Ninth of December Movement

mass student patriotic demonstrations in China from December 1935 to January 1936. On Dec. 9, 1935, several thousand students, at the call of the underground organization of the Chinese Communist Party, demonstrated in Peking, calling for the repulsion of Japanese aggression, the cessation of the civil war in the country, and the granting of democratic liberties to the people. This was the first open political demonstration in the period of the Kuomintang reaction. It was accompanied by bloody clashes between the police and the students. There were student demonstrations in Tientsin, Nanking, Shanghai, Hangkou and Canton in late December 1935 and early January 1936 to protest the actions of the police. The police fired on the demonstrators in Hangkou and Canton. Student organizations for national preservation were formed in many cities. The student demonstrations provided a powerful stimulus for the development of the mass popular movement, for the cessation of the civil war, and the creation of a united anti-Japanese national front.