Why did the Communists win the Civil War in China (1945 to 1949)?

The United States and president Truman, have often been the scapegoat for the sudden fall of China to the communists and Mao. Nonetheless, Mao himself argues that the pivotal factor in the communist victory was the involvement of another WWII participant; Japan. He shared this idea with the Japanese Prime Minister in 1972, “Had Imperial Japan not started the war of invasion, how could we communist have become mighty powerful? How could we stage the coup d’état? How could we defeat Chiang Kai Shek?”. This essay aims to answer Mao’s rhetorical questions by focusing on the social and military factors which played a key role in the civil war, while investigating whether it was Mao’s strength or the Kuomintang’s weaknesses which led to the unprecedented outcome in this political conflict.

The Kuomintang’s military weakness, stemming from lack of leadership, unmotivated soldiers, and lack of resources and funds, was ultimately a predominant factor in the outcome of this conflict. Although Chiang’s leadership was passionate and fierce, little of this sort can be said for his immediate subordinates. In communist sympathizer Jack Belden’s China Shakes the World, the American journalist depicts the leaders of the Kuomintang as without a cause. He states that in the years that the KMT held power, not only was the party unable to solve the problems they had identified in the old system such as warlordism, a lack of democracy and overwhelming foreign influence, but they had actually made these evils greater. Although written from a communist sympathizing perspective, this nonetheless shows that much of the missing conviction in the KMT’s leadership came from lack of faith in the success of the party. In addition to unmotivated leadership, the men at the helm of the KMT were highly ineffective in coordinating military efforts as a result of a lacking central command. Generals such as Chen Cheng, Bai Chongxi, and Zhang Fakui, had independent armies, set up in a feudalist system. The soldiers were directly recruited by the respective commanders, and as such these soldiers were the commanders’ personal property. Therefore, in essence the KMT’s army was not a unified legion, but rather a composition of various warlord militias. This in addition to lacking conviction, made the KMT’s leadership highly ineffective in coordinating military actions; a negative weight felt throughout the complete army. In addition to ineffective leadership, the army lacked motivated and volunteering soldiers, resulting in Chiang Kai Shek’s introduction of conscription. This made it legal for commanders to kidnap and force men into fighting in their ranks. These soldiers were poorly trained, clothed, and fed, and discipline was introduced with beatings. Logically these methods were not only tremendously unpopular with the Chinese, but it also largely ineffective in creating a strong army. It is no coincidence that during the civil war, hundreds of thousands of individual Nationalist soldiers deserted, surrendered, or defected to the communists. Additionally, the KMT had counted with American support from 1945 onwards, yet by 1947 with the failure of the American designed Marshall Mission, an attempt to negotiate a unified government between the CCP and the KMT, as well as due to prevalent corruption in the nationalist regime, the United States decided to cut off the financial support priorly given to the KMT. The USA cutting off Chiang Kai Shek’s army funds, resulted in the KMT’s military being inferiorly equipped, and thus while the KMT’s army was larger in soldiers than the PLA, the lack of equipment put them at a direct disadvantage.

Mao’s People’s Liberation Army on the other hand, possessed various characteristics highly in their favor to the outcome of this conflict. First and foremost, the PLA’s control over Manchuria granted by the Soviets, was both a strategic and a technical benefit for Mao’s army. Still today, Manchuria is the industrial heartland of china, and so from 1945 onwards, it allowed for the development of arms for the PLA. Furthermore, as Japan had left Manchuria with haste, the CCP was able to reap the highly modernized Japanese equipment, further enhancing their technological advantage over Chiang Kai Shek’s army. Yet while these factors ensured a military advantage by the CCP, the pivotal factor came through conviction in Mao’s practical communist ideology. Unlike Chiang’s predominantly independent armies, Mao’s PLA was unified under a tightly controlled central command. The army served the party as opposed to belonging to high-ranking individuals, and as such the soldiers fought with high morale, and with the aim of getting promoted and receiving military awards. Additionally, as opposed to the forceful recruitment of the KMT, the PLA counted with an abundance of volunteers and communist supporters. While the composition of these factors ensured a slight advantage for the PLA over Chiang’s army, the main component came from Mao’s ability as a tactician. With highly effective guerrilla tactics in the earlier stages of the war, the PLA was able to use their agility as a weapon against the slow and isolated KMT forces. In a speech given by Mao to his commanders and generals in December of 1947, he outlined how the guerrilla tactics had been the crucial component in the success of the PLA, but that moving forward the army would need to introduce conventional warfare in order to ensure the sustainability of the CCP’s success. This shows that Mao was able to control military versatility, as well as illustrating how his orders were received and implemented by his subordinates.

Following WWII, the Kuomintang and Chiang Kai Shek were faced with numerous social problems. In order to finance the war against the Japanese, the government resorted to printing unrestricted amounts of cash, allowing for the imports of American weaponry, soviet food stocks, and other necessities. While this was a viable alternative in the short-run to supply the Chinese troops, this policy ultimately led to hyperinflation, making the currency valueless while simultaneously sky-rocketing the prices of necessary goods to society. In 1937, the total quantity of money in circulation was 3.6 billion yuan, by 1946 there were approximately 9,180 billion yuan in circulation. Subsequently while in 1937 the consumer price index was at 100, by 1946 it had risen to approximately 378,000. Lenin himself is believed to have said that “the best way to destroy the Capitalist System was to debauch the currency.”. This was no exception in 1946 China, as inflation and resource scarcity predominantly resulted in large discord between society and the government. Furthermore, with the reigniting of the civil war, the funds that had been designated for the reconstruction of Japanese destruction, had to be diverted towards the military, further fueling inflation and economic duress. Additionally, although the government set up price caps on necessities, production quotas for grain producers and export restrictions as to keep the goods in China, due to highly corrupt power structures they were highly inefficient. Nevertheless, as Chinese historian Dao Yi-Ran states, “the Kuomintang’s decisive social weakness was its detachment from China’s fundamental needs”. Although a communist sympathizer, and thus a critic of the KMT’s policies, Dao rightly identifies the KMT’s shortcomings in social matters. Most, if not all, of Chiang Kai Shek’s policies were directed towards benefiting his capitalist supporters, therefore focusing on urban areas and financial institutions, while largely disregarding the hardships in the rural areas and the fields. Additionally, social justice was completely disregarded by land owners, who under feudalist systems were able to exploit peasants brutally, with virtually no consequences for their actions from the nationalist government. All of these factors resulted in a widespread disdain for Chiang Kai Shek’s government, making society a large opponent of the nationalist cause.

Mao and the CCP on the other hand, offered the majority of society, the idealistic utopia of communism. Mao understood that “The battle for China is[was] a battle for the hearts and minds of the peasants.”. Mao effectively won the hearts and minds of 85% of the Chinese population not merely through persuasive posters and speeches, but rather with decisive actions in the benefit of the peasants. Land reforms were the flagship of Mao’s social revolution and as the communist leader himself put it “the mother of all other work.”. In order to implement effective land reforms Mao established regional leaders, in the form of cadres, with the main role of organizing the redistribution of land, and the retribution on the landlords. This mainly happened in the so called struggle meetings where peasants and laborers met to force wealthy landlords to pay for their actions; often in the forms of torture, beating or even killing, as these prosperous men were branded “enemies of the people”. As the peasants now had their possessions and their land at stake if the communists were to lose the civil war, the PLA now had an abundant amount of volunteering recruits: 5.4 million were mobilized for the Huaihai Campaign alone. Moreover, while these land reforms effectively supplied the PLA with manpower, the peasants were also willing to contribute with food, transport and labor, resulting in better equipped soldiers, as well as significantly higher morale in Mao’s military ranks.

Conclusively, in the civil struggle from 1945 until 1949 between the Communists led by Mao, and the Kuomintang led by Chiang Kai Shek, the CCP came out victorious due to the failings of the KMT, and the effectiveness of the communist policies. Japan’s destruction in China was mainly felt by the governing KMT, and as such Chiang Kai Shek’s side suffered from the economic and social repercussions of a world war. Simultaneously, the communists benefitted from the modernized equipment left behind by the Japanese, while additionally effectively making use of the weaknesses of the KMT. Thus while the CCP had many strengths, without the weakening of the KMT by the involvement of Japan, the communists’ strong cards would not have been sufficient to turn the civil war in their favor.