Chapter 11 Questions

A.

• After World War 2, the Communists were more spread out through China, and so they were able to gain control over the areas that had been taken by Japan more quickly than the Guomindang.
• The Communists' "People's Liberation Army" used guerrilla tactics (destroying railways, raiding Guomindang bases at night, ambushing patrols)
• The Guomindang was unable to maintain the support of the people, causing many of them to join the Communists.
• According to Chiang Kaishek, Guomindang soldiers were not disciplined enough.
• The Communists were flexible and willing to change strategies.
• The Communists fought very carefully, avoiding major battles that they could not win.
  
• The People's Liberation Army expanded very quickly, gaining more support with every success. It was eventually able to fight the Guomindang head-on, rather than through the use of guerrilla tactics.
  
• Corruption and poor economic management under the Nationalists caused peasants to join the Communists.
• America cut off all aid to China in 1947.
  

B.1. Chiang Kaishek felt that his followers were unprincipled and undisciplined, and that this was causing the Guomindang to lose the war.
B.2. The Guomindang did not seem to think ahead, causing them to lose land to the Communists after World War II. Also, the Guomindang did not seem to efficiently use its resources- it had many more weapons, soldiers, and supplies than the Communists, but it was unsuccessful in using them.

In Class Work 2/12

1. The woodcut on page 22 shows Guomindang officers taking animals and food from a house. The miserable appearances of the family in the house suggests that life under Chiang Kaishek's regime would be terrible. This would make becoming a communist much more appealing to the Chinese people; people who were aware of the communists' ideology might have believed that such things would never happen in a communist country, where everybody would work together and share their food and animals with each other.
2. The Chinese Communist Party poster on page 23 shows the communists ideology of peasants working together collectively, an image which may have gained the support of China's peasant population. It also shows that the goal of this cooperation was to assist the Red Army in resisting against the Japanese invasion. The communists may have been taking advantage of the unpopular decision of Chiang Kaishek to refuse to open a united front against Japan and instead focus on eliminating the communists.
3. Source A in the book is a statement made by Chiang Kaishek about the state of the Guomindang. Chiang Kaishek seems to be trying to understand and explain why his organization was failing against the communists. This is valuable in that it is a primary source and it reveals some of the Guomindang's ideology, stating that people should know have spirit and discipline, caring for more than just themselves. Chiang Kaishek seems to believe that the lack of these qualities in the Guomindang was helping the communists win. However, it does not give any specific examples of what "right and wrong" are, and very little context is given to the source. Meanwhile, the excerpt from Mao: The Unknown Story was written by a historian many years after the communists won the Chinese Civil War, with the purpose of teaching what the author saw as the true reason for the communist victory. This is valuable because Jung Chang writes very different interpretations of why the communists won, saying that it was mostly due to foreign aid and the use of fear. Some claims, however, are not supported with any significant evidence.
   

Blog Update

Updated China Chapter 1 questions

HW 3

Why did the Communists, and not the Nationalists, win the Chinese Civil War?

• Communists gained the support of the peasants through land reform (land was given to peasants), propaganda (Long March, images portraying Nationalists negatively and emphasizing the Communists' will to cooperate with each other), and the formation of the Jiangxi Soviet.
• The use of guerrilla warfare kept the Red Army together as a fighting force- the Long March allowed the Communists to regroup, bringing their numbers to about 80,000
• Mistakes by the Nationalists + Chiang Kaishek- Failure of the Extermination Campaigns, Loss of US support by 1949, Failure to gain support of the peasants, Refusal to resist against the Japanese invasion (makes him look bad, opposition takes advantage of this with propaganda, causes him to lose support), Cooperation with northern warlords
  
• Support of the USSR- spies, leadership/advisors
• Mao called for a "United Front" against Japan
  

2/5/10 Notes

• 45 minutes into movie
• Updated Homework 2
• Need questions for part B of in class work 1
  

Class Work 2/4

A.

1. Between Jiangxi and Zunyi, the communists marched along a very straightforward route.
2. After Zunyi, the communists took a much less direct path, dividing the Red Army at some points and making full circles around certain areas before moving forward.
3. Chiang Kaishek and the Guomindang was able to predict the communists' movements and interrupt them when they were marching in straight lines. The communists changed their movements so that they would not be caught so easily.
4. The Red Army may have been trapped and defeated by the Guomindang if they had not changed their tactics.

B.

1. Source A is supported by the fact that less than a quarter of the 87,000 communists who started the Long March finished it. However, the fact that any of them made it to Shaanxi makes the Long March a success for communists to some extent. The countless obstacles that the communists had to overcome, particularly the crossing of the Dadu river, proved the determination of the communists, supporting the claim made in Source B. However, Chiang Kaishek was very successful in reducing the numbers of the communists, even if he did not exterminate them completely.
2. I think that the first view is much more accurate. Many communists were lost in the Long March, but as the source says, it was not a decisive defeat; the communists eventually won the civil war and gained dominance over China, despite the great losses after 1928.
   

Class Notes 2/3/10

Communists worked to gain the support of peasants:

• Land reform
• Ended arranged marriages
• Ended foot binding
• Lowered rents
• Peasant associations
• Propaganda (everybody has a job and is treated equally)
• Class warfare
• Compare to Soviets purging the kulaks (wealthy land owning peasants)
• Jianxi Soviet (1930s)