The Chinese Civil War

This is Taiwan, the nearly 14,000 square mile island houses the government of the Republic of China which once controlled all former Qing Dynasty territories.

"How did we get here?" you may ask. The simple answer to that question can be found in the Chinese Civil War which is partially shown behind this text box.

"What is the Chinese Civil War?" is another question you may ask. Well reader, you are about to learn much about it. And behind this is an image of the "Five Colored Flag," the original flag flown by the ROC.

A1 Cont...

Before this, however, an entirely different set of political turmoil was taking place. In 1912 the Qing Dynasty, the last imperial ruler of China, was finally overthrown and the six-year-old Emperor Puyi was forced to abdicate by Sun Yat-sen, the first President of the Republic of China. He would not rule for long, however, as he was forced to step down from his position and transfer control of the ROC over to Yuan Shikai, the general of the Beiyang Army. In 1915, Yuan Shikai abandoned the role of President and declare himself Emperor of China. This would not work either though, as he had minimal support anywhere in China and would die of uremia in 1916, plunging China into the Warlord Era. A time in which China was split among the many generals of the Chinese military who all sought to take control of all of China, including the KMT and CPC. This would be brought to a swift end, however, when the Japanese would invade Shanghai and take over large swaths of China.

2. The Nationalist Party of China, the Kuomintang

“Kuomintang.” Visit the Main Page,  https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Kuomintang 

What I Learned:

This article gave a thorough rundown of the history of the Kuomintang, or the Chinese Nationalist Party, and the former heads of the Republic of China. From its original founding in Guangdong following the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty, to the Great Retreat years later as the CPC dominated the mainland, the history of the KMT is incredibly complex. During the days of the United Front, the KMT and CPC worked together in order to overcome the onslaught that the Japanese invasion. Following the defeat of the Japanese Empire at the hands of the US, all Japanese forces were ordered to leave China and Korea, granting them freedom once more. This however, was merely a temporary peace for the KMT as the United Front had become more of a burden than they had hoped. And so, the KMT betrayed the Communist Party and restarted the Chinese Civil War.

3. The Communist Party of China

“Chinese Communist Party Overview.” Omeka RSS, https://chinesehistoryforteachers.omeka.net/exhibits/show/chinese-communist-party/chinese-communist-party-overvi.

What does this article talk about?

Essentially, this article covers the history of the Communist Party of China, and its journey to supreme domination over the Chinese mainland following the end of the CCW in 1949. The CPC’s first meeting took place within the walls of French Shanghai with members from nascent communist cells from across China present, even including a member of the Comintern (Soviet Communist International). At this meeting, only 57 members of what would become the CPC were present, showcasing the precarious situation in which the early party found its footing. The CPC was formally created on the 6 ^th  day of this meeting with the election of Chen as the first head of the party. Mao Zedong himself was at this first meeting, yet he was given no position of power.

Due to the small size of the party, Soviet advisors had told the members of the nascent CPC to form an alliance with the Kuomintang in order to secure themselves from the threat of the Warlords as they continued to build up their base. This would be how the First United Front came to be. In 1926, following the death of Sun Yat-Sen the year before, Chiang Kai-Shek became the leader of the KMT, and promptly attempted to purge the CPC, Soviets, and other communist supporters from Shanghai, leading to the deaths of over 10,000. This would mark the beginning of the rise of Mao Zedong. As the CPC lost Shanghai, their headquarters, the body was forced to flee to the rural areas of China. The First United Front was dead. Of course, the infighting would only go so long before the Japanese themseleves would invade Shanghai and annex Manchuria.

4. The Long March

The Long March. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-long-march.

What is this article about?

Following the collapse of the First United Front and the Japanese invasion, the Communist Party was given a chance to escape the threat of the KMT and other anti-communist forces. Behind this text box lies a map of the CPC's retreat to the north, the Long March. This journey would take 368 days to complete, traversing over 6000 miles to the city of Yan'an in Shanxi Province in the northwest. 101,000 started this journey, and only 4000 completed it. Over the next ten years, the CPC would fight the Japanese invaders gaining the respect of the Chinese people and bolstering the Red Army to new heights.

5. The Second United Front

Alphahis. “The Second United Front.” Chinese Revolution, 5 Jan. 2023, https://alphahistory.com/chineserevolution/second-united-front/.

What is it about?

Despite the betrayal of the KMT during the Shanghai Massacre, in which those 10,000 communists were killed and the perilous jourey that was the Long March, the CPC and KMT formed the Second United Front. This alliance had the one goal of expelling the Japanese invaders once and for all. Despite this however, Mao Zedong had seen the Japanese invasion as a positive for the CPC, as it distracted the nationalists from fully eradicating the Red Army in the north, going so far as to tell the Japaense Prime Minister that he was grateful for this exact reason in 1972. Despite their supposed unity though, the KMT and CPC mostly kept to themselves in fighting the Japanese, rarely fighting a battle together. The Second United Front seemed to function as a mere truce between the CPC and the KMT rather than an actual alliance. In fact, the fighting never truly stopped between the two as in 1941, an 80,000 strong Nationalist army attacked the 9,000 strong Communist Fourth Army, essentially martyring those soldiers in the eyes of CPC supporters. At this point in the latter end of WW2, it was clear that the Chinese Civil War would soon resume.

6. The Second Phase of the Civil War

“The Chinese Civil War (1927–37 and 1946–49).” Wikibooks, Open Books for an Open World, https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/IB/Group_3/History/Route_2/Causes,_Practices,_and_Effects_of_Wars/The_Chinese_Civil_War_(1927-37_and_1946-49).

What does this article say?

Following the end of the Second World War and the official departure of Japanese forces from China, the Chinese Civil War resumed in 1946. Due in large part to the Japanese invasion, the KMT was severely weakened upon their retreat, so much os that the CPC went from fighting with guerilla-warfare tactics to conventional fighting in a serious war setting. Despite efforts by United States dipolomats, neither the KMT or CPC wished to form a lasting peace and rule together. The Second Phase of the Chinese Civil War was set in stone.

At first, the KMT managed to push back the CPC and won a few initial victories. However, upon Germany's surrender, the USSR invaded Manchuria and threw in their full support to the CPC, granting them an enormous amount of resources and weaponry. Even so, the CPC was pushed back to the Chinese-Soviet border, and their headquarters was nearly assaulted. However, the US intervened in the conflict and set up a temporary truce. A truce, like with the Japanese invasion, the CPC would use to its advantage to build up its armies and regain a foothold to relaunch their campaign. And relaucnh they would, as Mao would order the reorganized People's Liberation Army, the former Red Army, to revert to guerilla warfare against the KMT. This would prove to be a resounding success and resulted in the loss of 40,000 KMT soldiers in Manchuria. The CPC had regained its vast northern territory. By 1948, the CPC and the KMT were evenly matched and even the American advisors to the KMT urged retreat from the northern front. The balance of favor had tipped.

The Defeat of the KMT and the Great Retreat

Seeing this great victory, the CPC capitalized on it, advancing more and more towards the south, attacking railways and taking cities. Eventually, the whole of Northern China was taken, leaving the KMT to now fight a defensive war. By 1949, the KMT retreat was in full swing, with countless freight ships and air transports transferring supplies and fleeing Chinese citizens to the island of Taiwan, which had just been returned to the ROC government by the Japanese. Before even the ROC retreat was completed, however, Mao Zedong proclaimed the establishment of the People's Republic of China on October 1st, 1949 in Beijing. The Republic of China had been defeated. By this point, the KMT was running out of time, and the full retreat to Taiwan needed to be completed. It is hard to truly grasp the scale of this retreat, as it involved the transport of every single ROC institution from museums and the Imperial Palace's coveted collection of Chinese hisotrical pieces to the airforce and government, involving over 60 planes flying between the mainland and the island each day for one year. More and more branches of the military would make their way to the island as more and more cities fell to the PRC. By the time the People's Liberation Army made it to the southern coast, over 1-2.5 millian civillians and military personnel had fled to the island. The Great Retreat was over and the Chinese Civil War had entered a century long stalemate.

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