After the

Empire of Japan The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II Constitution of Japan, 1947 constitu ...

invaded and occupied the Northeast in 1931, the Chinese Communist Party organized small anti-Japanese guerrilla units, and formed their own Northeastern People's Revolutionary Army, dedicated to social revolution, but these were dwarfed by the

Anti-Japanese Volunteer Armies After the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, and until 1933, large volunteer armies waged war against Japanese and Manchukuo forces over much of Northeast China. Due to Chiang Kai-shek's policy of non-resistance, the Japanese were soon able to esta ...

which had been raised by their anti-Japanese, patriotic appeal. When the first volunteer armies were organised, the Chinese Communist Party was completely hostile to them on the grounds that their leaders were bound to capitulate, claiming that the leaders of the volunteer armies were paid by the Japanese and merely pretending to resist. In this way, the Japanese Army would have a pretext for bringing its troops up to the Soviet border. Communists in Northeast China even issued an appeal for the volunteers to kill their officers and join the Communists in social revolution. Some Communists acted against this policy and held senior positions in the volunteer forces. They were particularly influential in the Chinese People's National Salvation Army, where Li Yanlu and

Zhou Baozhong Zhou Baozhong (; 1902–1964) was a commander of the 88th Separate Rifle Brigade and Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army resisting the pacification of Manchukuo by the Empire of Japan. After the Chinese Civil War he was made Vice Governor of ...

were made high-ranking officers. At first, the Party severely criticised their conduct. However, the Communists eventually had to face the fact that their policy made them almost irrelevant to the anti-Japanese cause. In 1934, after the defeat of the Volunteer Armies, all these Communist Party units were reorganized into the single

Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army The Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army was the main anti-Japanese guerrilla army in Northeast China (Manchuria) after the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931. Its predecessors were various anti-Japanese volunteer armies organized by locals ...

, with

Yang Jingyu Yang Jingyu (; February 13, 1905 – February 23, 1940), born Ma Shangde (, in Queshan, Henan (today's suburb of Zhumadian City) into a local farmer's family, was a Chinese Communist, commander-in-chief and political commissar of the First ...

as its Commander-in-Chief. This force continued the struggle against the Japanese

pacification of Manchukuo The Pacification of Manchukuo was a Japanese counterinsurgency campaign to suppress any armed resistance to the newly established puppet state of Manchukuo from various anti-Japanese volunteer armies in occupied Manchuria and later the Communis ...

until the death of Yang in 1940.

External links

The volunteer armies of northeast China
Anti-Japanese Volunteer Armies Disbanded armies Organizations associated with the Chinese Communist Party