--- title: China: 1911, 1949 and Mao — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «China: 1911, 1949 and Mao», a lesson of the history course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: In 1911 an uprising in the city of Wuchang toppled the Qing, and in 1912 China became a republic with Sun Yat-sen as its first, provisional pres --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/58-china-1911-1949-and-mao/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [History](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/) / China: 1911, 1949 and Mao # China: 1911, 1949 and Mao Lesson 58 of the history course of Mova's primary school: 25 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/history/58-china-1911-1949-and-mao/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/58-china-1911-1949-and-mao/0/) — In 1911 an uprising in the city of Wuchang toppled the Qing, and in 1912 China became a republic with Sun Yat-sen as its first, provisional president. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/58-china-1911-1949-and-mao/1/) — Mei says Sun did it alone; in fact he was abroad when it started. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/58-china-1911-1949-and-mao/2/) — Like a whole team scoring the goal, many groups and soldiers made it happen. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/58-china-1911-1949-and-mao/3/) — Then China broke apart under warlords, students marched in 1919, and Japan invaded, in 1931 and fully in 1937. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/58-china-1911-1949-and-mao/4/) — Mei says only the Communists fought Japan; the teacher says both the Nationalists of Chiang Kai-shek and the Communists did, and the Nationalists fought most of the big battles. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/58-china-1911-1949-and-mao/5/) — In 1949 Mao Zedong won the civil war and declared the People's Republic; the Nationalists went to Taiwan. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/58-china-1911-1949-and-mao/6/) — Mei's grandfather says Mao made China strong; her grandmother, who was sent to a village as a girl, remembers it differently. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/58-china-1911-1949-and-mao/7/) — Both memories are real, and history needs both. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/58-china-1911-1949-and-mao/8/) — Mao's Great Leap Forward caused a terrible famine, and his Cultural Revolution closed schools and hurt millions. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/58-china-1911-1949-and-mao/9/) — After him, Deng Xiaoping opened China to markets, and a fishing town, Shenzhen, grew into a giant city. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/58-china-1911-1949-and-mao/10/) — Wise: say what happened, gently and fairly, and listen to the family stories. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/58-china-1911-1949-and-mao/11/) — The 1911 Revolution began with an uprising in Wuchang on 10 October 1911; the Qing fell, and the Republic of China was declared in 1912 with Sun Yat-sen as provisional president. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/58-china-1911-1949-and-mao/12/) — Sun was abroad, in America, when the uprising began. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/58-china-1911-1949-and-mao/14/) — After 1916 China was divided among warlords; on 4 May 1919 students in Beijing protested because the peace treaty after the First World War gave Germany's old rights in the Shandong region to Japan instead of back to China, and the May Fourth movement called for science, democracy and writing in everyday language. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/58-china-1911-1949-and-mao/15/) — Japan occupied Manchuria in 1931 and began full war on China in 1937; millions of Chinese died before Japan's defeat in 1945. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/58-china-1911-1949-and-mao/16/) — The Nanjing massacre of 1937–1938 is widely documented, and China and Japan still disagree about how to remember the war. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/58-china-1911-1949-and-mao/17/) — Both the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek and the Communists fought Japan, sometimes while also fighting each other; the Nationalists fought most of the big battles. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/58-china-1911-1949-and-mao/18/) — After the civil war, Mao Zedong declared the People's Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, and the Nationalist government retreated to Taiwan. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/58-china-1911-1949-and-mao/19/) — Many in China see 1949 as the end of foreign humiliation; it also began one-party rule. - [20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/58-china-1911-1949-and-mao/20/) — Mao led the Communist victory and unified the country; China's official view, set out under Deng Xiaoping, is that Mao was «70% right, 30% wrong». - [21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/58-china-1911-1949-and-mao/21/) — The Great Leap Forward, 1958–1962, aimed at very fast industrial growth; impossible targets and the taking of grain from villages led to a famine in which tens of millions died, by most historians' estimates; the exact number is debated. - [22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/58-china-1911-1949-and-mao/22/) — In the Cultural Revolution, 1966–1976, Mao called on young Red Guards to attack «old ideas» and supposed enemies; schools closed, temples and books were destroyed, and millions were persecuted or sent to the countryside. - [23](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/58-china-1911-1949-and-mao/23/) — China's government later called it a serious error. - [24](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/58-china-1911-1949-and-mao/24/) — From 1978 Deng Xiaoping opened China to markets, letting people run their own farms and businesses and letting foreign companies build factories; special zones with easier rules for business, like Shenzhen, once a small fishing town, grew into huge cities, and hundreds of millions left poverty, though not everyone became rich. - [25](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/58-china-1911-1949-and-mao/25/) — In 1971 an American table-tennis team visited China, «ping-pong diplomacy»; in 1972 President Richard Nixon visited Beijing. - ← previous: [China: the Qing and the Opium Wars](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/57-china-the-qing-and-the-opium-wars/) - next →: [China: modern China, space and contested topics](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/59-china-modern-china-space-and-contested-topics/) - ↑ back to [History](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/)