solarz
Brigadier
Discussions in another thread has led me to think about the reason the KMT lost the civil war against the CCP.
If we look at the anti-Japan war, we can see that KMT forces suffered massive casualties. More importantly however (from a strategic point of view), they suffered massive casualties among their officer ranks.
The CCP on the other hand, because it was engaging in guerilla warfare, had the following advantages:
1- Despite also taking heavy losses, they had an almost unlimited number of militia to draw from. Many of those militia form independently operating guerilla groups and as the war went on, those surviving militia soldiers became more and more battle-hardened. This is in contrast to the KMT, who had to replenish their ranks by recruiting from commoners who had no experience in soldiering.
2- The CCP leadership, particularly the top military commanders, largely survived the anti-Japan war. This gave them an enormous advantage in the civil war against the KMT, as it provided the CCP with extremely experienced commanding officers who specialized in fighting enemies with superior weapons.
3- The CCP was in firm control of their military, via the enforcement of political ideology. I believe every CCP military officer had a commissar serving with him, who had authority on all political matters (pretty much anything that didn't have to do with battles). In contrast, Jiang's generals were a group of self-serving egocentrics who were more interested in furthering their own political ambitions than working toward a common goal.
I believe that those were the advantages that determined the CCP victory in the civil war.
If we look at the anti-Japan war, we can see that KMT forces suffered massive casualties. More importantly however (from a strategic point of view), they suffered massive casualties among their officer ranks.
The CCP on the other hand, because it was engaging in guerilla warfare, had the following advantages:
1- Despite also taking heavy losses, they had an almost unlimited number of militia to draw from. Many of those militia form independently operating guerilla groups and as the war went on, those surviving militia soldiers became more and more battle-hardened. This is in contrast to the KMT, who had to replenish their ranks by recruiting from commoners who had no experience in soldiering.
2- The CCP leadership, particularly the top military commanders, largely survived the anti-Japan war. This gave them an enormous advantage in the civil war against the KMT, as it provided the CCP with extremely experienced commanding officers who specialized in fighting enemies with superior weapons.
3- The CCP was in firm control of their military, via the enforcement of political ideology. I believe every CCP military officer had a commissar serving with him, who had authority on all political matters (pretty much anything that didn't have to do with battles). In contrast, Jiang's generals were a group of self-serving egocentrics who were more interested in furthering their own political ambitions than working toward a common goal.
I believe that those were the advantages that determined the CCP victory in the civil war.