Siege of Changchun
- Thread starter Lezt
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vesicles
Colonel
Exactly What we used to hear about how brave the PLA was was almost all borrowed from how the Nationalists fought the Japanese. What we used to see how brave the PLA soldiers were in those old propaganda movies was actually what the Nationalists did. Some PLA vets said that they were shocked to see how brave these Nationalists were in later interviews. They were not allowed say these things before since the CCP wanted to paint this picture of cowardice Nationalists.
solarz
Brigadier
There is no doubt whatsoever that the Nationalist soldiers fought with extraordinary courage and determination against the Japanese invaders. However, no matter how bravely those soldiers and generals fought, the political leadership of Jiang undermined their best efforts.
Jiang only committed his best troops against the Japanese when they came against Shanghai, Jiang's powerbase. Before that, he sent poorly equipped troops that belonged to former warlords with the intent of only delaying the Japanese and buying time for him to wipe out the communists. It took Zhang Xueliang kidnapping him and forcing him at gunpoint before Jiang agreed to form a united front with the communists.
Vesicles mentioned earlier that both Jiang and Mao had Emperors' ambitions. I would disagree, on both counts. Jiang had the ambition of a warlord, and his actions demonstrated this clearly. He never did have the vision nor the ambition to rule over all of China. This is the guy who willingly gave up vast parts of China in order to secure his own rule.
As for Mao, his Emperor ambitions came later, after securing the rule of China and cultivating his personality cult. During the war against the Japanese, he had repeatedly called for a democratic two-party system.
vesicles
Colonel
Well, Jiang still aimed to be the sole ruler of a country, no matter how small the country is. A warlord would have no problem sharing power with others, like what happened in the Zhou dynasty with all the warring states. Jiang, on the other hand, could not stand the thought of sharing his power with anyone. Like you said, his primary goal at the beginning of the WWII was to eliminate his competition, be it other warlords or the CCP. That suggests he wanted to become the ultimate ruler. And his intention had always been ruling the entire China. He was simply planning to do in two steps: step one: eliminate all the internal enemies; step two: kick the Japanese out. Like I mentioned in my previous posts, Jiang believed that he would eventually get plenty help from the international community with fight against the Japanese. He, however, didn't believe that he would get any help at all when fighting his domestic enemies. So his initial priority was to eliminate his domestic enemies. Once that's done, he would then focus on the invasion. However, no one is fool. Everyone else knew about his plan. So the CCP tried their best to interfere his plan.
All in all, the fact that he wanted to eliminate his competition suggests that he wanted to be an emperor. Again, he would have no problem sharing the nation with others if he simply wanted to become a warlord. The only problem was he did not have the vision to complete his quest. I think it should be that Jiang had the ambition to become an emperor, but only had the vision and capability to be a warlord.
About Mao wanting a democratic govn't. I think it's all a gesture. At the time, Mao was the weak one. He was not even in a position to challenge Jiang since he was beaten badly and almost annihilated by the Nationalists. That's why he kept calling for a democratic govn't. He was simply begging the international community to put pressure on Jiang and to force Jiang to give up the plan to destroy him. Since Jiang wanted to look like a fair leader, he certainly could not flat out reject the notion of a democratic govn't. He would look bad in front of his international allies. That's what Mao was counting on. By calling for democratic gonv't, Mao was simply begging for mercy. Mao, on the other hand, would not entertain the idea of a democratic govn't when the CCP was winning at the end of the civil war. at that time, it was the Nationalists who called for a democratic govn't and sharing power in China. Mao did not even bother to respond to the call and simply sent his 1 million PLA to crush the Nationalists.
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solarz
Brigadier
I think that's a bit unfair. Mao was still calling for a two-party system after the Japanese surrendered, before the hostilities resumed with the Nationalists. At the time, the Communists were in pretty good shape. By the end of the civil war, it would have been completely unrealistic for the Communists to accept a two-party system with the Nationalists.
vesicles
Colonel
Soon after Japan surrendered, the CCP was not in a good position. They had a lot people, but most were untrained, inexperienced and mostly unarmed. That's why they put the access to Manchuria on top of their list of things to do. Even at the end of 1947, Lin Biao was losing battle after battle and was about to disband his troops and hide in the forest. So based on their overall situation, Mao wanted sympathy from the international community and suggested democracy.
Additionally, based on how Mao had been educated, Mao definitely did not believe in the Western style democracy. Although he was using communism as a tool to gather support, none of what he's doing had anything to do with democracy or communism. If you look at his style from the very beginning, he was using Chinese historical figures as his model. One of his favorite novels was the Romance of the 3 Kingdoms and his goal had always been becoming someone like Cao Cao. Plus, he compared himself to all the great emperors in Chinese history in his poem. He definitely had the ambition to becoming an emperor. Unlike Washington who obviously had no ambition to any kind of dictation and gave up his position, Mao came up with strategies to systematically exterminate all his capable followers, just like what all the ancient Chinese emperors had done. All those political movements that happened after '49 were aimed at one thing and one thing only: to eliminate his followers and capable captains and to pave the road for the Mao Empire. Unfortunately, everything went wrong for him and the Chinese people...
One more thing I want to add about the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. At the time the troops at the area are poorly equiped and poorly trained, no armour and no air force. It's highly doubtful they can resist the Japs for long. I heard from somewhere that the guerrila left behind got wipeout. That shows how much support the Chinese troops can get from the populace.
I highly recommend two books: 国破山河在 and 尊严不是无代价的 by 萨苏. He gathered historic documents from the Japanese archives to show what the Chinese forces did
I would have uploaded the file if I can
I highly recommend two books: 国破山河在 and 尊严不是无代价的 by 萨苏. He gathered historic documents from the Japanese archives to show what the Chinese forces did
I would have uploaded the file if I can
vesicles look like you have a lot knowledge on the sino Japanese war.
From what I understand that Japan tried very hard to conquer China, and unlike Germany invasion of Russia, where it was just stopped at Moscow/Stalingrad, Japanese army was able to keep pushing deeper and deeper into China, they were still gaining territory as late as 1944. However the more they conquer, the more they got bogged down. Until Soviet Union invaded from North.
I want to know, just before the Soviet invaded, what was the situation? If they had not invaded, did China have enough force to push back the Japanese army all the way back? Or, rather at the same time, can Japan still mount more invasion until they actually beat the Chinese force?
From what I understand that Japan tried very hard to conquer China, and unlike Germany invasion of Russia, where it was just stopped at Moscow/Stalingrad, Japanese army was able to keep pushing deeper and deeper into China, they were still gaining territory as late as 1944. However the more they conquer, the more they got bogged down. Until Soviet Union invaded from North.
I want to know, just before the Soviet invaded, what was the situation? If they had not invaded, did China have enough force to push back the Japanese army all the way back? Or, rather at the same time, can Japan still mount more invasion until they actually beat the Chinese force?
After Operation Ichigo the Japanese logistics situation had gotten to the point that it couldn't handle any further offensives, while the Chinese supply situation got better with the passage of time, so that by the time the Soviets launched their offensive Chinese forces had already made major counteroffensives along much of the front.
Japanese focused a lot on counter-insurgency work, which is why their efforts there was more effective than their conventional operations during the war. Likewise the CCP learned quite a bit about insurgency and counterinsurgency with their experiences with Japanese forces.
At the same time I don't buy the whole idealist notion of Washington given how people like Napoleon were more the rule rather than the exception politically, and even people like Washington utilized power the same way the British did, so it's more a matter of "they don't fit my political alignment so every bad thing they did just shows how much of a devil they are"...
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