timeline
  • 1927Chairman of the Wuhan Nationalist government
  • 1932–1935President of the Executive Yuan
  • 1940–1944Head of the Japanese-sponsored Nanjing government

Chiang Kai-shek

蔣介石
Kuomintang Counter-revolutionary forces China Chinese 1887–1975 ○ Natural causes

Nationalist leader who combined resistance to Japan with anti-communist rule

After signing the pact with the Soviet Union in 1937, he insisted that it did not mean permitting communism to grow, explaining that Nanking could not fight Japan and the Communists simultaneously.

Chiang Kai-shek was the Nationalist Party's military and political leader, rising through the Northern Expedition of the 1920s to consolidate much of China under a government based in Nanjing. He had prioritised the civil war against the Communists, but after the Xi'an Incident accepted a united front against Japan and secured Soviet arms and aircraft through the 1937 Sino-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact. He led China's wartime resistance, then moved the Republic of China's government to Taiwan after defeat in the civil war, where he built a long authoritarian rule under martial law.

Career timeline
  • 1908Joined the Tongmenghui
  • 1924–1927Commandant, Whampoa Military Academy
  • 1926–1928Commander-in-chief of the National Revolutionary Army, led the Northern Expedition
  • 1928–1931Chairman of the Nationalist government and President of the Executive Yuan
  • 1937–1945Supreme commander of China's theatre in the war against Japan
  • 1948–1975President of the Republic of China
  • 1950–1975Ruled the Nationalist government in Taiwan