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Elitist Fascism: Chiang Kaishek's Blueshirts in 1930's China
In the 1930s, an elitist group around Chiang Kaishek looked to fascism as a "quick" solution to the modernization of China. This study favours the view that Chiang Kaishek was confident in his goal to modernize China through an essentially Western method (fascism) and to use it as an instrument, while moulding it into a Confucianist philosophy. His ideas were given shape by the Blueshirts - in effect an elitist organization within the Guomindang government structure. This organization practised the ancient Chinese theory of "knowledge and action" in order to inspire the Chinese people.
366 pages, Hardcover
First published July 1, 2000
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February 11, 2026
Élitist Fascism: Chiang Kaishek’s Blueshirts in 1930s China is one of the best works on fascism I have read. The Blueshirts, as they are most commonly referred to, comprised a personally-directed clique of Whampoa graduates and other far-right radicals in the Guomindang who were fiercely loyal to Chiang.
Chung chronicles the genesis of the Chinese fascist movement, its peculiarities, its influences, and its ultimate failure to achieve mass support. Further, Chung convincingly makes the case that the Blueshirts did not disappear with their formal dissolution in the aftermath of the Xi’an Incident. They lived on in the Sanminzhuyi Youth Corps and, later, members continued to hold power in Taiwan as part of the legislative Yuan faction inown as the United Caucus Clique.
Chinese fascism was instituted from above, never attained the heights of mass mobilization achieved in Germany, Italy, or Japan; it most closely resembled the military fascism of Japan, though Japanese fascism was only taken by the military after having achieved some mass basis; their attempts to militarize society, to institute a new, corporatist Confucianism, to propagate near undying loyalty to Chiang failed due to the endemic factionalism of the GMD that plagued it, notably competition among various fascist and non-fascist interest groups, opposition to Chiang’s appeasement policy, permanent budgetary crises, and reliance on criminal elements.
That Chiang and the Blueshirts sought to establish fascism in China during the 1930s is indisputable with even a cursory look at Chiang’s own words, what the Blueshirts were studying and writing about, and their actions. In fascism, they saw a remedy to China’s problems.
This book gets five big booms!
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Chung chronicles the genesis of the Chinese fascist movement, its peculiarities, its influences, and its ultimate failure to achieve mass support. Further, Chung convincingly makes the case that the Blueshirts did not disappear with their formal dissolution in the aftermath of the Xi’an Incident. They lived on in the Sanminzhuyi Youth Corps and, later, members continued to hold power in Taiwan as part of the legislative Yuan faction inown as the United Caucus Clique.
Chinese fascism was instituted from above, never attained the heights of mass mobilization achieved in Germany, Italy, or Japan; it most closely resembled the military fascism of Japan, though Japanese fascism was only taken by the military after having achieved some mass basis; their attempts to militarize society, to institute a new, corporatist Confucianism, to propagate near undying loyalty to Chiang failed due to the endemic factionalism of the GMD that plagued it, notably competition among various fascist and non-fascist interest groups, opposition to Chiang’s appeasement policy, permanent budgetary crises, and reliance on criminal elements.
That Chiang and the Blueshirts sought to establish fascism in China during the 1930s is indisputable with even a cursory look at Chiang’s own words, what the Blueshirts were studying and writing about, and their actions. In fascism, they saw a remedy to China’s problems.
This book gets five big booms!
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
July 28, 2019
one of the three most comprehensive accounts on the Blue Shirts Society
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews