Meanwhile, as time passed, the CCP tried to rebuild bonds with people in cities and tried to gain support by creating propaganda in factories. The communists believed that revolution, according to Marx theory, should be led from the cities while a smaller group in the party believed that the key to revolution was in the country side, where most of the population lived, in the Jianxi province; this was led by Mao Zedong, a member of the CCP. In 1927, the communists were organising peasants in the south of China, where the gaps between the poor and rich were enormous. A beginning to a social reform was taking place. In 1930, a communist government was established in Jiangxi.
Chiang launched several military operations against the CCP as the CCP were attacking his main supporters. He tried 4 times and was defeated each time. Then, when the ccp was doing well under the power of Mao, a German communist, Otto Braun, came to china to take control and leave Mao’s guerrilla warfare tactics. It worked and Mao was abandoned and was not leader any more. On the other hand, Otto Braun was not very successful with his classic military tactics, and therefore the communist had to flee and were on the run. From the period of 1934-5, the CCP were on the run, this was known as the long march. As people were realising that Otto Braun was an impotent leader, they turned back to Mao Zedong to lead the CCP until the end of the Long March. From then onwards, the CCP had no help from the Soviet Union.
At the end of Long March, the CCP had lost 95% of their soldiers. They had an approximate of 6-7,000 left. Chiang had really wiped out the Communists by making them run, as this enormous loss was not from war casualties.
Chiang had threats from the CCP but he could manage them, whereas the new threat that was coming in the country was something completely different. It was a threat from Japan, whom wanted to colonise China. On September 1931, Japan attacked china crushing every thing on its way. Chiang was held responsible for it he had presumably told the Army being attacked not to fight back and retreat. Chiang wanted to wipe out the CCP off the map before any war with Japan, but it was not possible. In the mean time Mao asked Chiang to join forces with the GMD to fight the Japanese, but Chiang refused.
Chiang’s officers were not happy with him as they wanted to fight Japan and unite for another united front with the CCP. On December 1936. Chiang was kidnapped by his 2nd officer as an act of revolt, he wanted to fight Japan and unite with the CCP.
After the liberation of Chiang, he agreed to join with the CCP. Chiang and his wife appealed for world support, asking other countries to help China who were in complete crisis.
Meanwhile, Japan was advancing. In 1937, Japan butchered more than 200,000 people. This was known as the rape of Nanking. In 1938, as a hope to stop the Japanese, Chiang broke the yellow river dams to flood some parts of the territory to stop the Japanese, but this act failed. As a result, thousands were made homeless and more than 100,000 people died; the Japanese continued.
All along this war between Japan and china, the CCP and the GMD were fighting their own war, where there were constant clashed. All along Mao Zedong was adopting Marxism and every who came to Yenin were informed of it. The nationalist armies were getting severally beaten by the Japanese. Japan was winning the war.
In the mean time, while the war was taking place, there was corruption in the nationalist government. The people in Chiang’s entourage were getting corrupted, stealing money and food as poverty was dominating China.
In 1943 Madame Chiang went to the United States to talk to the Americans so that they would help them. Americans were sent to China. Some with the GMD and some with the CCP. The CCP was also being helped by the Americans, but Chiang was opposing to this help as he wanted to fight the communists as well. Therefore if the CCP had weapons it would make the task harder for him to beat the CCP.
In 1945, after Japan hit Pearl Harbour in America, The united States launched an atomic bomb in Japan, Hiroshima and Japan surrendered. At this time China proclaimed Chiang and he was a national hero. Now civil war was inevitable between Mao and Chiang. It was going to be or communist, or nationalist victory.
In the cities, people’s lives were not better after the war against Japan. Poverty reigned over people’s lives and there were a few rich people within the cities. Chiang, who had been a national hero in the war was now loosing support as he was not taking any acts to improve the lives of his people. The black market was spreading as currencies and money always changed in China. In 1947, to Chiang’s disadvantage, there were natural disasters such as floods in the rice fields and there was famine in the north. Chiang was loosing his popularity and the Chinese were turning to communism as it looked much better than nationalism. A terrible mistake followed when Chiang over sent troops to the north to attack the CCP. Just then the communists had changed tactics and attacked the cities which had not much protection. In 1948 the CCP was controlling the North of China and were at the doors of Shanghai. The Nationalists were loosing support and the war against the CCP.
In 1949, Chiang resigned and fled with his government to Taiwan. On the 1st of October 1949, Mao Zedong declared the People’s Republic of China. The Nationalists had lost and Mao had beater Chiang.
There are many reasons that can be identified for why the Nationalists lost the war. Those areas could certainly be for military reasons, natural causes, popular support, internal conflict within the Nationalist party, corruption and the war with Japan in the middle of the entire CCP versus GMD war. The GMD did not loose from one day to another, it is the accumulation of those factors which led the GMD to its downfall and was done over the years. All of the events which occurred since 1919 until the formation of the People’s Republic of China were the main reasons why the Nationalist party failed to get rid of the Communists. It could be argued that the CCP in way was lucky with the way the events took place during 1919-49. For example after the long march, the GMD could have beaten the CCP if it wasn’t for the Japanese attacking. Because of that they had to unite and fight the Japanese together. Otherwise, as the CCP only had 6-7,000 man left, they would have lost against the Nationalists. Another example could have been that if there hadn’t been so much corruption within the Nationalists, the people living in the cities and in the country side could have been taken care of and could have had better conditions to live and work in and therefore this would have created more support for the GMD. On the other hand, the change of tactics which Mao Zedong did, when he attacked the cities while the GMD armies were out in the north was the most painful event during the civil war. After those attacks, the CCP had Northern China in their hands and it was nearly impossible to stop the communists. After seeing there was no hope to win against the Communists, Chiang resigned and fled to Taiwan. In the end, in 1949, The People’s Republic of China was declared, and China became a single party state; a communist state.