Siege of Changchun

You know when people say that the history is written by the victor. Sadly, it is true. The Nationalists lost the civil war. So the CCP got to write their fictional version of the history during WWII. Instead of telling the world what the Chinese (at the time, mainly the Nationalists) actually did, they attempted to glorify their part, which was not much at all. So they glorified the guerilla style and it's effectiveness and also borowed many things that the Nationalists did. So when people look at it with a critical eye, they say " wait a minute, they did THIS with a few dozen soildiers?". "this can't be right. If this was all the Chinese did (the guerilla stuff), then it was impossible for them to win anything!". "But how did they win it?". "It's got to be someone else because no one can defeat a massive scale invasion with couple hundred bandits running around stealing food and guns".

In order to make a better villain out of the Nationalists, the CCP further fictionalized how bad the Nationalists were in the war and how much they did not even want to fight. This further paints an image of idiotic and cowardish Chinese in the war. So the Chinese looked like either running away from the enemy, being slaughtered, or running around stealing food and guns.

The truth was none of this was true. The Chinese fought massive scale battles, with some of the largest battles ever fought in the history of mankind (battle of Wuhan), and won decisively. The 3 battles of Changsha (lasted 3 years), during which the Nationalists consistently won and caused over 100,000 enemy casualties, would be good examples. Yet, none of this was ever publicized since China is in the hands of the CCP who does not want people to know how good the Nationalists were.

vesicles said:

So they glorified the guerilla style and it's effectiveness and also borowed many things that the Nationalists did. So when people look at it with a critical eye, they say " wait a minute, they did THIS with a few dozen soildiers?". "this can't be right. If this was all the Chinese did (the guerilla stuff), then it was impossible for them to win anything!". "But how did they win it?". "It's got to be someone else because no one can defeat a massive scale invasion with couple hundred bandits running around stealing food and guns".

Click to expand...

If one looks at how the Spanish in the Napoleonic wars or the Yugoslavs in WWII utilized guerilla forces it isn't as crazy sound as it might seem at first narratively speaking, although nowadays no one is denying the contribution of the Nationalist forces during the Sino-Japanese war.

montyp165 said:

If one looks at how the Spanish in the Napoleonic wars or the Yugoslavs in WWII utilized guerilla forces it isn't as crazy sound as it might seem at first narratively speaking, although nowadays no one is denying the contribution of the Nationalist forces during the Sino-Japanese war.

Click to expand...

I remember I had this big argument about the effectiveness of guerilla with Solarz a while back and don't want to get in another one. However, I highly doubt their effectiveness. None of them, Spanish or the Yugoslavs, actually was able to change the outcome of the war. It took the massive regular armies of the Russians and the Russian winter to break Napoleon and Hitler. The guerilla was simply An annoyance. I think a lot of times, the effectiveness of the resistance in the form of guerilla in an occupied land is exaggerated for political reasons, such as keeping up the moral. Letting people know "we are not giving up! We are still fighting! And the enemy is not as invincible as they seem!"

vesicles said:

I remember I had this big argument about the effectiveness of guerilla with Solarz a while back and don't want to get in another one. However, I highly doubt their effectiveness. None of them, Spanish or the Yugoslavs, actually was able to change the outcome of the war. It took the massive regular armies of the Russians and the Russian winter to break Napoleon and Hitler. The guerilla was simply An annoyance. I think a lot of times, the effectiveness of the resistance in the form of guerilla in an occupied land is exaggerated for political reasons, such as keeping up the moral. Letting people know "we are not giving up! We are still fighting! And the enemy is not as invincible as they seem!"

Click to expand...

Well, I've always said that if Chiang had been more Socialist Nationalist (SONA) in approach, not only wouldn't there be a political split, but a CCP-structured KMT party system simultaneously working behind enemy lines mobilizing the masses while regular forces striking the Japanese, then the Japanese would never have advanced past Beijing. Weakness of political strategy can undermine even the best military ones unfortunately.

montyp165 said:

Well, I've always said that if Chiang had been more Socialist Nationalist (SONA) in approach, not only wouldn't there be a political split, but a CCP-structured KMT party system simultaneously working behind enemy lines mobilizing the masses while regular forces striking the Japanese, then the Japanese would never have advanced past Beijing. Weakness of political strategy can undermine even the best military ones unfortunately.

Click to expand...

Agreed! Interestingly, I've read a biography of Jiang a while back, which attempted to explain why he decided to do what he did. First of all, as a formally trained military officer (he went to military school in Japan and actually served in the Japanese Imperial army when he was young), he did not believe the usefulness of this guerilla style.

He also thought his primary enemy was the CCP, not the Japanese, even though Japan was invading China. He believed that a foreign invasion can only be defeated if you have a unified home. So he focused so much on eliminating the CCP even when Japan was at his door step. He also believe that even the Japanese invasion could be unstoppable at the beginning, international communication would not stand by and watch and let Japan do whatever it wanted in China forever. This was because so many Western nations had so much interests in China. Allowing Japan to completely occupy China would mean serious loss in their investment in China. Nobody would allow what they have worked hard for to be taken away. So sooner or later, these western nations would have to step in and intervene. So he was not terribly worried about Japan at the beginning. However, he knew that no one will do anything if there was a domestic fight between him and the CCP. Since this would a domestic matter, it would be difficult for any foreigner to take side. They would think, "well, even if the CCP won, it would be just another Chinese govn't. We'll just work with them like any other Chinese govn't we have worked with before. So why jeopardize our future relationship with the potential new govn't by supporting the old one?". So it would be unlikely that anyone would step in to help him fight the CCP. So the CCP was his enemy#1. So even during the most difficult part of the WWII, he stil decided to attack the CCP base while at the time, fighting the Japanese.

I think this all stemmed from this "emperor" mentality. Both Jiang and Mao shared the same emperor mentality. Neither wanted to share power and all wanted to be the ultimate ruler in China. If they were willing to share power and had sme kind of democratic govn't style in mind, Japanese could not even enter manchuria. When Japan attacked manchuria, Jiang wanted to conserve strength to fight the CCP. So he ordered his 300,000 troops to pull back to the south of the Shanhai Pass without firing a single shot. If he actually decided to fight in Manchuria, it would be almost impossible for the Japanese to do anything in Asia. At the time, Japan only had Korea and small parts of Siberia. Without the resources they would get in Manchuria, they would not even have enough weapons and supply to start any meaningful advance in China or any part of Asia. Yet, Jiang was not willing to share power wih the CCP and considered Japanese as only a secondary threat. That proved to be disasterous.

You know, I was thinking that if Jiang had made an effort to stop Japanese advance into Manchuria, he might have become really popular, and thus won major credibility in people's mind over Mao as a suitable leader for the nation.

no_name said:

You know, I was thinking that if Jiang had made an effort to stop Japanese advance into Manchuria, he might have become really popular, and thus won major credibility in people's mind over Mao as a suitable leader for the nation.

Click to expand...

Here's an interesting example of something similar to that, from a counter-factual historical perspective:

no_name said:

You know, I was thinking that if Jiang had made an effort to stop Japanese advance into Manchuria, he might have become really popular, and thus won major credibility in people's mind over Mao as a suitable leader for the nation.

Click to expand...

I actually think Jiang WAS pretty popular after WWII since he beat the Japanese. He lost the civil war because he made serious strategic mistakes, not because he was unpopular. All the "people hating Jiang" was almost all pure CCP propaganda. There was news reports and photos about majority of civilians running away from the PLA and retreating with the Nationalists even when the PLA was attacking Shanghai, which was the last big battle in the civil war. So the CCP was not as well liked as they claimed to be. The PLA vets also agreed to this account in later interviews.

vesicles said:

I actually think Jiang WAS pretty popular after WWII since he beat the Japanese. He lost the civil war because he made serious strategic mistakes, not because he was unpopular. All the "people hating Jiang" was almost all pure CCP propaganda. There was news reports and photos about majority of civilians running away from the PLA and retreating with the Nationalists even when the PLA was attacking Shanghai, which was the last big battle in the civil war. So the CCP was not as well liked as they claimed to be. The PLA vets also agreed to this account in later interviews.

Click to expand...

I think we're getting really off topic, but I would caution you about this statement. Shanghai was Jiang's powerbase. He had a lot of supporters there. The opinions of farmers in Sichuan and Henan is not going to be anything similar.

Remember that the entire CCP-KMT civil war was basically a story of class warfare: peasants vs land-owners, factory workers and intellectuals vs capitalists.

The problem with trying to make any subjective value call on these historical events is that reality is complex enough that one can cherry-pick any number of facts to present any kind of view.

The fact is, some people supported the KMT, other people supported the CCP. Which side is more numerous is really quite irrelevant.

As for the measure of contribution in the war against the Japanese, the KMT will seek to belittle the CCP's efforts, while the CCP will do the same against the KMT. I've no doubt that the CCP exaggerates their own contributions, but it would be a mistake to think that they're the only ones doing this.

All I can say is, there is no doubt that the Nationalist contributed far greater military efforts against the Japanese, but they were the government of China at the time, while the Communists were the equivalent of a militia. However, the Communists were still able to survive 8 years behind enemy lines, achieved certain undeniable military successes, and still managed to grow.

I mean, this thread was generalistic in nature in the first place so don't mind where it is heading.

Like, it took the Americans 100 some years after the american civil war to freely see both sides; or the british took a good while before they digested Oliver Cormwell after the English civil war.

It is not too early to try to throw some eggs at the current perceptions we have of the Chinese civil war may it be the remanent of propaganda and historical fact.

I mean there is so much uncertainties during that period and it is most certainly an important part of humanity which will continue to shape us today.