Editing Chinese Civil War (section)

== Analysis ==
The Communist victory over the Nationalists is regarded as one of the most impressive twentieth century insurgent victories.<ref name="Opper2020">{{Cite book |last=Opper |first=Marc |title=People's Wars in China, Malaya, and Vietnam |year=2020 |publisher=[[University of Michigan Press]] |isbn=978-0-472-90125-8 |location=Ann Arbor |doi=10.3998/mpub.11413902 |s2cid=211359950}}</ref>{{Rp|1}} Historians and political scientists cite a number of factors, including the CCP's success at mobilizing mass support and the shortcomings of the Nationalist government.<ref name="Opper2020" />{{Rp|1}}

=== Poor governance by Nationalists ===
{{See also|Chinese hyperinflation}}
Almost all studies of the failure of the Nationalist government identify [[Chinese hyperinflation|hyperinflation]] as a major factor in the government's collapse.<ref name="Coble2023">{{Cite book |last=Coble |first=Parks M. |title=The Collapse of Nationalist China: How Chiang Kai-shek Lost China's Civil War |year=2023 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=978-1-009-29761-5 |author-link=Parks M. Coble}}</ref>{{Rp|5}} The Nationalist military and the government's civilian employees were most impacted by hyperinflation which in turn prompted widespread corruption and pilfering.<ref name="Coble2023" />{{Rp|5}} Little funding reached enlisted soldiers, who were typically malnourished and poorly equipped.<ref name="Coble2023" />{{Rp|9}} Desertion was common.<ref name="Coble2023" />{{Rp|9}}

The historian [[Rana Mitter]] writes that a lack of trust in the Nationalist government developed, as it was increasingly seen as "corrupt, vindictive, and with no overall vision of what China under its rule should look like".<ref name="Mitter2020">{{Cite book |last=Mitter |first=Rana |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1141442704 |title=China's good war: how World War II is shaping a new nationalism |year=2020 |publisher=Belknap |isbn=978-0-674-98426-4 |location=Cambridge, MA |page=54}}</ref> Chiang wrote in his diary in June 1948: "After the fall of Kaifeng our conditions worsened and became more serious. I now realized that the main reason our nation has collapsed, time after time throughout our history, was not because of superior power used by our external enemies, but because of disintegration and rot from within."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Trei |first=Lisa |date=9 March 2005 |title=Hoover's new archival acquisitions shed light on Chinese history |url=http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/march9/chinese-030905.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190711184425/https://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/march9/chinese-030905.html |archive-date=11 July 2019 |access-date=11 July 2019 |work=Stanford University}}</ref>

Historian [[Odd Arne Westad]] says the Communists won the Civil War because they made fewer military mistakes than Chiang Kai-shek and also because in his search for a powerful centralized government, Chiang antagonized too many interest groups in China. Furthermore, his party was weakened in the war against the Japanese. Meanwhile, the Communists targeted different groups, such as peasants, and brought them to their side.<ref>Odd Arne Westad, ''Restless Empire: China and the World Since 1750'' (2012) p.&nbsp;291.</ref> After 1945, the economy in the ROC areas collapsed because of hyperinflation and the failure of [[price controls]] by the ROC government and financial reforms; the Gold Yuan depreciated sharply in late 1948<ref>{{Cite web |script-title=zh:金圓券相關史料 – 財政部財政史料陳列室 |url=http://www.mof.gov.tw/museum/ct.asp?xItem=3682&ctNode=34 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150102062530/http://www.mof.gov.tw/museum/ct.asp?xItem=3682&ctNode=34 |archive-date=2 January 2015 |access-date=8 March 2014 |language=zh}}</ref> and resulted in the ROC government losing the support of the cities' [[middle class]]es.

United States Secretary of State [[Dean Acheson]] described the Nationalists as "corrupt, reactionary, and inefficient". He believed that the Nationalists had displayed both political inadequacy as well as "the grossest incompetence ever experienced by any military command," and that the Communists "did not create this condition", but skillfully exploited the opportunity it provided.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kissinger |first1=Henry |title=On China |year=2011 |publisher=Penguin |isbn=9781594202711 |pages=117–118}}</ref>

=== Popular support for Communists and cohesion ===
In the meantime, the Communists continued their land reform programs, winning the support of the population in the countryside. This was a decisive factor in the Communists' success.<ref name="Lin2006">{{Cite book |last=Lin |first=Chun |title=The Transformation of Chinese Socialism |year=2006 |publisher=[[Duke University Press]] |isbn=978-0-8223-3785-0 |location=Durham, NC |page=43 |doi=10.1017/S1598240800003520 |s2cid=155992759}}</ref> Millions of peasants who obtained land through the movement joined the People's Liberation Army or assisted in its logistical networks.<ref name="Lin2006" /> According to historian Brian DeMare, land redistribution was a critical factor because it linked the interests of peasants in the north and northeast to the Communists' success.<ref>{{Cite book |last=DeMare |first=Brian James |title=Land Wars: the Story of China's Agrarian Revolution |year=2019 |publisher=[[Stanford University Press]] |isbn=978-1-5036-0952-5}}</ref> Ultimately, the Communists obtained the greatest popular support of any insurgency in modern history.<ref name="Opper2020" />{{Rp|3}}

An important advantage of the Communists was the "extraordinary cohesion" within its top leadership. This cohesion not only secured it from defections during difficult times but also facilitated "communications and top level debates over tactics". The [[Charismatic authority|charismatic style of leadership]] of Mao Zedong created a "unity of purpose" and a "unity of command" which the KMT lacked. Apart from that, the CCP had mastered the manipulation of local politics to their benefit; this was also derived from their [[Propaganda in China|propaganda]] skills that had also been decentralised successfully by portraying their opponents as "enemies of all groups of Chinese" and itself as "defenders of the nation" and people (given the backdrop of the war with Japan).<ref>For quotes see {{cite book |first=Odd Arne |last=Westad |title=Decisive Encounters: The Chinese Civil War, 1946–1950 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JBCOecRg5nEC&pg=PA10 |year=2003 |publisher=Stanford University Press |pages=9–11 |isbn=978-0-8047-4484-3 |access-date=6 October 2019}}</ref>

=== International factors ===
After the Second Sino-Japanese War ended, the United States government provided economic and military support exclusively to the Nationalists.<ref name=":02" />{{Rp|page=|pages=53-54}} As the United States increased aid to the Nationalists in 1947 and 1948, the Communists incorporated United States involvement into its political discourse and framed the conflict not as one between two Chinese sides, but between the Communists and "US imperialists and their puppets".<ref name=":02" />{{Rp|page=55}} Mao contended that the United States had provided US$5.9 billion to the Nationalists from 1945 to 1949 "to help Chiang Kai-shek slaughter several million Chinese".<ref name=":02" />{{Rp|page=55}}

Strong American support for the Nationalists was hedged with the failure of the [[Marshall Mission]], and then stopped completely mainly because of KMT corruption<ref>{{cite web |last=Sun |first=Tung-hsun |year=1982 |title=Some Recent American Interpretations of Sino-American Relations of the Late 1940s: An Assessment |url=http://www.ea.sinica.edu.tw/eu_file/12010586724.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191205024030/https://www.ea.sinica.edu.tw/eu_file/12010586724.pdf |archive-date=5 December 2019 |access-date=22 November 2018 |website=Institute of European and American Studies, Academia Sinica}}</ref> (such as the notorious Yangtze Development Corporation controlled by [[H. H. Kung]] and [[T. V. Soong]]'s family)<ref>[http://media.hoover.org/sites/default/files/documents/soong_register.pdf T. V. Soong – A Register of His Papers in the Hoover Institution Archives] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150227195642/http://media.hoover.org/sites/default/files/documents/soong_register.pdf|date=27 February 2015}} media.hoover.org</ref><ref>{{cite web |script-title=zh:轉載: 杜月笙的1931 (6) – 五湖煙景的日誌 – 倍可親 |url=http://big5.backchina.com/blog/323944/article-142137.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150227190213/http://big5.backchina.com/blog/323944/article-142137.html |archive-date=27 February 2015 |access-date=23 November 2018 |website=big5.backchina.com |language=zh}}</ref> and KMT's military setback in Northeast China. Historians such as Jay Taylor, Robert Cowley, and Anne W. Carroll argue that the Nationalists' failure was largely caused by external reasons outside of the KMT's control, most notably the refusal of the Truman administration to support Chiang with the withdrawal of aid, the US armed embargo, the failed pursuit of a détente between the Nationalists and the communists, and the USSR's consistent support of the CCP in the Chinese Civil War.<ref>{{cite book |first=Jay |last=Taylor |title=The Generalissimo |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DUg2KGMQWHQC&q=describe%20peace |year=2009 |publisher=Harvard University Press |pages=102–103 |isbn=978-0-674-05471-4 |access-date=18 March 2023}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://worldif.economist.com/article/12130/chiangs-china |title=Chiang's China |date=1 July 2015 |website=Worldif.economist.com |access-date=20 July 2022 |archive-date=19 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220719100737/https://worldif.economist.com/article/12130/chiangs-china |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.uchronia.net/label/waldchinaw.html |title=China Without Tears: If Chiang Kai-Shek Hadn't Gambled in 1946 |website=Uchronia.net |access-date=2022-07-19 |archive-date=3 October 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221003180407/http://www.uchronia.net/label/waldchinaw.html |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/who-lost-china-10801 |title=Who Lost China? &#124; EWTN |access-date=23 July 2022 |archive-date=23 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220723190451/https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/who-lost-china-10801 |url-status=live}}</ref> The better-trained Communist army's support from the USSR helped counter the American aid that the Nationalists received.<ref name="Mitter2020" /> [[Chen Yun]] said: "They did their best to help us, we were backed by the Soviet Union and North Korea."<ref>{{cite web |script-title=ru:ГЛАВА 35 ГРАЖДАНСКАЯ ВОЙНА В КИТАЕ |url=http://www.xliby.ru/istorija/rossija_i_kitai_konflikty_i_sotrudnichestvo/p35.php |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210127062850/http://www.xliby.ru/istorija/rossija_i_kitai_konflikty_i_sotrudnichestvo/p35.php |archive-date=27 January 2021 |access-date=13 August 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=青 |first1=山 |script-title=zh:苏联出兵之后中共对东北的争夺 |url=http://cpc.people.com.cn/GB/68742/69118/69659/4731844.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210506195325/https://cpc.people.com.cn/GB/68742/69118/69659/4731844.html |archive-date=6 May 2021 |access-date=17 March 2021 |website=中国共产党新闻网 |publisher=人民网}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=吕 |first1=明辉 |script-title=zh:朝鲜支援中国东北解放战争纪实 |url=https://wyxy.thnu.edu.cn/koreanps/Article/ShowArticle.asp?ArticleID=176 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210514072156/https://wyxy.thnu.edu.cn/koreanps/Article/ShowArticle.asp?ArticleID=176 |archive-date=14 May 2021 |access-date=17 March 2021 |website=通化师范学院 |publisher=白山出版社}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=金 |first1=东吉 |script-title=zh:中国人民解放军中的朝鲜师回朝鲜问题新探 |url=http://ww2.usc.cuhk.edu.hk/PaperCollection/Details.aspx?id=6375 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211113103846/http://ww2.usc.cuhk.edu.hk/PaperCollection/Details.aspx?id=6375 |archive-date=13 November 2021 |access-date=17 March 2021 |website=香港中文大學 |publisher=中國研究服務中心}}</ref>