The Communist Party's Successful Gain of China

The Communist Party's Successful Gain of China

In the early 20th century China was facing historical difficulties

leading to a big change.

The poor peasants in China did not own their own land and had to pay

heavy rents and taxes to the landlords. Desperately poor and

illiterate, they were vulnerable to disease, draught, food and famine.

This is a very important reason why the Communist came into power.

The Nationalists controlled South China in the year of 1928 after the

Northern. Expedition. The time had come to attack the warlords who

ruled the North so that the enemy could be reunited under a single

government.

The ordinary Chinese civilians were sick of the warlords and the

constant civil war and they greeted the Kuomintang forces as

liberators. The Communist using of the Kuomintang army soon captured

the important cities in the Yangtze valley and set up a new national

capital at Hankow. Chiang and the non Communist forces meanwhile

captured Nanking and the rich seaport of Shanghai.

This was benefit for both Communists and Nationalists in the Long

term.

1927 was a bad year for the Chinese Communists. Their influence in the

Kuomintang was destroyed and when Chiang turned on them the Communist

dominated the government they had set up at Hankow during when the

Northern Expedition collapsed.

Mao, the elected leader of the Communist party believed that the

peasants should spearhead the revolutionary movement in China and was

not shared by most of the Communist party leaders. Mao and his

followers settled in Kiangsi and named it “Kiangsi Soviet,” it was a

mountainous area full of peasants.

Mao’s decision...

... middle of paper ...

...e

militiamen, the odds seemed to be stacked against them.

In fact, the reasons for the Nationalist defeat are not hard to find.

The Communists were particularly strong in the countryside where they

had extended their authority and control throughout the years of the

Japanese occupation. When the Japanese withdrew in 1945 the Communists

controlled an area with 150 million inhabitants. The towns and cities,

which were therefore like islands, isolated in a Communist controlled

sea. When the civil war started they were picked off one by one.

All of these reasons in the above lead to the most important reason

for Chiang’s defeat. This was his loss of support in the towns and

cities. The Communist went through struggles but they all led to step

by step victory. That’s why the Communists gained power of China in

1949.