The Challenges facing CCP Government in 1949

1949, China's economy and its people were exhausted after years of war and conflict. China had been through decades of internal conflict culminating in the Civil War of 1946-9. In addition, there had been eight years of war against the Japanese occupation. These years of conflict had left a damaging legacy for the new government: 
 - As peasants had been taken away from their farms to fight in the wars, agricultural production had fallen and food shortages were a serious problem in the urban areas. Industrial production had also fallen.
- The nationalist Guomindang government had left a legacy of inflation and the financial situation had been worsened by Guomindang officials taking all of China's reserves of foreign currency with them when they fled to Taiwan.
- Internationally, the communist victory had created a rift between China and the Western powers; cut off from trade and contact with the West, China's only source of foreign assistance was the Soviet Union.
- Internally, the new government was not yet in full control of all areas of China, particularly the outlying provinces and semi-autonomous regions. No government since 1911 had succeeded in breaking down the power of local warlords or overcoming China's deep social and ethnic divisions. If the new government were to succeed in its aim of transforming Chinese society, it would need to build a new sense of national unity in which the diverse elements of Chinese society were brought in to line with…