Chiang Kai-shek began his campaign to eradicate the Communists in around 1927. His policy was zero tolerance on anyone that supported the Communists or opposed the GMD.
The GMD had most cities in China under control, any attempt at a peasant uprising was crushed immediately by the GMD. Hundreds where executed and murdered. The GMD where brutal; people where shot in the streets, men where drowned to save ammunition and peasants were hung as examples to other revolutionaries. The ill treated peasants had little chance of breaking free of the GMD.
During the years of the GMD’s reign the peasants were treated like dirt. The taxes they had to pay came to around 65% of their total income, these people could not survive on the money they were earning let alone after 65% of it had been taken away. And in 1929 when famine struck right through till 1932 millions died and thousands were left without anywhere to live or anyone to depend on. Something had to be done
By 1934 the GMD had almost the whole of China under its control. The CCP only had four small bases left, all of which where in mountainous, hard to reach parts of china. Jiangxi in the north was the CCP’s main stronghold, and in 1933 Chiang deployed 700,000 of his troops to begin a blockade of Jiangxi. Chiang encircled the base and waited, for he knew that if he defeated the CCP here and the soon to be great Mao Zedong (one of the CCP’s leaders) the war would be all but over.
The GMD had closed in on Jiangxi and it looked as if the base was about to be surrendered and all the men inside captured. The base was surrendered, but instead 100,000 men, women and children escaped and set off walking towards Shaanxi, a base situated in the far north of China some 6,200 miles from Jiangxi, pursued all the way by The GMD army. The base was captured, and all The GMD had to do now was reprimand the escapees. Along the way to Shaanxi, many battles where fought, many lives were lost and October 1935, around 30,000 [according to CCP sources] Communists reached the Shaanxi base, Mao and his comrades had made it. The Long March, as it was later named, became legendary.
This in itself was a huge moral victory for the communists, but along the way something more important by far had happened, something that was to stand the Communists in good stead for the coming years.
Along the way the Red Army had passed through many thousands of peasant villages. Instead of ignoring the peasants, the Red Army helped them. They set up schools, showed the farmers how to work the land more efficiently, they chased land lords away and spread the word of the CCP. This was a pivotal point in the battle between the GMD and the CCP. Many of the peasants took to the ideas of the CCP, many thousands also joined the Red Army. They saw it as a way out and a way to help change China for the better. This is where the Communist uprising really began. The Red Army had began to grow and soon it would become a match for the GMD, but not quite yet.
By 1937 Mao Zedong had taken full control of the CCP. The Red Army was rapidly growing, China was beginning to change. The Red Army had begun to fight the GMD with the little amount of weapons they had. Instead of engaging the GMD head on [this would have been a suicidal tactic] the Communists used Guerrilla warfare. This involved using the land around them and taking the enemy by surprise. Compared to the GMD the Communists had hardly any weapons at all, the GMD on the other hand had resources that far surpassed anything the Communists could dream of . They started off with spears and sticks, and then gradually as they became better at ambushing the GMD they acquired all manner of weapons, like tanks, heavy artillery etc. The Communists became expert Guerrilla fighters, and learned to use their surroundings as an advantage, the GMD didn’t no what had hit them. They could not hurt an enemy that would not directly engage them, and for the most part they had absolutely no clue were the Red Army were hiding.
Their tactics began to pay off, as Chiang began to lose his grip, cities fell to the Communists every day, and people where actually happy that Mao and his army had taken over. Not only where they happy, they actually helped the Red Army, there are many accounts of local peasants sabotaging railway lines in order to benefit the communists. People began to believe in the CCP, this was a huge contrast to the GMD. Soldiers began to flee Chiang’s army, they had no faith at all in his leadership, as the soldiers did not believe in what they were fighting for, they were being forced to fight. Soldiers where conscripted through bribery, black mail and all manner of force. Unlike the Communists. The Communist fought because they wanted to, they fought because Mao inspired them and because they believed what they were doing was right.
While all this was going on, in the background the Japanese where beginning gradually to invade China, they had already taken Manchuria. By 1937 the Japanese were preparing a full scale invasion of China. Both parties need to put aside there fighting to unite and dispel the enemy, but instead Chiang Kai-shek sat back. He let the Red Army do all the fighting, as he thought that if the Red Army fought the Japanese after they had finished their army would be diminished, and then The GMD would gain full control of China again. This back fired.
The Japanese however were not going to leave China without a fight. Their tactics and policies were brutal by any armies standards. They were instructed to burn and loot any villages they came across, and kill any person that was unlucky enough to cross their path, as they had no where near enough soldiers to capture all the villages in China. Their orders were to basically rip China apart.
However this aside, by 1944 the Red Army had managed to rid China of the Japanese. This was another big factor in gaining popularity. The people of China saw what the CCP had done for them, and how the GMD had just sat back and let the Japanese burn their villages to the ground. Chiang Kai-shek became less and less popular as people saw his policies as old fashioned, and the peasants knew that he was never going to help them. And as the peasants made up 95% of the Chinese population his cause became more and more hopeless.
Nobody would have ever thought it 24 years ago but by 1949 the Chinese Communist Party had taken full control of China with Mao at the helm. And the reason for Mao’s success where clear, the CCP actually cared about the peasants and they promised change. I think that this is the main reason for the CCP’s victory over the GMD. That and a whole lot of determination. Mao inspired people with his endless charm and clever theories. He never once turned his back on the peasants as he himself came form the same background as them. He had always believed that any Communist revolution must be led by the peasants, and in the end it was.
Chiang Kai-shek on the other hand was a totally different person. He lied, he cheated and he murdered to get what he wanted. In the end this was his and the GMD’s down fall as no successful political party can be lead by a person with such a personality. And this is why the people of China turned their backs on the GMD.
China had changed dramatically since 1925, the fighting had died completely, the country had a leader they accepted, the republic had been united again and most of all China was stable. Now all that was left to be done was to rebuild China’s shattered economical state. This was a job for the CCP.
