How the Communists Won the Civil War in China in 1949 | How the Communists Won the Civil War in China in 1949

The Communist won the Civil war because of support of the peasants, the tactics they used and also their alliance with the Soviet Union. On top of that, the weakness of the Nationalist plays an important part in earning the peasant support for the communist. The weaknesses of the Nationalist includes: Inflation, loss of support from USA, unable to destroy the CCP and failure to eliminate the Japanase.

Firstly, the communist were well liked by the peasants. The communist had 8 Rules which acted as their code of conduct to earn the support from the peasants. One of the points includes treating the peasants as individuals and be polite to them. Furthermore, the communist introduced numerous reforms in the parts that they own. The reforms that the communist introduced include confiscating land from the landlords and giving it to the peasant. This is unlike the Nationalist that wanted to wait until they conquer whole of China. Nonetheless, the nationalist introduced small reforms such as building more roads. However, this was not felt by the peasants. Furthermore, the KMT Secret Police were very brutal and forceful to the peasants. Moreover, the KMT was facing economic difficulties, they thought wise to print more money. However, inflation was resulted. Thus, more Chinese were in a state of poverty as the value of money dropped tremendously. As a result of these measures, support from the peasants for the KMT declined while shot up for the Communist.

During the 2nd United Front, the KMT and CCP were teaming up against Japan. However, Chiang Kai Shek restricted his army to help as he wanted the Japanese and Communist to destroy each other. As a result, the KMT was viewed as solely interested in destroying the communist and not to protect China from invaders such as Japan. Numerous KMT army men felt that they should fight the Japanese. They went to join the CCP. This shows that the KMT army was not committed and did not have confidence in their leaders.

KMT conquered whole china except for the north which was captured by the Communist. The KMT receive aid from the American in order to prevent world communism. However, the KMT were corrupted and greedy for money despite being ineffective in eliminating the CCP. In 1948, the USA gave 480Million dollars to the KMT. However the KMT asked for more money. It is obvious that the money went to the pocket of the leaders. Eventually, the USA refuse to provide anymore military aid to the KMT. The communist however received assistance from Russia. Russia captured Manchuria from the Japanese and was able to set up the link to provide military aid to the CCP. As a result, the CCP were able to grow in strength and receive aid faster as Manchuria and North China is very near.

Another main reason for CCP victory was that KMT was unable to eliminate the CCP when they were weaker and less powerful in terms of strength. In 1945, the communist had only 1 million soldiers but in 1949 it grew to 4million due to more support from the peasants. The KMT was unable to destroy the CCP because the CCP were using guerilla tactics efficiently. As a result, KMT was unable to face the CCP in an open battle. Thus, CCP straight grew until it out numbered the KMT.

In conclusion, I feel that the support from the peasants is the most important because it was the root reason for victory. Support from peasants increased the CCP Army strength. I end by saying, the CCP was victorious as they had the support from the masses. The peasants formed 90% of China.

Faris Basharahil