Why were Mao and the Communists able to gain control of China in the years 1937-1949?

The invasion then led on to the war against Japan, which is the second reason why the Communists were able to gain control over China. The war began when the Japanese troops attacked the Chinese on the Marco Polo Bridge, but the Chinese were prepared and forced the Japanese to move. As time passed, the Japanese didn’t make anymore invasions, because they didn’t have enough people to take control over the whole of China, since it was too big. Instead, the Japanese focused on wiping out Chiang Kai Shek’s government in the south by bombing it. This made the Guomindang lose more popularity as they weren’t strong enough to fight back, which also made the Communists gain more support.

The third reason that Mao and the Communists were able to gain control of China is because of the Civil War. Even though at the beginning of the Civil war, the Guomindang had the financial and military support from America and their army outnumbered the Communists 4 to 1, the Communists still managed to win the war and gain more popularity than the Guomindang. This is because the Communists had a good leader called Lin Biao, and they used effective tactics such as guerilla attacks. Their tactics that involved night raids against their bases, blowing up their railway lines and ambushing their patrols had helped them take over much of Central and Northern China during 1947, which then forced the Guomindang to defend instead of attack. This meant that the more land the Communists (which was then renamed the People’s Liberation Army or the PLA) took, the bigger their army became. The people then started to support the PLA instead of the Guomindang because of rapid inflation in the cities that the Guomindang controlled. Also, the American government cut off all financial support to Chiang Kai Shek as they started to think it was a waste of money, which weakened his reputation even more. By 1948, the PLA army was big enough to stop using guerilla tactics and was able to fight the Guomindang head-on. In the battle of Huai-Hai, the Guomindang lost a majority of its equipment and army, which meant that their army became smaller, so they couldn’t stop the PLA gaining control over China’s main cities, which were Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Because the PLA had control over most of the areas in China, on 1 October 1949, they announced the existence of a new China, which they called the People’s Republic of China. Overall, the Civil War helped Mao and the Communists gain control and popularity over China because they managed to take up more land, so more people joined their army, while the Guomindang began to lose power due to their lack of support from the American government and the loss of their equipment.

In conclusion, the Communists were able to gain control over China mainly because of the Civil war and Japanese invasion, which helped them gain popularity from the people. The fall of the Guomindang also had an effect on this, as the Communists were then able to rule China however they wanted to.