The Chinese Civil War
Why did the Communists win?
Historiography: What were the reasons for the CCP victory and GMD defeat?
Levine: 1987Anvil of Victory
and Esherick / Unwillingness and inability of the US to attempt a sustained armed intervention on behalf of the Guomindang regime created a fabourable international environment for the Chinese communists
The result of the Civil war far from being an inevitable outcome, the CCP triumph in Manchuria was a contingent victory dependent on political , military and international factors. It was also a result of the fact that the US did not intervene and there was an informal understanding between the USSR and the US that China would not become a battle ground between them. CCP also got some limited assistance from the USSR, evben though the USSR role was a double –edged sword for the CCP
Tucker / Blamed US failure to support CKS . Uses the term ‘betrayed’ CKS and therefore ‘lost’ China
Eastman: / CKS himself claimed that it was the GMD that was responsible for its own failures : lacking as it was in spirit, discipline, sense of right and wrong
Chalmers Johnson / One of the early writers on the Civil War, he claimed that it was the Sino Japnese war that brought Mao to power because of its ‘appeal to peasant nationalism’ and the legitimacy it gained through its resistance to Japanese imperialism
Katzuoka / He too believe that the Sino Japanese war played a big role in the victory but not for the same reasons as Chalmers Johnson. Katzuoka claims the Sino- Japanese war immobilised the urban power base of the GMD and provided a lease of life for the embattled CCP led rural revolution, allowing the party to extend and consolidate its organizational and military control over the peasantry. The role of the United Front has been highlighted to show how the CCP gained control of the rural masses
Lee / He too argued that it was CCP’s pursuit of an anti Japanese policy, and the formation approved by the COmintern of an United Front against Japan that the CCP gained widespread popular support. Even though the Manchurian cell of the CCP had been decimated by Japanese troops, the grassroots support gained by it was helpful in gaining victory
Selden / Writing in the 1970’s he argued that it was more the socio-economic policies that had an appeal to the peasantry because of the attempts to reduce land rent and reduce interest rates. He later added that it was the equitable tax policies and creation of political structures for popular participation that had the most appeal
Cochran and HSieh / Comment on the growing disillusionment with the CKS government that was a significant factor.
CGK / The social economic issues along with military force that divided China’s civil war. The Communists used a combination of social revolution and nationalism to win the support of the rural masses. The Nationalists not only failed to attract this group of people but also forfeited the support of the urban classes. This occurred because the GMD was not really pro-capitalist, but simply pro-Guomindang, a clique that controlled the government for its own selfish purposes. The urban classes would have preferred the GMD but as the GMD made more mistakes and chose to mount a military campaign again the CCP, it was not acceptable to the urban masses. While the peasantry flocked to the CCP, the urban masses withheld support and cooperation from the GMD and thus sealed it fate.
JAG Roberts / GMD lost its mandate to rule China in the Post war period and in direct competition with the CCP. However the Party’s decline had sent in earlier and for different reasons
Immanuel Hsu
And
Chi Hsi Cheng / He maintains that the war with Japan completely exhausted the government militarily, financially and spiritually, and was therefore the most important cause for the downfall of the Nationalists.
HE argues that the root cause of the GMD decline was that the party became militarized. This trend began with CKS’s rise to power and the compromise with the warlords. It was accelerated by the war and the civil war, for in each case military objectives help priority iver poitcial progress. AS a consequence the fate of the GMD’s political fate was sealed even before the civil war began.
Role of Foreign Intervention