Chinese Communist Revolution 第二次國共內戰 (Second Kuomintang-Communist Civil War) |
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Part of the Chinese Civil War (since 1927) Part of the Cold War (1947–1991) |
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People's Liberation Army occupies the Presidential Palace in Nanjing. April, 1949 |
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250,000 in three campaigns | 1.5 million in three campaigns |
The Chinese Communist Revolution or The Second Chinese Civil War started from 1945, after the end of Second Sino-Japanese War, and it is the second part of the Chinese Civil War. It was the culmination of the Chinese Communist Party's drive to power since its founding in 1921. In the official media, this period is known as the War of Liberation (simplified Chinese: 解放战争; traditional Chinese: 解放戰爭; pinyin: Jiěfàng Zhànzhēng).
China's twentieth-century revolution is linked with the history of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The CCP is also tied up with the dreams of national revival that had gripped the Chinese elites watching their Country's decline through the nineteenth century and into the early twentieth century. The party was founded in 1921 while searching for a solution to China's prolonged crisis, and thought they may have found it through Marxism. After a period of slow growth the Communists fell victim in 1927 to a purge by their chief political rival the Nationalist party led by Chiang Kaishek.
The Nationalists had an advantage in both troops and weapons, controlled a much larger territory and population, and enjoyed world support. The communists were well established in the north and northwest. During the war they had built up networks of local governments and village party leaders who appealed to patriotism rather than class struggle. The best trained Nationalist troops had been lost in early battles against the better equipped Japanese army and in Burma, while the communists had suffered less severe losses. The Soviet Union, though distrustful, provided aid to the communists, and the United States assisted the Nationalists with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of military supplies, as well as airlifting Nationalist troops from central China to Manchuria, an area Chiang Kai-shek saw as strategically vital to retake. Chiang determined to confront the PLA in Manchuria and committed his troops in one decisive battle in the autumn of 1948. The strength of Nationalist troops in July 1946 was 4.3 million, of which 2.2 million were well-trained and ready for country-wide mobile combat