Again as excerpted from "The Reader's Companion to Military History" article by Arthur Waldron the "Chinese Civil War 1945-1949" the common perspective apparently erroneous:
"Traditionally the Chinese Civil War has been interpreted as a prototypical Asian peasant revolution of rural masses against a corrupt government [Nationalist]. Some of the picture fits, but not all. The National Government, exhausted by the Anti-Japanese War, was beset by political rivalries and riddled with corruption, and the Chinese economy was consumed by spiraling inflation. The Communists made a democratic sounding appeal that persuaded much moderate opinion at least to remain neutral and won support both from important sectors of the intelligentsia as well as the poor peasantry . . . Alliance politics were critical: the Soviet helped the Communists even while seemingly accommodating the Nationalists; ineffective U.S. intervention deeply alienated both Chinese parties. Ultimately, however, this was not a social war; its outcome was determined militarily and could have gone either way. Revolution, as most recent scholarship has underlined, was much more its consequence than its cause."
And also again the Nationalists as portrayed in the media the corrupt bad guys and the communists under Mao as reformers trying to get a better deal for the peasant.
The Soviets not stinting in their support of Mao. American response to the Chinese situation half-baked and confused.
Arthur Waldron is correct in his assert that military victory was primary and social revolution only secondary? The scholars have a difficulty with this one?
coolbert.
