Thoughts on the Chinese Civil War

solarz

Brigadier
sorry, its a different topic. I read sometime ago somewhere .... that during the civil war, Mao had a hard time from most warlords, even Mao was humiliated by them and Mao accepted that for the bigger goal (obviously, to win the war). And everybody knows that Mao won the war and after he had won, in no time Mao "killed" all the warloads who humiliated him

Anybody knows the full story of that .. I'd like to read it in detail

I believe most warlords were taken out by Jiang in the Northern Expedition campaign. The PLA did spend quite a bit of time destroying bandit forces after the Liberation, I really doubt those guys qualified as "warlords".

The Red Army did have to fight their way through warlord forces allied with the KMT. When Mao undertook the Long March, there was another Red Army that decided to take a different route. Those guys ended up getting decimated.
 

lightspeed

Junior Member
sorry, its a different topic. I read sometime ago somewhere .... that during the civil war, Mao had a hard time from most warlords, even Mao was humiliated by them and Mao accepted that for the bigger goal (obviously, to win the war). And everybody knows that Mao won the war and after he had won, in no time Mao "killed" all the warloads who humiliated him

Anybody knows the full story of that .. I'd like to read it in detail


the so-called warlords joined/sided with the KMT for power and money. the CCP condemned the KMT for allying with those terrible warlords. well...the same warlords defected to the CCP for self-preservation and official positions in 1949. even the warlords like Long Yun and Tang Shengzhi with no military power and discarded by the KMT, were welcomed into the new PRC government. to my understanding, the notable warlords who remained in China after 1949, most of them became government officials, and they certainly lived well to the end of their lives in Mao's China.
 

lightspeed

Junior Member
the CCP spies in the KMT had served with no real distinctions and honors in the military during the anti-Japanese war. it was regrettable that they just can't make it against the foreign enemy, the Japanese invaders, but were so resourceful against the domestic enemy, the KMT. Zhou Fohai facilitated Wang Jingwei's defection to the Japanese invaders. the key leaders of Wang Jingwei's puppet administration were all Communists, eg. Chen Gongbo, Zhou Fohai, Li Shiqun, etc. that really tell a lot about the Communists.


according to the book ( 潘汉年的情报生涯 ). during the anti-Japanese war, Mao Zedong sent Pan Hannian to establish contact with the Wang Jingwei puppet government. Pan got to know Li Shiqun, and Li introduced Pan to the Japanese intelligence chief 影佐祯昭.

Pan exchanged lots of intelligence information with Li and 影佐祯昭 then. espionage is of course an integral part of warfare. but some of the things mentioned in the book are very strange, it is indeed very intriguing.
 

Phoenix_Rising

Junior Member
according to the book ( 潘汉年的情报生涯 ). during the anti-Japanese war, Mao Zedong sent Pan Hannian to establish contact with the Wang Jingwei puppet government. Pan got to know Li Shiqun, and Li introduced Pan to the Japanese intelligence chief 影佐祯昭.
Pan exchanged lots of intelligence information with Li and 影佐祯昭 then. espionage is of course an integral part of warfare. but some of the things mentioned in the book are very strange, it is indeed very intriguing.
Pan was the most improtant constructor of CCP's "communication line", in hostile territory. With such a duty, he had to meet those people who worked at different sides. That is the nature of all senior spies.
It was 1943, two after the Southtern Anhui Incident. All communist armed forces in the south of Yellow River had already been classified as illeagal by KMT since that. N4A and partisens were pressured by Japanese, Wang's traitor regime, and KMT forces. To gain the public opinion, Pan was investigating the under-table collusion between Chongqing and Nanking at that time. He went to met Li Shiqun because Li was vacillating in 1943, for the Japanese superior who appreciated him was promoted and transfered. The successor considered him as … "the ex-boss' favorite". Actually, Li was assaainated by poison under the instigation of his new boss in Sept. 1943.
In fact Pan was coerced to Nanking to meet Wang by Li. For unknown reason he concealed this meet to Mao. He confessed it in 1950s after got involved into a anti-revolution case, but only made his suspicion more serious.
 

solarz

Brigadier
according to the book ( 潘汉年的情报生涯 ). during the anti-Japanese war, Mao Zedong sent Pan Hannian to establish contact with the Wang Jingwei puppet government. Pan got to know Li Shiqun, and Li introduced Pan to the Japanese intelligence chief 影佐祯昭.

Pan exchanged lots of intelligence information with Li and 影佐祯昭 then. espionage is of course an integral part of warfare. but some of the things mentioned in the book are very strange, it is indeed very intriguing.

War is not black and white. Covert operations are 1000 times less so. In both the only thing that matters is the end result.

Since the CPC won and the KMT lost, I'd say Pan did his job.
 

lightspeed

Junior Member
Pan was the most improtant constructor of CCP's "communication line", in hostile territory. With such a duty, he had to meet those people who worked at different sides. That is the nature of all senior spies.
It was 1943, two after the Southtern Anhui Incident. All communist armed forces in the south of Yellow River had already been classified as illeagal by KMT since that. N4A and partisens were pressured by Japanese, Wang's traitor regime, and KMT forces. To gain the public opinion, Pan was investigating the under-table collusion between Chongqing and Nanking at that time. He went to met Li Shiqun because Li was vacillating in 1943, for the Japanese superior who appreciated him was promoted and transfered. The successor considered him as … "the ex-boss' favorite". Actually, Li was assaainated by poison under the instigation of his new boss in Sept. 1943.
In fact Pan was coerced to Nanking to meet Wang by Li. For unknown reason he concealed this meet to Mao. He confessed it in 1950s after got involved into a anti-revolution case, but only made his suspicion more serious.


opposing intelligence agents trading intelligence information is the normal practice in the line of work. I refer to the book ( 潘汉年的情报生涯 ). Pan Hannian and the Japanese intelligence director Iwai Eichi exchanged lots of information then. the Japanese gave Pan very valuable information, ie, the secret meetings between Japan and Britain & USA, the Japanese southward military offensive and the Japanese stance towards the CCP, etc. Iwai was very interested in the conditions of KMT Chongqing and its army. he was very impressed with Pan and his valuable information. Pan didn’t give away the CCP information to the Japanese.

I’m just curious. Pan Hannian gave away what information to the Japanese to maintain their long-lasting and good working relationship then ?
 

A potato

Junior Member
Registered Member
Well this is where we disagree, I don't see peasant power as the answer to why the CCP rose up over the KMT. I see a series of fortunate and unfortunate events, that lead be.

Mao would like to claim that he foresaw the importance of the peasants and it had been presented as such after the CCP victory over the KMT. But the fact is, when Mao started out in peking and shanghai, he didn't go to the villages but he went after the factory works as Marx had wrote. Hence that is why the massacre of Shanghai in 1927 was possible - because the CCP was in the cities and not the country side.

Mao started to get to the peasants after the long march where the wounded soldiers of the 8-1 army left behind in the villages can begin to educate and set up collectives in the villages where they were left; the monumental human effort was what that overcame the 99% illiteracy gap.

It is easy to say that Chaing ignored the peasants; but ask a honest question, what could he have done? break up the capitalist supporter's lands and wealth and distribute it to the peasants? He would lose china faster than he can convince peasants to join his cause.

And you do realize that China was 2X the economy of Japan when Japan invaded and most of it was from the coastal cities via trade and manufacturing? i.e. China's GDP in 1938 was larger than the GDP of Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan, and was just a shad short of the USSR and Nazi Germany.

Nationalist China was by no means weak; with warlord armies as well trained as Czech or Polish armies. You may argue that Japan would not allow China to grow her wings, or maybe even suggest that the US will impeded China; but the fact is, Japan never got into the heart of China like Xian, Chongqing. It is only a question of time before Japan becomes broke from the war, they were burning 1 million yen a day in China

CCTV would like to portray China in a sorry state then, don't get me wrong, China was weak, but not that weak. China had a Masuer factory producing 500K zhongzhen (Masuer 98K) rifles and more than a million Hanyang 88; there were hundred of thousands of M1919/MG34/ZB30 machine guns and generally a lot of small arms. What was lacking was artillery and heavy vehicles.

China only had one mechanized tank division the 200th with ~400 tanks, But then again, these are the BT5 and T26 which outgunned whatever that the Japanese had in China back then; Also Japan had maybe around 2000 tanks and tankettes in china which are vulnerable to rifle and heavy machine gun fire.

Likewise, Japan never had full control of the air in China, the NRA aircraft strength never really fell below 200 fighters peaking at around 600; while the US flying corp operated around 900 fighters in China from 1942; against the several thousand Japanese fighters and bombers in China. i.e. China was weak, but not that weak and Japan was not that unstoppable juggernaut what current media like to make them out to be. Japan practically lost the ground war after the battle of Wuhan 1938. and we have 3X battle of Changsha which the Japanese could take the city in the last one.

Why talk about what if the japanese invasion did not happen? I did not say anything about what ifs and besides, this is not about the CCP vs KMT and we have to buy a side; this is about Chinese history and the fact is there are more detailed narratives than simply that the CCP received popular support and therefore succeeded. The CCP won doesn't mean that it was primarily due to the peasant support.

You do realize that my statement about feeding is from the KMT perspective? are they going to import food from the US to feed the peasants?

And no, the CCP did not have better strategic mobility than the KMT, both kind of sucked compared to Japan, US, Germany or whatever. The Chinese civil war was a grinding war and not a war of mobility.

What you say is ideological, the issue of military effectiveness is not a question solely of popular support - that is why the PLA compensate their soldiers quite well nowadays to retain and grow that force.

What the KMT lacked was a professional army with the training and pride that takes decades to build.

And again, it is academic to say the the KMT did not mobolize the city dwellers to their cause, but let me ask the question how? War is bad for business; especially for the capitalist unless they were arms dealers which by all means they would have fully supported the KMT.

Again, this is not a question on whose better. People's war is one form of war suited for a particular case; hence you will see that the PLA no longer uses it because it is ridiculously inefficient. Also, people's war does not automatically work - case in point - Japan and Germany also had total war with ideology, morale etc. Yet evidently they lost WW2.

Romantics aside, what is people's war? lets me put is this way, CCP's people's war worked against the KMT because of the soviet supplies, Vietnam's people's war against the USA worked because of Chinese supplies; Afghanistan's people's war worked against the USSR because of the US supplies. France's People's war with their love of Napoleon failed because they lacked external backing, Germany's people's war against the allies failed because they lacked external supplies; Japan's people's war failed because they lacked external supplies, North Korea's people's war failed because of the coalition overwhelming material advantage in the Korean war - even thou they had supplies from the USSR and China .

So thats back to the original question, is the "people" in people's war that important or is it other factors?
Because fighting spirit. And also a professional army isn't going to save the KMT as it will still be fucking corrupt and with dumbass leaders. And just because they have great gear does not mean your army is going to be good. It doesn't even help that the warlords were fighting each other for power so they can be easily be used by Japan against Chiang Kai-Shek.
 

zxy_bc

Junior Member
Registered Member
The "Mao started in Peking and Shanghai" part already don't make any sense whatsoever LMAO. (Mao did not conduct long-term assignment in Peking or Shanghai, his first major assignment was in Hunan Province. (the earliest of his famous research report was the 1927 Hunan Province Peasant Movement Research Report, one could even say it's the template of anyone nowadays who wanted to write academic field research report) His report did not affect any decision-making in the Central Committee and Political Bureau, instead only attaining localized influence in Hunan Province alone. It's only after the violent 1927 split with KMT that COMINTERN and Central Committee began studying his report and formulating a viable "land reform policy".
 

zxy_bc

Junior Member
Registered Member
Chiang ignored peasants because he could not afford to lose the support of capitalists? Not entirely true. Since he not only ignored the peasants but also small business owners, workers, and medium sized capitalists with no KMT connections. (essentially he had done himself a work worse than any of the Qing fucking emperors) lol
 

zxy_bc

Junior Member
Registered Member
The KMT armament production part also makes no sense at all. In 1913 China had a raw steel production output of 43k tons. In 1930 it was 15k tons. (how do you industrialize enough to get your steel production downward decrease, I have no fucking clue) In 1937, the official KMT records suddenly jumped its raw steel production to 556k tons that year. How did they do it? It turns out that the KMT included the steel production of Manchuko as well in their 1937 output. Not to mention how most of these Chinese-made raw steel never made the specification of armament production. (Hence KMT had to import specialized gun steel from Germany, Austria and Italy with price way higher than market price)
 
Top