1945 to 1949 – the (Second) Civil War (of the Modern Era) Period

Japan surrendered in China after Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the US attempted to ensure that they surrendered to GMD rather than CCP forces. CCP forces raced to be in the best position to receive the surrender but ultimately Japan surrendered to the GMD (aided by the US).

Subsequent peace negotiations between the CCP and the GMD failed twice despite Truman sending General Marshall to overcome the first stalling of the process. Civil war then re-started in earnest. The CCP armies defeated those of the GMD in fairly short order, though Yan’an fell to the GMD in 1947 (fortunately for the CCP, its armies and real power were elsewhere in northern China by that stage).

The CCP swiftly embarked upon land reforms in the hope of shoring up support as the war still raged but reform soon came to resemble mob rule as violent and unjust actions were perpetrated in various areas. This potential backfire led Mao to cancel the reforms for the time and revert to the more conciliatory policies he had generally employed during the anti-Japanese war.

The GMD’s rule in the cities was, in turn, also chaotic. Inflation ran rampant as the currency was changed several times. There was endemic starvation in the south and poor harvests in the north threatened more problems for GMD rule. The leadership was also seen as and was corrupt, black markets flourished and war shortages and privations had taken a toll on most everyone’s morale (as well as in many cases morality). Nevertheless, the GMD continued (rather brazenly in the circumstances) to confidently importune internationally. Of the materiel the US had made available to the GMD, more and more had begun to fall into the hands of the CCP and needed to be replaced as the CCP began to win the civil war but the US seemed ready to prop up the GMD against the CCP at whatever cost in pursuit of satisfaction of perceived Cold War needs.

The solution to the civil war morass was a change of tactics by the CCP. Finally the CCP forces began to focus their attacks on the major GMD cities. Following this change the deathblows were struck rather quickly. By 1948 the CCP was in complete control in the North. The GMD’s commander for central China, Feng Wei, leader of the 12 Army, and his troops were soon forced to flee the CCP advance. He was captured in short order having first broken through CCP lines on around 15 December 1948 in an attempt to escape.

The GMD having almost completely lost popular support, Jiang resigned his leadership. The GMD leadership and many troops finally began to retreat across the Taiwan Straits to Taiwan in January of 1949 with as much treasure as they were able to transport. The rear guard anti-CCP actions of GMD police in Shanghai included summary street shootings of suspects caught on film for posterity to marvel at the ongoing brutality of the failed regime. CCP cadres were forced to kneel in the street before being shot in the back of the head. According to his son, Chiang Ching-kuo, Jiang, having resumed the leadership in Taiwan in 1950, never gave up on the hope of the eventual return of the GMD to the mainland in victory.

Meanwhile as they assumed power the CCP were hailed on the streets by the people of the cities in the spirit of sheer relief, anticipation and exhilaration. But what actually was Maoism going to involve now? I’ll explore that some more in the next several posts.

Jia (Family) by Ba Jin and Fan Shen by William Hinton are works that give a flavour of what went on before and around the final formation of the PRC in 1949. Hinton’s work in particular is a firsthand account of land reform in rural China just before 1949 and Ba’s concerns life in China before Mao.

US involvement in East Asia in the Yan’an Period

How the US attempted to choose the outcome of the civil war even as world war raged is an interesting side story.

Militarily, there seemed little reason to support the GMD. As Chongqing was being bombed in the late 30s and early 40s, US general Joseph Stilwell was commanding some of the GMD forces in China. He was known to have great respect for the fighting spirit of the GMD enlisted men but to have little belief in the guts or moral fibre of the GMD generals. He evidently considered they were procrastinators, soft and probably corrupt. Meanwhile the GMD’s large contingents of conscript troops were sometimes given mouldy rice with sand in it and insufficient clothing and were largely literally tied together in groups to prevent their mass desertion while the generals tended to live ‘high on the hog’, according to at least one source.

Stilwell finally demanded changes. He eventually came to the conclusion that it was in US interests to engage in dialogue with Yan’an and sent a ‘Dixie mission’ there in 1944 named for being seen as a mission to the rebels (an allusion to the American Civil War ‘Dixie’ southern rebel side). Jiang, realising his attitude, demanded that Stilwell be removed and he was soon recalled and replaced by General Wedermeyer.

The Dixie embassy meanwhile was treated well as they dwelt in Yan’an for a year, watching manoeuvres and speaking to the leadership. One of the mission members recalls Mao as being not very charismatic but very forthright and clearly in command. He once remarked “when Mao spoke, no dog barked”.

General Eisenhower sought the reformation of the GMD/CCP alliance and sent Major General Patrick Hurley to negotiate with both sides. Hurley’s general attitude to Mao Zedong may be gauged by his habit of referring to him in a play on words as “moose dung”. Historians now understand that he was ‘at sea’ in the complex (and foreign to him) social and political environment. Among other things, he was unable to tell some of the Chinese leaders apart.

Meanwhile, some US analysts in China were reporting to the US government that not only was it likely the CCP would win the war against the Japanese virtually single-handedly, they would later likely also win the war against the GMD.

Diplomatically, the GMD was well (if informally) represented in the US by the charming Madam Jiang, that Princess Diana of her day, who travelled the highways and byways of the US speaking to Congress and begging for more money for the GMD.

In due course the US dropped two atomic bombs on Japanese cities and the world war swiftly came to a conclusion.

The Yan’an Period

While the CCP was still licking its wounds, recovering and regrouping at Yan’an in 1937, Japan got greedy. This proved a relatively great boon for the greatly weakened party. Japan was regarded as a hated enemy by many Chinese especially since it had been engaged in brutal occupations of various parts of China since the early 1920s (sharing the WWI ‘spoils’ of the other ‘foreign devils’ on the winning side). CCP success in fighting the Japanese would begin to rebuild their popular support and the GMD would also be too busy with the Japanese to attack Yan’an with full force. They might even be forced back into an actual alliance with the CCP, however shaky that might prove. This forced alliance provided breathing space the CCP desperately needed. In the meantime, it had a chance to practice government over around 3,000,000 people.

Jiang actually refused to fight the Japanese in 1937 and this led to his kidnapping by agents of the CCP and his being forced to resume heading a new alliance with the CCP (along with other nationalist parties). Zhou, a former colleague at Whampoa, was instrumental in bringing about his agreement to this state of affairs. The GMD was forced to re-enter into an alliance (a second ‘united front’) with the CCP for the sake of national unity. The fact was, however, that the GMD continued to prefer containing the Communists (while the latter actually fought against the Japanese) to actually fighting the Japanese themselves. For much of the war against the Japanese, around half a million of the GMD’s crack troops were occupied blockading CCP territory.

The GMD forces of the GMD 2IC in fact ran away from Japanese forces invading Manchuria in the North and even in the heartland the GMD abandoned Shanghai to them in November of 1937 (albeit after a little more of a fight than in Manchuria). Japan also took the prizes of Beijing and Tianjin to go along with Manchuria and Shanghai in 1937.

The Japanese proved a brutal occupier and committed notable atrocities in October (around the time their aerial bombardment of Shanghai was also producing mass casualties). In a few short months Japan had gained control of half of the seaboard of China and in December they commenced the so-called “Rape of Nanking”, the by then abandoned capital of the GMD, massacring an estimated 200,000 people there. Further to that, Jiang’s idea of inundating a significant region of China to halt the Japanese advance not only didn’t work, its fruition was the death by drowning of several hundred thousand more Chinese men, women and children and the homelessness of several hundred thousand more again.

Meanwhile Chongqing further west (on the Yangzi in eastern Sichuan province) became the new GMD capital. The Japanese then commenced the bombing of Chongqing. The exodus of people and infrastructure from Nanjing (Nanking) to Chongqing was phenomenal but equally noticeable was the bleeding of many people to the Communist capital of Yan’an (and to a party that was actually fighting the Japanese). People were also inspired by the relative closeness of the CCP leadership to its people (admittedly they had the advantage in this connection of ruling over a smaller population but the 'mass line' (see below) was practiced and that practice was noted and widely admired).

Mao had set up the Anti-Japanese University in Yan’an. This attracted students from all over China seeking training to become military and political/intellectual cadres of the CCP. They were then sent all over China to do the party’s work and could even belong to rural capitalist classes such as the landlord class; this was based on the idea of ‘New Democracy’ (again see below) (provided they weren’t actually collaborating with the Japanese in any way). Women were also permitted to contribute to this mobilisation for the first time in China (as women in the West were also fighting for virtually the first time).

In this war period (after the initial Japanese successes), the Red Army became a formidable fighting force, due in part to its practice at simultaneously fighting external and internal enemies (and making alliances across classes based on the Sun idea of ‘New Democracy’ (again see below - this later proved to be merely pragmatism for Mao)).

The CCP commando/guerrilla tactics proved successful against the Japanese while the GMD preferred to hold back from fighting the Japanese in anticipation of the expected later fight with the CCP, which they hoped would be severely depleted by their virtually unaided fight with the Japanese.

There were indeed also several actual GMD/CCP skirmishes in this period. One that occurred in January of 1941 actually wiped out a complete CCP unit and brought about the end of the formal coalition. Jiang noted at one point something to the effect that “the Japanese are a disease of the skin but the CCP are a disease of the heart” when discussing his attitude to his two foes.

While fighting the Japanese (and GMD) the Communists didn’t neglect home affairs at Yan’an and a style of rule developed that later came to be referred to as “the Yan’an Way”. There were five features:

1) ‘New Democracy’ as a pragmatic theory that recognised the interests of a middle class and ‘national’ capitalists as well as those of workers and peasants;

2) A “mass line” policy that compulsorily and regularly brought leaders (and all CCP members) into close contact with the masses (including a manual work requirement);

3) A comprehensive political, economic, social and military party organisational structure;

4) Ideological and educational campaigns were used to spread correct ideas; and

5) Intellectuals were required to labour with the peasants and literature, intellectualism and art were regarded as subordinate to the service of the revolution.

Mao and the Renewal of the CCP (Jiangxi Period)

Despite the purge at Shanghai, the CCP was by no means done for. It was a party whose idea had been seeded in various places and (though thousands had been killed) there still remained tens of thousands of adherents. Members had received their first baptism of fire. For the time being the GMD had a significant power base superiority, though (in the major cities, especially, and those cities were where, in the traditional party and Communist doctrine, the party had to operate).

The countryside (where the CCP was able to gain the most actual traction) was a sideshow for conventional Communists but a faction led by Mao disagreed. The mountainous countryside happened to be safer for the moment than the cities and sooner or later, after failed uprisings, more and more members were forced to retreat to Mao’s rural patch in the province of Jiangxi. It eventually became a prime Communist base. Mao had begun to become an ideologist in contradicting the orthodoxy presumed by many of his senior fellows and developed his own rural class analysis. He stressed the importance of land and social reform policies, saw the poor peasants as a revolutionary class – a kind of rural proletariat – and acted at Jiangxi, setting up a new kind of reforming state, the Jiangxi Soviet, to implement land reform there.

The province was poor and inequality in it was endemic so it was ripe for popular support for Communism and long-overdue reform. While Mao still didn’t lead the party, he began to make his reputation here as at least an uncompromising fighter for the party and a firebrand who could shout slogans with the best of them. As unaware as most Chinese intellectuals of China’s ubiquitous rural poverty, meanwhile, Western producers of newsreels on China in the 1920s and even the 1930s typically depicted things like the undoubtedly effervescent debauchery and heady decadence they were able to find in the relatively cosmopolitan sectors of cities like Shanghai.

In tactical terms, Mao also organised forces to conduct the guerrilla warfare he favoured from his base. When the GMD set its sights on Jiangxi in a series of ‘extermination’ campaigns, on four occasions Mao’s forces successfully defended themselves and the Soviet using these tactics. Chiang’s forces moved too quickly, ironically, to be able to coordinate the advance so as to effectively engage Mao’s more manoeuvrable guerrilla force. By the fifth occasion, however, Chiang had learned this lesson. His forces advanced more slowly and methodically this time and were thus able to strangle the CCP forces.

Mao was down and out (for the time being). While the CCP lived to fight another day, Mao lost command of his forces and a Soviet advisor, Li De (formerly Otto Braun), was brought in, who advised the Communist Red Army (later the People’s Liberation Army – PLA) to fight with more orthodoxy. As the GMD had air superiority, however, and other advantages in a conventional war, this advice proved to be the wrong advice and the Communists were violently defeated and forced into the retreat that came to be called the Long March. In part, this military defeat also occurred because the party was losing support. Aspects of the violent intentions and policies of the party that were off-putting to many had become clearer to more former supporters.