Chiang kills Mao during the Chongqing Negotiations

Chiang really damages the world perception of him then, using meetings under the guise of negotiations to kill your rivals doesn't do wonders with how people see you. Any chance of further negotiations with the communists is gone as long as Chiang remains in power. The Communists will use this opportunity as propaganda as showing the KMT as bloodthirsty liars who can't be trusted and America can't exactly endorse this either even as the Red Scare is in full swing as imagine what the Soviets will say and use of this "AMERICA ENDORSES MURDERER CHIANG KAI-SHEK". Chiang's China would lose a lot of endorsements from the west as long as Chiang's around. The KMT might use this to finally mobilize and throw him out but the damage is done.

Mao's death will make him a martyr. The Communists were incredibly popular among the peasantry and they had access to a lot of infrastructure and weapons confiscated from the Japanese as well as from the Soviets in occupied Manchuria. I think without Mao, the communists can still win the war especially now they can play the victims here and win sympathy cards among more of the population.

Basically Chiang went full stupid-mode I believe.
 
Here's a better WI: WI the plane carrying the Communist leaders crashes en route to Yan'an from Chongqing (for the purposes of this WI, assume it's an accident; airplane accidents were more common in 1945 than they are today)?

Effects, anyone?

And, yeah, Chiang was a lot of things, but not this dumb (which is why I proposed the alternate WI)...
 
"Attaboy Chiang!" After all, they didn't recognize the PRC until 1949. They'll role with this loss as they had after the Shanghai massacre. Something to the effect of, "the CCP was too Trotskyite in form and faith."

I thought the Soviets wished more for a coalition government between the KMT and Communists for years, only changing their mind once it became apparent that the communists were going to win. Stalin didn't exactly trust Mao as Mao rose to power by and large independently from him unlike most of the other communist heads (excluding Tito).
 
I thought the Soviets wished more for a coalition government between the KMT and Communists for years, only changing their mind once it became apparent that the communists were going to win.
They did, that doesn't mean they weren't willing to throw the Chinese Communists under the bus, as they did so plenty of times.

If Chiang decapitates CCP leadership Stalin probably continues the holding pattern of making sure that the anti-communist state to the south isn't necessarily anti-Soviet or overtly pro-American.
 
Here's a better WI: WI the plane carrying the Communist leaders crashes en route to Yan'an from Chongqing (for the purposes of this WI, assume it's an accident; airplane accidents were more common in 1945 than they are today)?

Effects, anyone?

And, yeah, Chiang was a lot of things, but not this dumb (which is why I proposed the alternate WI)...

Well, you'd probably have some conspiracy theories (like in the cases of Italo Balbo and Władysław Sikorski), but the effects would be far less dramatic.
 
If Chiang decapitates CCP leadership Stalin probably continues the holding pattern of making sure that the anti-communist state to the south isn't necessarily anti-Soviet or overtly pro-American.
If we look at other states bordering the USSR, one sees the only concern Moscow really had was that they not be anti-Soviet.

Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi certainly was overtly pro-America but not anti-Soviet, so the Russians did not worry about him; Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was more anti-Soviet than the Shah, but so anti-American that the Russians were again not concerned. Finland’s Urho Kekkonen, the next-longest reigning leader of a state bordering the USSR, was frequently viewed as pro-Soviet but was never anti-American.

Chiang had a history as an anti-Communist military man, so had he ruled all of China permanently he would likely have been much more anti-Soviet than the last Shah on any Finnish leader was. China, however, is so big that it would have been difficult for the Soviets to get a leader less opposed to them than Chiang would have been. This is especially true if a Chiang-led China – like Taiwan – was much more economically successful than China under Mao Zedong proved.
 
Everyone condemns them. Communists splinter. Chiang wins. Five years later everyone forgets he killed Mao.

The Communists are not going to splinter. They know--as Mao himself knew--that they were too dependent on Soviet aid to disregard what Stalin wants. (Mao had wanted to start the civil war prematurely by seizing major cities after the Japanese surrender before the Nationalists could get to them. Stalin vetoed the idea and that was that.)

In fact, if Chiang were to do anything this crazy it would be a godsend to the USSR. What the USSR wanted most of all in 1945 was to get US troops out of China. This is the reason it took such a moderate line in public (while discreetly handing over to the CCP massive amounts of captured weapons and military equipment). https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...ate-to-save-china.465392/page-2#post-18738970 Chiang would just be giving the USSR what it wanted.

As Michael M. Sheng notes in Battling Western Imperialism: Mao, Stalin, and the United States, p. 15: "In numerous occasions after Stalin's death Mao purposely discredited Stalin's contribution to the CCP cause, thereby creating a myth that Stalin was always wrong in his China policy, and Mao was always correct and he resisted Stalin and saved the CCP revolution single-handedly. The myth of Mao's own making has been influential in the western scholarship in the field..." https://books.google.com/books?id=HZJcxq1DIOYC&pg=PA15
 
Chiang really damages the world perception of him then, using meetings under the guise of negotiations to kill your rivals doesn't do wonders with how people see you. Any chance of further negotiations with the communists is gone as long as Chiang remains in power. The Communists will use this opportunity as propaganda as showing the KMT as bloodthirsty liars who can't be trusted and America can't exactly endorse this either even as the Red Scare is in full swing as imagine what the Soviets will say and use of this "AMERICA ENDORSES MURDERER CHIANG KAI-SHEK". Chiang's China would lose a lot of endorsements from the west as long as Chiang's around. The KMT might use this to finally mobilize and throw him out but the damage is done.

Mao's death will make him a martyr. The Communists were incredibly popular among the peasantry and they had access to a lot of infrastructure and weapons confiscated from the Japanese as well as from the Soviets in occupied Manchuria. I think without Mao, the communists can still win the war especially now they can play the victims here and win sympathy cards among more of the population.

Basically Chiang went full stupid-mode I believe.

Yeah they would absolutely lose American support.

Mao had *excellent* press (largely due to communist sleeper agents having senior positions in Chiang's propaganda operation) - a big part of why Chiang was never able to wipe him out was that whenever he made a concerted effort to stop Mao and his ratfucking the Americans would be like, "Leave Mao alone, he's helping against the Japanese". Killing Mao during negotiations would have absolutely cost Chiang the support of both the US and the USSR (whom Chiang relied on even before US support).
 
I thought the Soviets wished more for a coalition government between the KMT and Communists for years, only changing their mind once it became apparent that the communists were going to win. Stalin didn't exactly trust Mao as Mao rose to power by and large independently from him unlike most of the other communist heads (excluding Tito).

Yes, for many years keeping the Japanese busy in China was far more important to Moscow than helping the CCP, and Chiang was Moscow's guy to do that. Mao's reticence in playing ball with that framework was a constant sticking point between him and Moscow.
 
Stalin didn't exactly trust Mao as Mao rose to power by and large independently from him unlike most of the other communist heads (excluding Tito).

Actually, Stalin and the Comintern were crucial to Mao's rise:

***

"Nor was Mao demoted by the Comintern and the "returned students" for his failure to follow Moscow's strategy. The opposite is true: Mao was Moscow's chosen man. The story started on 21 July 1932, when the Shanghai Center criticized the Central Bureau in Jiangxi headed by Zhou Enlai of not being aggressive enough in military operations. Zhou thus left the rear base to join Mao, Zhu De, and Wang Jiaxiang at the front. In September, the four men at the front disagreed with the other members of the Central Bureau who remained in the rear. The former wanted to give the troops a seven-day respite since they had fought three successive battles in the past month, while the latter wanted them to fight a battle in Yongfeng where enemy troops had gathered. The difference between the two sides was purely technical, if not trivial; there was no "two-line struggle" whatsoever. The four men at the front proposed on 25 September that a meeting of all members of the Central Bureau be held. When all the members met in Ningdu in the first week of October, Mao's argument apparently became unpopular, and he was criticized for being "rightist." Some proposed that Mao leave the military command, and Zhou, who was presiding over the meeting, suggested two alternatives: either Mao be the commander while Zhou served as overseer; or Zhou take command, with Mao acting as assistant. Mao rejected the first alternative. The meeting accepted the second one, but Mao asked for a "sick leave" to stay at the rear, and the meeting granted his request. The Shanghai Center endorsed the meeting on 6 October,

"This was how Mao left his military command. His egotistic personality led him to clash with his colleagues, and the Maoist story of Mao's demotion due to his opposition to Moscow's policy line is a Iie. The truth is that when Mao was in difficulty with his colleagues at home. Moscow came to his aid. In the Fifth Plenum in January 1934, which was regarded as the peak of the Wang Ming line by Maoist historians, Mao's position in the Party was upgraded from an alternate to a full member of the politburo, This was largely due to the Comintern's intervention on Mao's behalf. In March 1933, the ECCI telegraphed the CCP Center and stated that the way in which Mao was treated "must be gentle and comradely, and Mao should be allowed to undertake a leading position." The Center subsequently relayed this directive to the rank and file, Throughout 1934-35, Mao's name frequently appeared in the Comintern's publication and the reports of the CCP's delegation in Moscow headed by Wang Ming. In these documents, Mao was praised as “the leader of the Chinese soviet movement," and the "preeminent young politician and military strategist of the Chinese Soviet Republic, Moscow even published a volume of his selected works, probably the first of its kind. In October 1934, Mao's work on guerrilla warfare was printed by the CCP's Central Military Committee as its instruction to the rank and file. At the Seventh Congress of the Comintern in 1935, Mao was praised as an "outstanding and valiant standard-bearer" of the communist movement, the same praise as Dimitrov received. In Moscow's exhibition hall of CCP history, the only personal portrayals of CCP leaders were Mao and Zhu De. In Pravda of 13 December 1935, and the Communist International, nos. 33-34, 1935, Mao was praised highly as the "legendary leader of the Chinese people" and the "first one who recognized and openly exposed the Chen Duxiu capitulationism." It was this kind of unprecedented support and endorsement from Moscow that paved the way for Mao's rise to power at Zunyi.

"Mao's victory at Zunyi was also attributable to the support of the key members of the "returned students" who understood that the Comintern favored Mao. In November 1934, the CCP delegation in Moscow headed by Wang
Ming informed the Party Center that the Comintern considered Mao an experienced leader. It was not a coincidence that shortly after the Moscow message, two key members of the "returned students," namely, Zhang Wentian and Wang Jiaxiang, became closer to Mao and more receptive to his opinion. It was after Zhang and Wang had leaned toward Mao that Zhou Enlai came to Mao's side, followed by Zhu De. Thus, Mao gained the support of the majority in the Politburo, and he became increasingly vocal in criticizing the military conduct of Qing [Bangxian] and [Otto] Braun. On 12 December 1934, an emergency meeting, presided over by Zhou Enlai, was convened to discuss military strategy. Qing and Braun insisted on following the previous decision to head toward the central Hunan area. Mao contended that the new base area should be on the border of Hunan and Guizhou. Zhang and Wang voted for Mao first, and then Zhou swung to Mao's side. Thus, for the first time, Mao overrode the Qing-Braun decision. A week later, a Politburo meeting further confirmed Mao's strategy. It became clear that Mao had gained the upper hand in the Politburo with the support of the "returned students." This was not due to his "correct" strategy because Mao's idea to head toward Guizhou was soon proven "wrong" and abandoned.

"Suffice it to say that before the Zunyi conference, Mao was not in conflict with Moscow and he had no reason to stage an anti-Moscow "coup" at Zunyi. In fact, Mao was supported by the Comintern and the key members of the so-called "returned students," and his loyalty to the Moscow-led world revolution remained intact. This becomes more evident when a fact, which has long been kept secret, comes to light: Mao was responsible for the restoration of radio communication between the CCP and Moscow...." Michael M. Sheng, Battling Western Imperialism: Mao, Stalin, and the United States, pp. 19-21.
 
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