WWII, CIVIL WAR & CCP VICTORY

Second United Front (1938-41): As a result of the Xian Incident (the kidnapping of Chiang Kai-shek by the troops of Zhang Xueliang) Chiang agreed to join forces with CCP troop to confront Japanese advance. All cooperation ended in 1945 with the resumption of the civil war.

Marco Polo Bridge Incident (July 7, 1937): first shots of WWII, involving a skirmish between Chinese and Japanese troops 10 miles north of Beijing.

Rape of Nanking (Dec. 1937- Feb. 38): Japanese military assault on Chinese civilians left behind in the KMT retreat. In the raping and looting that followed, between 40,000 and 300,000 civilians were killed. The city remained the site of a puppet regime until Japan's defeat in 1945.

General Joseph Stilwell (1883-1946): US military man sent by Roosevelt to assist the KMT in fighting the Japanese in China.

Lin Biao (1907-71): military leader, who organized the Red Army into a modern fight force. Lin became Mao's second-in-command during the Cultural Revolution, but he would later be accused of treason.

THE EARLY YEARS OF THE PRC

Mao Zedong (1893-1976): Marxist theorist, guerilla tactician, and foremost CCP leader until his death.

Zhou Enlai (1898-76): Mao's "right-hand man," and the frequent diplomatic representative of the CCP.

Deng Xiaoping (1904-1997): Chinese communist leader who would become best known for "opening" the People's Republic of China to the West in the late 1970s and for leading the country's reform program until his death in 1997.

100 Flowers Reforms (May 1956-June 1957): the Party-sponsored reform campaign that started with the slogan "Let a hundred flowers bloom, a hundred schools of thought contend." Mao himself indicated that intellectuals could speak freely about perceived mistakes of the CCP. When criticism became too intense, Mao reversed course and launched the Anti-rightist Campaign (July 1957-ca. 1958) to clamp down on dissent.

Great Leap Forward (1958-61): The CCP's second Five Year Plan, which became a campaign of mass mobilization to organize China's population into large-scale communes to meet the country's industrial and agricultural goals.