S18: Communist Revolution

• What were the CIA’s assessments of the GMD and the CCP?
• How accurate were these asessments?
• What was the best course of action for the US?

• Costly and timely reconstruction
• Capital flight through foreign banks protected by unequal treaties
• Military costs create major deficits in treasury
• Hyperinflation leads to military failure: Poor pay, corruption, and desertion of GMD military and civilian employees

Four-way:

• United States
• Soviet Union
• Nationalist Party
• Communist Party

Discuss:

• Most likely outcome
• Best outcome / alternative
• Why?

The CCP

• Gained political influence during and after the war.
• Refused to give up military control for a role in the GMD government.
• Wanted democratization first.

The Nationalist

• Confident in their military strength and American support.
• Refused to compromise, believing concessions would weaken their rule.
• Demanded the CCP submit its military.

At the time of Japan’s surrender in August 1945:

• 1 million Japanese troops in China proper
• 1 million in Manchuria
• 1.75 million Japanese civilian

As negotiations faltered, clashes between GMD and CCP forces escalated in northern China:

• The U.S. helped transport GMD troops to the region, increasing competition for territory with the CCP.
• The CCP sought control of Manchuria with support from the Soviet Union after their entry into the war.

• Tactical errors: Fighting in Manchuria, squandering advantage
• Corruption and mismanagement alienated economic and intellectual elites
• Failure to compromise: Solving conflict with CCP through military offensives

• Luck: Disintegration and failings of the GMD
• Help from outside: A Creation of Soviet Union?
• Mao Zedong as master tactician? Result of superior strategy and organizational methods

• China was moving toward civil war in 1945-46 amid escalating U.S.-Soviet conflicts.
• The CCP-GMD conflict was influenced by changes in Soviet and American policies toward East Asia.
• Fall of two empires (British and Japanese) and rise two new empires (US and Soviet)
• The Chinese civil war as the beginning of Cold War in East Asia.

• Ideological cohesion of revolutionary leadership
• Prolonged military struggle and size of final engagements
• One of only two Third World countries (the other being Cambodia) to win control through military campaign
• Foundation of authoritarian resilience: PRC in power longer than the Soviet Union

• How did the CCP transition from underground party to ruling regime?
• How to build socialism in China?
• What is the place of socialist China in the world? Impact of the Korean War and the Cold War

• Totalitarianism: Was Mao’s China a totalitarian state?
• Mao Zedong: What was his role?
• Change and continuities: Was there a 1949 divide?
• Modernization vs. Revolution: How to situate the Mao era?

• Regime founded on military conquest
• Unproven legitimacy and few roots to local society
• Little experience with governing urban areas
• Economic crises: inflation, wartime destruction
• 4.5 million party members (many rural and illiterate) to rule a nation of 541 million
• Shaky foundation: exodus of capital and talents to Taiwan

• What should the party do?
• What shouldn’t it do?
• List top priorities for pomestic policy and foreign relations

• Establish a governing apparatus for uniting the country
• Restore national economy, especially urban and industrial sectors
• Consolidate cntrol over the countryside
• Cement relationship with the USSR

• Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance (Feb 1950)
• 10K+ Soviet experts and 150+ joint enterprises from 1953-1960
• China as part of socialist bloc and extension of Cold War to Asia

New Economic Policy

• Lenin’s pragmatic and moderate program (1921–1927)
• Retreat from full communism, allowing for some private enterprise and market mechanisms after the Russian Civil War.

High Stalinist models

• Forced collectivization, industrialization and urbanization (1929–1934)

Bureaucratic Stalinism

• Central planning and management of the economy and the state

• 1949-06: Soviet and American troops withdrawn; Kim Il-sung and Syngman Rhee endorsed
• 1950-06: President Truman dispatched the 7th US Fleet to Taiwan Strait
• 1950-06-25: North Korean Troops crossed the 38th parallel, eventually taking 90% of the south

• 1950-07: UN Security Council requesting US to compel North Korean withdrawal to 38th parallel
• 1950-09-15: General Douglas MacArthur, leading a UN force of 1.1 million troops, landed in Inchon
• 1950-09: George Marshall authorized MacArthur to cross the 38th and attack North Korea. Manchurian border bombed.

• Should the PRC intervene, given China’s own internal struggles and recent revolution?
• Can China take on the US?
• What were the potential benefits and drawbacks of entering the war?

• 1950-10-08: China entered Korean War
• 1950-10 to 1951-06: Chinese launched five counter-attacks and pushed the Americans back at 38th parallel
• 1951-04: MacArthur dismissed

• 1952-11 to 1952-11: US 8th Army bogged down during the Battle of Triangle Hill, with 20k+ casulaties on both sides
• 1952-11: President Eisenhower elected, promising end to war
• 1953-03: Death of Stalin

• What should be the general attitude and position at the negotiating table?
• Conditions of armistice: What are the best terms? What are the bottom lines?
• What are the best strategies for acceptance?

• Return of Communist PoWs would rejuvenate China’s fighting force
• Need to save face: Propaganda war of “Biological weapons”
• China in a better position to fight a protracted war

• 1953-07: Armistice concluded, with 4-km demilitarized zone along 38th and exchange of PoWs
• 600K Chinese killed, another 400K+ wounded
• 36K Americans, 520K North Koreans, 400K South Koreans
• Third deadliest war of the 20th century
• Military expenditures comprising of 55% of PRC gov spending, diverted from other programs

• Divided Korea
• Divided Taiwan Strait

• The PRC began shelling and bombing ROC-held islands, especially Quemoy (Kinmen) and Matsu.
• The United States supported the ROC and signed a mutual defense treaty with them.
• The crisis ended with an informal ceasefire, but the PRC continued to shell the islands sporadically for years.

Boost to PRC prestige

• China as a rising international power
• Able to defend itself against superior American forces
• Not just a dependent satellite of the Soviet Union

Revolutionary diplomacy

• China as a protector and defender of non-Western countries
• Support of Viet Minh in war against the French
• Support to North Korean and North Vietnamese communist governments

Domestic boost

• Regime consolidation, popular mobilization, and total transformation of Chinese society