Patriotic and Democratic Movements in the KMT-Ruled Areas

Patriotic democratic movement in the KMT-ruled areas during the People’s Liberation War. The patriotic democratic movement of the broad masses including patriotic students, workers, citizens, and people from other classes, under the leadership of the CPC, opposed the atrocities of the U.S. military and the civil war policy, dictatorship, and traitorous policies of the Chiang Kai-shek regime. It is also known as the "Second Front", which supplemented the military struggle of the people's armed forces against the KMT army led by the CPC.

At the end of 1945, in response to the KMT authorities' active preparations for civil war, the Kunming students launched the December 1 Movement with the slogan of "opposing civil war and fight for freedom".

The movement was expanded to many cities. Half a year after the outbreak of the full-scale civil war, on December 30, 1946, in protest against the rape of a female student in the first semester of Peking University by U.S. troops stationed in China, Beijing students raised the slogans of "Protest against the atrocities of U.S. military!" "U.S. troops withdraw from China!" This movement quickly developed into a nationwide anti-American and anti-Chiang Kai-shek patriotic democratic movement, known as the Anti-violence Movement or the December 30 Movement. From May 4 to 18, 1947, students from Shanghai, Nanjing and Beiping (Beijing) held the May Fourth Memorial Meeting and organized anti-hunger and anti-civil war strike marches, which were repressed by the KMT army and police. In order to resist the repression of the authorities, students from schools in large and medium-sized cities in the South and North broke the ban of the KMT government and held a huge demonstration on the 20th, which was historically called the May 20th Movement. At the same time, the workers' and citizens' movements also erupted one after another.

In 1947, 1.2 million workers went on strike in more than 20 large and medium-sized cities throughout the country. From May to June, a "rice rush" by hungry city dwellers swept through more than 40 towns and cities in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui and Sichuan provinces.

The China Democratic League, the China National Democratic Construction Association, the China Association for Promoting Democracy, the Jiusan Society, the Taiwan Democratic Self-Government League, the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese KMT, and other democratic parties, such as the China Zhi Gong Party and the Chinese Peasants' and Workers' Democratic Party, were all established before the Anti-Japanese War and the People’s Liberation War. They were inspired by the united front of the CPC and worked hand in hand with the Communist Party as the "third party" to oppose the civil war and dictatorial policies of the KMT and to campaign for peace and democracy. They also showed their unique strength in the struggle of the second front. During the People’s Liberation War, the patriotic democratic movement in the KMT-ruled areas strongly complemented the struggles of the PLA's in the military battlefield and played an important role in overthrowing the reactionary rule of the KMT and in liberating the whole of China.