1927 | Political Events
Political Events
Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek takes Hangzhou in February with combined units of the Guomindang (Kuomintang, or KMT) and the communist Gongchandang (Gungchantang) (see 1926). Shanghai and Ghangzhou (Canton) fall a few weeks later, and Nanjing (Nanking) is looted and burned March 24, effectively ending the warlord era of Chinese history. Chiang negotiates with bankers and industrialists at Shanghai, where he once ran a brokerage business; promised $3 to $10 million if he will break with Moscow. He reverses his earlier political philosophy, overthrowing the leftist government at Hangzhou. Communist military leader Ye Ting, 30, plays a key role in the Nanchang Uprising August 1, but Chiang establishes a rightist National Revolutionary Government at Nanjing with communists and left-wing elements excluded, and launches a "White Terror" campaign to crush an "autumn harvest uprising" led by communist Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung), 34, in September. Revolutionist Xiang Jianyu defies the White Terror, remaining in Hunan to organize labor unions and run an underground newspaper (but see 1928). Chiang marries the Christianized Wellesley graduate Mei-ling Soong, 26, December 1, brushing aside questions as to the legality of his divorce from the mother of his son, and allies himself with one of China's richest, most powerful families (Mei-ling's U.S.-educated merchant-Methodist missionary father, Charles Jones Soong, has died earlier in the year); her brother T. V. (Tse-ven) Soong, 33, is the Nationalist government's finance minister, having studied at Harvard and Columbia. Chiang expels Russians from Shanghai December 15 following an attempted coup by Ye Ting at Guangzhou December 11, and Comintern agent Mikhail Borodin leaves China (see Beijing, 1928).
The first large-scale Vietnamese revolutionary nationalist organization is founded under the name Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dan (VNQDD). Modeled on China's Guomindang (Kuomintang), it seeks to establish a republican, democratic government free from foreign domination, but the French will bar it from participating in the electoral process, thus winning it the allegiance of young intellectuals and many military officers (see 1930).
Cambodia's king Sisovat (Si Suvata) dies at age 86 (approximate) after a 23-year reign and is succeeded by his son Monivong.
Australia's federal parliament moves May 9 from Melbourne to the city of Canberra, designed by Illinois-born architect Walter Burley Griffin, now 50, and under construction since 1913 (with a long interruption occasioned by the Great War). Located in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) about 150 miles southwest of Sydney, the new capital lies on a plain at the foot of 6,200-foot spurs of the Australian Alps.
London breaks relations with Moscow May 24 following accusations of Bolshevik espionage and subversion throughout the British Empire. The Russians respond June 9 by executing 20 alleged British spies. Josef Stalin expels Leon Trotsky from the Central Committee of the Communist Party in November (see 1926; 1929).
Former German general Max Hoffmann dies at Bad Reichenhall July 8 at age 58, having written several books about the Great War.
The German government lets agitator Adolf Hitler resume speaking in public (see Mein Kampf, 1925); Hitler's pamphlet "The Road to Resurgence" blames Marxism and "the international Jew" for Germany's ills, saying, "The economies of the world's great powers are backed up by their political power. And the decisive factor in economic conflict in the world never rested in the skill and know-how of the various competitors, but rather in the might of the sword they could wield to tip the scales for their businesses and hence their lives" (Hitler has written the pamphlet at the suggestion of the 80-year-old right-wing industrialist Emil Kirdorf). German pacifist Carl von Ossietzky becomes editor of the liberal political weekly Weltbühne (see 1922); now 37, he runs a series of articles exposing secret preparations for rearmament by leaders of the army (Reichswehr). Accused of treason, Ossietzky will be sentenced in November 1931 to 18 months' imprisonment but will receive amnesty in December 1932 (see 1933).
The Future Direction of German Foreign Policy (Der Zukunftsweg einer deutschen Aussenpolitik) by Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg, now 34, urges the conquest of Poland and Russia. Rosenberg edits the party newspaper Völkischer Beobachter.
Romania's Ferdinand I of Hohenzellern dies of cancer at Bucharest July 20 at age 61 after a 13-year reign. He is succeeded by his 5-year-old nephew Mihai, who will reign until 1930 as Michael I under the regency of his uncle Prince Nicholas; his uncle Carol renounced his right of succession in December 1925 but now proclaims himself king (see 1930).
Saudi Arabian independence gains British recognition May 20 in the Treaty of Jedda (see 1926; 1932).
Syria's 2-year Druse insurrection ends in June after a major French military campaign. The Druse leaders flee to Transjordan.
British general Reginald E. H. Dyer of 1919 Amritsar Massacre infamy dies at Long Ashton, near Bristol, July 23 at age 62; Governor General of the Philippines Leonard Wood returns to Boston for medical treatment and dies there August 7 following surgery at age 66; Egyptian nationalist Sa'd Zaghlul dies at Cairo August 23 at age 70; former African explorer-botanist-colonial administrator Sir Harry Hamilton Johnston dies at Woodsetts House, near Worksop, Nottinghamshire, August 31 at age 69.
Cuban president Gerardo Machado y Morales seizes control of all political parties to stifle dissent (see 1924). Critics accuse him of having enriched himself at public expense, but he will be reelected next year despite vehement opposition from students and professional men (see 1933).
"I do not choose to run in nineteen twenty-eight," says President Coolidge in a written statement issued to the press in South Dakota August 2. He takes himself out of contention without further comment.
Sacco and Vanzetti die in the electric chair at Dedham Prison August 23 despite worldwide efforts to have Massachusetts authorities drop charges against the two for lack of evidence (see 1920). A note passed to Nicola Sacco in 1925 from convicted murderer Celestino F. Madeiros said, "I hereby confess to being in the South Braintree shoe company crime and Sacco and Vanzetti was not in said crime" but the district attorney refused to investigate. The defense has filed eight motions for a new trial since 1921, but the state's Supreme judicial Court has upheld Justice Webster Thayer in early April, ruling on law, not on evidence. "I know the sentence will be between two classes, the oppressed class and the rich class," Sacco has said. Bartolomeo Vanzetti has appealed to Gov. Alvan T. Fuller for a pardon, and a Dartmouth professor has filed an affidavit alleging that Judge Thayer said to him, "Did you see what I did with those anarchistic bastards the other day?" Gov. Fuller (a millionaire Cadillac dealer) has appointed a review committee at the request of 61 law professors, the committee comprised of Harvard's president A. Lawrence Lowell, MIT's president Samuel W. Stratton, and former probate judge Robert A. Grant has upheld the jury verdict July 27, public demonstrations in behalf of Sacco and Vanzetti have had no effect, but efforts to gain retroactive pardons will continue until 1977, when a new governor will grant the posthumous pardons.
The Norden bombsight invented by Dutch-born U.S. engineer Carl L. (Lucas) Norden, 47, and his associate Theodore H. Barth will remain a closely guarded military secret until it is patented in 1947 (by which time it will be obsolete). Norden invented flying robot bombs during the Great War, but they were considered too inhumane to be used. As perfected in 1931 by Norden and Frederick I. Entwhistle of the U.S. Navy, the 90-pound Mark XV bombsight will have 2,000 parts.