OPVL -- unfinished

3. The origin of Source A is that it is an excerpt from Chiang Kaishek's diary, quoted in a high school textbook. Its purpose is presumably for the leader of the Guomindang party to reason through the various things happening in his government -- in it, he admits that his party is corrupt and "degenerate", so the entry is intended to record his personal thoughts. This has value for several reasons: it is from the leader of the Guomindang party, the party that opposed the Communists. It can be assumed that Kaishek would have known the most about the party and its weaknesses. He says that the group is "lacking standards of right and wrong" among other deep flaws that go down to the spirit of the people involved and their dedication to the cause. It can also be assumed that this journal entry is very candid, because Kaishek would be unlikely to say such negative things about his party if he thought it would be published -- therefore, what he recorded can be taken as his very honest opinion, and Kaishek's opinion drove the party. A limitation of this source is that it is shows a limited perspective. Kaishek's opinion is important in understanding why the party did what it did, but it doesn't give any facts, figures or historical facts. It is only Kaishek's opinion that Guomindang was corrupt, and so the reader cannot draw specifics from it. It doesn't give the important perspective of the people, or even of an analyst: rather, it is the opinions of a military leader.

The origin of the excerpt from "Mao: The Unknown Story" is that it is a book written by Jung Chang, an author who lived in Mao's China, and Jon Halliday, who has "written or edited 8 previous books". The purpose of this excerpt is to demonstrate practices of the Chinese Civil War in the early 1930s


1. The woodcut on page 22 is meant to convey the cruelty of the Guomindang tax collectors. The woodcut depicts a collector leading away the last hope of food from a starving, suffering family: there is a man crouching on the ground of a scattered cottage with a hand to his head, holding a baby that is reaching out to the goat the collector is leading away. An old man in the corner stares balefully at the floor, and the family is left in darkness. What this shows is the inhuman cruelty of the party that is willing to condemn innocents to death by starvation while they are well-dressed and well-equipped.

2. The message being conveyed by the Communist Party Poster is that all Japanese peasants were willing and happy to help