Thoughts on the Chinese Civil War

it is unclear the extent to which the Soviet Union aided the CCP during the 1945-1949 civil war. understandably, the CCP has downplayed the significance of the Russians’ aid. apparently, in the 1990s, the Dalian government released some records to honor the crucial and important contributions of Dalian in the civil war victory, that also indirectly revealed the secret and important CCP-Soviet collaboration in Dalian then.

according to them, the Dalian Jianxin company with the Russians’ invaluable assistance manufactured the weapons and ammunition and other military stores, and that included the compatible bullets and artillery shells for the captured KMT weapons. the captured KMT ammunition items were never adequate enough to meet the needs of the CCP Armies. Generals Chen Yi and Su Yu acknowledged the importance of the Dalian munitions, which determined the CCP victory in East China then.

they of course cannot tell everything about the Jianxin company then but it still offered some insight into the civil war to some degree.

the Dalian Jianxin company, strongly supported by the Soviet Russians, manufactured the munitions for the CCP armies. in particular, Central and East China. the Soviet Russians gave concealed constant supplies of munitions to the CCP forces in Manchuria during 1945-1948.

1947年林彪向苏联求援：要20万支枪 2000门火炮



apparently, the Soviet Union gave massive military aid to the CCP then. and on many occasions, the Russians gave the CCP the munitions mostly through the North Korea. it is said tens of thousands of North Korean soldiers joined the CCP armies to fight against the KMT forces in Manchuria then.

lightspeed said:

the Dalian Jianxin company, strongly supported by the Soviet Russians, manufactured the munitions for the CCP armies. in particular, Central and East China. the Soviet Russians gave concealed constant supplies of munitions to the CCP forces in Manchuria during 1945-1948.

1947年林彪向苏联求援：要20万支枪 2000门火炮

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apparently, the Soviet Union gave massive military aid to the CCP then. and on many occasions, the Russians gave the CCP the munitions mostly through the North Korea. it is said tens of thousands of North Korean soldiers joined the CCP armies to fight against the KMT forces in Manchuria then.

Click to expand...

But remember that Huaihai campaign was fought mostly by Huabei and Zhongyuan field armies, with Lin Biao's army still up north.

The victory in North-east China, and the acquisition of the North-East Industrial base and vast quantities of Japanese weaponries given/left by the Soviet army made Lin Biao's army without doubt the strongest in CCP, and the force nearly all KMT generals dreaded to face. And this gave the CCP leadership the confidence to start the final decisive campaigns against the KMT. But Lin Biao's force did not participate in Huaihai campaign.

The bottom-line is this: KMT lost the war with CCP not because of any military aid or what-not CCP received, and nor because America did not give enough aid to the KMT.

The KMT lost because they lost support of the vast number of the Chinese peasants, which accounted for about 90% of China's population at the time. Mao's land reform policies gave the Chinese peasants a stake-hold in their revolution, and made them willingly contribute men, labour and materials to the CCP cause. KMT's army became no more than equivalent of an occupation force trapped in isolated islands of cities and towns linked by a very poor and rudimentary road/rail network.

It was a historical fact that during the Huaihai campaign, CCP forces won some of the key and heaviest battles relying on KMT soldiers fighting for them. In some cases, if I remember correctly, during the battle to eliminate the encircled Huang-Wei army group, at the latter stages, the CCP forces had suffered heavy casualties and used up all of their reserves, and had to rely on "reformed" KMT POWs to keep the offensive going. Only squad-leaders in the CCP units had the CCP uniforms and CCP caps, all soldiers wore KMT uniforms and CCP caps. The process of converting the KMT POWs to CCP side only took a couple of hours. The KMT soldiers easily turned to the CCP side because most of them came from poor peasant families, had no resonance with what KMT can offer, but saw the CCP as one of their own. Some of the most famous CCP heroes like Qiu Shaoyun were in fact previously low morale KMT soldiers captured by the CCP. The same solider, in different militaries, resulted in different morale and fighting resolve.

These examples illustrated the reason why CCP won the war. The CCP won and KMT lost, because KMT had lost the so called "mandate of heaven", a.k.a., the support of the majority of the Chinese people.

As a matter of fact, Chiang Kai-Shek learned his mistakes, and took a leaf out of Mao's play book, and implemented similar land reforms on Taiwan and consolidated his power in the process.

wtlh said:

But remember that Huaihai campaign was fought mostly by Huabei and Zhongyuan field armies, with Lin Biao's army still up north.

The victory in North-east China, and the acquisition of the North-East Industrial base and vast quantities of Japanese weaponries given/left by the Soviet army made Lin Biao's army without doubt the strongest in CCP, and the force nearly all KMT generals dreaded to face. And this gave the CCP leadership the confidence to start the final decisive campaigns against the KMT. But Lin Biao's force did not participate in Huaihai campaign.

The bottom-line is this: KMT lost the war with CCP not because of any military aid or what-not CCP received, and nor because America did not give enough aid to the KMT.

The KMT lost because they lost support of the vast number of the Chinese peasants, which accounted for about 90% of China's population at the time. Mao's land reform policies gave the Chinese peasants a stake-hold in their revolution, and made them willingly contribute men, labour and materials to the CCP cause. KMT's army became no more than equivalent of an occupation force trapped in isolated islands of cities and towns linked by a very poor and rudimentary road/rail network.

It was a historical fact that during the Huaihai campaign, CCP forces won some of the key and heaviest battles relying on KMT soldiers fighting for them. In some cases, if I remember correctly, during the battle to eliminate the encircled Huang-Wei army group, at the latter stages, the CCP forces had suffered heavy casualties and used up all of their reserves, and had to rely on "reformed" KMT POWs to keep the offensive going. Only squad-leaders in the CCP units had the CCP uniforms and CCP caps, all soldiers wore KMT uniforms and CCP caps. The process of converting the KMT POWs to CCP side only took a couple of hours. The KMT soldiers easily turned to the CCP side because most of them came from poor peasant families, had no resonance with what KMT can offer, but saw the CCP as one of their own. Some of the most famous CCP heroes like Qiu Shaoyun were in fact previously low morale KMT soldiers captured by the CCP. The same solider, in different militaries, resulted in different morale and fighting resolve.

These examples illustrated the reason why CCP won the war. The CCP won and KMT lost, because KMT had lost the so called "mandate of heaven", a.k.a., the support of the majority of the Chinese people.

As a matter of fact, Chiang Kai-Shek learned his mistakes, and took a leaf out of Mao's play book, and implemented similar land reforms on Taiwan and consolidated his power in the process.

Click to expand...

I am not a huge fan of that narrative as that is more inline with what the CCP promotes nowadays. There is merit and truth in that narrative but I do not believe it to be the complete narrative; the truth lies somewhere within.

The support of the people is less important than what it the people (we/us) wants to believe in. As history have shown, small dedicated well trained forces can win wars and command a much larger alien population. The mongol conquests, the British Raj, European Africa, American Indian Wars, Prussia under Fredrick etc. The notion that popular support wins wars is true, but not the whole truth nor the absolute truth.

Chaing with all his failings also did great things for China, like getting the Allies to accept the 9 dash lines in the south china sea. Sending nationalist marines to hold those islands in the south Chinese sea, and having fought the soviet for control of Mongolia. He and the KMT are Chinese and are patriots.

The Chinese civil war was a battle of ideology and a struggle between social class. The fact that China came out of WW2 favored the communists as you have said, they have manpower from the poor. But what good is that manpower if you cannot feed and arm them? That ability, industrial base lies predominantly with the KMT but the majority of which were destroyed by the Japanese and stripped away (manchuria) by the soviets. i.e. the key advantage that the KMT had were largely dissipated at the resumption of the civil war.

That said, the soviet aid to the CCP was much more effective as the CCP had the manpower to take up the arms. American aid to the KMT didn't help enough because it does not buy the time need for the engineers, scientists etc to rebuild the country into a state that the fruits of technology can offset the inadequacy of manpower. What the KMT really needed was an US garrison of maybe 100 divisions for 30 years to help the KMT rebuilt it's heavy industries.

The latter point is also relevant to today's politics. In a sense, that is why the US will lose Iraq and had lost Vietnam because they wanted it to be a quick war but look at how strong South Korea (vis-a-vis North Korea) is now once she grew under the US umbrella.

wtlh said:

But remember that Huaihai campaign was fought mostly by Huabei and Zhongyuan field armies, with Lin Biao's army still up north.

The victory in North-east China, and the acquisition of the North-East Industrial base and vast quantities of Japanese weaponries given/left by the Soviet army made Lin Biao's army without doubt the strongest in CCP, and the force nearly all KMT generals dreaded to face. And this gave the CCP leadership the confidence to start the final decisive campaigns against the KMT. But Lin Biao's force did not participate in Huaihai campaign.

The bottom-line is this: KMT lost the war with CCP not because of any military aid or what-not CCP received, and nor because America did not give enough aid to the KMT.

The KMT lost because they lost support of the vast number of the Chinese peasants, which accounted for about 90% of China's population at the time. Mao's land reform policies gave the Chinese peasants a stake-hold in their revolution, and made them willingly contribute men, labour and materials to the CCP cause. KMT's army became no more than equivalent of an occupation force trapped in isolated islands of cities and towns linked by a very poor and rudimentary road/rail network.

It was a historical fact that during the Huaihai campaign, CCP forces won some of the key and heaviest battles relying on KMT soldiers fighting for them. In some cases, if I remember correctly, during the battle to eliminate the encircled Huang-Wei army group, at the latter stages, the CCP forces had suffered heavy casualties and used up all of their reserves, and had to rely on "reformed" KMT POWs to keep the offensive going. Only squad-leaders in the CCP units had the CCP uniforms and CCP caps, all soldiers wore KMT uniforms and CCP caps. The process of converting the KMT POWs to CCP side only took a couple of hours. The KMT soldiers easily turned to the CCP side because most of them came from poor peasant families, had no resonance with what KMT can offer, but saw the CCP as one of their own. Some of the most famous CCP heroes like Qiu Shaoyun were in fact previously low morale KMT soldiers captured by the CCP. The same solider, in different militaries, resulted in different morale and fighting resolve.

These examples illustrated the reason why CCP won the war. The CCP won and KMT lost, because KMT had lost the so called "mandate of heaven", a.k.a., the support of the majority of the Chinese people.

As a matter of fact, Chiang Kai-Shek learned his mistakes, and took a leaf out of Mao's play book, and implemented similar land reforms on Taiwan and consolidated his power in the process.

Click to expand...

the victory of the CCP on the mainland cannot be attributed solely to the so-called support of the people nor it was a critical factor. if the Soviet Union didn’t give the concealed huge military aid to the CCP, the so-called the people’s support would never played the so-called decisive role then. the CCP simply cannot fight the protracted war without the adequate weapons and ammunition. the people's support cannot simply change the big picture.

the CCP’s the Huaihai campaign victory was summarized in one sentence by Su Yu: the Dalian munitions won the CCP the campaign. evidently, if there was no Soviet Russians’ invaluable assistance, there would never be a Dalian Jianxin company to manufacture the munitions that determined the outcome of the war in East China, in particular, the Huaihai campaign. apparently, Lin Biao's Army munitions in Manchuria were largely given by the Soviet Russians.

the defeat of the KMT on the mainland were caused by many complex factors. the most important reasons were the Soviet Union’s concealed huge military aid to the CCP, the CCP spies inside the KMT’s military organization, the great suspension and reduction of USA military and financial aid to the KMT, and the CCP spy Ji Chaoding’s financial sabotage that caused the disastrous hyperinflation of currency.

Lezt said:

I am not a huge fan of that narrative as that is more inline with what the CCP promotes nowadays. There is merit and truth in that narrative but I do not believe it to be the complete narrative; the truth lies somewhere within.

The support of the people is less important than what it the people (we/us) wants to believe in. As history have shown, small dedicated well trained forces can win wars and command a much larger alien population. The mongol conquests, the British Raj, European Africa, American Indian Wars, Prussia under Fredrick etc. The notion that popular support wins wars is true, but not the whole truth nor the absolute truth.

Chaing with all his failings also did great things for China, like getting the Allies to accept the 9 dash lines in the south china sea. Sending nationalist marines to hold those islands in the south Chinese sea, and having fought the soviet for control of Mongolia. He and the KMT are Chinese and are patriots.

The Chinese civil war was a battle of ideology and a struggle between social class. The fact that China came out of WW2 favored the communists as you have said, they have manpower from the poor. But what good is that manpower if you cannot feed and arm them? That ability, industrial base lies predominantly with the KMT but the majority of which were destroyed by the Japanese and stripped away (manchuria) by the soviets. i.e. the key advantage that the KMT had were largely dissipated at the resumption of the civil war.

That said, the soviet aid to the CCP was much more effective as the CCP had the manpower to take up the arms. American aid to the KMT didn't help enough because it does not buy the time need for the engineers, scientists etc to rebuild the country into a state that the fruits of technology can offset the inadequacy of manpower. What the KMT really needed was an US garrison of maybe 100 divisions for 30 years to help the KMT rebuilt it's heavy industries.

The latter point is also relevant to today's politics. In a sense, that is why the US will lose Iraq and had lost Vietnam because they wanted it to be a quick war but look at how strong South Korea (vis-a-vis North Korea) is now once she grew under the US umbrella.

Click to expand...

It was Chiang's mistake to have underestimated the power of the peasants, as were most of the strategic analysts of the time. The reason peasants have played much a bigger role in China before 1949, than perhaps that would otherwise in Europe or Russia, is due to the Chinese demographics, and its contemporary economic structure. Mao realised this, and therefore won. One may not like the CCP narrative in general, and may regard them as propaganda, but if you look at the history of the period in detail, one cannot really rationally deny that the peasant power, or rather more accurately, the active peasant participation IS the main reason that had given the CCP the upper-hand in the power straggle.

There is no denying that KMT contributed much to the industrial development of China since they took power in the late 20s, as all governing powers would do. The KMT industrial developments were based on the infant industrial base left by the latter days of Qing. It would need decades to develop it into any sort of matrurity. However, powers like Japan knew this too, and would never have given China the time for grow its wings. It was almost an inevitability that China, by 1949, by all means and purposes, still > 95% agricultural, and most of its GDP still derived from the peasant farmers.

There was also no denying that Chiang was never a sell-out and is in many respects a patriot. But his mistake, or rather misfortune, was that he followed the conventional thinking in power-relationship, while Mao changed the rules of the game. Chiang still focused on the relationship with the elites and the powerful and regarded ordinary peasants as by-standers, while Mao made this irrelevant when he made the bulk of the 400 million peasants become active participants in the power struggle, and united on his side.

Of course one could argue the what-ifs, what if Japanese invasion did not happen, what if the KMT was given time to rebuild the country after 45 (the first few years after 45 was not encouraging, though, with rampant speculative trading by powerful families, with economy collapsing rapidly). But there is no point arguing about fate. What distinguishes from the winners and the losers is that winners work with what fate has given them, on the current situation at hand, and losers rumble on about what fate has not provided them, and on the ideal situation.

What the peasants has given the CCP was by far greater than man-power. When you ask "But what good is that manpower if you cannot feed and arm them?", you have to realise that it is not the CCP feeding the people, but the people feeding the CCP, and its army. During 1945--1949, despite of the KMT technological advantages, and it controlling most if not all of the road infrastructure and industrial complex in China-proper, it was the PLA that always had the better logistics. For every PLA soldier, there were two or more peasants supporting him with food and other basic provisions. Those peasants formed the giant logistic arm and supply base for the PLA and this is the main reason why the PLA on legs enjoyed much greater strategic mobility than the NRA in trucks. The PLA got supported from 90% of the local population, from their own produces and household savings; while the NRA relied on much more vulnerable transport links and hubs sending supplies from far away. Given the transport links in China at the time were poor and far in between, this was actually one of the main reasons for the NRA to employ those seemingly stupid and static formations.

In fact, in terms of man-power in the sense of drafting into the military, you have to realise that the KMT also drafted from the peasants. The bulk of the NRA were drafted from the peasants. They were, after all, still the nominal government in China. What the KMT lacked was NOT the man power for its army, but the grass-root support of the people, and their active participation (on their side) in the conflict. Note that the town-folks were in general on KMT's side, or more accurately, not on CCP's side and feared them more than they feared the KMT. But by and large, they were by-standers, and did not contribute to KMT's struggle, nor did KMT took any initiative to truly mobilise those people to their cause; nor would that matter that much, given that town-folks only account to a small percentage of the Chinese population, and the base of domestic produce was still agricultural.

The support of the people is less important than what it the people (we/us) wants to believe in. As history have shown, small dedicated well trained forces can win wars and command a much larger alien population. The mongol conquests, the British Raj, European Africa, American Indian Wars, Prussia under Fredrick etc. The notion that popular support wins wars is true, but not the whole truth nor the absolute truth.

Click to expand...

This comment is interesting, because it opens up discussion to the intricacies of the power dynamics, and also highlighted the distinctive features of the so called Mao's "people's war" concept.

First of all, of all of the examples you have mentioned, the ruling classes were by any definition, elites. You distinguish between the rulers/leaders and the ordinary population. People *serve* the elites. For the average Joe, whoever goes into power was really not their business, if the Kings or Lords gets replaced by another group of people, their life goes on, and nothing dramatic changes. The ordinary people were mostly by all intent and purposes, by-standers, in a struggle between the elites. Loyalties shift rapidly with perceived power. Loyalties are in most cases used as a tool for avoiding trouble. Popular support in those cases are like quicksand, they are neither permanent nor reliable.

This however, is not the concept of Mao's "people's war". In his theory, the ordinary people becomes an integral part of the power struggle, they were not to be onlookers or neutrals. The policies were designed so that people became the stakeholders of the CCP's revolution. The revolution became peasant's own enterprise (directed by the CCP). For this reason, they were willingly sending their sons, and the last of their food store and savings to the cause, and actively participated in every part of the conflict, their conflict. Soldiers and workers do not fight and work for pay, they fight for their future and that of their family, which by extension, the revolution. This was the most efficient mechanism for conducting a total war, in both materials, morale and ideology.

lightspeed said:

the victory of the CCP on the mainland cannot be attributed solely to the so-called support of the people nor it was a critical factor. if the Soviet Union didn’t give the concealed huge military aid to the CCP, the so-called the people’s support would never played the so-called decisive role then. the CCP simply cannot fight the protracted war without the adequate weapons and ammunition. the people's support cannot simply change the big picture.

the CCP’s the Huaihai campaign victory was summarized in one sentence by Su Yu: the Dalian munitions won the CCP the campaign. evidently, if there was no Soviet Russians’ invaluable assistance, there would never be a Dalian Jianxin company to manufacture the munitions that determined the outcome of the war in East China, in particular, the Huaihai campaign. apparently, Lin Biao's Army munitions in Manchuria were largely given by the Soviet Russians.

the defeat of the KMT on the mainland were caused by many complex factors. the most important reasons were the Soviet Union’s concealed huge military aid to the CCP, the CCP spies inside the KMT’s military organization, the great suspension and reduction of USA military and financial aid to the KMT, and the CCP spy Ji Chaoding’s financial sabotage that caused the disastrous hyperinflation of currency.

Click to expand...

Seriously, I sincerely believe this was not the conclusion of the KMT leadership when they reflected the reasons of their failures on the mainland.

You cannot take a sentence from Su Yu out of context and call it the "main" reason he thought that contributed to his victory, just because that sentence fits your own narrative. This is in general not the way to approach historical subjects.

However huge the supposed Soviet aid is to the CCP, it still a dwarf compared to the aid (and training) US has given to KMT. All historical accounts indicated the KMT units, at least not until the very end, when the general collapse, retreat and route that happened, were the better equipped and had better firepower. Chiang's most trusted and elite divisions were by far much better equipped and trained than the best of the PLA forces.

As a matter of fact, there were no historical reports of KMT forces lacking any ammunition during the entire conflict (excluding those got themselves encircled), while it was widely reported, including that of the Western reporters, that the CCP forces lacked arms and munition provisions. The capture of North-East, and the large (or if you would prefer, "huge") stock of arms, mostly from the Japanese Kwantong army captures handed over by the Soviets, and the KMT stores captured---both of which well-known, and nor did the CCP tried to hide---and the heavy industries of course helped.

But was it the decisive factor? You only have to look at the fact that at the start of Huaihai campaign, KMT held both numerical and qualitative advantage over the CCP in the region. In fact, Huaihai, also called "Xubeng" campaign in the KMT planning circles, was an attempt by Chiang to have a decisive battle to wipe out the bulk of CCP forces in central and eastern China, in order to prepare a final showdown with Lin Biao's forces up north. And Huaihai, in its original form in the CCP strategy at the start, was a limited campaign by Huanbei field army to relieve the pressure on the Zhongyuan field army. The force discrepancy was evidently in KMT's favour.

By arguing that the Soviet arms had given a decisive advantage to the CCP, you are inevitably saying that due to the arms the PLA received, they enjoyed a qualitative advantage over the KMT in terms of arms and firepower. No historical facts can back up this claim. In fact, the NRA maintained qualitative advantage against the PLA up until the mid to late 90s. And there are still not too few people who claim that the NRA holds qualitative advantage even today!

(Note that it is a historical fact that KMT held clear numerical advantage before Liaosheng, and still held clear numerical advantage in central China at the start of Huaihai, so no, the PLA did not enjoy overall numerical advantage until the conclusion of Huaihai. They relied on out-manuevering the NRA to achieve local numerical superiority to overcome the NRA's qualitative superiority).

The hyperinflation of the currency is not caused by one sabotage or spy. The powerful and the well connected were making huge profits on the hyperinflation and were feeding it by withholding and monopolising key supplies. On this, TBO, Chiang's inability to rein in on his close family and his financial backers, and fully take control of the economy, is the main reason to blame. Chiang was no fool, lessons were learned and implemented in Taiwan when they started afresh.

IMHO, if one is to base hopes of victory in a civil war mainly to outside assistance, then one is already half-lost in the struggle. The ability to win always comes from inside, not outside.

wtlh said:

It was Chiang's mistake to have underestimated the power of the peasants, as were most of the strategic analysts of the time. The reason peasants have played much a bigger role in China before 1949, than perhaps that would otherwise in Europe or Russia, is due to the Chinese demographics, and its contemporary economic structure. Mao realised this, and therefore won. One may not like the CCP narrative in general, and may regard them as propaganda, but if you look at the history of the period in detail, one cannot really rationally deny that the peasant power, or rather more accurately, the active peasant participation IS the main reason that had given the CCP the upper-hand in the power straggle.

Click to expand...

Well this is where we disagree, I don't see peasant power as the answer to why the CCP rose up over the KMT. I see a series of fortunate and unfortunate events, that lead be.

Mao would like to claim that he foresaw the importance of the peasants and it had been presented as such after the CCP victory over the KMT. But the fact is, when Mao started out in peking and shanghai, he didn't go to the villages but he went after the factory works as Marx had wrote. Hence that is why the massacre of Shanghai in 1927 was possible - because the CCP was in the cities and not the country side.

Mao started to get to the peasants after the long march where the wounded soldiers of the 8-1 army left behind in the villages can begin to educate and set up collectives in the villages where they were left; the monumental human effort was what that overcame the 99% illiteracy gap.

It is easy to say that Chaing ignored the peasants; but ask a honest question, what could he have done? break up the capitalist supporter's lands and wealth and distribute it to the peasants? He would lose china faster than he can convince peasants to join his cause.

wtlh said:

There is no denying that KMT contributed much to the industrial development of China since they took power in the late 20s, as all governing powers would do. There was also no denying that Chiang was never a sell-out and is in many respects a patriot. But his mistake, or rather misfortune, was that he followed the conventional thinking in power-relationship, while Mao changed the rules of the game. The KMT industrial developments were based on the infant industrial base left by the latter days of Qing. It would need decades to develop it into any sort of matrurity. However, powers like Japan knew this too, and would never have given China the time for grow its wings. It was almost an inevitability that China, by 1949, by all means and purposes, still > 95% agricultural, and most of its GDP still derived from the peasant farmers.

Click to expand...

And you do realize that China was 2X the economy of Japan when Japan invaded and most of it was from the coastal cities via trade and manufacturing? i.e. China's GDP in 1938 was larger than the GDP of Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan, and was just a shad short of the USSR and Nazi Germany.

Nationalist China was by no means weak; with warlord armies as well trained as Czech or Polish armies. You may argue that Japan would not allow China to grow her wings, or maybe even suggest that the US will impeded China; but the fact is, Japan never got into the heart of China like Xian, Chongqing. It is only a question of time before Japan becomes broke from the war, they were burning 1 million yen a day in China

CCTV would like to portray China in a sorry state then, don't get me wrong, China was weak, but not that weak. China had a Masuer factory producing 500K zhongzhen (Masuer 98K) rifles and more than a million Hanyang 88; there were hundred of thousands of M1919/MG34/ZB30 machine guns and generally a lot of small arms. What was lacking was artillery and heavy vehicles.

China only had one mechanized tank division the 200th with ~400 tanks, But then again, these are the BT5 and T26 which outgunned whatever that the Japanese had in China back then; Also Japan had maybe around 2000 tanks and tankettes in china which are vulnerable to rifle and heavy machine gun fire.

Likewise, Japan never had full control of the air in China, the NRA aircraft strength never really fell below 200 fighters peaking at around 600; while the US flying corp operated around 900 fighters in China from 1942; against the several thousand Japanese fighters and bombers in China. i.e. China was weak, but not that weak and Japan was not that unstoppable juggernaut what current media like to make them out to be. Japan practically lost the ground war after the battle of Wuhan 1938. and we have 3X battle of Changsha which the Japanese could take the city in the last one.

wtlh said:

Of course one could argue the what-ifs, what if Japanese invasion did not happen, what if the KMT was given time to rebuild the country after 45 (the first few years after 45 was not encouraging, though, with rampant speculative trading by powerful families, with economy collapsing rapidly). But there is no point arguing about fate. What distinguishes from the winners and the losers is that winners work with what fate has given them, on the current situation at hand, and losers rumble on about what fate has not provided them, and on the ideal situation.

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Why talk about what if the japanese invasion did not happen? I did not say anything about what ifs and besides, this is not about the CCP vs KMT and we have to buy a side; this is about Chinese history and the fact is there are more detailed narratives than simply that the CCP received popular support and therefore succeeded. The CCP won doesn't mean that it was primarily due to the peasant support.

wtlh said:

What the peasants has given the CCP was by far greater than man-power. When you ask "But what good is that manpower if you cannot feed and arm them?", you have to realise that it is not the CCP feeding the people, but the people feeding the CCP, and its army. During 1945--1949, despite of the KMT technological advantages, and it controlling most if not all of the road infrastructure and industrial complex in China-proper, it was the PLA that always had the better logistics. For every PLA soldier, there were two or more peasants supporting him with food and other basic provisions. Those peasants formed the giant logistic arm and supply base for the PLA and this is the main reason why the PLA on legs enjoyed much greater strategic mobility than the NRA in trucks. The PLA got supported from 90% of the local population, from their own produces and household savings; while the NRA relied on much more vulnerable transport links and hubs sending supplies from far away. Given the transport links in China at the time were poor and far in between, this was actually one of the main reasons for the NRA to employ those seemingly stupid and static formations.

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You do realize that my statement about feeding is from the KMT perspective? are they going to import food from the US to feed the peasants?

And no, the CCP did not have better strategic mobility than the KMT, both kind of sucked compared to Japan, US, Germany or whatever. The Chinese civil war was a grinding war and not a war of mobility.

wtlh said:

In fact, in terms of man-power in the sense of drafting into the military, you have to realise that the KMT also drafted from the peasants. The bulk of the NRA were drafted from the peasants. They were, after all, still the nominal government in China. What the KMT lacked was NOT the man power for its army, but the grass-root support of the people, and their active participation (on their side) in the conflict. Note that the town-folks were in general on KMT's side, or more accurately, not on CCP's side and feared them more than they feared the KMT. But by and large, they were by-standers, and did not contribute to KMT's struggle, nor did KMT took any initiative to truly mobilise those people to their cause.

Click to expand...

What you say is ideological, the issue of military effectiveness is not a question solely of popular support - that is why the PLA compensate their soldiers quite well nowadays to retain and grow that force.

What the KMT lacked was a professional army with the training and pride that takes decades to build.

And again, it is academic to say the the KMT did not mobolize the city dwellers to their cause, but let me ask the question how? War is bad for business; especially for the capitalist unless they were arms dealers which by all means they would have fully supported the KMT.

wtlh said:

This comment is interesting, because it opens up discussion to the intricacies of the power dynamics, and also highlighted the distinctive features of the so called Mao's "people's war" concept.

First of all, of all of the examples you have mentioned, the ruling classes were by any definition, elites. You distinguish between the rulers. leaders and the ordinary population. People *serve* the elites. For the average Joe, whoever goes into power was really not their business, if the Kings or Lords gets replaced by another group of people, their life goes on, and nothing dramatic changes. The ordinary people were mostly by all intent and purposes, by-standers, in a struggle between the elites. Loyalties shift rapidly with perceived power. Loyalties are in most cases used as a tool for avoiding trouble. Popular support in those cases are like quicksand, they are neither permanent nor reliable.

This however, is not the concept of Mao's "people's war". In his theory, the ordinary people becomes a integral part of the power struggle, they were not to be onlookers or neutrals. The policies were designed so that people became the stakeholders of the CCP's revolution. The revolution became peasant's own enterprise (directed by the CCP). For this reason, they were willingly sending their sons, and the last of their food store and savings to the cause, and actively participated in every part of the conflict, their conflict. Soldiers and workers do not fight and work for pay, they fight for their future and that of their family, which by extension, the revolution. This was the most efficient mechanism for conducting a total war, in both materials, morale and ideology.

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Again, this is not a question on whose better. People's war is one form of war suited for a particular case; hence you will see that the PLA no longer uses it because it is ridiculously inefficient. Also, people's war does not automatically work - case in point - Japan and Germany also had total war with ideology, morale etc. Yet evidently they lost WW2.

Romantics aside, what is people's war? lets me put is this way, CCP's people's war worked against the KMT because of the soviet supplies, Vietnam's people's war against the USA worked because of Chinese supplies; Afghanistan's people's war worked against the USSR because of the US supplies. France's People's war with their love of Napoleon failed because they lacked external backing, Germany's people's war against the allies failed because they lacked external supplies; Japan's people's war failed because they lacked external supplies, North Korea's people's war failed because of the coalition overwhelming material advantage in the Korean war - even thou they had supplies from the USSR and China .

So thats back to the original question, is the "people" in people's war that important or is it other factors?

Lezt said:

Romantics aside, what is people's war? lets me put is this way, CCP's people's war worked against the KMT because of the soviet supplies, Vietnam's people's war against the USA worked because of Chinese supplies; Afghanistan's people's war worked against the USSR because of the US supplies. France's People's war with their love of Napoleon failed because they lacked external backing, Germany's people's war against the allies failed because they lacked external supplies; Japan's people's war failed because they lacked external supplies, North Korea's people's war failed because of the coalition overwhelming material advantage in the Korean war - even thou they had supplies from the USSR and China .

So thats back to the original question, is the "people" in people's war that important or is it other factors?

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Why would it be so hard to imagine that the human element can overcome vast technological advantages? Look at the ISIS-Iraqi Army war. ISIS has no hardware production capability of its own, but was able to capture dozens of American MBT and IFV. It is obviously not difficult to capture heavy equipment from a disorganized and ill-disciplined army.

Lezt said:

Well this is where we disagree, I don't see peasant power as the answer to why the CCP rose up over the KMT. I see a series of fortunate and unfortunate events, that lead be.

Mao would like to claim that he foresaw the importance of the peasants and it had been presented as such after the CCP victory over the KMT. But the fact is, when Mao started out in peking and shanghai, he didn't go to the villages but he went after the factory works as Marx had wrote. Hence that is why the massacre of Shanghai in 1927 was possible - because the CCP was in the cities and not the country side.

Mao started to get to the peasants after the long march where the wounded soldiers of the 8-1 army left behind in the villages can begin to educate and set up collectives in the villages where they were left; the monumental human effort was what that overcame the 99% illiteracy gap.

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Mao was no fortune teller. It was a trial-and-error journey for him as much as for everyone else. He, like most other communists, first copied the playbook of the Bolsheviks, in the light of the successful October revolution that led to the eventual formation of the USSR. The Bolsheviks started out in large towns and cities, and mobilised the factory workers. And this was exactly what Mao and others did, and did not succeed.

Mao started to realise the importance of peasants in relation to the CCP's development and direction in China based on those learned lessons, his analytical assessment of China's situation, and the trial and error and successes he experienced while trying new revolutionary ideas out in rural settings.

Mao actually never claimed that he "foresaw" the road to success. He was the one who emphasised time and time again on learning from experiences and grassroot feedbacks, and never to form conclusions without evidence. It was through this that he, and the CCP finally and gradually learned the experience and recipe, and setting the right strategy and policies for achieving the ultimate victory.

Neither of the above points, i.e. where, how and when did Mao get those ideas from, detract from the fact that Mao's "people's war" philosophy was the deciding factor on CCP's ultimate victory.

It is easy to say that Chaing ignored the peasants; but ask a honest question, what could he have done? break up the capitalist supporter's lands and wealth and distribute it to the peasants? He would lose china faster than he can convince peasants to join his cause.

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Partly true, in the sense that Chiang's power base has been Shanghai, and the big capitalists. He was too weak politically to implement any policies that would harm the interest of his financial backers. He was also an old-school power player.

However, the land reform policies he implemented when he went to Taiwan was taken straight out of the CCP play book. He was able to pull it off then because he was the undisputed power when he arrived on the island, and most of his political rivals no longer posed much threat (they have themselves lost all of their power bases), and he has very few connections and shared interest with the land-gentry in Taiwan. And because he was a proven hard-core anti-communist, he had the credentials to implement what was essentially communist policies without losing the US support and be afraid of being labelled as a communist (The same "only Nixon can go to China" logic applies).

He implemented those policies because he understood why CCP had won China, and he was not going to let this happen again in Taiwan (there were a lot of communists and communist sympathisers in Taiwan already), and was fully aware of the fact that he commanded a large group of now "homeless and landless" people.

And you do realize that China was 2X the economy of Japan when Japan invaded and most of it was from the coastal cities via trade and manufacturing? i.e. China's GDP in 1938 was larger than the GDP of Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan, and was just a shad short of the USSR and Nazi Germany.

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What did the Chinese manufacture? What did they export?

Nationalist China was by no means weak; with warlord armies as well trained as Czech or Polish armies. You may argue that Japan would not allow China to grow her wings, or maybe even suggest that the US will impeded China; but the fact is, Japan never got into the heart of China like Xian, Chongqing. It is only a question of time before Japan becomes broke from the war, they were burning 1 million yen a day in China

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China was weak in comparison to all the major colonial and imperial powers of Europe and Japan. China was not weak in comparison to states like Thailand (no offence intended) or those of the minor players in Europe (again, no offence intended). But China's ambition was never to be a minor state.

Japan due to their geographical situation always had limited potential. They were fully aware if given time when China becomes fully or even partially industrialised, their chance of dominion over Asia Pacific will be gone for good. It was now or never for them.

Yes, they might have overestimated their abilities, and underestimate the Chinese abilities to resist, and that while they initially planned to make a profit out of their invasion, it ended up dragging and draining their resources, but I do not see how this has anything to do with the main argument here.

I do not think the US wanted to impede China back then. (I am not sure why you would want to bring the US into here). The US back then and the US today had entirely different ambitions and strategic goals. The US back then was a lot more inward looking, and as long as it will be able generate a profit for itself, and that it will not harm its interests in the Philippines, China's rise will not be a threat to them. It will be more of a threat to the British Empire, Colonial France and the USSR---which BTW aren't a bad thing for the US. It was anti-communist for sure, but I do not think at that stage the US thought of China even as a long term threat.

CCTV would like to portray China in a sorry state then, don't get me wrong, China was weak, but not that weak. China had a Masuer factory producing 500K zhongzhen (Masuer 98K) rifles and more than a million Hanyang 88; there were hundred of thousands of M1919/MG34/ZB30 machine guns and generally a lot of small arms. What was lacking was artillery and heavy vehicles.

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I did not get my info from the CCTV.

Qing already had a decent small arms industry. (Do you know that Qing even started a project on submarines, before the British got their first. Of course the project proved to be far too ambitious and ultimately led to nowhere). The republic inherited much of the late Qing's modernisation programmes. It was a continuous process from the late 1800s to today. The major shipyards in China today like that of Jiangnan and in Wuhan still bear their lineage to the industrialisation efforts started in the late Qing. Jiangnan, for example, still bears its original name.

What China lacked at that time was a lot more than just factories or artillery or heavy weapons. It still lacked the very foundation for industrialisation. It had to import steel, despite an abundance of iron ores and coal. It had no refinery of its own. It had very few engineers of its own. Most, if not all of the few things it can manufacture were of foreign design, and with machines imported from abroad, and in a lot of cases with foreign engineers looking after them.

Why talk about what if the japanese invasion did not happen? I did not say anything about what ifs and besides, this is not about the CCP vs KMT and we have to buy a side;

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I raised the issue of what-ifs because, to me (and I may have misunderstood), that you have raised the question of "if KMT had more time to develop its military and industry etc.". The Japanese contributed to "their lack of time", and thus the reason I have mentioned it.

I am not sure why do you think I was picking a side. If it appears to you that I was picking on the CCP's side, because I had praised over their general strategy and that somehow it sounded like CCP propaganda, then I may respectively suggest that it is may be you who have been viewing my replies with a coloured lens.

this is about Chinese history and the fact is there are more detailed narratives than simply that the CCP received popular support and therefore succeeded. The CCP won doesn't mean that it was primarily due to the peasant support.

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I was trying very hard, apparently in vein, to explain that CCP's "people's war" was not simply (winning) "popular support", but a well-thought-of strategy and an intricate set of polices that charted the correct direction that eventually led to their overall victory.

You do realize that my statement about feeding is from the KMT perspective? are they going to import food from the US to feed the peasants?

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The peasants were the engine of the Chinese economy for the past 2000 years until China industrialised. The peasants fed the CCP and its army. There were no major natural disasters during the period 1945-49. The peasants apparently could not feed the KMT-led China because they made a mess of the economy, and hyperinflation took-hold, while supplies were actually adequate, the prospectors bought up supplies and withheld eyeing for larger profits while the poor people could not afford even the basic stuff.

Here are some of the numerical facts: in the Huaihai campaign alone, there were about 500 to 600 thousand PLA soldiers participated in total over the entire course of the campaign. There were over 5 million peasants in 4 provinces (Shandong, Henan, Anhui and Jiangsu) providing logistic support for the PLA, stockpiling over 480 thousand (long) tons of food and sending over 200 thousand (long) tons of food to the frontline units during the course of the campaign. Of the peasant workers, 220 thousand were front line full-time support, 1.3 million were second line full-time support, and 3.9 million provided temporary support.

This amount of food, I gather, presumably was not supplied by the KMT government, from the US imports.

The important point to observe, is on how organised the civilian peasant support structure was. The link between the civilian and the PLA was seamless, and the entire logistic operation involving millions of workers was both well organised and efficient, and to be honest, if you read into the historical accounts (by the peasants evolved) and records, this operation to me is MORE IMPRESSIVE than the PLA tactics in the actual campaign. Everything down to every person and their responsibilities has been carefully considered and planned, and every group of peasants had their own political and propaganda organisations, providing educational classes, campaigning for and encouraging more support as PLA gains territory, and building new cells in newly acquired lands. Everyone had a sense of purpose and belonging in this giant organisation.

This was no luck or accident. It was the result of years and decades of policies and building work, the "infrastructure" of the "people's war" concept.

And no, the CCP did not have better strategic mobility than the KMT, both kind of sucked compared to Japan, US, Germany or whatever. The Chinese civil war was a grinding war and not a war of mobility.

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I can only suggest you to looking at the actual battle histories. If it was not a classical example mobile warfare, I don't know what is. Su Yu was only able to defeat and destroy the several KMT forces larger then his because he was constantly on the move.

The PLA had neither the numerical superiority nor qualitative superiority. They had to manoeuvre to get them into a situation of local numerical superiority to counter the enemy qualitative superiority. If anything, the PLA were never believers of trench and static warfare.

Mobile warfare existed long before tanks and trucks were invented. And not all warfare involving trucks and tanks are mobile.

What you say is ideological, the issue of military effectiveness is not a question solely of popular support - that is why the PLA compensate their soldiers quite well nowadays to retain and grow that force.

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PLA of today and PLA of the past were designed to fight different wars, the CCP today is a different party to the CCP in 1949, and China today is a different country to China in 1949.

What I say is by no means ideological. And I do not think you have really understood the meaning of "popular participation" and how it differed from "popular support". I have tried to explain the meaning of "popular participation" or "people's war" in my previous posts, and again in this post.

That strategy was appropriate during the particular time. It may not be appropriate now, because China has changed, its economic structure has changed, its social structure has changed, and its potential enemies and points of conflict have also changed. But it does not mean it is irrelevant, nor will it not become appropriate again in the future. In other words, the concept is not obsolete.

What the KMT lacked was a professional army with the training and pride that takes decades to build.

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As I said, one has got to work with what fate has given to them. KMT lacked the time to develop a professional army, nor did the CCP. Ideal situations are irrelevant, because they never occur, and certainly did not occur in the Chinese civil war.

By all accounts, the NRA (accept for some remote war-lord factions) was more professional than the PLA.

In fact, if you look through the contemporary documents, it was clear that in 1945, the CCP did not view a hot-conflict with the KMT as desirable to their situation. The CCP was on the up, given more time, they would have grown stronger, and closed the gap between them and the KMT before final showdown would happen, as Mao and the CCP leadership had been planning then. Chiang also thought the same, and wanted to end it while he still had the advantage.

And again, it is academic to say the the KMT did not mobolize the city dwellers to their cause, but let me ask the question how? War is bad for business; especially for the capitalist unless they were arms dealers which by all means they would have fully supported the KMT.

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On this I agree it is academic. It doesn't matter if they mobilised the urban population or not, like I have already said in the previous reply. The results would have been the same.

Again, this is not a question on whose better. People's war is one form of war suited for a particular case; hence you will see that the PLA no longer uses it because it is ridiculously inefficient. Also, people's war does not automatically work - case in point - Japan and Germany also had total war with ideology, morale etc. Yet evidently they lost WW2.

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This is one statement I most agree with you, except the statement that "[People's war] is ridiculously inefficient". People's war is a concept, efficiency has nothing to do with it. It may be inefficient because the low-tech and poor quality nature of the PLA that implemented it, but this has nothing to do with the concept in itself.

In a nutshell, it calls for active and willing participation of every citizen in the war process, make them feel they have a real stake-hold in the outcome of the struggle, and a close integration and mutually supportive relationship and infrastructure between the people and the military. It has nothing to do with low-tech or "human-wave" traits some may stereotyping it with.

Romantics aside, what is people's war? lets me put is this way, CCP's people's war worked against the KMT because of the soviet supplies, Vietnam's people's war against the USA worked because of Chinese supplies; Afghanistan's people's war worked against the USSR because of the US supplies. France's People's war with their love of Napoleon failed because they lacked external backing, Germany's people's war against the allies failed because they lacked external supplies; Japan's people's war failed because they lacked external supplies, North Korea's people's war failed because of the coalition overwhelming material advantage in the Korean war - even thou they had supplies from the USSR and China .

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No. And see above.

Like I have said, again, "people's war" and "popular support" are two entirely distinct concepts.

The number one thing one needs to do in any conflict is to get the people on your side, and actually participate with their actions. People's war requires you not only get the people on your side, but for them to be willingly participate in efforts that will advance your cause, and that your military planning and infrastructure can take advantage of those contributions in an effective way.

People's war does not function for invasion or expedition armies, for obvious reasons.

For countries with small population, this may not work well, especially when faced with a foreign adversary much stronger, because your overall power is still low. For a country the size of China, when even at its dimmest hours, its GDP still rivals some of the greats, it is an entirely different matter.

So thats back to the original question, is the "people" in people's war that important or is it other factors?

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For this, you just have to ask yourself two questions:

1. Would the CCP had a chance of winning if it did not have the kind of the support the peasants have given them?
2. Would the CCP had a chance of winning if they did not receive or receive little Soviet material support?

My answers to the two questions (and you are welcome to disagree):

1. They would have failed a long time. Mao would have long been captured or killed.
2. I will only say this: there were no clear evidence of NRA performing much better or worse in unit-level combats between them and the various CCP forces comparing the time periods before and after 1945.