Chinese Civil War 1946-1949: Mao's Communists Defeat Chiang

The Chinese Civil War of 1946–1949 was the final and decisive phase of the long conflict between the Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) of Chiang Kai-shek and the Chinese Communist Party of Mao Zedong. Full-scale fighting resumed in June 1946, less than a year after Japan’s defeat, and ended with the Communists in control of mainland China and the Nationalist government on the island of Taiwan.

The outcome brought the world’s most populous country under communist rule, transformed the Cold War in Asia and created the division between the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan that remains unresolved today.

Background

The two parties had cooperated in the 1920s but split violently in 1927, when Chiang turned on his Communist allies in Shanghai. A decade of civil war followed, including the Communists’ retreat on the Long March of 1934–1935 to a new base at Yan’an in the northwest. After Japan’s full-scale invasion of China in 1937, the two sides formed an uneasy Second United Front, but they continued to compete and occasionally clash.

The war against Japan changed the balance. The Nationalists bore the brunt of conventional fighting, lost their richest cities and were weakened by heavy casualties, inflation and corruption. The Communists expanded behind Japanese lines in northern China, building armies and governments in rural base areas. By 1945 the party had more than a million members and controlled territory with tens of millions of people.

From truce to war, 1945–1947

When Japan surrendered in August 1945, both sides raced to take over territory. The Soviet Union, which had occupied Manchuria in the last days of the war, allowed Communist forces into the region and let them acquire large stocks of captured Japanese weapons. The United States flew and shipped Nationalist troops north to reoccupy major cities.

Mao flew to the Nationalist wartime capital, Chongqing, for talks with Chiang in August–October 1945, but their agreement settled little. In December 1945 President Harry Truman sent General George C. Marshall to mediate. Marshall arranged a ceasefire in January 1946 and plans for a coalition government and a merged army, but neither side trusted the other. Fighting spread in Manchuria in the spring, and in late June 1946 the Nationalists launched a major offensive against Communist areas in central China. Marshall left China in January 1947, judging his mission a failure.

At first the Nationalists appeared far stronger. They had, by common estimates, more than four million troops against roughly 1.2 million Communist soldiers, plus an air force, American equipment and control of nearly all large cities and railways. In March 1947 Nationalist forces even captured Yan’an, the Communist capital, which Mao had evacuated.

These gains proved hollow. Communist commanders avoided pitched battles they could not win, gave up territory and concentrated on destroying isolated Nationalist units. Chiang spread his best troops thinly across Manchuria and northern China to hold cities and railways, where they were cut off and besieged. In 1947 the Communist forces, renamed the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), went over to the offensive. In the summer of that year armies under Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping crossed the Yellow River and pushed south into the Dabie Mountains, carrying the war into the Nationalist heartland. In Manchuria, Lin Biao’s forces grew steadily stronger, isolating the Nationalist garrisons in Changchun, Shenyang and Jinzhou.

The decisive campaigns, 1948–1949

The war was decided in three huge campaigns between September 1948 and January 1949.

• Liaoshen campaign (September–November 1948): PLA forces under Lin Biao took Jinzhou, cutting the Nationalist armies in Manchuria off from the south. Changchun, besieged since May, surrendered in October after a blockade in which a very large number of civilians starved, estimates commonly ranging from about 120,000 to over 300,000. Shenyang fell on 2 November, and all of Manchuria passed to the Communists.
• Huaihai campaign (November 1948–January 1949): Around Xuzhou, north of the Nationalist capital Nanjing, the PLA encircled and destroyed several Nationalist army groups. It was one of the largest battles of the twentieth century; the Huaihai campaign opened the way to the Yangtze River.
• Pingjin campaign (November 1948–January 1949): Tianjin was stormed on 15 January 1949, and the Nationalist commander in Beiping (Beijing), Fu Zuoyi, agreed to surrender the city. The PLA marched in on 31 January, sparing the old capital from destruction.

Together, these campaigns are usually said to have cost the Nationalists around 1.5 million soldiers killed, wounded, captured or changed sides. Many units surrendered or defected, bringing their American-supplied weapons with them.

Collapse and retreat to Taiwan

Chiang stepped down as president on 21 January 1949, leaving Vice-President Li Zongren to seek a negotiated settlement. Peace talks failed in April. On 20–21 April 1949 the PLA crossed the Yangtze on a broad front; Nanjing fell on 23 April and Shanghai on 27 May.

On 1 October 1949 Mao proclaimed the People’s Republic of China from Tiananmen in Beijing. The PLA took Guangzhou in October and Chongqing at the end of November. On 7 December the Nationalist government decided to move to Taipei, and Chiang himself flew to Taiwan on 10 December. Chengdu, the last major Nationalist stronghold on the mainland, fell at the end of December.

The Communist advance was checked at sea. An attempt to seize the island of Kinmen (Quemoy) failed in late October 1949, and Taiwan, protected by the Taiwan Strait, remained in Nationalist hands. Hainan Island fell in spring 1950. Somewhere between one and two million soldiers, officials and civilians are thought to have moved from the mainland to Taiwan, which had already seen violent unrest during the February 28 Incident of 1947.

Why the Communists won

Historians stress several factors working together rather than one cause.

• Economic collapse: Wartime and postwar inflation in Nationalist China turned into hyperinflation. A new gold yuan currency introduced in August 1948 lost its value within months, ruining savers and turning the urban middle classes against the government.
• Land reform and mobilisation: In the areas they controlled, the Communists redistributed land from landlords to poor peasants, often violently. This created a strong interest in Communist victory and supplied huge numbers of recruits and porters.
• Military leadership: PLA commanders such as Lin Biao, Liu Bocheng, Chen Yi and Su Yu concentrated their forces against weak points, while Chiang often overruled his generals and tried to hold too much territory.
• Morale and defection: Corruption, factional rivalries and forced conscription weakened Nationalist armies. Whole divisions surrendered, and some senior officers secretly worked for the Communists.

Foreign help mattered less than once claimed. The United States gave the Nationalists more than $2 billion in grants and credits after 1945, according to the State Department’s China White Paper of August 1949, while Soviet help to the Communists in Manchuria was significant but limited.

Key people

• Mao Zedong (1893–1976): Communist Party chairman and chief strategist, who became leader of the People’s Republic.
• Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975): Nationalist leader and president of the Republic of China, who ruled Taiwan until his death.
• Lin Biao (1907–1971): commander who won the campaigns in Manchuria and northern China.
• Zhu De (1886–1976): commander-in-chief of the People’s Liberation Army.
• George C. Marshall (1880–1959): US general whose 1946 mediation mission failed to prevent full-scale war.

By the numbers

Total deaths in the 1946–1949 war, military and civilian, are uncertain; published estimates run into the millions.

Legacy

The Communist victory placed China at the centre of the Cold War. Within a year the new state was fighting United Nations forces in the Korean War, and the United States committed itself to defending Taiwan. In America the “loss of China” became a bitter political issue that fed the anti-communist climate of the early 1950s.

Inside China, the new government consolidated its rule through land reform, campaigns against “counter-revolutionaries” and the nationalisation of industry and trade. Many people associated with the old regime fled to Hong Kong, Taiwan or abroad, while others were imprisoned or executed.

No peace treaty ended the civil war. The People’s Republic regards Taiwan as part of China, while Taiwan has developed its own democratic government since the late 1980s. Crises in the Taiwan Strait in the 1950s and later show how the unfinished war continues to shape relations across the strait and between China and the United States.

Timeline

• 1945, August–October: Mao and Chiang hold talks in Chongqing after Japan’s surrender.
• 1946, January: A ceasefire arranged by George Marshall takes effect.
• 1946, June: The Nationalists launch a major offensive; full-scale civil war resumes.
• 1947, March: Nationalist forces capture the Communist capital, Yan’an.
• 1948, September–November: The Liaoshen campaign gives the Communists all of Manchuria.
• 1948, November – 1949, January: The Huaihai and Pingjin campaigns destroy the main Nationalist armies north of the Yangtze.
• 1949, 31 January: The People’s Liberation Army enters Beiping (Beijing).
• 1949, 23 April: The Nationalist capital, Nanjing, falls.
• 1949, 1 October: Mao proclaims the People’s Republic of China.
• 1949, 10 December: Chiang Kai-shek leaves the mainland for Taiwan.

Why it matters

The Chinese Civil War decided who would rule China for the rest of the twentieth century and beyond. It produced the People’s Republic, sent the Republic of China to Taiwan and left a divided Chinese world whose relations remain one of the most sensitive issues in international politics.