The Bandit Suppression Campaigns 1930-1934

Abstract

The Bandit Suppression Campaigns were a series of military offensives, five in all, which Chiang K'ai-shek launched against various Communist enclaves scattered through central China, as he attempted to consolidate his newly-won power. There were three such campaigns during 1931, one in late 1932, and one in late 1933. At the end of this last campaign, in October, 1934, the Communists admitted their defeat, and fled central China. By the end of 1935, Chiang had finished with other rivals for his position, and reigned supreme in China proper. Unfortunately, as events thus pass into the realm of epic, certain facts tend to become obscured, particularly those which interrupt its smooth flow. In the case of the bandit suppression campaigns, this problem is compounded by the fact that the survivors of the campaigns, now the rulers of two nations at war, are also the sole chroniclers of the events.

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