The evolution of the recruitment system of the Chinese Red Army: from volunteering to benefits and enforcement (1927–1934)

Abstract

Background. The study, mainly based on original Chinese sources previously inaccessible to Russian historiography, examines the most important stages in the evolution of the enlistment system in the Chinese Red Army during the agrarian revolution using the example of the Central Soviet Region of the CPC. The authorʼs attention is focused on identifying and analyzing the content of both the general line of the communists in the mo-bilization policy, and the specifics of its individual aspects, typical to a particular period of the system’s development. Results. Specific methods and techniques of recruitment into active troops, as well as the accompanying mood of the masses on the background of gro-wing socio-economic difficulties and hardships associated with revolutionary wars, are considered. Conclusions. Excluding the period of its inception, the Chinese Red Army was not built on the basis of volunteerism, but on profit and enforcement; at the same time, the ideological component of the recruitment practically did not play any role.

Keywords

• the cpc (communist party of china)
• the chinese red army
• mobilization system
• peasantry’s avoidance from conscription