Let’s Defend Wuhan!

Following the fall of Nanjing in December 1937 and the subsequent massacre carried out by the Japanese army, Wuhan became the next military target.  At that time, the city was divided into three municipalities: Hankou, Wuchang and Hanyang. Between January and October 1938, this city in the geographic centre of China held out against a seemingly unstoppable Japanese offensive. They city became an international symbol of resistance, and the Chinese, and later international, press would repeatedly compare Wuhan to Madrid.

Those ten months also marked the high point of the alliance between Communists and Nationalists, known as the United Front strategy, This Alliance, which also included other political parties, facilitated an unprecedented momento of freedom and cultural effervescence in the city, with an uncensored press and debates among people of different political persuasions where parallels between the situations in China and the Spanish Civil War were frequent. Prestigious intellectuals like Guo Moruo and politicians like Zhou Enlai gave speeches in which they praised the defense of Wuhan and Madrid, despite the great distance that separated them.

While the resistance of Wuhan was cause for Chinese optimism, one that reached international public opinion, the situation of the Spanish Republic deteriorated significantly during those ten months. The defense of Wuhan slowed down the Japanese advance and made it possible for the Chinese to adopt the strategy of the long, or protracted, war – chijiuzhan – while in Spain the Francoist march to the Mediterranean coast in March 1938 divided the Republican zone and reduced the Republic’s chances of surviving.

Wuhan also brought the end of the German military aid the Nationalist government of China had been receiving and the consolidation of an alliance between China, the Soviet Union, and the United States. Those countries increased their military assistance to China while, at the same time, the Soviet Union reduced the aid it had been providing to Spain. This change was partly promoted by the Nationalist government’s propaganda department led by Hollington Tong (Dong Xianguang). It successfully reproduced for Wuhan the internationalist and romantic atmosphere that had characterized the defense of Madrid, as this song, which became very popular in China, testifies.

Let us defend Wuhan!

Hot blood boils with righteous indignation in Lake Boyang, 
Sparks fly over the Yangzi, 
The whole country roards with rage 
Let us defend Wuhan!

Wuhan is the heart of our resistance, 
Wuhan is our largest city, 
And we will defend it unfailingly.

As the Spaniards defended Madrid, 
We will see off the enemy attack, 
And consolidate the anti-Japanese front. 
Let us defend Wuhan!