The Chinese Civil War between the Communist Party and the Kuomintang was one of the longest and most pivotal military conflicts of the 20th century. The CCP's victory led the huge Asian country to build socialism.
Background and chronology
The bloody civil wars in China shook the country for a quarter of a century. The conflict between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party was of an ideological nature. One section of Chinese society favored the establishment of a democratic national republic, while another wanted socialism. The communists had a vivid example to follow in the face of the Soviet Union. The victory of the revolution in Russia inspired many supporters of the political left.
The civil wars in China can be divided into two phases. The first fell on 1926-1937. Then came a break, connected with the fact that the Communists and the Kuomintang joined their efforts in the fight against Japanese aggression. Soon the invasion of the army of the land of the rising sun in China became an integral part of the Second World War. After the Japanese militarists were defeated, civilianthe conflict in China has resumed. The second stage of bloodshed occurred in 1946-1950
North Trek
Before the civil wars began in China, the country was divided into several separate parts. This was due to the fall of the monarchy, which occurred at the beginning of the 20th century. After that, a unified state did not work out. In addition to the Kuomintang and the Communists, there was also a third force - the Beiyang militarists. This regime was founded by the generals of the former Qing imperial army.
In 1926, Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek launched a war against the militarists. He organized the Northern Expedition. According to various estimates, about 250 thousand soldiers participated in this military campaign. The Communists also supported Kaishi. These two largest forces created a coalition National Revolutionary Army (NRA). The Northern Expedition was also supported in the USSR. Russian military specialists came to the NRA, and the Soviet government supplied aircraft and weapons to the army. In 1928, the militarists were defeated, and the country was united under the rule of the Kuomintang.
Gap
Before the Northern Expedition ended between the Kuomintang and the Communists, there was a split that started the subsequent civil wars in China. On March 21, 1937, the National Revolutionary Army took Shanghai. It was at this point that disagreements began to appear between the allies.
Chiang Kai-shek did not trust the communists and went to an alliance with them only because he did not want to have such a popular party among his enemies. Now he almost united the countryand, it seems, believed that he could do without the support of the left. In addition, the head of the Kuomintang feared that the CCP (Communist Party of China) would seize power in the country. So he decided to launch a preemptive strike.
The Chinese Civil War 1927-1937 began after the Kuomintang authorities carried out arrests of communists and defeated their cells in the largest cities of the country. The left began to resist. In April 1927, a major communist uprising broke out in Shanghai, which had recently been liberated from militarists. Today in the PRC, those events are called a massacre and a counter-revolutionary coup. As a result of the round-ups, many CCP leaders were killed or imprisoned. The party went underground.
The Long March
At the first stage of the civil war in China 1927-1937. was a disparate skirmish between the two sides. In 1931, the communists created their own semblance of a state in the territories they controlled. It was named the Chinese Soviet Republic. This predecessor of the PRC has not received diplomatic recognition in the international community. The communist capital was Ruijin. They settled mainly in the southern regions of the country. Within a few years, Chiang Kai-shek initiated four punitive expeditions against the Soviet Republic. They were all repulsed.
In 1934, the fifth campaign was planned. The communists realized that their forces were not enough to repel another blow from the Kuomintang. Then the party made an unexpected decision to send all its forces to the north of the country. This was done under the pretext of fighting the Japanese, whilewho controlled Manchuria and threatened all of China. In addition, in the north, the CCP hoped to get help from the ideologically close Soviet Union.
An army of 80 thousand people set out on the Long March. One of its leaders was Mao Zedong. It was the success of that complex operation that made him a contender for power in the entire party. Later, in a hardware struggle, he would get rid of his opponents and become chairman of the Central Committee. But in 1934 he was exclusively a military leader.
The great Yangtze River was a serious obstacle for the CCP army. On its banks, the Kuomintang army created several barriers. The Communists unsuccessfully tried four times to cross to the opposite bank. At the very last moment, the future Marshal of the People's Republic of China, Liu Bocheng, was able to organize the passage of an entire army through a single bridge.
Soon, strife began in the army. Two warlords (Zedong and Zhong Gatao) argued for leadership. Mao insisted that it was necessary to keep moving north. His opponent wanted to stay in Sichuan. As a result, the previously united army was divided into two columns. The Long March was completed only by the part that followed Mao Zedong. Zhang Gatao went over to the side of the Kuomintang. After the victory of the communists, he emigrated to Canada. Mao's troops managed to overcome the path of 10 thousand kilometers and 12 provinces. The campaign ended on October 20, 1935, when the communist army entrenched itself in Wayobao. Only 8 thousand people remained in it.
Xi'an Incident
Communist struggle andThe Kuomintang had already lasted for 10 years, and in the meantime, all of China was under the threat of Japanese intervention. Until that moment, there had already been separate skirmishes in Manchuria, but in Tokyo they did not hide their intentions - they wanted to completely subdue their neighbor, weakened and exhausted by the civil war.
In the current situation, the two parts of Chinese society had to find a common language in order to save their own country. After the Long March, Chiang Kai-shek planned to complete the defeat of the communists who had fled from him to the north. However, on December 12, 1936, the Kuomintang president was arrested by his own generals. Yang Hucheng and Zhang Xuedian demanded that the head of state conclude an alliance with the communists for a joint struggle against the Japanese aggressors. The President relented. His arrest became known as the Xi'an Incident. Soon, the United Front was created, which was able to consolidate the Chinese of different political persuasions around the desire to defend the independence of their native country.
Japanese threat
The long years of civil war in China gave way to a period of Japanese intervention. After the Xi'an incident from 1937 to 1945, an agreement was maintained between the Communists and the Kuomintang on an allied struggle against the aggressor. The Tokyo militarists hoped that they would easily be able to conquer China, bled dry by internal confrontation. However, time has shown that the Japanese were wrong. After they entered into an alliance with Nazi Germany, and the expansion of the Nazis began in Europe, the Chinese were supported by the powersallies, primarily the USSR and the USA. The Americans opposed the Japanese when they attacked Pearl Harbor.
The Chinese Civil War, in short, left the Chinese with nothing. The equipment, combat effectiveness and effectiveness of the defending army were extremely low. On average, the Chinese lost 8 times more people than the Japanese, despite the fact that on the side of the first there was a numerical superiority. Japan would certainly have been able to complete its intervention if not for the allied countries. With the defeat of Germany in 1945, the hands of the Soviet Union were finally untied. The Americans, who until then had acted mainly against the Japanese at sea or in the air, dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that summer. The Empire laid down its arms.
Second stage of the civil war
After Japan finally capitulated, the territory of China was again divided between the Communists and supporters of Kaishi. Each regime began to control those provinces where the armies loyal to it stood. The CCP decided to make the northern part of the country its foothold. Here lay the border with the friendly Soviet Union. In August 1945, the Communists occupied such important cities as Zhangjiakou, Shanhaiguan, and Qinhuangdao. Manchuria and Inner Mongolia were under the control of Mao Zedong.
The Kuomintang army was scattered all over the country. The main grouping was located in the west near Burma. Chinese Civil War 1946-1950 forced many foreign states to reconsider their attitude to what is happening inregion. The United States immediately took a pro-Kuomintang position. The Americans provided Kaishi with sea and air vehicles for the rapid deployment of forces to the east.
Peace attempts
The events that followed after the surrender of Japan led to the fact that the second civil war in China still began. At the same time, one cannot fail to mention the attempts of the parties to conclude a preliminary peace agreement. On October 10, 1945, Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong signed an agreement in Chongqing. Opponents pledged to withdraw their troops and smooth out tensions in the country. However, local clashes continued. And on October 13, Chiang Kai-shek ordered a large-scale offensive. At the beginning of 1946, the Americans, for their part, tried to reason with their opponents. General George Marshall flew to China. With his help, a document was signed that became known as the January Truce.
Nevertheless, already in the summer of the civil war in China 1946-1950. resumed. The communist army was inferior to the Kuomintang in terms of technology and equipment. She suffered serious defeats in Inner China. In March 1947, the Communists surrendered Yan'an. In Manchuria, the CCP troops were divided into three groups. In this situation, they began to maneuver a lot, thanks to which they gained some time. The communists understood that the civil war in China in 1946-1949. will be lost by them if they do not undertake cardinal reforms. The forced creation of a regular army began. In order to convince the peasants to defect to his side, Mao Zedong initiatedland reform. Villagers began to receive plots, and the contingent of recruits who came from the village grew in the army.
Causes of the Chinese Civil War 1946-1949 were that with the disappearance of the threat of foreign invasion in the country, the contradictions between the two irreconcilable political systems again aggravated. It is unlikely that the Kuomintang and the Communists could coexist in one state. In China, some one force was supposed to win, behind which the future of the country would be.
Causes of fracture
The Communists enjoyed considerable support from the Soviet Union. The USSR did not directly intervene in the conflict, but the proximity of political regimes, of course, played into the hands of Mao Zedong. Moscow agreed to give the Chinese comrades all their captured Japanese equipment in exchange for food supplies to the Far East. In addition, from the very beginning of the second stage of the war, large industrial cities were under the control of the CCP. With such an infrastructure, it was possible to quickly create a fundamentally new army, much better equipped and prepared than a couple of years before.
In the spring of 1948, the decisive offensive of the communists in Manchuria began. The operation was led by Lin Biao, a talented commander and future marshal of the PRC. The offensive culminated in the Battle of Liaoshen, in which a huge army of the Kuomintang (numbering about half a million people) was defeated. The successes allowed the communists to reorganize their forces. Five large armies were created, each of which actedin a certain region of the country. These formations began to fight in a coordinated and synchronous manner. The CPC decided to adopt the Soviet experience of the Great Patriotic War, when large fronts were created in the Red Army. Then the civil war in China 1946-1949. moved on to its final stage. After Manchuria was liberated, Lin Biao allied himself with a faction based in northern China. By the end of 1948, the communists had taken control of the economically important Tangshan coalfield.
CCP Victories
In January 1949, the Biao army stormed Tianjin. The successes of the CPC persuaded the Kuomintang commander of the northern front to surrender Beiping (then the name of Beijing) without a fight. The deterioration of the situation forced Kaishi to offer the enemy a truce. It remained until April. The long-standing Xinhai Revolution and the Chinese Civil War have shed too much blood. The Kuomintang felt the lack of human resources. Multiple waves of mobilizations led to the fact that there was simply nowhere to take recruits.
In April, the Communists sent their version of a long-term peace treaty to the enemy. According to the ultimatum, after the CCP did not wait until the 20th for a response to the proposal, another offensive began. The troops crossed the Yangtze River. On May 11, Lin Biao took Wuhan, and on May 25, Shanghai. Chiang Kai-shek left the mainland and moved to Taiwan. The Kuomintang government went from Nanjing to Chongqing. The war was now fought only in the south of the country.
The creation of the PRC and the endwars
On October 1, 1949, the Communists proclaimed the establishment of the new People's Republic of China (PRC). The solemn ceremony took place in Beijing, which again became the capital of the country. Nevertheless, the war continued.
8 number was taken by Guangzhou. The civil war in China, the causes of which lay in the equal strength of the Communists and the Kuomintang, was now approaching its logical conclusion. The government, which had recently moved to Chongqing, finally evacuated with the help of American aircraft to the island of Taiwan. By the spring of 1950, the communists completely subjugated the south of the country. Kuomintang soldiers who did not want to surrender fled to neighboring French Indochina. In autumn, the PRC army took control of Tibet.
The result of the civil war in China was that communist power was established in this vast and densely populated country. The Kuomintang survived only in Taiwan. At the same time, today the PRC authorities consider the island to be part of their territory. However, in fact, the Republic of China has existed there since 1945. The problem of international recognition of this state persists to this day.
