Reasons China fell to Communism (I)

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  • Created by: Alasdair
  • Created on: 19-06-17 19:23
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  • Reasons China fell to Communism (I)
    • Many Republicans in America claimed the Democrats 'lost china' through Roosevelt's concessions to Stalin at Yalta and insufficient aid to Jiang Jieshi such as cancelling the China Trade Act in December 1948
      • China already lost, as was advice of State Department
      • Full scale military involvement impossible due to likely public outcry at reversal of demobilisation
      • Republican propaganda
    • The Japanese Invasion
      • Prior to the major Japanese offensive of 1937, Jiang and GMD were in ascendency
        • Suggests Japanese played crucial role in Mao's rise to power
      • Japanese distracted Jiang
        • Cost him many of his best troops and much of his money
        • Enabled CCP to establish itself in the countryside
      • Probably most important of all, Japanese damaged Jiang's reputation as a nationalist leader who could defend China
        • His refusal to co-operate with CCP when China was in mortal danger during the war against Japan made him look less patriotic than Mao
    • Communist appeal to the peasantry
      • Mao came from peasant stock and understood and wooed peasantry in way middle-class Jiang never could
      • Landlords and richer peasants constituted 10% of China's population in first half of 20th C
        • Owned 70% of land
      • Many of the poorer peasants were forced to give between 50% to 80% of their crops as rent and were chronically in debt
      • Communist emphasis on equal distribution of wealth naturally held great appeal to China's poor
      • Importance of peasant support demonstrated in final crucial battle of Xuhou (1949), in whcih CCP was aid by 2 million peasant labourers
        • 2 million peasant labourers mobilised by Deng Xiaoping
    • Jiang's loss of middle-class support
      • Jiang Jieshi and GMD rose to prominence on tide of middle, and upper-class exasperation with decades of poor government
      • However, once in power GMD lost its revolutionary dynamism and employed many of corrupt bureaucrats who had served previous unpopular regimes
      • GMD secret police were repressive and Jiang reneged on promises of democratic government
      • Many of his supporters were further disillusioned when he refused to co-operate with CCP in struggle against Japan and post-war  economic dislocation
      • It was perhaps Jiang's unsuccessful economic policy that cost the GMD middle and upper-class support
        • Printing of vast quantities of banknotes fuelled hyperinflation
          • Prices rose to 6000 times the level of 1937 during Japanese War era (1937-45)
          • By April 1949, a grain of rice cost 2500 Chinese dollars
          • Hit urban dwellers badly and lost him their support
            • Government responded by raising taxes, particularly upon the peasantry, which serve to further increase peasant allegiance to CCP
        • Jiang made no attempt to stabilise the currency, and as a result different cities had different exchange rates
    • Jiang's army (GMD) contributed to Communist victory because:
      • Riddled with corruption
        • Provoked a rebellion in Taiwan in 1947
        • Jiang's officers sold food on black market leaving ordinary soldiers underfed (their rice sacks frequently filed with sand)
      • After years of war, Jiang lost hundreds of men through death and desertion
        • Desertion rates often ran at 70%
          • Some units had to tie up men overnight to stop them going home or joining Communists
      • Jiang's conscription policies hit the peasantry hardest and encouraged many to switch allegiance to CCP
      • Morale was low by final phase of war in 1949.
        • e.g. Jiang's generals surrendered Beijing to CCP General Lin Biao without a fight
    • Fell 1st October 1949 when Mao declared the establishment of the People's Republic of China
    • Jiang's strategy and generals
      • Jiang made frequent, crucial strategic errors
        • e.g. after 1946, he concentrated too many of his troops in battle for Manchuria, without gaining control of parts of northern and central China that lay between Manchuria and GMD-held southern China
          • When Jiang's generals warned him about such dangers he refused to listen
      • Jiang was always insufficiently suspicious of Communist spies in his camp
        • e.g. Assistant Chief of Staff, General Liu Fei, who ensured Communists knew all forthcoming GMD military movements
    • The Communist military performance
      • Mao's 'Eight Rules of Conduct'
        • Ensured Communist soldiers had better relations with peasantry than GMD had
        • E.g. Communist soldiers were told to help villagers, to pay for what they damaged, not to molest women and not to dig latrines near homes
      • Mao's Red Army was better at mobilising whole population, using peasants who could not fight to help distribute propaganda.
      • The Communists knew better than to resist Japanese head-on, relying for most part on guerrilla warfare
        • Consequently, they lost fewer men than GMD
      • Mao repeatedly used effective strategy of withdrawal, enticing enemy into over-extension of its forces in hasty and ill-judged pursuit, as in 1946
      • While Jiang lacked brilliant generals and treat his best with suspicion, Mao knew when to defer to an able general
        • E.g. in the crucial 65-day battle of Xuzhhou in winter of 1948-9, Mao's vertaran commander Zhu De employed excellent tactics, but Jiang proved his strategic incompetence when he chose to attack where his forces could be attacked from three sides, lost 500,000 men and interfered with battle from 200 miles away because he distrusted him generals

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