At what point was a Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War inevitable?

At what point was a KMT victory hopeless?

  • Before 1945

    Votes: 14 14.0%

  • 1945

    Votes: 20 20.0%

  • 1946

    Votes: 13 13.0%

  • 1947

    Votes: 23 23.0%

  • 1948

    Votes: 17 17.0%

  • 1949

    Votes: 10 10.0%

  • After 1949

    Votes: 3 3.0%
  • Total voters
    100

CELTICEMPIRE

I've heard people say that by 1945, Communist victory was inevitable. They usually contend that the Communists were very popular and that KMT corruption would have doomed their chances of victory regardless of any hypothetical changes in Nationalist strategy. Personally, I've been under the impression that the war was still winnable for the Nationalists in 1945 and 1946 if some battles go differently.

What do you think? When did Communist China become an forgone conclusion and what, if anything, could the Chiang and the KMT have done differently during the 1940s to win the Civil War?
 
Fernan3451

Fernan3451

CELTICEMPIRE said:
What do you think? When did Communist China become an forgone conclusion and what, if anything, could the Chiang and the KMT have done differently during the 1940s to win the Civil War?
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I think the CCP could have been destroyed had the Long March been a failure for them. There, you could have the KMT eventually ruling all of China.
 

CELTICEMPIRE

Fernan3451 said:
I think the CCP could have been destroyed had the Long March been a failure for them. There, you could have the KMT eventually ruling all of China.
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True, but I'm looking at what the KMT could have done in the 1940s.

Admiral Spaun said:
It depends on how American aligned the Nationalists are. The Soviets were fine working with them in the past.
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That's also true. But by 1945 the USSR was clearly helping the Communists.
 

Octosteel

It's over once those cream of the crop troops are encircled and destroyed in Manchuria. I think it's still winnable up to that point even as problematic as the army was with desertion and supply problems.
 

CELTICEMPIRE

en.wikipedia.org

Campaign to Defend Siping - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

Equally brilliant, the communist commander Lin Biao dared to ignore Mao Zedong's order and withdrew from the city on his own, thus successfully avoided total annihilation of his defending force by the numerically and technically superior adversary.
Click to expand...

So let's say that Lin Biao doesn't defy Mao's orders and instead fights to the end. Is that enough to get the KMT to win in the Northeast and maybe the war?
 

cjc

The Tai-Pan said:
The USSR is much closer then the USA is.
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Although ironically enough the ussr probably wanted the nationalists to win, stalin already had a treaty with them that gave him all that he wanted, and that he had to give up once the ccp won.
He only supported the ccp to weeken the nationalists, if he knew that it would have lead to a comunest victory he would not have supported them to the level he did.
Despite the ccp and the ussr both being comunest Stalin had very different ideas about reialpolitic.
 
Gillan1220

Gillan1220

cjc said:
Although ironically enough the ussr probably wanted the nationalists to win, stalin already had a treaty with them that gave him all that he wanted, and that he had to give up once the ccp won.
He only supported the ccp to weeken the nationalists, if he knew that it would have lead to a comunest victory he would not have supported them to the level he did.
Despite the ccp and the ussr both being comunest Stalin had very different ideas about reialpolitic.
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Why did Stalin support the KMT?
 

cjc

Gillan1220 said:
Why did Stalin support the KMT?
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Manly because he felt the kmt would be esser to use and wouldn't be able to fully control china, thats why he provided the support he did to the comunest, he felt that victory in the second sino Chinese War would give the kmt the moral power to final unify the country. He over estimated how much control the kmt had and gave the comunest way to much support. Once he relesd what he had done he tried desperately to get the comunest to stop and texcept a cesis fiere to keep china split but by that point the ccp had way to much momentum and Stalin had to change tactics.
 

CELTICEMPIRE

Nathan Bernacki said:
Because just like the Communists, the Kuomintang was a revolutionary, anti-colonialist movement. In fact, the Soviets were the only government to give up all of their concessions in China in 1919 after some negotiation with Sun Yat Sen.
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Yes. People often portray the Nationalists as far-right American puppets, when that was not the case at all when they were still on the mainland (and I would argue that it wasn't the case on Taiwan either).
 

Deleted member 169412

The Communists promised land reform and promised to deal with banditry and local warlords. Unless the KMT do that as well they will lose the hearts and minds of the average Chinese person and will either have to rule with an iron fist or deal with yet another warlord period.
 

mial42

Gone Fishin'
I went with 1947. The US arms embargo + US-demanded truces with the Communists were fatal.
The Tai-Pan said:
The USSR is much closer then the USA is.
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Worse than that. A sizable fraction of the US government and military (and a much larger fraction-probably an outright majority-of our media and academics) supported the Communists and worked to improve their position vis a vis the KMT. General Wedemeyer's memoir is instructive.
 
Gillan1220

Gillan1220

mial42 said:
Worse than that. A sizable fraction of the US government and military (and a much larger fraction-probably an outright majority-of our media and academics) supported the Communists and worked to improve their position vis a vis the KMT. General Wedemeyer's memoir is instructive.
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Woah, is this another anime crossover? You got the Soviets wanting the KMT and now the U.S. supporting the communists? Yes, I know the U.S. did support the communist against the Japanese but seriously that did support them in the civil war?
 

mial42

Gone Fishin'
Gillan1220 said:
Woah, is this another anime crossover? You got the Soviets wanting the KMT and now the U.S. supporting the communists? Yes, I know the U.S. did support the communist against the Japanese but seriously that did support them in the civil war?
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The US as a whole didn't support the Communists, but important elements of the US government/military/media/academia did. Some because they were themselves Communists (such as FDR's close advisor and literal Soviet agent Harry White), some because they didn't like the KMT and believed (or claimed to believe) the Communists were just agrarian reformers (such as Stilwell and most of the New York Times), and some who didn't ideologically support the Communists but whose actions strongly helped them win the Civil War (such as General Marshall, who repeatedly demanded truces between the KMT and Communists at various points at which the KMT had the advantage, pushed for a coalition government, and embargoed the KMT for 15 months in the most crucial part of the war).

The relationship between the US and the Chinese Civil War is definitely one in which the unitary rational actor model of states breaks down. On net, the US definitely aided the KMT more than the Communists, but provided significant help to both during the Civil War, especially in the crucial 1946-1947 period.
 

MS-Paint

CELTICEMPIRE said:
I've heard people say that by 1945, Communist victory was inevitable. They usually contend that the Communists were very popular and that KMT corruption would have doomed their chances of victory regardless of any hypothetical changes in Nationalist strategy. Personally, I've been under the impression that the war was still winnable for the Nationalists in 1945 and 1946 if some battles go differently.

What do you think? When did Communist China become an forgone conclusion and what, if anything, could the Chiang and the KMT have done differently during the 1940s to win the Civil War?
Click to expand...
Depends on what a "victory" means. If the KMT holding on to at least part of mainland China counts as a "victory", then really a Communist victory was never inevitable until maybe late 1949. I mean, the KMT had around 1 million troops in the southwest alone. However, the last actual battle where the KMT had the advantage was the Huaihai Campaign in late 1948-early 1949. A decisive KMT victory in the Huaihai Campaign would probably lead to a split China. Though if we were talking about complete KMT victory over the Communists, yeah after 1947 that wasn't really possible.
 
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