May 4 marks the anniversary of a seminal moment in modern Chinese history. In 1919, the “May 4 movement” broke out — a youth-led uprising against the country’s domination by foreign colonial powers. In the following piece written in 2008, Fidel Castro reflects on this and other milestones in China’s long struggle for independence. The following reflection was published over a two-day period in the Cuban newspaper Granma.
When the First World War broke out in 1914, China joined the allies. As recompense, China was promised that the German concessions in the province of Shandong would be returned at war’s end. After the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, which President Woodrow Wilson imposed on friends and foes alike, the German colonies were transferred to Japan, a more powerful allied than China.
Thousands of students gathered in Tiananmen Square on May 4, 1919 to protest this move. The first triumphant nationalist movement in China was born there. Called the “May 4th Movement”, it brought the petite and national bourgeoisie and the workers and peasants under one coalition.
The founding of the Kuomintang or National People’s Party had consolidated the nationalist currents that emerged at the close of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. It was headed by Dr. Sun Yatsen, a progressive intellectual and revolutionary heavily influenced by the October Revolution, with which he strengthened his party’s ties.
The Chinese Communist Party was founded at a congress held from July 23 to August 5, 1921. Lenin sent representatives of the International to that Congress.
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