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Chinese Civil War, 1945-49

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  1. Introduction
  2.  
  3. For the Allies and for Japan itself, the Japanese surrender in August 1945 signaled the arrival of peace. For China, it marked the resumption of the civil war between Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Party (Kuomintang, or KMT) and Mao Zedong’s Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The conflict began with deployments and military clashes as each side tried to position itself to control North China and Northeast China (Manchuria). The military struggle took place in the context of an international diplomatic contest in which the Soviet Union and the United States each tried to advance their interests in China while avoiding any military involvement themselves. While the Soviets and the Americans each offered limited military assistance to their Chinese protégés, they also pushed them into negotiations, first at Chongqing from August to October 1945, and then from December 1945 through January 1947, in Chongqing and in Nanjing under the auspices of General George Marshall. Both the Communist and the Nationalist leaders engaged in “talking while fighting,” trying to use the dynamic relationship between negotiations and combat in order to maximize gains both at the negotiating table and on the battlefield. By the summer of 1946, it was evident that the negotiations had failed and that the contest between the two parties would be settled by force. While General Marshall continued his efforts at negotiation until January 1947, full-scale civil war broke out, first in China south of the Great Wall, and then with a resumption of hostilities in the Northeast. The military conflict was accompanied by severe economic problems and by intense internal social and political struggles, both in the rural areas and in the cities. The military situation developed rapidly. In the autumn and winter of 1948–1949, the Communists, no longer simple guerrilla forces, defeated Chiang’s armies in three major campaigns: the Liao-Shen, Ping-Jin, and Huai-Hai campaigns. By the end of 1949, Chiang was forced to withdraw to Taiwan. Because the Chinese Civil War had military, political, and social dimensions, and because it unfolded in the context of the Cold War and with the involvement of both the Soviet Union and the United States, there is a vast array of literature that at least touches on the subject. The aim of this bibliography is to focus on the scholarly literature on the civil war itself, while touching on at least some of the major works dealing with the political, social, and particularly the diplomatic context in which the war took place.
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  5. General Overviews
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  7. Those new to the study of this particular period of Chinese history will want to get a bird’s-eye view of the Republican period (1911–1949) in order to understand the historical context in which the civil war occurred. Lary 2007 provides a good overview of the Republican period, including the civil war. Eastman 2002 focuses more closely on the civil war period and will also initiate the student into the politically charged business of explaining why the civil war ended as it did—an issue which pervades the English-language literature. Pepper 1986, though now somewhat dated, provides a concise overview of the war itself. For readers of Chinese, Wang 2000 and Zhu and Tao 2000 together provide a treatment of all aspects of the civil war years. Graduate students and other specialists will also find their extensive bibliographies useful.
  8.  
  9. Eastman, Lloyd E. Seeds of Destruction: Nationalist China in War and Revolution, 1937–1949. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002.
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  11. Overview of the political, economic, and military history of the Republic of China from 1937 to 1949. Concludes that the fundamental reasons for the Kuomintang (KMT) defeat were weaknesses deeply embedded in the regime itself, rather than betrayal by the American government. First published 1984.
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  13. Lary, Diana. China’s Republic. Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
  14. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139167253Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  15. A recent textbook introduction to the entire Republican period, including discussion of the civil war. A good starting point for those who need to put the civil war years into context.
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  17. Pepper, Suzanne. “The KMT-CCP Conflict 1945–1949.” In The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 13, Republican China: 1912–1949—Part 2. Edited by John King Fairbank and Albert Feuerwerker, 723–788. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
  18. DOI: 10.1017/CHOL9780521243384Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  19. An overview of the political, economic, diplomatic, and military dimensions of the civil war. Pepper notes that while observers easily recognized the weaknesses of the Nationalist government and army, they failed to understand the strengths of the Communists.
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  21. Wang Chaoguang. Cong kangzhan shengli dao neizhan baofa qianhou. Beijing: Zhonghua shu ju, 2000.
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  23. Draws on a wide spectrum of archival and secondary sources in Chinese and in English to describe in great detail the domestic, international, and military facets of what the author sees as a competition between two visions of China’s future from August 1945 through July 1947.
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  25. Zhu Zongzhen, and Tao Wenzhao. Guomindang zhengquan de zongbengkui he Zhonghua Minguo shiqi de jieshu. Beijing: Zhonghua shu ju, 2000.
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  27. A comprehensive and multifactor historical analysis of the process and causes of the Nationalist Party’s collapse, covering the period from July 1947 through September 1949.
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  29. Reference Works
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  31. There are no major reference works specifically devoted to the Chinese Civil War. Boorman and Howard 1967–1969 is the standard source for brief biographical information, but this work may be supplemented by the biographical entries in Lew and Leung 2013, which is the only English-language reference work on the civil war itself. In addition to biographical entries, it also includes entries on major organizations and events and major military engagements. For the military aspects of the civil war, students should also consult Wortzel 1999. Graduate students and other specialists planning to conduct research in this area should consult Kirby 2000, Wilkinson 2000, and Ye and Esherick 1996, as well as the materials in Bibliographies, Chinese Communist Published Documents, Chinese Nationalist Published Documents, and American Published Documents.
  32.  
  33. Boorman, Howard L., and Richard C. Howard, eds. Biographical Dictionary of Republican China. 5 vols. New York, Columbia University Press, 1967–1969.
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  35. Useful reference for brief biographies of major figures on both the Communist and Nationalist sides of the Chinese Civil War.
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  37. Kirby, William C., Man-houng Lin, James Chin Shih, and David A. Pietz, eds. State and Economy in Republican China: A Handbook for Scholars. 2 vols. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2000.
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  39. An invaluable resource on the Republican period, particularly for those seeking to conduct research on the economic and business history.
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  41. Lew, Christopher, and Edwin Pak-Wah Leung. Historical Dictionary of the Chinese Civil War. 2d ed. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2013.
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  43. Most useful for its brief biographies of key actors, institutions, and concepts, this second edition, updated by Christopher Lew, includes expanded coverage of key campaigns and battles, and of some aspects of the political, economic, and diplomatic dimensions of the civil war.
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  45. Wilkinson, Endymion Porter. Chinese History: A Manual. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2000.
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  47. An overview of primary sources for all periods of Chinese history up to 1949, including a chapter on sources for the Republican era (1912–1949).
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  49. Wortzel, Larry M. Dictionary of Contemporary Chinese Military History. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1999.
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  51. Includes thorough coverage of the key military campaigns, battles personalities, and doctrinal issues of the Chinese Civil War.
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  53. Ye Wa, and Joseph W. Esherick. Chinese Archives: An Introductory Guide. Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1996.
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  55. A guide to national and regional archives in the People’s Republic and on Taiwan.
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  57. Bibliographies
  58.  
  59. The bibliographical essay in Westad 2003 is a useful starting point and includes a brief discussion of both English- and Chinese-language secondary and primary sources. Beijing Tushuguan 1986–1996, Hu 1999–2005, and Wang and Zhu 1992 are all standard bibliographical sources for the Republican period and will be useful to graduate students and others with a serious research interest in the field.
  60.  
  61. Beijing Tushuguan, ed. Minguo shiqi zong shumu, 1911–1949. 21 vols. Beijing: Shumu Wenxian Chubanshe, 1986–1996.
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  63. Index of more than 100,000 books published in China during the Republican period. Books are divided into categories such as philosophy, religion, society, politics, and military.
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  65. Hu Pingsheng, ed. Zhongguo xiandaishi shuji lunwen ziliao juyao. 4 vols. Taipei: Xuesheng Shuju, 1999–2005.
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  67. Standard reference work for studies of modern Chinese history published after 1949.
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  69. Wang Huilin, and Zhu Hanguo, eds. Zhongguo baokan cidian. Taiyuan, China: Shuhai, 1992.
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  71. Reference work for newspapers and magazines published between 1815 and 1949.
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  73. Westad, Odd Arne. Decisive Encounters: The Chinese Civil War, 1946–1950. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003.
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  75. Includes a useful bibliographical essay, citing a range of primary and secondary sources in English and in Chinese.
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  77. Journals
  78.  
  79. There are no journals specifically devoted to the Chinese Civil War. The best way to locate English-language journal articles is to search standard online databases such as JSTOR. For journal articles in Chinese, the best single source is East View Information Services Online Databases, a comprehensive set of online databases. The Journal of Military History and Junshi lishi yanjiu are both general military history journals which occasionally publish articles on the Chinese Civil War. The Journal of Asian Studies and Twentieth Century China (including its earlier incarnation as Republican China) are more likely to publish articles dealing with the social, political, cultural, and economic aspects of the civil war years than with the war itself.
  80.  
  81. East View Information Services Online Databases.
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  83. Requires a subscription, but is available through many major libraries. The database gives access to thousands of journals and newspapers from both the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan.
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  85. Journal of Asian Studies.
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  87. Quarterly publication of the Association for Asian Studies. All issues available online through subscribing institutions.
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  89. Journal of Military History.
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  91. Quarterly journal of the Society for Military History. Occasionally publishes articles dealing with the Chinese Civil War. All articles available online to subscribers and through subscribing libraries.
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  93. Junshi lishi yanjiu.
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  95. China’s premier military history journal, published quarterly by the People’s Liberation Army’s Nanjing Institute of Political Science.
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  97. Twentieth Century China.
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  99. Published as Republican China from 1983 to 2004. Published semiannually.
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  101. Maps and Photographs
  102.  
  103. Many of the Chinese-language secondary works on the military history of the Chinese Civil War include detailed full-color maps. For those who require maps with English labeling, those in Griess 1986 give a reasonable overview of major theaters and operations. Junshi Kexueyuan 1987 and Wu 1999 offer a greater level of detail. Many Chinese-language books, particularly collections of primary sources, also include photographs from the civil war period, but the quality of reproduction is often very poor. Jin-cha-ji Wenyi Yanjiuhui 1992 is a welcome exception.
  104.  
  105. Griess, Thomas E., ed. Atlas for the Arab-Israeli Wars, the Chinese Civil War, and the Korean War. West Point Military History Series. Wayne, NJ: Avery, 1986.
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  107. Includes maps of Chiang’s initial strategy for defeating the Communists in North China and Manchuria, the Liao-Shen Campaign, operations in North China, and of operations in South China including Chiang’s withdrawal to Taiwan.
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  109. Jin-cha-ji Wenyi Yanjiuhui, ed. Dongbei jiefang zhanzheng. Shenyang, China: Liaoning Meishu Chubanshe, 1992.
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  111. Stunning collection of well-reproduced historical photographs from the Northeast theater of the civil war. Includes depictions of the joint Sino-Soviet operation to capture Shanhaiguan in 1945, as well as other major campaigns and battles, land reform, the surrender of Japanese soldiers, and military training.
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  113. Junshi Kexueyuan Junshi Lishi Yanjiubu, ed. Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun zhanshi. Vol. 3, Quanguo jiefang zhanzheng shiqi. Beijing: Junshi Kexue Chubanshe, 1987.
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  115. Close description of the major engagements of the civil war, accompanied by detailed military maps.
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  117. Wu Yuexing, ed. Zhongguo xiandaishi dituji 1919–1949. Beijing: Zhongguo Ditu Chubanshe, 1999.
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  119. Includes maps of major campaigns and battles of the Chinese Civil War, from the disposition of Communist and Nationalist forces in August 1945 through the major campaigns of the Northeast, North China, the crossing of the Yangzi, and onward to the PLA’s advances into Tibet and Xinjiang.
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  121. Chinese Communist Published Documents
  122.  
  123. Mao 1963 provides English translations of some of the basic documents illustrating Mao Zedong’s role in establishing the strategic direction and operational conception of major campaigns of the civil war. Those with a more serious research interest in Mao Zedong’s role in the making of strategy will want to consult Mao 1993 and Zhongguo Renmin Jiefangjun 1981 for a larger selection of material. While these documents clearly illustrate Mao Zedong’s role, they should be balanced by other material in order to avoid a simplistic “Mao-centric” picture of Communist strategy. The selected works of a number of other Communist Party leaders have been published in one- or two-volume editions. Representative works of this genre include Huang Kecheng 2002, Liu 1984, Zhonggong Zhongyang 1991, and Liu 2010. Zhonggong Zhongyang Dang’anguan 1989–1992 is a standard source for declassified documents from the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee. Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun houqinshi ziliao xuanbian is one of an increasing number of edited volumes of primary sources.
  124.  
  125. Houqin xueyuan xueshubu lishi yanjiushi, and Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun dang’anguan, eds. Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun houqinshi ziliao xuanbian: Jiefangjun shiqi. 6 vols. Beijing: Jindun Chubanshe, 1992.
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  127. The material in these six volumes includes directives, reports, speeches, regulations, and data on a wide variety of logistical questions both from the Communist Party Center and its Central Military Commission and from the Northwestern, Central Plains, East China, Northeast (Manchuria), and North China theaters. The documents deal with issues including grain supply, health and sanitation, medical treatment, and transportation.
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  129. Huang Kecheng. Huang Kecheng junshi wenxuan. Beijing: Jiefangjun Chubanshe, 2002.
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  131. An edited collection of 148 of General Huang Kecheng’s memoranda, speeches, and reports. Those relevant to the civil war deal with issues ranging from strategic and operational questions to the retrofitting of mortars for use in bombarding enemy defensive works.
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  133. Liu Shaoqi. Selected Works of Liu Shaoqi. Vol. 1. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1984.
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  135. Liu Shaoqi served as leader of the Communist Party Center in 1945 and 1946 when Mao Zedong was in Chongqing for negotiations and then incapacitated by illness. Lew 2009 (cited under General Military Histories Published After 1980) suggests that Liu was responsible for key strategic decisions. Volume 1 includes Liu’s writings on strategy and on building base areas.
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  137. Liu Yalou. Liu Yalou junshi wenji. Edited by Kongjun Liu Yalou Junshi Wenji Bianjizu. Beijing: Lantian Chubanshe, 2010.
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  139. Liu Yalou served as chief of staff in Lin Biao’s Northeast Field Army. His writings provide insight into issues including organization, logistics, training, and the transition from guerrilla to standard warfare. The volume was edited by a committee.
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  141. Mao Zedong. Selected Military Writings of Mao Tse-tung. Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1963.
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  143. This standard English translation includes documents on army-building, strategy, and the concepts for operations for the Liao-Shen Campaign, the Ping-Jin Campaign, and the Huai-Hai Campaign.
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  145. Mao Zedong. Mao Zedong junshi wenji. 6 vols. Beijing: Junshi Kexue Chubanshe, 1993.
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  147. This collection of Mao Zedong’s talks, essays, and directives from various periods, including the civil war, indicates that Mao, although he did not personally command troops, was concerned with and responsible for Communist strategy at the highest levels, engaging in active give-and-take with commanders in the field.
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  149. Zhonggong Zhongyang Dang’anguan, ed. Zhonggong Zhongyang wenjian xuanji. 18 vols. Beijing: Zhonggong Zhongyang Dangxiao, 1989–1992.
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  151. A collection of documents from the Chinese Communist Party Center. Volumes 15–18 deal with the civil war years. Clearly selected in order to present a seamless picture of the Communist Party leadership working smoothly together to overcome all challenges in its inevitable march toward victory, but nevertheless a basic source used by scholars both in and outside of China.
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  153. Zhonggong Zhongyang Wenxian Bianji Weiyuanhui, ed. Peng Zhen Wenxuan (1941–1990 nian). Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe, 1991.
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  155. Peng Zhen, a member of the Communist Party’s Central Committee, served as leader of the Party’s Northeast Bureau from the fall of 1945 through June 1946, when he was replaced by Lin Biao. Peng’s tenure as leader of Communist operations in the Northeast remains a subject of controversy. This is a collection of his writings.
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  157. Zhongguo Renmin Jiefangjun Junshi Kexueyuan, ed. Mao Zedong junshi wenxuan: Neibuben. Beijing: Zhongguo Renmin Jiefangjun Zhanshi Chubanshe, 1981.
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  159. Selected cables from Mao Zedong, writing for the Communist Party Center, to field commanders, illustrating Mao Zedong’s strategic conception of major campaigns including the Liao-Shen Campaign and the Huai-Hai Campaign. Published for internal circulation; includes material not found in the openly published selection of Mao’s military writings.
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  161. Chinese Nationalist Published Documents
  162.  
  163. The two most useful published collections of Nationalist government documents from the civil war period are Zhongguo Guomindang 1981 and Zhongguo Di’er Lishi Dang’an Guan 1991. Qin 1978 is a valuable source for the activities and thinking of Chiang Kai-shek and includes substantial excerpts from his diaries. The diaries themselves are available to researchers at the Hoover Institution Archives at Stanford University.
  164.  
  165. Qin Xiaoyi, ed. Zongtong Jianggong dashi changbian chugao. Taipei, 1978.
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  167. Chronological record of Chiang Kai-shek’s major public activities, drawn from publicly released and archival material and excerpts from Chiang’s diaries.
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  169. Zhongguo Di’er Lishi Dang’an Guan, ed. Zhonghua Minguo shi dang’an ziliao huibian. Nanjing, China: Jiangsu Guji Chubanshe, 1991.
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  171. Selected documents from the Number Two Archives (Republican era archives) in Nanjing. The Fifth Series, Third Collection, covers the years 1945–1949.
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  173. Zhongguo Guomindang Zhongyang Weiyuanhui Dangshi Weiyuanhui, ed. Zhonghua Minguo Zhongyao Shiliao Chubian—Dui Ri Kangzhan Shiqi. 7 vols. Taipei: Zhongyang Wenwu Gongying, 1981.
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  175. Edited selection of documents relating to the Nationalist Party and government.
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  177. American Published Documents
  178.  
  179. Published collections of declassified American diplomatic and intelligence documents were the major sources for English-language scholarship on the Chinese Civil War until the 1980s. The relevant volumes of the US Department of State’s Foreign Relations of the United States are the best starting point. Kesaris 1982 and Kesaris 1985 are not an adequate substitute for the document collections cited under Chinese Communist Published Documents and Chinese Nationalist Published Documents, but they are useful, particularly for those who seek to understand more about developments in China but do not read Chinese. Merrill 1996 and Rea and Brewer 1981, respectively, illustrate the Truman administration’s and the American ambassador in China’s impressions of developments in China as they unfolded. US Department of State 1967 is the Truman administration’s statement on China policy on the occasion of the Communist victory and should be read in light of the sources included in the US-China Relationship, the Marshall Mission, and the “Who Lost China” Debate.
  180.  
  181. Kesaris, Paul, ed. CIA Research Reports: China 1946–1976. Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1982.
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  183. Includes CIA research reports on China during the civil war period, mostly from 1947 to 1948. In these reports, CIA analysts express a lack of confidence in the military capabilities of the Nationalist armies and a concern that the Soviet Union would easily match and exceed any increased American military support for the Nationalists.
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  185. Kesaris, Paul, ed. Records of the U.S. Department of State Relating to the Internal Affairs of China, 1945–1949. Microfilm. Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1985.
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  187. This extensive collection of documents includes sections on political and military affairs as seen by American diplomats and intelligence officers at the time.
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  189. Merrill, Dennis, ed. Documentary History of the Truman Presidency. Vol. 6, The Chinese Civil War: General George C. Marshall’s Mission to China, 1945–1947. Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1996.
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  191. Photocopies of selected documents relating to United States China policy and the Marshall Mission, taken from Truman’s papers and other archival sources.
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  193. Rea, Kenneth W., and John C. Brewer. The Forgotten Ambassador: The Reports of John Leighton Stuart, 1946–1949. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1981.
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  195. Edited collection of John Leighton Stuart’s reports during the Chinese Civil War. Covered topics include the Marshall Mission, the Wedemeyer Mission, and the deterioration of the Nationalist military position as seen and reported by the American ambassador.
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  197. US Department of State. Foreign Relations of the United States. University of Wisconsin Digital Collections.
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  199. This edited collection of declassified US State Department documents is the starting point for research on American policy toward China during the civil war period. The online edition is fully searchable. Print editions are available in most university libraries. Also available from US Department of State, Office of the Historian.
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  201. US Department of State. The China White Paper, August 1949. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1967.
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  203. The Truman administration’s summary and analysis of the reasons for the collapse of Chiang Kai-shek’s military and government on the mainland. Issued in the context of intense Republican criticism, the document fixes the blame squarely on Chiang and the Kuomintang government and army. Includes an introductory essay by Lyman van Slyke. Originally issued as United States Relations with China, with Special Reference to the Period 1944–1949 (Washington, DC: US Department of State, 1949).
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  205. Biographies of Major Personalities
  206.  
  207. There are a large variety of biographies of major personalities on both the Communist and Nationalist sides published in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. English-language biographies are scarce, as many of the men involved are of little interest to the English-reading public. Chang and Halliday 2006 draws on a wealth of sources, including interviews, but has been criticized both for lack of balance and for historical inaccuracies and should be read in conjunction with Meisner 2007. On Mao’s opponent, Chiang Kai-shek, Fenby 2003 takes a critical view, while Taylor 2009, though acknowledging Chiang’s faults, is more sympathetic. It is also better-researched, drawing on a wealth of Chinese primary sources, including Chiang’s diaries, while Fenby 2003 relies exclusively on English-language secondary sources. There are few English-language biographies of the political and military leaders below Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek (for memoirs, see Memoirs of Chinese Nationalist Personalities and Memoirs of Chinese Communist Personalities). Domes 1985 relates the story of Marshal Peng Dehuai (Peng Te-huai), but touches only briefly on the civil war. Robinson 1971 presents the biography of Lin Biao (Lin Piao) up to 1949. Further information on Lin’s career may be gleaned from Li and Shu 2009, which is essentially a collection of unclassified and declassified material on Lin, arranged in chronological order. Zheng, et al. 1986 is a sympathetic account of the life of Du Yuming, while Xue Qingyu 2000 provides an account of Sun Liren and the New First Army.
  208.  
  209. Chang, Jung, and Jon Halliday. Mao: The Unknown Story. New York: Vintage, 2006.
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  211. This fascinating but deeply flawed biography of Mao Zedong credits the Communist victory to a combination of Soviet support for the CCP, lack of American will to support Chiang Kai-shek, and Chiang’s own poor judgment.
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  213. Domes, Jürgen. Peng Te-huai: The Man and the Image. London: C. Hurst, 1985.
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  215. This biography of Peng Dehuai (Peng Te-huai) includes a brief discussion of Peng’s role as commander of the Northwest Field Army fighting the Nationalist general Hu Zongnan during the civil war. Portrays Peng as a mediocre strategist and risk taker with a mixed record of success.
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  217. Fenby, Jonathan. Chiang Kai-shek: China’s Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2003.
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  219. Fenby’s biography, written in journalistic style, covers Chiang’s life from childhood through 1949. He argues that Chiang’s repeated pursuit of victory in short-term political struggles and lack of long-term strategic vision undermined his position in the civil war period. He relies exclusively on English-language secondary sources.
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  221. Li De and Shu Yun, eds. Lin Biao riji. Carle Place, NY: Mingjing Chubanshe, 2009.
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  223. Neither diary nor biography, but an edited chronological compilation of the major events in Lin’s life, with excerpts or the entire text of Lin’s orders, writings, speeches, and letters, drawn from a variety of sources. Lead editor Li De worked as a secretary under Lin from 1959 to 1964.
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  225. Meisner, Maurice J. Mao Zedong: A Political and Intellectual Portrait. Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2007.
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  227. Arguably the best of the many biographies of Mao Zedong, and certainly a more balanced approach than that of Chang and Halliday.
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  229. Robinson, Thomas W. A Politico-Military Biography of Lin Piao, Part I, 1907–1949. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1971.
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  231. A biography of Lin Biao accompanied by translations of a number of his writings. Collectively, the translated writings clearly demonstrate a keen awareness of the dialectical relationship between guerrilla and conventional warfare and a strong preference for offensive operations.
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  233. Taylor, Jay. The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.
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  235. A sympathetic but still objective biography that, following a trend in both mainland Chinese and Western historiography, paints a more complex picture of Chiang than was typical of earlier work. Follows the shifts and turns in Chiang’s decision making as he attempted to deal with the challenges of the civil war years.
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  237. Xue Qingyu. Sun Liren jiangjun zhuan. Hohhot, China: Neimenggu Daxue Chubanshe, 2000.
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  239. Biography of the commander of the New First Army. Most of the book describes the New First Army’s training in India and operations in the Burma theater during World War II. A final chapter covers Sun and the New First Army in the Manchurian theater of the civil war.
  240. Find this resource:
  241. Zheng Dongguo, Hou Jingru, Tan Yizhi, Wen Qiang, Zheng Tingji, and Yang Baitao. Du Yuming jiangjun. Beijing: Zhongguo Wenshi Chubanshe, 1986.
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  243. Biography of Nationalist general Du Yuming, written and published in mainland China. Like most work on the civil war published on the mainland (and in strong contrast to work published in Taiwan and in the West), the biography is largely positive in its treatment of Du Yuming.
  244. Find this resource:
  245. Memoirs of Chinese Nationalist Personalities
  246.  
  247. The memoirs of Nationalist figures cited here include both those of men like Xiong Shihui, Bai Chongxi, and Chen Lifu (Chen Li-fu), who operated at the highest levels of the Nationalist government, and of men like Shi Jue, Li Daren (Li 1979), and Zheng Donguo, who were on the ground commanding armies in operations (most of them unsuccessful) against the People’s Liberation Army. These memoirs do, to some extent, reflect the political circumstances of the times and places in which they were written. Memoirs like those of Bai Chongxi (Guo and Jia 1984), Chen Cheng (Wu 2005), Chen Lifu (Chen 1994), and Shi Jue (Chen and Zhang 1986) tend to be very critical of Nationalist officers (particularly Du Yuming) who surrendered to the Communist forces, and to be very critical of the Truman administration and the Marshall Mission. The accounts of Zheng Dongguo (Zheng 1992) and of Du Yuming (Du 1985), both written in the People’s Republic, portray Du Yuming in a positive light (an approach reflected in much of the Chinese secondary literature on the period) and, while critical of American imperialism in a generic way, are very harsh in their judgment of Chiang Kai-shek and of some of the commanders (Shi Jue in particular) who fled to Taiwan. Xiong Shihui 2008 takes a more restrained and objective approach while still managing to convey the author’s belief that the Soviet Union and the Chinese Communist Party easily manipulated a naïve American president and his diplomats. Huang Yaowu 2010 focuses on army life and combat as seen from the perspective of a junior officer.
  248.  
  249. Chen Lifu. The Storm Clouds Clear over China: The Memoir of Chen Li-fu, 1900–1993. Edited by Sidney H. Chang and Ramon H. Myers. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution, 1994.
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  251. Memoir of Chiang Kai-shek’s close confidante and leader of the “CC Clique.” Section on the civil war years makes clear Chen’s misgivings about the Marshall Mission and his assessment of the causes of Nationalist defeat.
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  253. Chen Li, and Zhang Cungong, eds. Shi Jue xiansheng fangwen jilu. Taipei: Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, 1986.
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  255. In these interviews, General Shi Jue recalls his role as commander of the Thirteenth Army. Shi Jue is particularly critical of General Du Yuming, suggesting that Du’s inexperience, incompetence, and egotistical behavior were the causes of significant setbacks.
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  257. Du Yuming. “Guomindang pohuai heping jingong dongbei shimo.” In Liaoshen zhanyi qinliji: Yuan guomindang jianglingde huiyi. Edited by Zhongguo renmin zhengzhi xieshang huiyi quanguo weiyuanhui, wenshi ziliao yanjiu weiyuanhui “Liao-shen zhanyi qinliji” bianshenzu, 514–564. Beijing: Wenshi Ziliao Chubanshe, 1985.
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  259. Describes major Nationalist operations in the Northeast from the initial entry into the area in November 1945 through the ceasefire of June 1946. Du, who was in command of Nationalist troops in the Northeast during this period, tends to blame his fellow generals and Chiang Kai-shek himself for strategic errors. The volume was edited by a committee.
  260. Find this resource:
  261. Guo Tingyi, and Jia Tingshi, eds. Bai Chongxi xiansheng fangwen jilu. 2 vols. Taipei: Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, 1984.
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  263. Record of interviews with the Guangxi clique general who served as minister of defense during the civil war.
  264. Find this resource:
  265. Huang Yaowu. 1944–1948, wode zhanzheng. Shenyang, China: Chunfeng Wenyi Chubanshe, 2010.
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  267. Refreshingly frank oral-history account from an elderly man who served as a second lieutenant in the Nationalist New Sixth Army in the Northeast.
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  269. Li Daren. Dongbei kanluan huiyi. Taipei: Boxue Chubanshe, 1979.
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  271. A Nationalist officer’s reminiscences of operations against Lin Biao’s forces in the Northeast, from the victories of 1945 to the loss of Jinzhou in the Liao-Shen Campaign in 1948.
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  273. Wu, Shu-feng, ed. Chen Cheng xian sheng hui yi lu: Guo gong zhan zheng. Taipei: Guoshiguan, 2005.
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  275. In this section of his memoirs, Chen (who served as director of the Nationalists’ Northeast Headquarters from August 1947 to February 1948) recalls his involvement in the Nationalist Party’s struggle against the Communists from 1927 through the loss of the mainland in 1949. The book also contains a concise record of Chen’s daily activities, orders from Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi) to Chen, and Chen’s reports to Chiang.
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  277. Xiong Shihui. Xiong Shihui huiyilu, 1907–1949. Carle Place, NY: Mingjing Chubanshe, 2008.
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  279. Detailed, often day-by-day memoirs based on the author’s diary and supplemented with illustrative documents. Xiong describes his actions as director of the Northeast Field Headquarters (September 1945–August 1947) and subsequent events through January 1949.
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  281. Zheng Dongguo. Wode Rongma Shengya: Zheng Dongguo Huiyilu. Edited by Zheng Jianbang and Hu Yaoping. Beijing: Tuanjie Chubanshe, 1992.
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  283. Memoir of the Nationalist general who, surrounded at Changchun in 1948, brought his troops over to join the Communist forces. Covers the 1920s through the civil war. Valuable insights into planning and conduct of operations.
  284. Find this resource:
  285. Memoirs of Chinese Communist Personalities
  286.  
  287. Many of the leaders (or secretaries of leaders) of the Chinese Communist Party and People’s Liberation Army of the 1930s and 1940s have published memoirs. Peng Dehuai’s memoir (Peng 1984), although published in 1984, was written as a self-criticism during the Cultural Revolution. The bulk of the memoir literature, though, was written in the 1980s and 1990s, when the political climate had reached a point at which old memories could be related with minimal fear of political repercussions, and men like Huang Kecheng (Huang 1994) could express their criticisms of decisions made during the civil war, including decisions made by Mao Zedong. This is not to say that political axes were not still being ground—and with gusto. For example, Nie Rongzhen and Li Yunchang’s accusations (in Yuan 1989) that the Communist defeat at Shanhaiguan in November 1945 was due to Lin Biao’s alleged violation of orders from the Party Center and a failure to send reinforcements is a reflection of post-1972 critiques of Lin Biao. Lu Zhengcao 1987 draws explicit connections between events that took place during the civil war and the reinterpretation of those events in the context of factional struggle after 1949. As a member of Lin Biao’s clique, Wu Faxian (see Wu Faxian 2006) provides a more sympathetic view of his former commander, as does Hong Xuezhi (see Hong Xuezhi 2002). While most of the memoirs presented here are those of officers in the field, Shi 1991 provides unique insights into the civil war as seen from the Party Center in Yan’an, while Zhang 1988 records the delicate balancing act of an underground Communist Party member serving in the Nationalist military.
  288.  
  289. Hong Xuezhi. Hong Xuezhi huiyilu. Beijing: Jiefangjun Chubanshe, 2002.
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  291. Hong, commander of the Sixth Column (later 43rd Army) under Lin Biao, describes operations including the failed attack on Siping (June 1947), the Liao-Shen Campaign, the Ping-Jin Campaign, the crossing of the Yangzi, and the Communist capture of Hainan Island.
  292. Find this resource:
  293. Huang Kecheng. Huang Kecheng zishu. Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe, 1994.
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  295. Memoirs of the famously outspoken Communist general who led troops under Lin Biao in some of the key battles of the Chinese Civil War.
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  297. Lu Zhengcao. Lu Zhengcao huiyilu. Beijing: Jiefangjun Chubanshe, 1987.
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  299. Lu describes his experiences developing a Communist base area in West Manchuria, as a commander under Lin Biao and his management of railway operations in Manchuria.
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  301. Peng Dehuai. Memoirs of a Chinese Marshal: The Autobiographical Notes of Peng Dehuai. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1984.
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  303. Autobiographical notes from memory, written in response to interrogators’ demands for self-criticism during the Cultural Revolution. Includes Peng’s recollections of the withdrawal from Yan’an and the Communist forces’ transition from the defensive to the offensive during the civil war.
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  305. Shi Zhe. Zai lishi juren shenbian. Beijing: Zhongyang Wenxian Chubanshe, 1991.
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  307. Memoirs of Mao Zedong’s Russian translator in Yan’an during the Civil War years. Shi Zhe’s reminiscences call attention to the close nature of the relationship between the Soviets and the Chinese Communist Party, even while the Soviet Union officially recognized Chiang Kai-shek’s government and its sovereignty over Manchuria.
  308. Find this resource:
  309. Wu Faxian. Suiyue jiannan: Wu Faxian huiyilu. Hong Kong: Beixing Chubanshe, 2006.
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  311. Wu served as political commissar of the Northeast Democratic Army’s Second Column from 1946 to 1949, and subsequently as political commissar of the 39th Army. In his memoirs, Wu describes his experiences in the Manchurian theater, the Ping-Jin Campaign, and the 39th Army’s operations in Guangxi. Wu’s perspectives on Lin Biao’s style of command during the civil war and his account of the Lin Biao incident in 1872 are of particular interest.
  312. Find this resource:
  313. Yuan Wei, ed. Shanhaiguan zhi zhan. Beijing: Junshi Kexue Chubanshe, 1989.
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  315. This is an edited volume of memoirs specifically on the struggle for control of Shanhaiguan, the key pass between North China and the Northeast (Manchuria) in the autumn of 1945. Includes the reminiscences of twenty men and a selection of relevant Communist Party documents.
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  317. Zhang Kexia. Peijian jiangjun: Zhang Kexia junzhong riji. Beijing: Jiefangjun Chubanshe, 1988.
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  319. Zhang Kexia was an underground Communist Party member serving in Chiang Kai-shek’s army. Diary covers the civil war years. Unfortunately, entries stop in October 1948, just before his greatest accomplishment: bringing a Nationalist army over to the Communist side during the Huai-Hai Campaign.
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  321. Eyewitness Accounts of Foreign Observers
  322.  
  323. A number of foreign residents of China during the civil war have published diaries or memoirs. Although their perspectives and concerns are often quite personal and focused on the seeming trivia of their own lives, they do contain insights into daily life during the period, although it is certainly daily life as lived at the upper levels of society. Melby 1971 describes the author’s life in Chongqing and is less revealing than one would have hoped from the account of a diplomat at the center of as many events as Melby was. Bodde 1951 and Biggerstaff 1979 both represent the views of American academics who witnessed the events from their positions in Beijing and Nanjing, respectively. Ezpeleta 1972 describes the fall of Shanghai as seen from the perspective of a Philippine diplomat. This account is complemented by Barber 1979, which describes the same events from the perspective of an American who clearly had a great love of Shanghai. Payne 1970 contains fascinating vignettes of interactions with the elite of both the Nationalist and Communist parties. De Jaeger and Kuhn 1953 is unusual in that the author describes life in a rural area, whereas most foreign observers were largely creatures of the cities. De Jaeger’s very critical point of view on the Chinese Communist Party can be contrasted with that expressed in Rittenberg and Bennett 1993. Jacobs-Larkcom 1976 presents the reminiscences of the wife of a British diplomat stationed in Changchun, Shenyang (Mukden), and Kunming during the Chinese Civil War. The author’s perspective is highly constricted to her own rather narrow social circle and displays little concern with the chaos and suffering that were unfolding around her, but she does present a few telling vignettes of life in Changchun under siege—though perhaps more telling about the hypocrisy of the Nationalist elite and the foreign diplomatic corps than about the experiences of ordinary Chinese.
  324.  
  325. Barber, Noel. The Fall of Shanghai. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1979.
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  327. A foreign resident of Shanghai’s view of the last stages of the Chinese Civil War and the Communist take-over of Shanghai in 1949. For the author, the “fall of Shanghai” refers not only to the Nationalist loss of the city, but also to the social and cultural transformation of the city under Communist administration.
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  329. Biggerstaff, Knight. Nanking Letters, 1949. Ithaca, NY: China-Japan Program, Cornell University, 1979.
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  331. Describes the Communist capture and subsequent policies in Nanjing (Nanking), as witnessed by an American scholar then in residence at the University of Nanking.
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  333. Bodde, Derk. Peking Diary: A Year of Revolution. London: Jonathan Cape, 1951.
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  335. A China scholar’s eyewitness account of daily life in Beiping (Beijing) during the civil war. Includes his analyses of the sources of CCP strength, the causes of KMT weakness, and the folly (in his eyes) of American support for Chiang Kai-shek.
  336. Find this resource:
  337. de Jaeger, Raymond J., and Irene Corbally Kuhn. The Enemy Within: An Eyewitness Account of the Communist Conquest of China. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1953.
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  339. A description of Chinese Communist activity in North China behind Japanese lines during World War II, and of the Chinese Civil War and Marshall Mission as seen by a virulently anti-Communist Belgian priest who lived in a county one hundred miles south of Beijing.
  340. Find this resource:
  341. Ezpeleta, Mariano. Red Shadows over Shanghai. Quezon City, The Philippines: Zita, 1972.
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  343. The Communist capture of Shanghai, as seen by a Philippine diplomat.
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  345. Jacobs-Larkcom, Dorothy. As China Fell: The Experiences of a British Consul’s Wife, 1946–1953. Ilfracombe, UK: Arthur H. Stockwell, 1976.
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  347. Jacobs-Larkin, the wife of a British diplomat, spent the civil war years in Changchun (1946–1948) and Kunming (1948–1949). Her account focuses on her personal life rather than the events that were unfolding around her, but it does provide some insights into the daily life of a person of her particular status.
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  349. Melby, John F. Mandate of Heaven: Record of a Civil War, China 1945–49. Garden City, NY: Anchor, 1971.
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  351. A combination of diary entries and historical narrative by an American diplomat stationed in Chongqing during the Chinese Civil War. The historical narrative is decidedly limited, as it is based on the China White Paper, supplemented by the author’s memory. The diary entries reveal something of the American perspective on events as they unfolded.
  352. Find this resource:
  353. Payne, Robert. Chinese Diaries, 1941–1946. New York: Weybright and Talley, 1970.
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  355. Edited diaries of a British army officer who lived and traveled in China during the war against Japan and the early stages of the Chinese Civil War. Fascinating observations of daily life, interactions with members of the Nationalist elite, and interviews with leading Communists, including Peng Dehuai and Mao Zedong.
  356. Find this resource:
  357. Rittenberg, Sidney, and Amanda Bennett. The Man Who Stayed Behind. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993.
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  359. Memoir of an American radical who witnessed the events of the civil war from the unique position of a foreign member of the Chinese Communist Party.
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  361. Eyewitness Accounts of American Military Personnel
  362.  
  363. American army, navy, and marine units were present in China during the first stages of the Chinese Civil War. Navy vessels transported Nationalist troops and supplies from South China and Southeast China to the North. Army personnel were on the ground as observers and as part of the US Military Advisory Group, which attempted to advise and reform Chiang Kai-shek’s armies. Shaw 1968 provides an overview of the US Marine deployment to China. Sledge 2002 and Smith 1995 are two examples of the perspective of ordinary American military men’s views of China’s civil war, and of the American role in the conflict. Wedemeyer 1958 is the memoir of the commander of American troops in China during the early years of the civil war and is more concerned with strategy and policy than with the interactions (friendly and otherwise) with ordinary Chinese, which are recorded in Shaw 1968, Sledge 2002, and Smith 1995.
  364.  
  365. Shaw, Henry I. United States Marines in North China, 1945–1949. Washington, DC: Historical Branch, G-3 Division, US Marine Corps, 1968.
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  367. A brief description of the US Marine deployment and responsibilities in North China during the civil war. Based largely on US Marine unit war diaries. Calls attention to the ambiguous nature of the marines’ assignment: offering logistical support to the Nationalist armies while theoretically not becoming involved in the civil war. Originally published in 1960.
  368. Find this resource:
  369. Sledge, E. B. China Marine. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2002.
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  371. Reminiscences of an American Marine whose unit was assigned to guard duty in Beiping (Beijing) and along key railway lines and airports in North China.
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  373. Smith, Felix. China Pilot: Flying for Chiang and Chennault. Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1995.
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  375. Memoir of an American pilot who flew for Claire Chennault’s Civil Air Transport (CAT), delivering supplies for the Nationalist forces during the Chinese Civil War.
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  377. Wedemeyer, Albert C. Wedemeyer Reports! New York: Holt, 1958.
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  379. Memoirs of the commander of US military forces in China in 1946 and head of the mission to assess the situation in China in 1947. Sees American involvement in China as an extension of World War II, a war that, in Wedemeyer’s view, the United States fought without a grand strategic vision, thus leading to ineffective postwar policies.
  380. Find this resource:
  381. Accounts of Chinese Observers
  382.  
  383. Accounts by Chinese who experienced the civil war as soldiers, government officials, or civilians tend to lean heavily to one side or the other. In Huang 2001, a Nationalist officer who later became a well-known historian of China clearly indicates his disgust with the Chinese Communist Party. The diaries of Nationalist official Chang Kia-ngau, translated in Chang 1989, are supportive of the Nationalist position, but also critical of Nationalist weaknesses and errors. In Luo 2007, a reporter for the Communist Party’s Xinhua News Agency in the 1940s displays a deep faith in the party and in the People’s Liberation Army. In addition to these civilian accounts, there are also several useful diaries kept by soldiers. These vary in their perspective and usefulness, ranging from terse entries on the minutiae of daily life in Lai 1995 to detailed discussion of operations and logistics in Liu 1985 and Zhonggong Zhongyang Dangshi Ziliao Zhengji Weiyuanhui and Zhongguo Renmin Jiefangjun Dang’anguan. Li 2005 also delves into the specifics of battle as seen by an officer whose experience ranged from the Communist forces’ early days of guerrilla warfare through the beginnings of standard warfare during the civil war (as seen in the Huai-Hai Campaign) to the large-scale operations of the Korean War.
  384.  
  385. Chang Kia-ngau. Last Chance in Manchuria: The Diary of Chang Kia-ngau. Edited and translated by Donald G. Gillin and Ramon Myers. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution, 1989.
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  387. As chairman of the Northeast Economic Commission in 1946, Chang was responsible for negotiations with Moscow. The diary reveals Chang’s frustrations with the Soviets as well as his observations on the political and military situations in the Northeast.
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  389. Huang Renyu. Huanghe, qingshan: Huang Renyu huiyilu. Taipei: Lianjing Chuban Shiye Gongsi, 2001.
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  391. The author served as an officer in the Nationalist army before moving to the United States and becoming a well-known professor of Chinese history (as Ray Huang). His memoir includes firsthand accounts from the front lines of the civil war, as well as reflections on the character and roles of the United States, the Nationalist Party, and the Communist Party.
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  393. Lai Chuanzhu. Lai Chuanzhu jiangjun riji. Edited by Zhang Dahe. Beijing: Junshi Kexue Chubanshe, 1995.
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  395. Edited diary entries of Lai Chuanzhu, who served in Lin Biao’s Fourth Field Army, fighting from Manchuria down to Hainan Island. Very terse diary entries dealing with daily life and with military issues including training, morale, and the handling of captives.
  396. Find this resource:
  397. Li Zhongxuan. Li Zhongxuan zhandou riji. Beijing: Jiefangjun Chubanshe, 2005.
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  399. Li served in the People’s Liberation Army during the war against Japan, the Chinese Civil War, and the Korean War, rising from company commander to divisional commander. The diary covers various events, including campaigns in North China, the Huai-Hai Campaign, and crossing the Yangzi.
  400. Find this resource:
  401. Liu Ruilong. Wode riji: Huaihai, dujiang zhanyi zhiqian bufen. Beijing: Jiefangjun Chubanshe, 1985.
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  403. Liu was in charge of logistics for the PLA’s East China Field Army during the Huai-Hai Campaign and the crossing of the Yangzi. Diary entries covering those events have greater depth and detail than typical of the genre, and focus on logistics and mass mobilization.
  404. Find this resource:
  405. Luo Wei. Jiqing suiyue: Yiwei Xinhuashe nujizhe de dongbei riji. Beijing: Xinhua Chubanshe, 2007.
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  407. Diary entries of a young woman reporter and Communist Party member assigned to cover the civil war in Northeast China. Diary entries cover about one year, from early 1946 to early 1947, and are sometimes quite touching in their naive optimism.
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  409. Zhonggong Zhongyang Dangshi Ziliao Zhengji Weiyuanhui, and Zhongguo Renmin Jiefangjun Dang’anguan, eds. Zhen Zhong riji. Beijing: Zhonggong Dangshi Ziliao Chubanshe, 1987.
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  411. Excerpts from the field diary of Lin Biao’s Fourth Field Army headquarters. Unlike most of the diaries of individual officers, this document includes extensive discussion of operational planning and implementation. Entries cover campaigns in Manchuria from November 1946 through the Liao-Shen Campaign of 1948. The volume was edited by a committee.
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  413. Military History
  414.  
  415. The Chinese Civil War was, above all, a clash between two armies. In China, this is fully recognized. A combination of government and public interest has resulted in the publication of large numbers of books and articles, both scholarly and popular. In the West, perhaps particularly in the United States, there has been a tendency to see the outcome of the civil war in terms of a systemic Nationalist collapse rather than a Communist military victory. This perspective, combined with a widespread academic antipathy toward military history, has led to a situation in which English-language scholarship on the civil war has been dominated by discussion of China’s domestic politics, the personal failings of Chiang Kai-shek and his government, and the international diplomatic context of the struggle. Work on the military history of the civil war has been accordingly sparse. Works by an earlier generation of scholars, most notably Chassin 1966, Rigg 1951, and Whitson 1973 (all cited under General Military Histories Published Prior to 1980), drew on Western, Chinese Nationalist, and a limited number of Chinese Communist sources, as well as, in some cases, personal observation, to write accounts of the civil war which are still notable for their descriptive content and their insights. However, with the passing of time and the opening of more (but not yet all) archives in both the People’s Republic and on Taiwan, scholars on both sides of the Taiwan Straits and in the West have gained access to new sources. This has allowed a new generation of scholars to explore issues of strategy, decision making, operations, tactics, and logistics in much greater detail than was possible prior to Deng Xiaoping’s initiation of China’s reform programs and increased opening to the outside world in 1979.
  416.  
  417. General Military Histories Published Prior to 1980
  418.  
  419. The first Western-language histories of the Chinese Civil War were the work of professional soldiers writing in the context of the Cold War. Rigg 1951 witnessed and reported on many of the events of the civil war in his capacity as an American military attaché in China at the time. Lionel Chassin, while not present in China, was a French general who had unique access to military intelligence reports (see Chassin 1966). Liu 1956 is by an officer who served in the Nationalist forces, Whitson 1973 is by a career Army officer, and Detwiler and Burdick 1980 is a translation of a Nationalist military history. While their training as military professionals and, in some cases, their personal experience gave this generation of scholars keen insight into the development of the Chinese Civil War, their work is limited by their lack of access to archival sources and, in some cases, their openly expressed ideological biases.
  420.  
  421. Chassin, Lionel Max. The Communist Conquest of China: A History of the Civil War, 1945–1949. Translated by Timothy Osato and Louis Gelas. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1966.
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  423. The author, a general in the French Army, served as vice chief of staff from 1946 to 1949. This account of the civil war is based largely on French intelligence reports. Chassin ascribes the Communist victory to agrarian reform, xenophobia, the fighting spirit of the Communist forces, and the honesty of Communist officials, which he contrasts to the “completely rotten” KMT.
  424. Find this resource:
  425. Detwiler, Donald S., and Charles B. Burdick, eds. War in the Pacific, 1937–1949. Vol. 15, The Sino-Japanese and Chinese Civil Wars (Part III). New York: Garland, 1980.
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  427. Translation of a Nationalist account of the civil war.
  428. Find this resource:
  429. Liu, F. F. A Military History of Modern China, 1924–1949. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1956.
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  431. In his discussion of the civil war, Liu, a former KMT officer, argues that Chiang Kai-shek systematically ignored the advice of competent generals (e.g., Bai Chongxi), instead entrusting command to incompetents (e.g., Du Yuming), resulting in a Nationalist army that was incapable of mounting offensives.
  432. Find this resource:
  433. Rigg, Robert B. Red China’s Fighting Hordes: A Realistic Account of the Chinese Communist Army. Harrisburg, PA: Military Service Publishing, 1951.
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  435. Deeply tinged with Cold War ideology, but nonetheless a valuable account of the Chinese Civil War as seen by an American military attaché who observed the conflict first hand. Includes a partial translation of Lin Biao’s essay on tactics.
  436. Find this resource:
  437. Whitson, William W. The Chinese High Command: A History of Communist Military Politics, 1927–71. New York: Praeger, 1973.
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  439. Although its focus is on the military politics of the PLA in the 1960s, Whitson’s account requires a thorough exploration of the development of the Communist military elite through the campaigns of the 1930s and 1940s. Particularly strong coverage of Lin Biao’s Fourth Field Army and Nie Rongzhen’s North China Field Army.
  440. Find this resource:
  441. General Military Histories Published After 1980
  442.  
  443. China’s increasing economic and military power in the decades following 1979 brought about a renewed interest in Chinese military history, both in Western military academies and among the general public. Flint, et al. 1987 includes a chapter on the Chinese Civil War, while Hooton 1991 provides a competent overview for the general reader or undergraduate. The increasing availability of primary and secondary sources from the 1980s onward has presented researchers with a wealth of opportunities to work on various aspects of the civil war. This new material has generated a number of specialized studies, but, to date, only two general overviews of the military history of the period: Lew 2009 and Westad 2003, cited under Bibliographies, both of which draw extensively on a wide range of Communist and Nationalist primary and secondary sources. Xiang 1998 is not, strictly speaking, a general military history of the civil war but rather a study of the development of one of the four elite military factions of the Chinese Communist Party, Chen Yi’s New Fourth Army. Like Zhang 1991 and Liu 2004 (both cited under the Civil War in the Northeast), Xiang 1998 draws attention to Mao Zedong’s roles in articulating tactical principles, setting strategy, and participating in operational planning, while at the same time criticizing Mao’s weaknesses in these areas and emphasizing the contributions of the commanders in the field. Tang 1993–1997 is an excellent example of both the strengths and the weaknesses of openly published official military histories: it is exhaustive in its coverage but formulaic in its approach to the subject matter.
  444.  
  445. Flint, Roy K., Peter W. Kozumplik, and Thomas J. Waraksa. The Arab-Israeli Wars, the Chinese Civil War, and the Korean War. Wayne, NJ: Avery, 1987.
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  447. Chapter 2, “The Protracted War,” discusses the Chinese Civil War as a long process extending from the 1911 revolution through the rise and fall of Chiang Kai-shek. Authors emphasize the CCP’s relationship with peasants and the KMT’s factionalism and economic mismanagement as key issues. Based on secondary sources.
  448. Find this resource:
  449. Hooton, E. R. The Greatest Tumult: The Chinese Civil War, 1936–49. London: Brassey’s 1991.
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  451. While taking economic, political, and diplomatic issues into account, Hooton concentrates on the military dimension. Drawing on secondary sources, he argues that the PLA fought a conventional war, albeit deeply influenced by guerrilla tactics and philosophy, and that the failure of the Nationalist counterinsurgency holds lessons for the present.
  452. Find this resource:
  453. Lew, Christopher R. The Third Chinese Revolutionary Civil War, 1945–49: An Analysis of Communist Strategy and Leadership. London: Routledge, 2009.
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  455. Lew’s research on Communist strategic thinking as seen in recently available Chinese primary and secondary sources leads him to argue that the Communist victory was not inevitable. Rather, it was the superior strategic thinking on the part of Mao, Liu Shaoqi, and other CCP leaders that allowed the Communist forces to achieve decisive victory.
  456. Find this resource:
  457. Sanjun Daxue. Guomin gemingjun zhanyishi diwubu: Kanluan. 9 vols. Taipei: Guofangbu Shizheng Bianyiju, 1989.
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  459. This nine-volume study includes detailed descriptions, maps, and analyses of the campaigns and battles of each stage of the civil war. The authors suggest that the Nationalist government began in 1945 with no clear strategy on how to fight the Communists, that the Nationalist armies modeled their operations on their previous conflicts with the Communists and with the Japanese, and that American weapons failed to give the National Army an edge and may even have been detrimental.
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  461. Tang Yilu, ed. Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun quanguo jiefang zhanzhengshi. 5 vols. Beijing: Junshi Kexue Chubanshe, 1993–1997.
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  463. Provides a general overview of the Chinese Civil War as seen from an official PLA point of view. Useful for general descriptions, but short on analysis.
  464. Find this resource:
  465. Westad, Odd Arne. Decisive Encounters: The Chinese Civil War, 1946–1950. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003.
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  467. The best single English-language book on the Chinese Civil War. Suggests that poor decisions made during the war weakened the Nationalists, while the Communists, in the act of fighting and winning the war, created the institutions supporting the militarization of society, the faith in the power of the human will, and the cult of Mao.
  468. Find this resource:
  469. Xiang, Lanxing. Mao’s Generals: Chen Yi and the New Fourth Army. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1998.
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  471. Provides a description of the New Fourth Army’s operations in Shandong, the Huai-Hai Campaign, and the capture of Shanghai. In his exploration of strategy, tactics, and the relationship between Mao and his generals, the author argues that Mao’s grasp of the art of command was faulty and that he committed a number of serious errors.
  472. Find this resource:
  473. The Civil War in the Northeast
  474.  
  475. China’s Northeast (Manchuria) had been under Japanese occupation since 1932. Invaded by the Soviet army in the final stages of the war against Japan, Northeast China quickly became a central theater of the civil war. Huang 1958 focuses on the events of early 1946, which many, including Chiang Kai-shek himself, regarded as the crucial turning point of the war in the Northeast. Wetzel 1972 also centers its attention on 1946. Levine 1987 remains the only book on the civil war in the Northeast and provides a thorough and accessible overview of all aspects of the war, as well as a comparative analysis of the roles of the Soviet Union and the United States. Cheng 2002, Cheng 2005, and Tanner 2003 analyze Communist strategy and decision making. Liu 2004 and Zhang 1991 represent two contrasting and complementary perspectives on the Chinese Civil War as seen by professional historians working within the People’s Liberation Army; both include largely positive analyses of Lin Biao’s performance as commander of the Communist forces in the Northeast, and both criticize some of some of Mao Zedong’s decisions.
  476.  
  477. Cheng, Victor Shiu Chiang. “The Escalation of Hostilities in Manchuria, 1945–47: A Study of Strategic Realities and Normative Guidelines in Military Conflict in the Context of the Chinese Civil War.” PhD diss., University of Melbourne, 2002.
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  479. This carefully researched dissertation analyzes the strategic practices of the Communist central leadership and leadership in the Northeast (Manchuria). The author argues that Communist military decision making was based not on a realpolitik approach, but was driven by a combination of realist and value-based considerations.
  480. Find this resource:
  481. Cheng, Victor Shiu Chiang. “Imagining China’s Madrid in Manchuria: The Communist Military Strategy at the Onset of the Chinese Civil War, 1945–1946.” Modern China 31.1 (2005): 72–114.
  482. DOI: 10.1177/0097700404270549Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  483. An analysis of the relationship between guerrilla and mobile warfare in the CCP leadership’s strategic thinking, as seen in the Battle of Siping (April–May 1946), which is seen by many historians as a key turning point in the civil war in the Northeast (Manchuria).
  484. Find this resource:
  485. Huang, Ray. “Some Observations on Manchuria in the Balance, Early 1946.” Pacific Historical Review (1958): 159–169.
  486. DOI: 10.2307/3636071Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  487. The author was a Nationalist army staff officer in Manchuria (see Huang 2001, cited under Accounts of Chinese Observers). This article focuses on the Nationalist capture of Siping in May 1946 and the subsequent ceasefire. Huang proposes that Chiang’s fundamental error was that he acted on the false assumption that the United States would support him under any circumstances.
  488. Find this resource:
  489. Levine, Steven I. Anvil of Victory: The Communist Revolution in Manchuria, 1945–1948. New York: Columbia University Press, 1987.
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  491. Takes a holistic approach, looking at the construction of Communist political power in the Northeast, land reform and economic policies, and the role of Soviet–American rivalry. Argues that Communist organizational capacity was their key to success.
  492. Find this resource:
  493. Liu Tong. Dongbei jiefang zhanzheng jishi. Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe, 2004.
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  495. Account of the Northeastern (Manchurian) theater of the Chinese Civil War by an author affiliated with the People’s Liberation Army. Draws on a variety of material, including archival material and unpublished unit histories to describe the strengths and weaknesses, victories, defeats, and internal struggles of the CCP forces in the Northeast. First published 1997.
  496. Find this resource:
  497. Tanner, Harold M. “Guerrilla, Mobile, and Base Warfare in Communist Military Operations in Manchuria, 1945–1947.” Journal of Military History 67 (October 2003): 1177–1222.
  498. DOI: 10.1353/jmh.2003.0340Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  499. Analyzes the changes in the Communist mode of combat from early attempts to seek decisive battles to a greater reliance on guerrilla actions and rural base-building, and then to a more successful transition to standard mobile warfare.
  500. Find this resource:
  501. Wetzel, Carroll Robbins. “From the Jaws of Defeat: Lin Piao and the Fourth Field Army in Manchuria.” PhD diss., George Washington University, 1972.
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  503. Outdated, but still useful as one of the few serious studies (in English) of the civil war in Manchuria. Argues that the Nationalists’ only chance to destroy Lin Biao was in June 1946, and that Marshall’s imposition of a cease-fire allowed Lin to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
  504. Find this resource:
  505. Zhang Zhenglong. Xuebai, xuehong: guo gong dongbei da juezhan lishi zhenxiang. Hong Kong: Dadi Chubanshe, 1991.
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  507. An account of the civil war in Manchuria written in “reportage literature style,” based largely on interviews with veterans at all levels. Useful for insights into planning and operations on the ground. Frank descriptions of the suffering caused by the Communist siege of Changchun made the book controversial in China.
  508. Find this resource:
  509. The Three Big Campaigns
  510.  
  511. When the Chinese Civil War began, the two sides appeared to be utterly mismatched. The Nationalist armies had an overwhelming advantage in weapons and firepower, a monopoly on airpower, and a navy. Their armies included crack American-trained units with American equipment. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had recently begun the process of organizing its guerrilla bands into standard army units, but its forces remained dominated by men who had been trained in guerrilla warfare and whose equipment often literally consisted of the legendary “rifle and a sack of millet.” By the autumn of 1948, however, this situation had changed dramatically. The Communist forces had acquired better weapons (particularly artillery and tanks) and had made significant progress in the areas of organization, training, tactics, communications, and logistics. Communist commanders like Lin Biao, Liu Bocheng, and Chen Yi were now able to conduct large-scale standard operations involving the maneuver of hundreds of thousands of men across large areas, conducting complex shaping operations and mounting assaults on major cities in order to trap and annihilate entire Nationalist armies. This new capability was on full display when the Communists inflicted decisive defeats on Nationalist forces in three major campaigns in late 1948: the Liao-Shen Campaign in South Manchuria, the Ping-Jin Campaign in the Beiping (Beijing)-Tianjin area, and the Huai-Hai Campaign in the key area just north of the Yangzi. These campaigns are discussed in overviews of the war, particularly in Whitson 1973 (see General Military Histories Published Prior to 1980), and in Lew 2009 and Westad 2003 (both cited under General Military Histories Published after 1980).
  512.  
  513. The Liao-Shen Campaign
  514.  
  515. Fought between 12 September and 12 November 1948, the Liao-Shen (Liaoning-Shenyang) Campaign completely eliminated the remaining Nationalist forces in the Northeast (Manchuria). The campaign consisted of three distinct parts. Communist troops cut the railway corridor from Jinzhou to Shanhaiguan to prevent Nationalist forces from retreating south of the Great Wall, then attacked and captured the key city of Jinzhou. With the way clear and Nationalist relief forces annihilated, the Communists then captured Shenyang. In the meantime, in the north, Changchun was put under siege and eventually surrendered. Tanner 2010 discusses the development and change over time of the Communist use of the extensive Manchurian railway system, which ultimately served as a part of the logistical base for the Liao-Shen Campaign. Zhao 2009 represents an officially sanctioned version of the siege of Changchun, one that should be compared to the more frank descriptions in Tanner 2015 and in Liu 2004 and Zhang 1991 (both cited under the Civil War in the Northeast). Zhongguo Renmin Jiefangjun 1993 and Zhonggong Zhongyang Dangshi and Zhongguo Renmin Jiefangjun 1988 are both edited volumes that, although clearly triumphalist in nature, do contain a good deal of valuable material. Zhongguo Renmin Zhengzhi Xieshanghui 1985 presents the Liao-Shen Campaign as seen by former Nationalist officers. Tanner 2015 describes Communist operations from 1946 to 1948 leading up to the Liao-Shen Campaign as well as the campaign itself.
  516.  
  517. Liaoshen zhanyi jinianguan guanli weiyuanhui, “Liaoshen juezhan” bianshen xiaozu. Liaoshen juezhan, xuji. Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe, 1992.
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  519. This additional volume of documents and essays on the Liao-Shen Campaign was published because Peng Zhen felt that the previous two-volume collection titled Liao Shen juezhan (Zhonggong Zhongyang Dangshi and Zhongguo Renmin Jiefangjun 1988) had presented his leadership in a negative light. Peng had led Chinese Communist operations in Manchuria from September 1945 until he was demoted in favor of Lin Biao in June 1946. This volume includes documents and essays that support Peng’s side of this factional struggle.
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  521. Tanner, Harold M. “Railways in Communist Strategy and Operations in Manchuria, 1945–48.” In Manchurian Railways and the Opening of China: An International History. Edited by Bruce A. Elleman and Stephen Kotkin, 149–170. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2010.
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  523. By building base areas in North Manchuria and taking control of rural areas, small and medium cities, and branch railway lines in South Manchuria, the Communist forces added railways to the logistical infrastructure that made the massive deployments of the Liao-Shen Campaign possible.
  524. Find this resource:
  525. Tanner, Harold M. Where Chiang Kai-shek Lost China: The Liao-Shen Campaign, 1948. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2015.
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  527. Draws on Chinese Communist, Nationalist, and American sources to describe the civil war in the Manchurian theater. Argues that base building, army building, and a degree of support from the Soviet Union enabled Communist forces to make the transition from guerrilla to a basic level of conventional warfare.
  528. Find this resource:
  529. Zhao Zhanming, ed. Changchun jiefang. Beijing: Zhongguo Dang’an Chubanshe, 2009.
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  531. Selected documents, photographs, and maps illustrating the Communists’ initial capture of Changchun in 1946, its loss to the Nationalists later that year, and the recapture of the city in 1948 after a long and bitter siege.
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  533. Zhongguo Renmin Jiefangjun Lishi Ziliao Congshu Bianshen Weiyuanhui, ed. Liaoshen zhanyi. Beijing: Jiefangjun Chubanshe, 1993.
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  535. Contains photographs, maps, a description, selected documents, memoirs, organizational and statistical tables, and a chronology of the Liao-Shen Campaign.
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  537. Zhonggong Zhongyang Dangshi Zhengji Weiyuanhui, and Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun Liao-Shen zhanyi jinianguan jianguan weiyuanhui, “Liao Shen juezhan” bianshen xiaozu, eds. Liao Shen jue zhan. 2 vols. Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe, 1988.
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  539. Two-volume collection of maps, primary documents, and memoirs concerning the Liao-Shen Campaign, as well as many of the operations that preceded and laid the ground for Liao-Shen. Volume 1 deals with operations and logistics; Volume 2 focuses on consolidation of rear areas and work among the masses.
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  541. Zhongguo renmin zhengzhi xieshang huiyi quanguo weiyuanhui wenshi ziliao yanjiu weiyuanhui “Liaoshen zhanyi qinliji” bianshenzu, ed. Liaoshen zhanyi qinliji: yuan guomindang jianglingde huiyi. Beijing: Wenshi Ziliao Chubanshe, 1985.
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  543. Memoirs of Nationalist officers who fought and lost to the Communist Northeast People’s Liberation Army in the Liao-Shen Campaign and were captured either at the time or later.
  544. Find this resource:
  545. The Ping-Jin Campaign
  546.  
  547. In the Ping-Jin (Beiping-Tianjin) Campaign (29 November 1948–31 January 1949), Lin Biao’s Northeast Field Army, having secured the Northeast, entered North China through Shanhaiguan and targeted the two major cities of Beiping (Beijing) and Tianjin. Communist forces took Tianjin by force in an operation that saw them conducting urban warfare on a larger scale than they had encountered in the Northeast. The Nationalist commander at Beiping, under siege and with no hope of rescue by reinforcements, negotiated a surrender and peaceful turnover of the city. Wortzel 2003 is one of the few English-language studies of any of the Three Big Campaigns and would make a useful case study for undergraduate or graduate students of Chinese military history. Zhongguo Renmin Jiefangjun 1991 provides a general introduction to the campaign for readers of Chinese.
  548.  
  549. Wortzel, Larry M. “The Beiping-Tianjin Campaign of 1948–1949: The Strategic and Operational Thinking of the People’s Liberation Army.” In Chinese Warfighting: The PLA Experience Since 1949. Edited by Mark A. Ryan, David M. Finkelstein, and Michael A. McDevitt, 56–72. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2003.
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  551. Wortzel discusses the Ping-Jin Campaign as an example of the operational art. He pays particular attention to the campaign’s place in Chinese professional military education and the lessons that Chinese offices draw from it, suggesting that similar strategic thinking would inform a Chinese attack on Taiwan.
  552. Find this resource:
  553. Zhongguo Renmin Jiefangjun Lishi Ziliao Congshu Bianshen Weiyuanhui. Pingjin zhanyi. Beijing: Jiefangjun Chubanshe, 1991.
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  555. Contains photographs, maps, a description, selected documents, memoirs, organizational and statistical tables, and a chronology of the Ping-Jin Campaign.
  556. Find this resource:
  557. The Huai-Hai Campaign
  558.  
  559. The Huai-Hai Campaign (6 November 1948–10 January 1949) was fought for control of the Huai River Valley—the historical strategic boundary between North and South China. A brilliant performance by Communist commanders, coupled with incompetence and betrayal on the Nationalist side, gave the PLA a historic victory and a clear road to the Yangzi River and South China. Clubb 1956 represents an early, brief description of the campaign, but is more useful for what it shows about how the campaign was perceived by American diplomats than what it can tell us about the campaign itself. Bjorge 2004 provides a thorough analysis drawn on primary sources and visits to the battlefields and is the only English-language book-length study of any of the Three Big Campaigns to date. Zhonggong Zhongyang Dangshi Ziliao 1988 provides a good introduction for those seeking to conduct further research in the field, while Zhongguo Renmin Zhengzhi Xieshang 1983 tells the story as seen from the point of view of the defeated Nationalist forces.
  560.  
  561. Bjorge, Gary J. Moving the Enemy: Operational Art in the Chinese PLA’s Huai Hai Campaign. Leavenworth Paper 22. Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute, 2004.
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  563. Applies the concepts of “operational art” as defined in US Army doctrine and the principles of Sun-tsu’s Art of War to an analysis of the Huai-Hai Campaign, using communications between the Communist commanders to illustrate the development of their strategic vision for the campaign.
  564. Find this resource:
  565. Clubb, Edmund O. “Chiang Kai-shek’s Waterloo: The Battle for Hwai-Hai.” Pacific Historical Review 25.4 (1956): 389–399.
  566. DOI: 10.2307/3636503Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  567. Brief overview of the Huai-Hai Campaign as seen by the American consul-general in Beiping. Clubb suggests that the outcome of the civil war, still unresolved after the Liao-Shen Campaign, was sealed in the Communists’ favor in the Huai-Hai Campaign.
  568. Find this resource:
  569. Zhongguo Renmin Zhengzhi Xieshang Huiyi Quanguo Weiyuanhui Wenshi Ziliao Yanjiu Weiyuanhui, ed. Huaihai zhanyi qinliji: Yuan Guomindang jianglingde huiyi. Beijing: Wenshi Ziliao Chubanshe, 1983.
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  571. The memories of Nationalist commanders who were defeated and captured during the Huai-Hai Campaign. Includes the recollections of General Du Yuming and others of various rank.
  572. Find this resource:
  573. Zhonggong Zhongyang Dangshi Ziliao Zhengji Weiyuanhui, ed. Huaihai zhan yi. 3 vols. Beijing: Zhonggong Dangshi Ziliao Chubanshe, 1988.
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  575. Contains maps, photographs, selected documents, memoirs, contemporary news reports, and a chronology of the Huai-Hai Campaign.
  576. Find this resource:
  577. Taiwan
  578.  
  579. Chiang Kai-shek’s government gained control over Taiwan and began to bring the island under the administrative control of the Republic of China’s administrative bureaucracy. Lai, et al. 1991 describes the tensions between the military and bureaucratic apparatus of the central government and the Taiwanese people, tensions that led to protests, arrests, and shootings, which still resonated in Taiwan’s politics decades later. He 2003 describes the preparations that the People’s Liberation Army undertook as it prepared to invade Taiwan.
  580.  
  581. He Di. “The Last Campaign to Unify China: The CCP’s Unrealized Plan to Liberate Taiwan, 1949–1950.” In Chinese Warfighting: The PLA Experience Since 1949. Edited by Mark A. Ryan, David M. Finkelstein, and Michael A. McDevitt, 73–90. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2003.
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  583. Describes Mao’s determination to take Taiwan, concerns about the possible American reaction, the PLA’s plans for addressing the challenges involved in projecting force across the Taiwan Strait, and the cancellation of the plan in the context of the Korean War and renewed American commitment to Taiwan’s security.
  584. Find this resource:
  585. Lai Tse-han, Ramon H. Myers, and Wei Wou. A Tragic Beginning: The Taiwan Uprising of February 28, 1947. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991.
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  587. An analysis of the causes, consequences, and historiography of the deadly clash between Taiwanese demonstrators and Nationalist government authorities that took place on Taiwan in 1947—both the Chinese Communist Party and the Taiwan independence movement claim the demonstrations as their own.
  588. Find this resource:
  589. Nationalist Perspectives
  590.  
  591. As the defeated side in the Chinese Civil War, the Nationalist Party and army have been somewhat diffident in their dealing with the events of 1945–1949. Guofangbu 1948 is a handbook prepared for the army during the war in an effort to instruct officers on Communist tactics and how to defend against them. Chiang 1960, although bearing Chiang Kai-shek’s name, is more likely a ghostwritten account, but it is nonetheless useful as an expression of an official Nationalist perspective. Li 1979 is an account of major operations in the Northeast (Manchuria) and Shanghai by a Nationalist officer who served with the Nationalist Ninety-Third Army. Yang 1956 is based on the memories of frontline officers of the Fifty-Second Army, which also fought in the Northeast. Chiang 1960, Li 1979, and Yang 1956 all draw similar multifactor conclusions about the reasons for Nationalist defeat on the mainland.
  592.  
  593. Chiang Kai-shek. Kanluan zhanshi. Taipei: Guofangbu Shizhengju, 1960.
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  595. Brief descriptions of nine major battles of the civil war, including detailed maps and assessments of the nature and significance of each battle. Represents the civil war as part of a global struggle against Communism and suggests that the Communist victory could be attributed to Soviet support and the actions of the Marshall Mission.
  596. Find this resource:
  597. Guofangbu. Feijun guanyong zhanfa zhi yanjiu ji duice. Nanjing, China: Guofangbu, 1948.
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  599. Handbook outlining PLA tactics including various types of ambush, concealment, and Lin Biao’s “one point, two fronts.” Proposes a counterinsurgency strategy based on county-level self-defense militia units, with five counties under a single command, in order to eliminate Communist forces one sector at a time.
  600. Find this resource:
  601. Li Daren. Dongbei kanluan huiyi. Taipei: Boxue Chubanshe, 1979.
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  603. Accounts of battles in North China and the Northeast (Manchuria), including the battle of Jinzhou during the Liao-Shen Campaign by a Nationalist officer. Includes discussion of internal weaknesses and analysis of operational, strategic, and political factors that the author argues contributed to the Nationalist defeat.
  604. Find this resource:
  605. Yang Jingbin. Wushierjun kanluan zhanyi jishi. Taipei: Beida Shuju, 1956.
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  607. Provides an account of the Nationalist Fifty-second Army’s operations in the Northeast and Shanghai during the civil war. Includes maps, descriptions of major operations, and analyses of the reasons for success or (more often) failure. Based on the memories of frontline officers.
  608. Find this resource:
  609. The Issue of Soviet Military Aid to Chinese Communist Forces
  610.  
  611. There is no question that the Soviet Union lent material, as well as moral and diplomatic, support to the Chinese Communist Party in its fight against Chiang Kai-shek’s government forces, particularly in the Northeast (Manchuria). But what kinds of aid did the Soviets render the Chinese Communist forces in the Northeast, and in what amounts? How significant was Soviet aid? To what extent did it contribute to the final outcome—the defeat of Chiang Kai-shek? These issues have been the subject of heated debate both inside and outside of China. With both Soviet and Chinese military archives inaccessible to researchers, it is difficult to arrive at any authoritative answers to these questions. Elleman 2008 focuses not on the delivery of arms or other supplies, but on strategic cooperation to prevent the Nationalists from mounting a coordinated sea-land assault on the Communists in Manchuria. Borisovo 1975 characterizes the Soviet Union as having made significant contributions, while Garthoff 1966a and Garthoff 1966b argue that Soviet assistance to the Communists was minimal. Chinese historians also disagree on the question of Soviet influence, with Liu 2000 arguing that Soviet assistance was minimal and Yang 2001 countering that it was in fact significant.
  612.  
  613. Borisovo, O. B. The Soviet Union and the Manchurian Revolutionary Base 1945–1949. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975.
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  615. Expresses the Soviet view as seen during a period when the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic were not on good terms. Emphasizes (and some would say exaggerates) the role of Soviet assistance in the CCP’s establishment of a Manchurian base area.
  616. Find this resource:
  617. Elleman, Bruce A. “Soviet Sea Denial and the KMT-CCP Civil War in Manchuria, 1945–1949.” In Naval Coalition Warfare: From the Napoleonic War to Operation Iraqi Freedom. Edited by Bruce A. Elleman and S. C. M. Paine, 119–129. London: Routledge, 2008.
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  619. Elleman makes the argument that by denying the Nationalists access to Manchurian ports while allowing Communist forces to enter the region and be supplied by sea, the Soviets “gave the CCP a clear advantage during the Civil War” (p. 119).
  620. Find this resource:
  621. Garthoff, Raymond L. “Sino-Soviet Military Relations, 1945–66.” In Sino-Soviet Military Relations. Edited by Raymond L. Garthoff, 82–99. New York: Praeger, 1966a.
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  623. While acknowledging that lack of access to Soviet archives presents considerable barriers to understanding the nature of Soviet relations with the Chinese Communist Party during the civil war, Garthoff suggests that the Soviet Union gave only very limited military assistance to the Chinese Communist forces in the Northeast.
  624. Find this resource:
  625. Garthoff, Raymond L. “The Soviet Intervention in Manchuria, 1945–46.” In Sino-Soviet Military Relations. Edited by Raymond L. Garthoff, 57–81. New York: Praeger, 1966b.
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  627. A description of the Soviet Union’s assertion of its special interests in the Northeast (Manchuria) through its campaign against the Japanese and subsequent occupation policies. Suggests that at first the Soviets did not think that the Chinese Communist Party would be able to consolidate control over the Northeast.
  628. Find this resource:
  629. Liu Tong. “Jiefang zhanzheng zhong dongbei yezhanjun wuqiliayuan tantao—jian yu Yang Kuisong xiansheng shangque.” Dang de wenxian 4 (2000): 76–80.
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  631. Specifically countering arguments made by Yang 2001 about the extent of Soviet aid, Liu makes the case that the Soviet Union supplied very little in the way of assistance to the Communist forces in the Northeast, and that they relied for the most part on their own arsenals constructed in the rear areas.
  632. Find this resource:
  633. Yang Kuisong. “Guanyu jiefang zhanzheng zhong de Sulian junshi yuanzhu wenti—jian tan zhixue taidu bing da Liu Tong xiansheng.” Jindaishi yanjiu 1 (2001): 285–306.
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  635. In a response to Liu 2000, Yang Kuisong counters that Soviet military aid, including assistance in establishing native arms factories, was more significant than Liu Tong claims, and that while not decisive, it did advance Mao Zedong’s timetable for the final defeat of the Nationalists.
  636. Find this resource:
  637. Veterans’ Issues
  638.  
  639. The men and women who fight wars are celebrated in the abstract, but in real life, they are all too often the first to be forgotten. There are three facets to veterans’ issues in the Chinese Civil War. The first concerns the fate of Japanese veterans of the China theater. Gillin and Etter 1983 describes how many of these men wound up “staying on” in China, where they were compelled to serve either the Nationalist or the Communist forces, as were a number of Japanese civilians. Gillin and Etter also suggest that friendships that formed between Japanese and their Nationalist employers contributed to Japan’s commitment to Taiwan in the 1950s and 1960s. In China and on Taiwan, the end of the civil war led to new challenges relating to the status and treatment of Chinese veterans from both the Nationalist and the Communist sides. Diamant 2009 and Fan 2011 indicate that veterans faced similar problems, whether they were in Taiwan or in the People’s Republic: broken families, post-traumatic stress disorder (although not identified or treated as such), job discrimination, and opaque, uncooperative veterans’ affairs bureaucracies.
  640.  
  641. Diamant, Neil J. Embattled Glory: Veterans, Military Families, and the Politics of Patriotism in China, 1949–2007. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009.
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  643. Diamant’s survey of the treatment of veterans of the civil war in the People’s Republic shows that former PLA soldiers faced tremendous, sometimes insuperable challenges in making a return to civilian life. Diamant further argues that the poor treatment of veterans suggests a lack of popular support for the war in which they fought.
  644. Find this resource:
  645. Fan, Joshua. China’s Homeless Generation: Voices from the Veterans of the Chinese Civil War, 1940s–1990s. London: Routledge, 2011.
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  647. A study of Chinese displaced from the mainland to Taiwan as a result of the Communist victory over Chiang Kai-shek. Focuses on veterans of the KMT military, arguing that rank-and-file veterans experienced economic deprivation, inadequate pensions, homelessness, prejudice, and difficulties with marriage and employment.
  648. Find this resource:
  649. Gillin, Donald G., and Charles Etter. “Staying On: Japanese Soldiers and Civilians in China, 1945–1949.” Journal of Asian Studies 42.3 (May 1983): 497–518.
  650. DOI: 10.2307/2055515Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  651. The review of the roles of Japanese soldiers and civilians who “stayed on” in China indicates that substantial numbers of Japanese worked for both the Communist and the Nationalist forces during the civil war, with the Nationalists gaining the larger number of former Japanese soldiers.
  652. Find this resource:
  653. The US-China Relationship
  654.  
  655. The relationship between the United States, on the one hand, and the two warring Chinese parties, on the other, played an important role in the development of China’s civil war. The war and its outcome, in turn, played a significant role in American domestic politics. Diplomatic historians working in the 1950s and 1960s, particularly those based in the United States, searched for the causes of America’s “failure” in China. Tsou 1963 and Feis 1965 represent two different interpretations of the American role in China and of the causes of what both authors agree was an American failure. Deng 1994 looks back at the ways in which Americans perceived the civil war at the time, and how the war contributed to the building of internal tensions within the United States during the Cold War. Stueck 1984 describes the Wedemeyer Mission, a failed last-ditch effort to find a solution to the China crisis. After the opening of relations between the United States and the People’s Republic in the 1970s, the increasing openness of Chinese society and academia, and the greater availability of primary sources from the 1980s onward, the diplomatic history of the era developed in new directions. Borg and Heinrichs 1980 and Harding and Yuan 1989 both represent collaborative efforts to understand not the “causes of American failure” but rather the mutual origins of the poor relations between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, in order to enhance the prospects of better mutual understanding in the future.
  656.  
  657. Borg, Dorothy, and Waldo Heinrichs, eds. Uncertain Years: Chinese-American Relations, 1947–1950. New York: Columbia University Press, 1980.
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  659. This collection of essays presents various perspectives on the question of the origins of the enmity between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party during the civil war period.
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  661. Deng, Peng. China’s Crisis and Revolution through American Lenses, 1944–1949. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1994.
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  663. Study of American perceptions of the Chinese Civil War as seen in the work of reporters, scholars and other American observers. Peng draws attention to the nuanced view of many of the American observers, but also to the way in which the civil war magnified ideological differences between Americans.
  664. Find this resource:
  665. Feis, Herbert. The China Tangle: The American Effort in China from Pearl Harbor to the Marshall Mission. New York: Atheneum, 1965.
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  667. Feis seeks the roots of perceived American failure in China in the story of America’s involvement in China from Pearl Harbor to the start of the Marshall Mission. Points specifically to the American emphasis on Europe as a reason for America’s inability to achieve its goals in China. First published in 1953 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).
  668. Find this resource:
  669. Harding, Harry, and Yuan Ming, eds. Sino-American Relations, 1945–1955: A Joint Reassessment of a Critical Decade. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1989.
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  671. This collection of papers by American and Mainland Chinese scholars was the result of a joint conference held in Beijing in 1986. The broad range of papers expresses a variety of views on key issues of US-China relations during the civil war period.
  672. Find this resource:
  673. Stueck, William. The Wedemeyer Mission: American Politics and Foreign Policy during the Cold War. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1984.
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  675. Wedemeyer was sent to China in 1947 to assess the situation; his report advised the Truman administration to extend material aid to the KMT government and to establish a five-power guardianship over Manchuria. Stueck analyzes the mission, its report, the rejection of the recommendations, and the resulting controversy.
  676. Find this resource:
  677. Tsou, Tang. America’s Failure in China, 1941–50. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963.
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  679. Argues that while America’s long-standing, idealistic policy was to transform China in the American image, the lack of will to use military force or extend sufficient military support to the Nationalist government made it impossible for the United States to achieve its goals in China.
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  681. The Marshall Mission
  682.  
  683. In November 1945, the American ambassador to China, Patrick Hurley, resigned suddenly, publicly denouncing alleged Communist sympathizers in the State Department for undermining him. With China on the brink of civil war, President Truman appointed General George Marshall as his representative to China. Marshall was assigned the impossible task of creating a stable, democratic, pro-American China by negotiating a cease-fire, an amalgamation of the Nationalist and Communist armies, and a political power-sharing agreement between the two opposing parties. The mission ended in failure in January 1947. Bland 1998 includes analyses of various aspects of the Marshall Mission from American, Chinese Communist, and Nationalist points of view, and is the best starting point for study of the mission. Levine 1979 and May 2002, while recognizing that Marshall failed to achieve the goal of creating a unified, pro-American China, argue that his mission did have some positive outcomes. Their interpretation can be compared to those of a number of the authors whose work is included in The “Who Lost China” Debate, and to Beal 1970. Pogue 1987 discusses the mission with an emphasis on Marshall’s experience and point of view. Van Slyke 1976 presents the Marshall Mission’s official report. The report itself can be supplemented by a reading of the documents included in Bland 2003. Zhonggong Zhongyang Wenxian Yanjiushi and Zhonggong Nanjing Shiwei 1996 presents both public statements and declassified internal documents illustrating the development of Chinese Communist analysis and strategy for Zhou Enlai’s talks with Marshall.
  684.  
  685. Beal, John Robinson. Marshall in China. Toronto: Doubleday, 1970.
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  687. The daily record of the experiences (interspersed with reminiscences and commentary) of an American reporter hired to advise Chiang Kai-shek on public relations with Americans in 1946. Beal is sympathetic to Chiang and suggests that Marshall and the Truman administration erred in not extending stronger support to the KMT.
  688. Find this resource:
  689. Bland, Larry I., ed., George C. Marshall’s Mediation Mission to China, December 1945–January 1947. Lexington, VA: George C. Marshall Foundation, 1998.
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  691. This reevaluation of the Marshall Mission consists of essays by scholars from Europe, North America, Japan, China, and Taiwan. Issues addressed include Marshall’s relations with Chiang Kai-shek, the role of third-party mediation, and Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong’s interactions with and attitudes toward Marshall.
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  693. Bland, Larry I., ed. George C. Marshall: The Papers of George Catlett Marshall. Vol. 5. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003.
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  695. The five volumes contain selections from Marshall’s papers. Volume 5 covers the Chinese Civil War period.
  696. Find this resource:
  697. Levine, Steven I. “A New Look at American Mediation in the Chinese Civil War: The Marshall Mission and Manchuria.” Diplomatic History 3.4 (1979): 349–376.
  698. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-7709.1979.tb00322.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  699. Levine makes the case that the Marshall Mission should not be viewed as a complete failure, for while it failed to prevent China’s decline into all-out civil war, it did succeed in thwarting Soviet expansionism.
  700. Find this resource:
  701. May, Ernest R. “1947–48: When Marshall Kept the U.S. out of War in China.” Journal of Military History 66.4 (October 2002): 1001–1010.
  702. DOI: 10.2307/3093261Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  703. The author draws attention to the role of the individual decision-maker in history by arguing that by deciding not to get the United States directly involved in the Chinese Civil War, despite considerable pressure from some elements in Congress and the military, Marshall affected the development of the Cold War.
  704. Find this resource:
  705. Pogue, Forrest C. George C. Marshall: Statesman, 1945–1959. New York: Viking, 1987.
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  707. The final volume in Pogue’s four-volume biography of Marshall. Covers the civil war period, including the Marshall Mission. Pogue’s descriptions of the interaction between Marshall and Chiang show both Marshall’s increasing frustration and Chiang’s sense of humiliation during their negotiations.
  708. Find this resource:
  709. Van Slyke, Lyman P., ed. Marshall’s Mission to China, December 1945–January 1947: The Report and Appended Documents. 2 vols. Arlington, VA: University Publications of America, 1976.
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  711. Marshall’s report and selected documents. Van Slyke’s introduction describes the Marshall Mission and suggests that there was little the United States could have done to affect the final outcome of the civil war, and that there was already evidence of a future split between the CCP and the Soviets.
  712. Find this resource:
  713. Zhonggong Zhongyang Wenxian Yanjiushi, and Zhonggong Nanjing Shiwei, eds. Zhou Enlai yijiusiliunian tanpan wenxuan. Beijing: Zhongyang Wenxian Chubanshe, 1996.
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  715. Selected documents regarding Zhou Enlai’s negotiations with the Nationalist Party and with George Marshall. The documents, which include Communist Party documents as well as public statements, are a revealing source on the Communist strategy and attitudes toward the KMT and the United States during the first stage of the civil war.
  716. Find this resource:
  717. The Chinese Civil War in the Cold War
  718.  
  719. Interpretations of China’s civil war and its place in the Cold War differ dramatically. Chiang 1957 stands as an extreme example of the view of the Chinese Civil War as simply one facet of a Manichaean struggle between good and evil. Levine 1977 draws our attention to both Cold War superpowers’ lack of interest in elevating their competition in the Chinese theater to the point of direct involvement, and the consequent difficulty of both the Communists and the Nationalists in gaining the support that they desired. Westad 1993 similarly focuses on the effects of the Cold War on the Chinese Civil War, and on challenges that this created for Chiang Kai-shek as he tried to maneuver between his former supporters, the Soviet Union, and his current patron, the United States. Like Westad 1993, Chen 2001 sees the Chinese Civil War as both affected by, but also in turn affecting, the development of the Cold War. Sheng 1997 and Yang 1999, while they do not return to the Manichaean vision of Chiang 1957, do argue that the Soviet Union offered valuable assistance to the Communist side in the civil war. Their point of view may be contrasted with that of Levine 1977, and is related to the arguments about the nature of Chinese Communist Foreign Policy and The Issue of Soviet Military Aid to Chinese Communist Forces. Xiang 1995 and Martin 1986 both depart from the usual American-centric view of American relations with China by contrasting American and British policy toward the Chinese Communist Party during and immediately after the Chinese Civil War.
  720.  
  721. Chen Jian. Mao’s China and the Cold War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.
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  723. Chen shows how the rivalry between the Communist and Nationalist parties in China helped to shape the competition between the Soviet Union and the United States, even as the strategic decisions of the two great powers had significant influence on the strategic decisions of their Chinese protégés.
  724. Find this resource:
  725. Chiang Kai-shek. Soviet Russia in China: A Summing-up at Seventy. New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1957.
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  727. Chiang places his struggle against the Chinese Communist Party in the context of a global struggle against Communism. He sees China as lying at the heart of that global struggle, with the USSR working to sabotage Sino-American cooperation and dominate the Chinese mainland.
  728. Find this resource:
  729. Levine, Steven I. “Soviet-American Rivalry in Manchuria and the Cold War.” In Dimensions of China’s Foreign Relations. Edited by Chün-tu Hsüeh, 10–43. New York: Praeger, 1977.
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  731. Argues that while the Soviets and the Americans each wanted to limit the others’ influence in China, neither was willing to align completely with its protégé, and that this made it impossible for Chiang Kai-shek to convert his struggle with the Communists into one theater of a fight to the death between the superpowers.
  732. Find this resource:
  733. Martin, Edwin W. Divided Counsel: The Anglo-American Response to Communist Victory in China. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1986.
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  735. Martin suggests that Westerners had an unrealistic expectation that the need for trade would force the CCP to accept compromises in order to establish diplomatic relations; whereas, in fact, confidence, ideology, and possibly Soviet influence meant that China had no interest in establishing relations.
  736. Find this resource:
  737. Sheng, Michael M. Battling Western Imperialism: Mao, Stalin, and the United States. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997.
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  739. Drawing on Chinese primary and secondary sources, and particularly on the work of Chinese historian Yang Kuisong, Sheng argues that Communist diplomatic and strategic decisions were deeply influenced by Mao’s commitment to internationalism, and to his relationship with the Soviet Union.
  740. Find this resource:
  741. Westad, Odd Arne. Cold War and Revolution: Soviet-American Rivalry and the Origins of the Chinese Civil War, 1944–1946. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.
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  743. An exploration of how the competition between the Nationalist and Communist parties in China both affected and was affected by the emerging Cold War rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union.
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  745. Xiang Lanxing. Recasting the Imperial Far East: Britain and America in China, 1945–1950. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1995.
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  747. In this example of the “New Cold War History,” Xiang Lanxing focuses on Anglo-American competition for influence in China in the postwar era. Xiang sees the British pursuing a realist policy while American policy was driven by idealism. Ultimately, the Korean War caused the interests of the two nations to converge.
  748. Find this resource:
  749. Yang Kuisong. Mao Zedong yu Mosike de Enen Yuanyuan. Nanchang, China: Jiangxi Renmin Chubanshe, 1999.
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  751. In this review of the often contentious relationship between Mao Zedong and the Soviet Union, one of China’s leading historians of the period makes the case that the Soviet Union offered valuable assistance to the CCP during the civil war, something that previous Chinese accounts have systematically downplayed.
  752. Find this resource:
  753. Chinese Communist Foreign Policy
  754.  
  755. The civil war era was the formative era for Chinese Communist foreign policy, a period in which the party laid the basis for its policies toward the great powers of the Cold War world. One of the major issues for Western scholars has been the degree to which Chinese Communist foreign policy was aligned with and guided by the policies of the Soviet Union, and whether or not there was an opportunity, at some point, for the United States to have cultivated better relations with the Communists. Hunt 1996 and Reardon-Anderson 1980 see a minimal role for ideology and Soviet influence, at least until late 1949. Yang 1992 argues that Communist policy was deeply ideological and closely aligned with Soviet policy throughout the civil war period. Niu Jun 2005 presents a nuanced analysis in which Communist alignment with Soviet policy is leavened by a degree of independence, particularly on issues of Chinese national interest. These issues are also addressed in many of the works cited under The US-China Relationship, The Chinese Civil War in the Cold War, and The “Who Lost China” Debate.
  756.  
  757. Hunt, Michael H. The Genesis of Chinese Communist Foreign Policy. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.
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  759. An overview of the formation of Chinese Communist foreign policy from the 1920s through 1951. Proposes that a strong Sino-Soviet connection only emerged in the last half of 1949 when CCP victory was assured.
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  761. Niu Jun. From Yan’an to the World: The Origin and Development of Chinese Communist Foreign Policy. Norwalk, CN: EastBridge, 2005.
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  763. Niu draws on Chinese and Western sources to describe the development of Chinese Communist foreign policy from 1935 through 1949. Niu portrays a Communist Party both highly responsive to policy guidance from Stalin’s Soviet Union but also jealous of national prerogatives, as seen in Mao’s refusal to consider a division of China along the Yangzi River.
  764. Find this resource:
  765. Reardon-Anderson, James. Yenan and the Great Powers: The Origins of Chinese Communist Foreign Policy, 1944–1946. New York: Columbia University Press, 1980.
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  767. Argues that the driving force behind Communist foreign policy was realpolitik, not ideology. This realist perspective suggests that there was no ideological barrier to better CCP relations with the United States; different American decisions could not have prevented the civil war, but would have elicited a more positive response from Yan’an (Yenan).
  768. Find this resource:
  769. Yang Kuisong. “The Soviet Factor and the CCP’s Policy toward the United States in the 1940s.” Chinese Historians 5.1 (Spring 1992): 17–34.
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  771. Argues that throughout the 1940s, the basis of the CCP’s foreign policy remained determined by ideological considerations in which the United States was seen as an enemy, and the Soviet Union, despite any vicissitudes in the relationship, as a friend. Yang further argues that the CCP’s policies toward the United States followed the lead of the Soviets.
  772. Find this resource:
  773. Urban Protest, Social and Political Struggle
  774.  
  775. The Chinese Civil War was fought and won on the battlefields of Northeast China (Manchuria), North China, and East China. Organizational work in carrying out land reform and building rural base areas is generally recognized as having played an important role in enabling the Communist Party to tap the human and material resources of the countryside in order to provide recruits and logistical support for the People’s Liberation Army (but see Westad 2003, cited under Bibliographies for reservations on this score). However, as Yick 1995 points out, the Communist Party also conducted an ongoing struggle in the cities—a struggle in which underground Communist Party operatives worked to spread propaganda, recruit intellectuals, guide the activities of third parties (see also Lutze 2007, cited under The “Who Lost China” Debate), and organize workers and students to conduct strikes and demonstrations in order to undermine the Nationalist regime. Historians differ on the degree to which workers even developed the class consciousness that would make them more receptive to Communist guidance and organization, as discussed in Honig 1986 and Howard 2004. Perry 1993 and Wasserstrom 1991 argue that, in practice, different perceptions of group or subgroup interest drove some workers and students to support the Communist Party while others rallied to the Nationalists. Nonetheless, as meticulously described in Pepper 1999, the Communist Party was far more successful than the Kuomintang when it came to the art of building political legitimacy among the urban Chinese, be they intellectuals or workers.
  776.  
  777. Honig, Emily. Sisters and Strangers: Women in the Shanghai Cotton Mills, 1919–1949. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1986.
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  779. Honig’s research on women workers in the Shanghai cotton mills suggests that local and family identity were substantial barriers to the development of class consciousness, and that the efforts of Communist agents to organize labor as a part of the political struggle against the Nationalists met with mixed results.
  780. Find this resource:
  781. Howard, Joshua H. Workers at War: Labor in China’s Arsenals, 1937–1953. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004.
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  783. Explores the formation of working class identity in a key industry in Nationalist-controlled Chongqing during the anti-Japanese war and the civil war. Chapter 8 addresses the labor movement and the Communist role in the labor movement during the civil war years.
  784. Find this resource:
  785. Pepper, Suzanne. Civil War in China: The Political Struggle, 1945–1949. 2d ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999.
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  787. This is the most significant study thus far of the political dimensions of the Chinese Civil War. Pepper argues that economic mismanagement, political incompetence, and popular disillusionment undermined popular support for the KMT, while the CCP used land reform, student movements, and a record of fairness and competence to win a genuine mandate to rule.
  788. Find this resource:
  789. Perry, Elizabeth. Shanghai on Strike: The Politics of Chinese Labor. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993.
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  791. Explores how particularist identities (native place, level of skill, social networks) played out in the political realm to make some groups more likely to see an advantage to working with the Communist Party, as, for instance, skilled artisans did in the anti-KMT labor unrest of Shanghai during the civil war.
  792. Find this resource:
  793. Wasserstrom, Jeffrey N. Student Protests in Twentieth-Century China: The View from Shanghai. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991.
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  795. Wasserstrom’s analysis of student protest in Shanghai notes how, in the context of the civil war, students split into “loyalist” and “radical” (pro-Communist) groups, and how this bifurcation played out in a series of anti-war, anti-hunger, and anti-Soviet protests in which both Nationalist and Communist party agents worked to direct student movements.
  796. Find this resource:
  797. Yick, Joseph. Making Urban Revolution in China: The CCP-GMD Struggle for Beiping-Tianjin, 1945–1949. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1995.
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  799. Yick argues that the CCP’s use of military strength in the rural areas was accompanied by a political “Second Front” in the Nationalist-controlled cities. He looks specifically to Beiping (Beijing) and Tianjin as examples of the operations, strengths, and weaknesses of the political dimension of the civil war.
  800. Find this resource:
  801. Land Reform and Rural Revolution
  802.  
  803. Mao Zedong decisively shifted the Communist Party’s focus of struggle from China’s cities and urban proletariat to the rural villages and farmers (peasants). Land reform—the redistribution of land and other wealth from the rich to the middle and poor farmers—became a hallmark of Chinese Communist rural policy and is commonly credited with generating resources and popular support for the Communist Party, and with creating a positive environment for recruitment of rural youth into the Communist armies. Scholars differ, however, on the process or mechanism by which the Communist Party gained rural support, and on the nature of the relationship between the party and the rural masses. Johnson 1967 argues that the party gained legitimacy by mobilizing popular nationalist sentiment during the war against Japan. Selden 1995 ascribes a greater degree of importance to the party’s land reform program than to its role in the war against Japan, a position echoed in Hinton 1997. Thaxton 1983 ascribes agency to the farmers themselves, while Chen 1986 argues that rural revolution, far from being a grassroots movement, was the creation of Communist Party work teams. The authors in Hartford and Goldstein 1989 cast doubt on the depth of rural commitment to the CCP. See also Westad 2003 (cited under Bibliographies), which argues that land reform contributed little to the Communist victory, and that most rural folk maintained a neutral attitude, preferring to avoid involvement in the civil war when at all possible.
  804.  
  805. Chen, Yung-fa. Making Revolution: The Communist Movement in Eastern and Central China, 1937–1945. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.
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  807. Rather than seeing the peasant movement as a force with which the Communist Party aligned, Chen argues that by establishing political power, the CCP made it possible to send work teams to the villages to create the conditions for and organize the class struggle that brought material benefits both to the majority of farmers and to the CCP itself.
  808. Find this resource:
  809. Hartford, Kathleen, and Steven M. Goldstein, eds. Single Sparks: China’s Rural Revolutions. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1989.
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  811. The authors of the articles in this edited volume discuss the Communist Party’s efforts to use land reform in order to get Chinese farmers involved in the revolution. They note that farmers did not naturally support the CCP, but that the party succeeded in mobilizing popular support to generate resources for conventional war.
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  813. Hinton, William. Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.
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  815. An account of land reform in a North China village in 1948 by a strong supporter of the CCP and its policies. Originally published in 1966 (New York: Vintage).
  816. Find this resource:
  817. Johnson, Chalmers. Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power: The Emergence of Revolutionary China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1967.
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  819. Classic statement of the idea that the mobilization of peasant nationalism during the war of resistance to Japan played a key role in enabling the Communist Party to win peasant support, which then laid the foundations for the Communists’ victory in the civil war. Sees Marxist-Leninist ideology as an adjunct to a radical nationalist movement.
  820. Find this resource:
  821. Selden, Mark. China in Revolution: The Yenan Way Revisited. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1995.
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  823. Selden argues that Communist social and economic policies, as seen in the Yan’an (Yenan) base area during the war against Japan, laid a foundation of popular support that would give the CCP an advantage during the civil war.
  824. Find this resource:
  825. Thaxton, Ralph. China Turned Rightside Up: Revolutionary Legitimacy in the Peasant World. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1983.
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  827. Counter to Chen Yung-fa’s thesis that CCP cadres created rural revolution, Thaxton argues that the CCP gained popular support in the civil war by throwing its weight behind egalitarian socioeconomic programs such as land reform that had their origins among the farmers themselves.
  828. Find this resource:
  829. The “Who Lost China” Debate
  830.  
  831. In the early 1950s, American politics was consumed with the question of responsibility for Chiang Kai-shek’s defeat, and with what, in some American political circles, was regarded as America’s “loss” of China. The question of “who lost China” has so deeply affected the historiography of the Chinese Civil War that nearly everything written in English on the subject represents, in some way, a contribution to that debate. McCarthy 1951 is worth remembering for its extreme and unsubstantiated charges, whose echoes continued to be heard in American political debate even in the first decades of the 21st century. Waldron 1999 and Gillin and Myers 1989, while not sharing in McCarthy’s irresponsible charges, do, like McCarthy, assign the blame for Chiang’s defeat to decisions made by George Marshall during the Marshall Mission. Chang and Halliday 2006 (cited under Biographies of Major Personalities) echoes this point of view. Tsou 1963 also assigns the burden of responsibility to the Truman administration. Lutze 2007, although approaching the question from an entirely different political position (one far more favorable to the Communist Party), also points to decisions made in Washington to explain the outcome of events in China. Esherick 1974, too, suggests that Washington missed a key opportunity that, if taken, would have led to a different, and presumably more peaceful, outcome of the civil war. Niu Jun 2005 (cited under Chinese Communist Foreign Policy) describes Chinese Communist relations with the United States as tactical in nature, thus casting doubt on Esherick’s position. The authors in Loh 1965 go beyond Washington, Truman, and Marshall to explore multiple explanations for the Nationalist defeat, many of them to be found in China itself. Cheng 2009 looks not to Washington or to Nanjing, but to the capabilities of the Nationalist military as seen on the battlefield in order to explain why it went down in defeat. For more perspectives, see entries under the US-China Relationship.
  832.  
  833. Cheng, Victor Shiu Chiang. “Modern War on an Ancient Battlefield: The Diffusion of American Military Technology and Ideas in the Chinese Civil War, 1946–1949.” Modern China 35.1 (January 2009): 38–64.
  834. DOI: 10.1177/0097700408318909Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  835. Analysis of battles in the Northeast, East China, and the Northwest indicates that because of primitive transport and backward military thinking, American weapons did not give the Nationalists an advantage but actually contributed to their problems. On a battlefield where light infantry dominated, the CCP was able to win the day.
  836. Find this resource:
  837. Esherick, Joseph W., ed. Lost Chance in China: The World War II Despatches of John S. Service. New York: Random House, 1974.
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  839. Edited selection of the dispatches of American diplomat John Service, who, in the final years of World War II, made the case that the United States should work with the CCP. Esherick argues that by rejecting Service’s advice, the United States lost an opportunity to avoid or at least reduce the subsequent violence of the civil war and the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam.
  840. Find this resource:
  841. Gillin, Donald G., and Ramon H. Myers. “Introduction.” In Last Chance in Manchuria: The Diary of Chang Kia-ngau. Edited by Donald G. Gillin and Ramon H. Myers, 1–58. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution, 1989.
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  843. Gillin and Meyers directly address the question of why Chiang lost the war. Disagreeing with the emphasis on Chiang’s failings found in US Department of State 1967 (cited under American Published Documents), they point to Soviet obstructionism and to Marshall’s negotiation of a cease-fire in Manchuria in June 1946 to explain the Nationalist collapse in Manchuria and the subsequent loss of the mainland.
  844. Find this resource:
  845. Loh, Pichon P. Y., ed. The Kuomintang Debacle of 1949: Conquest or Collapse? Lexington: DC: Heath, 1965.
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  847. Informed by, and responding to, Cold War debate, this series of essays (many by notable participants in the events) explores different levels of explanation for the Nationalist collapse: military, the effects of World War II, structural weaknesses of the Nationalist government, the role of the Soviet Union, and long-term historical and social trends.
  848. Find this resource:
  849. Lutze, Thomas D. China’s Inevitable Revolution: Rethinking America’s Loss to the Communists. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
  850. DOI: 10.1057/9780230608771Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  851. Lutze’s analysis of the political struggle focuses on the “middle forces”—liberals critical of Chiang’s regime. Lutze argues that the American embrace of anti-Communism at all costs, combined with the CCP’s successful policy of attracting the “middle forces,” made China’s revolution “inevitable.”
  852. Find this resource:
  853. McCarthy, Joseph R. America’s Retreat from Victory: The Story of George Catlett Marshall. New York: Devin-Adair, 1951.
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  855. A detailed attack on George Marshall and his role in the making of American policy toward China in the second half of the 1940s, replete with insinuations that Marshall was acting in the interests of the Soviet Union. Worthy of note as an example of the extreme rhetoric of the time.
  856. Find this resource:
  857. Tsou, Tang. America’s Failure in China, 1941–1950. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963.
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  859. Suggests that the combination of an idealistic vision of China’s future, support of a government (that of Chiang Kai-shek) which had no intention of conforming to that idealistic vision, and a lack of willingness to extend sufficient military support to guarantee that government’s survival, was a recipe for disaster.
  860. Find this resource:
  861. Waldron, Arthur. “China Without Tears: If Chiang Kai-shek Hadn’t Gambled in 1946.” In What If: The World’s Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been. Edited by Robert Cowley, 377–392. New York: Putnam, 1999.
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  863. Waldron imagines the possibility of a Nationalist victory in the civil war if Chiang had either heeded Albert Wedemeyer’s advice not to commit troops to Manchuria in the fall of 1945, or, once they were committed, if he had resisted George Marshall’s pressure to reach a cease-fire with the Communists in Manchuria in June 1946.
  864. Find this resource:
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