Civil wars in China: causes, outcomes

The Chinese civil war between the Communist Party and the Kuomintang became one of the longest and most important military conflicts of the 20th century. The victory of the CCP led to the fact that a huge Asian country began to build socialism.

Background and chronology

Bloody civil wars in China shook the country for a quarter of a century. The conflict between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party was ideological. One part of Chinese society advocated the establishment of a democratic national republic, while the other wanted socialism. The Communists had a vivid example for imitation in the person of the Soviet Union. The victory of the revolution in Russia inspired many supporters of leftist political views.

The civil wars in China can be divided into two stages. The first took place in 1926-1937. Then came a break, connected with the fact that the Communists and the Kuomintang had united their efforts in the struggle against Japanese aggression. Soon the invasion of the army of the country of the rising sun into China became an integral part of the Second World War. After the Japanese militarists were defeated, the civil conflict in China resumed. The second stage of bloodshed occurred in 1946-1950.

Northern trekking tour

Before the civil wars in China began, the country was divided into several separate parts. This was due to the fall of the monarchy that occurred in the early twentieth century. After this, the united state did not work out. In addition to the Kuomintang and the Communists, there was also a third force - the Bayan militarists. This regime was founded by the generals of the former Tsing Imperial Army.

In 1926, the Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek launched a war against the militarists. He organized the Northern Expedition. In this military campaign, according to various estimates, about 250 thousand soldiers participated. The Kaisheys were supported also by the Communists. These two largest forces created a coalition National Revolutionary Army (NRA). The northern campaign was also supported in the USSR. The NRA was visited by Russian military specialists, and the Soviet government supplied the armies with aircraft and weapons. In 1928 the militarists were defeated, and the country was united under the rule of the Kuomintang.

Gap

Before the Northern Campaign between the Kuomintang and the Communists ended, a split ensued, which triggered subsequent civil wars in China. March 21, 1937, the National Revolutionary Army took Shanghai. At that very moment, 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 the enemies. Now he almost unified the country and, it seems, believed that he could do without the support of the left. In addition, the Kuomintang head feared that the CCP (Communist Party of China) would seize power in the country. Therefore, he decided to strike a preemptive strike.

The Civil War in China in 1927-1937. Began after the Kuomintang authorities arrested Communists and defeated their cells in the largest cities of the country. The left began to resist. In April 1927, a major uprising of the Communists broke out in Shanghai, which had recently been liberated from the militarists. Today in the PRC, those events are called massacres and a counter-revolutionary coup. As a result, many CCP leaders were killed or imprisoned. The party went underground.

Great hike

At the first stage, the civil war in China in 1927-1937. Was a disjointed skirmish between the two sides. In 1931, the Communists created their own semblance of the state in the territories controlled by them. It was called the Chinese Soviet Republic. This predecessor of the PRC has not received diplomatic recognition in the international community. The capital of the Communists was the city of Ruijin. They are entrenched mainly in the southern regions of the country. For several 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 strength was not enough to repel another blow from the Kuomintang. Then the party took an unexpected decision to send all its forces to the north of the country. This was done under the pretext of fighting the Japanese, who at that time controlled Manchuria and threatened all of China. In addition, in the north the CCP hoped to get help from an ideologically close Soviet Union.

In the Great March an army of 80 thousand people left. One of its leaders was Mao Zedong. It was the success of that complex operation that made him the contender for power in the whole party. Later, in the apparatus struggle, he will get rid of his opponents and become chairman of the Central Committee. But in 1934 he was exclusively a military leader.

A serious obstacle to the CCP army was the great Yangtze River. On its shores, the Kuomintang army created several barriers. The Communists tried unsuccessfully four times to cross the opposite shore. At the very last moment, the future Marshal of the PRC, Liu Bochcheng, was able to organize the transition of the whole army through a single bridge.

Soon the army began to quarrel. Two military leaders (Zedong and Jeong Gatao) argued for leadership. Mao insisted that you need to continue to move north. His opponent wanted to stay in Sichuan. As a result, before the united army divided into two columns. The great campaign was completed only by the part that followed Mao Zedong. Zhang Gatao generally went over to the side of the Kuomintang. After the victory of the Communists, he emigrated to Canada. The Mao army managed to overcome the path of 10 thousand kilometers and 12 provinces. The campaign ended on October 20, 1935, when the army of the Communists became entrenched in Vayaobao. In it there were only 8 thousand people.

Xi'an incident

The struggle of the Communists and the Kuomintang lasted 10 years, and meanwhile the whole of China was threatened by Japanese intervention. Up to that point, separate skirmishes had already occurred in Manchuria, but in Tokyo they did not conceal their intentions - they wanted to completely conquer the weakened and tortured neighbor of the civil war.

In the current situation, two parts of Chinese society had to find a common language in order to save their own country. After the Great March, Chiang Kai-shek planned to complete the defeat of the Communists who had fled northward from him. However, on December 12, 1936, the president of the Kuomintang was arrested by his own generals. Yang Hucheng and Zhang Xuedian demanded that the head of state form an alliance with the Communists to jointly fight 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 people of different political convictions around the desire to defend the independence of their native country.

The Japanese threat

Long years of civil war in China were replaced by a period of Japanese intervention. After the Xi'an incident from 1937 to 1945, the Communists and the Kuomintang retained an agreement on an allied struggle against the aggressor. The Tokyo militarists hoped that they could easily conquer China, extinguished by an internal confrontation. However, time showed that the Japanese were wrong. After they concluded an alliance with Hitler's Germany, and in Europe the expansion of the Nazis began, the Chinese were supported by the Allied Powers, primarily the USSR and the USA. The Americans attacked the Japanese when they attacked Pearl Harbor.

The civil war in China, briefly, left the Chinese in the shattered trough. The equipment, fighting efficiency and effectiveness of the defending army were extremely low. On average, the Chinese lost 8 times more people than the Japanese, although on the side of the former there was a numerical superiority. Japan would certainly have been able to complete its intervention, had it not been for the ally countries. With the defeat of Germany in 1945, the hands of the Soviet Union were finally unleashed. The Americans, who had previously acted against the Japanese mainly on the sea or in the air, threw two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that summer. The Empire folded its arms.

The Second Stage of the Civil War

After Japan finally surrendered, the territory of China once again was divided between the communists and supporters of Kaisha. Each regime began to control those provinces where loyal armies stood. In the CCP decided to make their base as the north of the country. Here lies the border with the friendly Soviet Union. In August 1945, the Communists occupied such important cities as Zhangjiakou, Shanhaiguan and Qinhuangdao. Under the control of Mao Zedong was Manchuria and Inner Mongolia.

The Kuomintang Army was scattered all over the country. The main grouping was in the west near Burma. The Civil War in China in 1946-1950. Forced many foreign states to reconsider their attitude to what is happening in the region. The United States immediately took the pro-Mindan position. The Americans allocated sea and air vehicles for the rapid transfer of forces to the east.

Attempts at a peaceful settlement

The events that followed the surrender of Japan led to the fact that the second civil war in China did begin. However, we can not fail to mention the attempts of the parties to conclude a preliminary peace agreement. October 10, 1945 in Chongqing, Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong signed the relevant treaty. Opponents pledged to withdraw their troops and smooth tension in the country. However, local clashes continued. And on October 13, Chiang Kai-shek ordered the large-scale offensive. In early 1946, the Americans 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, in the summer of the civil war in China in 1946-1950. Resumed. The army of the Communists was inferior to the Kuomintang as equipment and equipment. She suffered serious injuries 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. They will be lost if not to undertake radical reforms. The forced creation of a regular army began. In order to persuade the peasants to turn over to his side, Mao Zedong initiated land reform. The villagers began to receive plots, and in the army there was a growing contingent of recruits who came from the village.

The causes of the civil war in China in 1946-1949. Consisted in the fact that with the disappearance of the threat of foreign invasion in the country the contradictions between the two irreconcilable political systems became aggravated again. Hardly the KMT and the Communists could co-exist in one state. In China, one force had to be defeated, behind which would be the future of the country.

Causes of fracture

The Communists enjoyed considerable support from the Soviet Union. The USSR did not directly interfere in the conflict, but the proximity of political regimes, of course, played into the hands of Mao Zedong. In Moscow they agreed to give all their Japanese trophy equipment to the Chinese comrades in exchange for deliveries of food to the Far East. In addition, from the very beginning of the second stage of the war, under the control of the CCP, there were large industrial cities. With such an infrastructure, it was possible to quickly create a fundamentally new army, which was 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 culmination of the offensive was the Liao-Shen battle, in which the huge Kuomintang army (about half a million people) was defeated. Successes allowed the Communists to reorganize their forces. Five large armies were created, each of which operated in a certain region of the country. These formations began to conduct battles in a coordinated and synchronized manner. The CCP decided to adopt the Soviet experience of the Great Patriotic War, when large fronts were created in the Red Army. At the same time, the civil war in China in 1946-1949. Has moved to its final stage. After Manchuria was liberated, Lin Biao teamed up with a group based in North China. By the end of 1948, the Communists had established control over the economically important coal basin of Tangshan.

Victory of the CCP

In January 1949, the army under the command of Biao stormed Tianjin. The successes of the CCP persuaded the Kuomintang commander of the northern front to give up Beiping (then called Beijing) without a fight. The deterioration in the situation forced Kayshi to propose a truce to the enemy. It lasted until April. The long-running Xinhai revolution and the civil war in China have shed too much blood. The Kuomintang felt a lack of human resources. Multiple waves of mobilization led to the fact that recruits simply could not be taken from anywhere.

In April, the Communists sent their variant of a long-term peace treaty to the enemy. According to the ultimatum, after the CCP did not wait for an answer to the offer before the 20th day, another offensive began. The troops crossed the Yangtze River. May 11 Lin Biao took Wuhan, and May 25 - Shanghai. Chiang Kai-shek left the mainland and moved to Taiwan. The Kuomintang government from Nanjing went to Chongqing. The war was now fought only in the south of the country.

The creation of the PRC and the end of the war

October 1, 1949, the Communists proclaimed the establishment of a new People's Republic of China (PRC). The solemn ceremony was held in Beijing, which again became the capital of the country. Nevertheless, the war continued.

On the 8th, Guangzhou was taken. The civil war in China, whose causes consisted of the equal strength of the Communists and the Kuomintang, was now coming to its logical conclusion. The government, recently moved to Chongqing, with the help of American aircraft was finally evacuated to the island of Taiwan. By the spring of 1950, the Communists completely subjugated the south of the country. The Kuomintang soldiers, who did not want to surrender, fled to neighboring French Indochina. In the autumn, the Chinese army took control of Tibet.

The results of the civil war in China consisted of the establishment of communist power in this vast and densely populated country. The KMT survived only in Taiwan. At the same time, today the Chinese authorities consider the island part of their territory. However, in fact there since 1945 there is the Republic of China. The problem of international recognition of this state remains to this day.