ra, there had come a strong Western influence, sometimes adopted, sometimes resisted. After 1895, this Western invasion increased and became more a part of the scene in China, with the establishment of new schools that combined both Western and Chinese subjects. The old civil service examinations were abolished in 1905, and this ended the structure that had molded Chinese thought for so long. Added to the concern over Western ideas was the defeat of China in the Sino-Japanese War. The generation in charge at the turn of the century had had its confidence shaken by these and other events, and this may have provided the opportunity for change in the Hundred Days of Reform in 1898:
Yet it also created a deeply felt need among educated Chinese somehow to be reassured that China's cultural identity would not be wholly lost amid these changes--a need which the reformers themselves felt more acutely even than those who opposed them.
The slow shift of reform produced the environment that would later be seized by revolutionaries leading to the Chinese revolution of 1911. Sun Yat-Sen was not wholly Westernized, but he did derive ideas from earlier Western revolutionary movements. He wrote in support of the idea of popular sovereignty, for instance, with direct reference to the American system:
Such a government will be the most complete and the finest in the world, and a state with such a government will indeed be of the people, by the people and for the people.
There were both military and political components of the Chinese revolution and the actions of the CCP. The rural strategy also included the confiscation of the land of landlords and rich peasants and the distribution of this land to poor peasants. The CCP also developed claims of allegiance by pursuing tasks benefiting the peasants, and the group also recruited new activists in each village while also isolating its enemies. This was part of the strategy of staying ...