Introduction
The People’s Republic of China traces its history back to the first half of the 20th century when it emerged victorious in the struggle against other political forces in China. However, this outcome was in no way easy or predetermined, and, for most of the period, the Chinese Communist Party seemed weaker than inferior to its long-term rival, Kuomintang. Considering this, it is imperative to analyze the causes behind the communist victory. Although international isolation was a major factor in determining the outcome of the Chinese Civil War, there were a few internal weaknesses of Kuomintang, such as political corruption, poor military leadership, and economic collapse that were major reasons why the Chinese Communist Party was able to defeat them in the Chinese Civil War.
Background
The Chinese Civil War, lasting from 1927 to 1949, was a struggle of two ideological forces to unite and regain control of China. Therefore, before discussing its outcome, it is advisable to discuss their emergence. The first of these forces was Kuomintang (also referred to as Guomindang or Nationalists), a political party formed by Sun Yat-sen in 1894. After the 1911 Xinhai Revolution and the overthrow of the Qin dynasty, China quickly dissolved into multiple territories controlled by de-facto independent warlords. Under these circumstances, Kuomintang managed to build a power base in southern China and expand, becoming one of the country’s main political forces. As for the Chinese Communist Party, it was founded in 1921 and attracted the rapidly growing numbers of Chinese Marxists. While Kuomintang and the communists initially coopered, both aided by Soviet Russia, this shaky alliance came to an end in 1927, when Kuomintang’s new leader Chiang Kai-shek began communist purges. Thus, 1927 saw the beginning of a long civil war which, with some intermittent truces, would last until the ultimate victory of the communists in 1949.
To better understand the background of the Chines Civil War, it is necessary to pay attention to the backgrounds of its two major opposing forces. Kuomintang’s political outlook was shaped by the famous “three principles” of its founder Sun Yat-sen. These principles included nationalism, which included independence from Western imperialist powers, equality of political rights, and equality of economic rights. Communists also aimed to overcome Chinese economic weakness, poverty of the general population, and political dependence on the West. However, they approached it from the Marxist perspective that emphasized class struggle and called for government property on the means of production, and the revolutionary government instituted through mass mobilization of workers and peasants. This was a notable distinction from the Kuomintang, which aimed to alleviate the differences between China’s social classes and, while favoring governmental enterprise, was by no means opposed to private property. Thus, while originally united by their goal to unify China, the two parties soon became bitter rivals.
The two parties’ leadership styles shared notable similarities but ultimately went their separate ways. Thanks to the Soviet organizational assistance in the early 1920s, both Kuomintang and the communists understood the importance of a unifying ideology, internal discipline, and indoctrination. However, as Chiang Kai-shek rose to the status of Kuomintang’s leader by the late 1920s through purges and repressions, Nationalist China became a military dictatorship that primarily relied on its army and secret police. The communists, on the other hand, stayed true to their vision of mass mobilization of workers and especially peasants based on a revolutionary ideology. Thus, by the beginning of the civil war, Chiang Kai-shek’s power rested mostly on his military might, while communist leadership still relied on the powerful ideology.
Sino-Japanese War
By the late mid-1930s, Chiang Kai-shek forced the Communists into the country’s far north, but the invasion of Imperial Japan stopped the tension between Kuomintang and CCP and forced the two to cooperate once again. Japan had economic and political interests in China since the late 19th century, when it subjugated Korea. In 1937, it launched a full-scale invasion of the Chinese mainland to press its territorial claims, thus starting a new war. The public opinion strongly opposed Chiang Kai-shek’s insistence on destroying the internal enemies before facing Japan, and, under pressure from regional warlords, he agreed to a second united front between Kuomintang and CCP. By 1937, Chiang Kai-shek controlled most of the territories desired by Japan, and, thus, Kuomintang bore the brunt of the fighting against the better trained and equipped Japanese army. While the communist participation grew in scope and importance as the war progressed, the heavy casualties that Chiang Kai-shek’s forces suffered at Japanese hands gradually undermined his power.
At the same time as Kuomintang struggled to halt the Japanese advance into the Chinese mainland, the communists, under the increasingly authoritative leadership of their chief strategist Mao Zedong, expanded their numbers exponentially. In 1936, the CCP membership was at an all-time low and amounted to approximately 20,000. However, it grew to 200,000 by 1938 and rose well over a million by 1945, when Japan capitulated to the Allied pressure, ending World War II. The reasons for this explosive growth included CCP’s shift from workers to peasants as its main power base and land redistribution policy that attracted the poor Chinese population to the communist side. Moreover, based in the relatively remote mountainous regions of Northern China and relying on guerilla warfare, the communists did not take such heavy casualties as the Kuomintang. Hence, while the Sino-Japanese War weakened the Nationalists significantly, it also provided the CCP with the much-needed breathing space to reorganize and rebuild its power base.
Successful participation in the Sino-Japanese War extended the communists’ territorial control and increased their political capital, meaning that, by 1945, their vision of China’s future could compete with that of Kuomintang. Mao, who had consolidated his power as the leader of the CCP by that point, was initially not eager to continue the civil war and could be amenable to the division of China into communist and Nationalist parts. Chiang Kai-shek, however, wanted nothing less than supreme and total national leadership and insisted on the CCP’s subjugation to his power. These terms, in turn, were unacceptable to the CCP, which had always aimed for nothing less than a sovereign state of its own. When the two most powerful men in China met in 1945, they found themselves unable to solve their differences and come to a mutually satisfying agreement. Their incompatible visions of the future made the renewal of hostilities after Japan’s surrender a virtual inevitability, ensuring that CCP and Kuomintang would once again struggle for complete dominance over China.
Corruption
One major reason why Kuomintang lost the civil war despite controlling more territory and having more resources was the rampant corruption within Nationalist China. Corrupt activities were commonplace under Chiang Kai-shek’s rule and, by the end of World War II, permeated every aspect of public and political life. It discouraged productive economic activity and the development of the national market because corrupt officials charged outrageous premiums in exchange for the right to transport goods by the government-owned railroads. Commissions for allowing access to government contracts were a rule of thumb, as was smuggling and speculation. Apart from that, Kuomintang’s appointment policy was also becoming increasingly corrupt, with Chiang Kai-shek choosing subordinates based on personal loyalty rather than honesty and professional competence. As a result, any effort undertaken by Nationalist China, including its struggle against the CCP, was severely undermined by the rampant corruption in Kuomintang’s ranks.
It would be wrong to claim that the Nationalist leadership did not recognize this problem and did not try to address it, but its efforts in doing so proved largely fruitless. Throughout the years of the civil war, Chiang Kai-shek’s government passed “various laws, executive orders, and rules during the war to prevent and punish corruption. However, the people responsible for the enactment of these policies were the same officials who were habitually involved in corruption, making these measures largely inefficient. Moreover, the need to focus on the ongoing war against Japan forced Chiang Kai-shek to enlist the help of just about everyone, including small regional players. As a consequence, he could not persecute them too harshly for fear of losing allies even if they participated in corrupt activities. Due to these reasons, Kuomintang’s’ attempts to fight corruption that engulfed Nationalist China were mostly in vain, and it continued to grow throughout the 1930s and 1940s.
Widespread and evident corruption in the Kuomintang ranks gave the communists a powerful political and ideological advantage over their foes, and they used it to the utmost extent. The greater part of China, which lived under Chiang Kai-shek’s regime, came to firmly associate Kuomintang’s rule with illicit practices and, as a consequence, resent it. The effect was particularly notable among the younger generation that grew up in Nationalist China and perceived Kuomintang’s corruption as its essential and inalienable characteristic. The extravagant and lavish lifestyles of many military commanders and government officials stood in stark contrast with the life of workers, peasants, and soldiers on the frontline and did little to enhance Kuomintang’s popularity. Conversely, the CCP, not associated with these practices, “conveyed a strong sense of renewal and redemption” that was particularly appealing to the Chinese common folk. Thus, the rampant corruption crippled Kuomintang while also providing the CCP with a powerful agenda against the Nationalists, which Mao’s party used to the fullest extent.
Military Aspects
Apart from the governance issues listed above, Chiang Kai-shek’s poor military strategy, combined with a more efficient approach on the communist side, led to the eventual military defeat of the Kuomintang regime. The first major issue was closely related to the one outlined in the previous section: Nationalist army recruitment suffered from corruption every bit as much as the other areas of governmental activity. In desperate need of manpower to fight Japan, Kuomintang introduced universal military conscription in 1938. Having soldiers forcefully coerced into the military was already bad enough for morale, but it was only part of the problem. Due to the central government’s lack of administrative control on the local level, the implementation of conscription was left to local elites. As a consequence, conscription was highly unfair and arbitrary and affected the poorest groups of the population disproportionally. The result was a poorly motivated army that, while numerous on paper, was not particularly inclined to fight, especially when the war in question was against the fellow Chinese rather than the foreign invaders.
Chiang Kai-shek’s lack of sound military strategy also contributed to Kuomintang’s eventual defeat at Mao’s hands to a significant degree. When, in 1945, he opted in favor of the military solution, he proceeded on the number of wrong premises. To begin with, he presumed that the United States would support his regime to a considerable degree while, in fact, American policymakers were hesitant to be dragged into war in mainland Asia. Apart from that, he underestimated the potential Soviet assistance to the CCP – which, while initially restrained, became more and more generous since late 1945 due to the emerging Cold War. Finally, he overlooked the political instability of his regime brought by its waning popularity as compared to the communists. As a result, his attempt to crush the CCP for the sake of Chinese national unity was a gross strategic miscalculation, as demonstrated by the defeats of the Nationalists forces.
In contrast, CCP’s military leadership was much more efficient in pursuing its military goals. Mao’s emphasis on guerilla warfare allowed the CCP to develop efficient tactics based on small cohesive units acting in close cooperation with the local population. Thanks to it, the communist forces were able to infiltrate the countryside and essentially annihilate Kuomintang’s territorial control beyond large urban centers. CCP’s military strategy was clear-cut and focused, with an emphasis on consistently expanding the territory controlled by the communist armies. At the same time, it was flexible, and communist military commanders alternated between infiltration of the enemy territory and defense against the Kuomintang counter-insurgency operations effortlessly. As a result, while numerically inferior, the communist forces combined efficient tactics and strategy with unshakable confidence and motivation, which made them a formidable opponent to the Nationalist forces.
Socioeconomic Considerations
Another immensely important factor in the downfall of the Kuomintang regime was the fact that China’s economy was struggling after the Japanese invasion, leading to extreme popular discontent. The military conflicts that accompanied the country’s dissolution into the warlord domains and the subsequent Sino-Japanese war affected the Chinese economy profoundly and negatively, and the more economically developed regions of Southeastern China bore the brunt. While China gradually industrialized and modernized during the early decades of the 10th century, it was not nearly enough to compete with Imperial Japan on an equal footing. With the ongoing war against Japan being its main concern, Kuomintang focused its economic policies on the development and expansion of heavy industry, which was the most relevant to the war effort. It inevitably meant that the industries predominantly oriented on the civilian market were a secondary or even tertiary concern. As a result, consumer products necessary for the general population became harder and harder to acquire. By 1945, the common folk was exasperated by the economic hardship and deeply dissatisfied with Kuomintang’s economic policies.
People expressed their dissatisfaction and anger in a number of ways, from the general condemnation of the government to outright labor strikes. It is important to remember that the well-being of the people was one of the “three principles” of Sun Yat-sen and, thus, a major ideological tenet of the Kuomintang regime. The government’s inability to realize this principle in practice led to popular discontent. The lavish lifestyles of corrupt Kuomintang officials, which stood in stark contrast to the meager lives of the common folk, exacerbated the situation even further. Thus, the socioeconomic situation that existed by the time that the Chinese Civil War was renewed did not favor the Nationalists.
Kuomintang responded to this discontent in the manner that already became habitual by that point – with repressions and purges. In order to strengthen its waning control over China, the Nationalist government adopted stricter and stricter measures. For example, it established Kuomintang branches in universities to detain students suspected of being communists. Industrial workers, due to their potential sympathies toward the Marxist CCP, were also under constant scrutiny. Yet, while these oppressive measures could increase the regime’s stability in a short-term perspective, they impacted its public perception negatively in the long run and made the general population more willing to accept CCP.
Conclusion
As one can see, the Chinese Civil War was not decided by external influences alone, and the internal weaknesses of the Kuomintang regime played a significant role in its eventual downfall. Kuomintang’s vision for the future of China, epitomized by Sun Yat-sen’s “three principles,” was a powerful ideology for national unification in the 1920s. However, as Nationalist China degraded into Chiang Kai-shek’s military dictatorship, an alternative vision represented by the CCP grew in popularity. While the initial engagements between the two were in Kuomintang’s favor, the Sino-Japanese War heavily damaged Kuomintang’s military and economic capacity while also giving the CCP time to reorganize and rebuild. When the civil war began anew in 1945, Kuomintang was plagued with internal corruption that undermined its every action. Moreover, its military forces and strategy were no match for the focused leadership on CCP’s side. Finally, the economic discontent of the general population made the Nationalists even less popular. Thus, one can conclude that the Kuomintang lost to the CCP due to the rampant corruption within its ranks, military weakness, and inability to address economic problems.
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