General Secretaries of the Chinese Communist party (Soviet backed Manchurian State)
1946-1968: Wang Ming(1)
1968-1975: Chen Yun (2)
1975-1981: Zhang Qinqiu (3)
1981-1986: Chen Xilian (4)
1986-1989: Chi Haotian (5)
1989-1991: Zhang Xueliang (6)
Unification with Republic of China (Kuomintang)
(1): Mao's death during the Long March led to the resurgence of the 26 Bolsheviks who remained loyal to Stalin's USSR. However the Red Army was devastated during the Long March and played little part in combatting the Japanese. Upon the Soviet invasion of Manchuria at the end of WW2 a puppet state was established with Wang Ming as it's head, he had little loyalty of the Manchurian people retaining power through Soviet force of arms.
(2): Chen Yun’s rule started well, backed by the Liberal wing of the CCP he implemented several reforms influenced by Khrushchev and similar Soviet bloc leaders, he managed to increase diplomatic relations between the KMT China and SDP Japan and there was even a small economic boom. Then Chen decided to flush away all his good will by supporting a series of Asian Communist Parties including the radical Taiwanese Communists who after a series of terrorist incidents fled to Manchuria. As a response the KMT cut there few ties with Manchuria and Chen increasingly became a Nationalist Conservative. Eventually he was ousted by a cadre of Military and Liberals worried he was going to start a war with China.
(3): To this day the only woman ever to lead a Communist nation, Zhang came to power as a stable pair of hands unlikely to rock the boat much after Chen Yun, and because of her husbands sway with the military. By the time she came to power she was to old to exert much influence or restore party discipline, though she did successfully negotiate a vast reduction in the Soviet military presence and cooled tensions with the Republic of China.
(4): The conductor of the Peoples Liberation Armies interests Chen Xilian represented the clearest attempt by the armed forces to take a direct leadership role in the Manchurian state. Chen attempted to foster a form of Manchurian Nationalism to bolster stability and increased and expanded the armed forces in the wake of the reduction of Soviet forces. Chen's rule began with a political understanding with the reformers and liberals but they were slowly squeezed out of the decision making process as Chen cozied up to conservative forces within the party. Liberalization slowed and state repression increased but there was little overall resistance to Chen's rule. All seemed positive until a massive stroke felled him at the height of his power....
(5) Chen's handpicked successor, one in a line of hardline young generals who were sidelined out of fear by him, was thrust into command at an inauspicious moment. Student movements for democracy were emboldened by the shambolic succession, and resistance started to spiral out of control. Lacking the charisma and willpower of his predecessor, all Chi fell back on was the blunt cudgel of the Army. The Shenyang Massacre is infamous today as one of the bloodiest incidents in Chinese history; thanks to one student with a small portable camera and his friend with a smuggler for an uncle, images of young protestors cut down by bayonets made the cover of the New York Times. With Shaknazarov working on implementing an elected chamber, and Németh and Vranitzky shaking hands in Sopron, the climate of repression in Manchuria made it an odd one out even in the Eastern Bloc. Chi, for all his faults, could see the writing on the wall, and decided to step down before the General Staff and Party Committee (now increasingly entwined) made him.
(6) 'The Young Marshal,' as the world media wouldn't stop calling him, had spent fifty years in comfortable house arrest when the Party's leadership decided he would present the right face for the government. The closest to a genuine Manchurian hero the state had ever presented, and still popular in the south, Zhang never had any true influence over the government. He was however a charismatic and reassuring presence, and the sight of him entering the Party Chambers did much to calm the streets of Dalian and Shenyang.
Ironically, the doddering old man's government, set up to reassure its reforming allies in the Eastern bloc would outlive them by six months. After the 'Three Winter Coups' of 1990 shattered the attempts to reform the Russian SSR peacefully, it became clear that the refugees and economic crisis would make Manchuria ungovernable. After brief talks in the Republic of Korea that largely served to establish rules about amnesties and swiss bank accounts- and to let the CCP tell itself that it had taken part as an equal partner- the KMT went north in 1991.
Zhang Xueliang enjoyed popularity with the Chinese public until his death in 2001, and represented China at the Moscow Memorial Gathering of 1996.
