Activities
The party sought to organize workers in as-yet unorganized key industries, including the transportation sector and mines in northern Taiwan. Party cadres were sent to work and propagandize in the logging ranches of Yilan and the mines in Chilung, with mixed success. In Taipei the party led a failed strike by print workers. In the island's south cadres sparked a strike by railroad workers in Kaohsiung. Overall, however, the TCP was neither as active nor as successful as the Alliance of Taiwanese Workers (affiliated with the Taiwanese People's Party).
The party had more success organizing peasants. Earlier a bottom-up farmers' movement had spread rapidly in 1925, leading to the creation of the island-wide Taiwanese Peasants' Union. The TCP was able to cultivate its faction within the Union and by late 1928 the Union had openly declared its support for the Communists. At that time the Great Depression of 1930 was seen by many Communists worldwide as a sign that the proletariat revolution was on the verge of exploding. Japan's war efforts in China had also bogged down. By 1931 the TCP-led Peasants' Union was secretly training farmers (many of Hakka ethnicity) in preparation for armed struggle to form a soviet – one that some believed would soon elicit support from the Communist Party of China. A leak allowed the authorities to liquidate a key group, putting a halt to the plan.
From its inception the TCP had plans to infiltrate the Cultural Association, already left-leaning after a group of moderate and conservative leaders had left in 1927. It was a convenient platform that could serve as a legal front. The third congress (1929) saw the Communists succeed in electing several cadres to the Association's central committee. They proceeded to purge the leadership of the remaining conservatives and non-TCP leftists, particularly Lien Wenqing.
Between 1931 and 1933 authorities arrested 107 TCP members, who were sentenced to terms up to fifteen years. A few died in prison.
Read more about this topic: Taiwanese Communist Party
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