Is 1949 too late to save China?

Were American Hawks at the time aware that China was lost? Is commitment ASB?

Depends on which hawks your talking about. The fledgling McCarthyists were in, possibly cynical, denial about it. Their contention was that the commies in the State Department had deliverately "lost" or "sold out" China. Indeed, the idea that it was the US who "lost" China, instead of the Chinese making a societal choice that the US didn't agree with, is something of an echo of those paranoiacs conspiracy theorizing.

Chiang would not like the censorship of the Great Firewall.

Really? You seriously think that the same Chiang Kai-Shek who suppressed dissent against his regime, murdered political opposition, established a cult of personality, and suppressed democracy in Taiwan to such an extent that it couldn't develop until after his death would disapprove of censorship in general and the Great Firewall in particular? I don't doubt that the Communists wound up being murderous tyrants, but to pretend that Chiang was pro-Free Speech or anti-censorship is also rather absurd.
 
They were in, possibly cynical, denial. Their contention was that the commies in the State Department .



Really? You seriously think that the same Chiang Kai-Shek who suppressed dissent against his regime, murdered political opposition, established a cult of personality, and suppressed democracy in Taiwan to such an extent that it couldn't develop until after his death would disapprove of censorship in general and the Great Firewall in particular? I don't doubt that the Communists wound up being murderous tyrants, but to pretend that Chiang was pro-Free Speech or anti-censorship is rather absurd itself.


Chiang in Taiwan is NOT Chiang in China. In 1948, the KMT held an election (albeit opposition parties being curtailed) and Chiang was part of the elected government. This elected government, representing all of China, had to go to Taiwan due to the Communist victory on the mainland. In Taiwan, the KMT imposed martial law. The martial law was intended to be temporary because the KMT intended to go back to China. Unfortunately, the martial law lasted too long. It did not make sense for the KMT to hold national elections in Taiwan because citizens of one island cannot be the only ones to vote for the government of an entire country called the Republic of China (which includes Taiwan). Furthermore, the KMT on Taiwan was afflicted with siege mentality, being constantly threatened by a giant neighboring Communist giant.

A KMT victory in China will change many things. Chiang will run China more openly than OTL Taiwan. China may be similar to Sanacja Poland or PRI Mexico. KMT China will be more democratic than Park Chung Hee, Rhee, Suharto, and even Marcos. However, it will be more autocratic than post war Japan. Chiang could easily be an autocrat in Taiwan since he was able to quickly consolidate his power. The people that came with him to Taiwan were mostly loyal and lots of competing factions were eliminated via anti-corruption or they left the KMT once they realized that the corruption they could get away with in China was no longer possible in Taiwan. In China, Chiang will have to deal with competing factions. His record in China indicates no record of being an autocrat. Instead, Chiang has plenty of experience using backroom deals and not purging people to push his ideas forward.

The KMT activated a post war Democratic constitution in China. The intention was for the KMT to transition from political tutelage to a more democratic form of government. Their defeat to the CCP forced them to suspend the constitution when they got to Taiwan. The constitution was meant for all of China (including Taiwan).
 
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FBKampfer

Banned
I don't know why "Communism is bad" is a controversial assertion.


Because capitalism has also laughably failed in the United States, which is a big percentage of internet browsers, especially on English language websites such as this.

If you're American, and under 30, statistically you've got a good view of communism as an economic model.


What you're trying to imply is that communism necessarily goes hand in hand with dictatorships and totalitarianism, which leads to curtailing of rights, mass executions, and repression regardless of whether its a capitalist (read: fascist) dictatorship or communist dictatorship.
 
You would wind up with a much bigger Vietnam. The Communists won because the nationalist government was despised by the Chinese people.
 
Because capitalism has also laughably failed in the United States, which is a big percentage of internet browsers, especially on English language websites such as this.

If you're American, and under 30, statistically you've got a good view of communism as an economic model.


What you're trying to imply is that communism necessarily goes hand in hand with dictatorships and totalitarianism, which leads to curtailing of rights, mass executions, and repression regardless of whether its a capitalist (read: fascist) dictatorship or communist dictatorship.

We should stick to a discussion of the historical viability/context. Current events belong in chat unless it's a point relevent to the situation being argued
 
Chiang in Taiwan is NOT Chiang in China. In 1948, the KMT held an election (albeit opposition parties being curtailed) and Chiang was part of the elected government. This elected government, representing all of China, had to go to Taiwan due to the Communist victory on the mainland. In Taiwan, the KMT imposed martial law. The martial law was intended to be temporary because the KMT intended to go back to China. Unfortunately, the martial law lasted too long. It did not make sense for the KMT to hold national elections in Taiwan because citizens of one island cannot be the only ones to vote for the government of an entire country called the Republic of China (which includes Taiwan). Furthermore, the KMT on Taiwan was afflicted with siege mentality, being constantly threatened by a giant neighboring Communist giant.

A KMT victory in China will change many things. Chiang will run China more openly than OTL Taiwan. China may be similar to Sanacja Poland or PRI Mexico. KMT China will be more democratic than Park Chung Hee, Rhee, Suharto, and even Marcos. However, it will be more autocratic than post war Japan. Chiang could easily be an autocrat in Taiwan since he was able to quickly consolidate his power. The people that came with him to Taiwan were mostly loyal and lots of competing factions were eliminated via anti-corruption or they left the KMT once they realized that the corruption they could get away with in China was no longer possible in Taiwan. In China, Chiang will have to deal with competing factions. His record in China indicates no record of being an autocrat. Instead, Chiang has plenty of experience using backroom deals and not purging people to push his ideas forward.

The KMT activated a post war Democratic constitution in China. The intention was for the KMT to transition from political tutelage to a more democratic form of government. Their defeat to the CCP forced them to suspend the constitution when they got to Taiwan. The constitution was meant for all of China (including Taiwan).
Chiang consistently carried out mass killings against his opponents. From Shanghi in 1927, to the February 28 incident in Taiwan.
 
America couldn't stop the weak, incompetent government of South Vietnam from getting overrun by the Communists. They're unlikely to have any more success with bailing out the weak, incompetent Nationalist regime in China.
 

Ian_W

Banned
Yes they could have been saved. Massive air interdiction and weapon support. However you needed a break for recovery , could air without ground troops have saved things.

.One of the many problems the Nationalists had was Chiang's tendency to warehouse military aid added to his generals' tendency to sell weapons to their enemies for cash.

Massive air interdiction doesn't work very well without embedding a lot of forward observers into a friendly force that wants to fight.
 
Stalin didn’t support Mao’s continued offensives. He actually wanted them to halt at the Yangtze and form a unity government with the Nationalists. Mao ignored him and carryed on. Would Stalin really go to war for Mao?


This is most likely a myth. To recycle an old post of mine:

***
There has been much speculation that in 1949 Stalin urged Mao not to cross the Yangtze, but this seems to be based almost entirely on statements by Mao (and one by Zhou Enlai which may be simply echoing Mao) and it is contradicted by the bulk of the evidence. There is a good discussion of this in Dieter Heinzig, *The Soviet Union and Communist China, 1945-1950: The Arduous Road to an Alliance.*, pp. 170-174. https://books.google.com/books?id=oZntCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA172 For example, Mikoyan (according to his report on his meetings with Mao in Xibaipo) urged Mao to form a government as quickly as possible, "let us say, after the capture of Nanking or Shanghai"--which tacitly assumed Mao would cross the river. (p. 172) Moreover, Mao informed Stalin in mid-January 1949, two weeks before Mikoyan arrived in Xibaipo, of his plans to cross the Yangtze "already that summer." Stalin, who was asked by Mao to say something if he did not approve of any of Mao's statements, raised no objection in his reply or in subsequent telegrams (to the extent they have been published). (pp. 172-3) (In a long telegram in April on "military activities after crossing the Yangtze," Stalin advised the CCP to use caution in advancing to the borders of neighboring states; but the whole telegram is based on the premise that the CCP had already determined to cross the Yangtze, and Stalin did not indicate any disapproval of that decision.) Shi Zhe, who participated in the negotiations with Mikoyan, even claimed that Mikoyan expressly urged the CCP to "free all China completely." (p. 172) Ivan Kovalev, who witnessed the talks, was specifically asked if Mikoyan had asked Mao to stop at the Yangtze and replied that he did not recall Mikoyan doing so. Mao himself never claimed that Mikoyan urged him to stop at the Yangtze, so Mao must have based his assertion that Stalin urged the CCP to stop at the Yangtze on some interpretation or misinterpretation of some Soviet statement or conduct that remains unknown to us. (Also, curiously, when Mao presented Soviet ambassador Iudin in 1956 and 1958 with a long list of Stalin's sins vis-a-vis China--including his 1945 advice to the CCP to avoid civil war--he omitted any mention of Stalin or Mikoyan trying to stop the PLA from crossing the Yangtze in 1949.)

It is undoubtedly true that "Acting President" Lin Zongren (and some other KMT leaders) did hope that Stalin would pressure Mao into stopping at the Yangtze--and into agreeing to a de facto partition--but this seems to have been wishful thinking. "At first glance, statements by a historian from the People's Republic of China appear to support the thesis that Moscow had sought to restrain the PLA from crossing the Yangtze. He claims that Ambassador Roshchin had reached an agreement with President Li Zongren concerning three conditions for Soviet mediation, despite the Moscow declaration--reached under pressure from Mao Zedong--which stated that the USSR would not participate as a mediator in peace negotiations between the CCP and the KMT. He had thereby provided support for Li's attempt to 'set the boundary at the river'...and thus establish 'a Northern and a Southern Dynasty' [*bei nan chao*]. And yet the idea that Roshchin pursued a line that was different from Moscow's should be ruled out. Even if it were possible to find sources to provide evidence of Roshchin's alleged behavior, the resulting conclusion with respect to the *bei nan chao* question would go way beyond its target." (pp. 173-4)

It certainly seems plausible that Stalin would have preferred a North Chinese Communist state which would be weak (and therefore dependent on him) to a Maoist victory in all of China. But that he tried to impose division on China in 1949 remains doubtful--probably he knew that it would be futile to try to get Mao to stop halfway by this point.

https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/ahc-china-divided-more-evenly.370707/#post-11486892
 
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What you're trying to imply is that communism necessarily goes hand in hand with dictatorships and totalitarianism, which leads to curtailing of rights, mass executions, and repression regardless of whether its a capitalist (read: fascist) dictatorship or communist dictatorship.

The truest Scotsman of all is adjusting his kilt&sporran, and about to speak.....
 
If you're American, and under 30, statistically you've got a good view of communism as an economic model.
Americans under 30 have a favorable view of communism? Do you have a source for that?

In any case, the Communist Party of China was not exactly the closest representation of Marxism then, and is even less so now.
 
This is most likely a myth. To recycle an old post of mine:

It seems that things are complicated by the fact that initially Stalin did pressure Mao against resuming the Civil War and refrained from aiding him up until Chinese Communist victory become obvious from the victories in 1948. He is quite on the record of admitting in early-1949 to a visiting Chinese envoy that he had underestimated the Chinese communists strength and apologized for the lack of aid.
 
It seems that things are complicated by the fact that initially Stalin did pressure Mao against resuming the Civil War and refrained from aiding him up until Chinese Communist victory become obvious from the victories in 1948. He is quite on the record of admitting in early-1949 to a visiting Chinese envoy that he had underestimated the Chinese communists strength and apologized for the lack of aid.

It is true that in 1945 Stalin cautioned Mao against starting a civil war prematurely (Mao had wanted to seize major cities after the Japanese surrender before Chiang's forces could get to them) but it is not true that Stalin did not aid the CCP until 1948:

"In Manchuria, the CCP immediately began the process of incorporating 75,000 former Manchukuo puppet troops into its forces as well as thousands of other fresh recruits from the mass of unemployed Manchurian youth and the 80,000 or so bandits roaming the mountains. Meanwhile, the Soviets were quickly turning over to the Chinese Communists a huge collection of liberated Japanese weapons and military supplies. The Red Army sent the more advanced weapons and machinery back to the USSR and kept older Japanese tanks and artillery in an arsenal on the Sino-Mongolian border at Manzhouli to be turned over later. They also gave the Chinese Communists a number of captured Japanese armament factories, and the CCP itself found several underground arsenal that the Soviets had missed.

"With reports probably provided by Okamura, Chiang knew how many Japanese weapons and other items the Soviets had captured. In addition to huge numbers of rifles, ammunition, grenades, and small mortars, the take included 925 fighter planes, 360 tanks, 2,600 cannon, 8,900 machine guns, 100,000 horses, and 21,000 'logistical vehicles.' Chiang of course inherited probably even larger arsenals from those Japanese south of the Great Wall. Contrary to Mao's later insistence that after V-J Day Stalin abandoned the CCP until the fall of 1947, books from the Publishing House of CCP Historical Materials, articles in official Chinese Communist journals, as well as Soviet archival material recount at length the extensive and deep Soviet-CCP cooperation that began with the Soviet Red Army invasion of Manchuria. In late August, however, Stalin kept up the charade, telling Harriman that the Red Army in its sweep through Manchuria had not encountered any Chinese Communist forces. Stalin said he expected the Chinese government would soon send troops to take over the Manchurian cities..." https://books.google.com/books?id=DUg2KGMQWHQC&pg=PA317 https://books.google.com/books?id=DUg2KGMQWHQC&pg=PA318

Stalin's goal in 1945 was to get US troops out of China as soon as possible, and for that reason he had to project the image of supporting a united China under Chiang Kai-shek's leadership. But at the same time he was giving substantial if discreet aid to the CCP. This aid continued in 1946-47. As summarized by Michael M. Sheng, Battling Western Imperialism: Mao, Stalin, and the United States, pp. 155-6:

"The other side of the coin of CCP hostility toward the United States was the intimate relationship between the CCP and Moscow, which both sides involved tried to conceal as much as possible. In the face of the GMD-CCP civil war raging throughout the nation, the United States continued to assist the GMD overtly, while the Soviet Union was covertly backing the CCP with military supplies and diplomatic coordination. This CCP-Moscow vs. GMD-Washington conflict continued throughout 1946-47, which was an important part of the hidden history of the cold war in Asia.

"According to recent CCP sources of information, Soviet material support to the CCP after the withdrawal of the Red Army was essentially delivered from the city of Dalian and North Korea, both of which were under Soviet direct control. For instance, Xiao Jingguang, the deputy commander of CCP forces in Manchuria, went to Dalian in July 1946 to arrange the Party's military production in the city. At the time, the GMD had occupied the south of the Songhua (Sungari) River, which made it impossible to keep the CCP troops in southern Manchuria supplied from the northern base. The only point in southern Manchuria which could keep producing military supplies for the CCP forces was Dalian, because it was occupied by the Soviets. Xiao went there, and was pleased to find that, from the head of the police force to the head of the financial department, all administrative posts of the municipal government were in the hands of Communist cadres. Relying upon the. cadres, CCP military production in that city was well maintained throughout the period of the civil war. There are no available statistics on the volume of Dalian's military production for the CCP's war effort during these years. According to Xiao, however, it made a great contribution to the victory in the Liberation War'.

"The other place which served as the source of the CCP's military supplies was North Korea. After his trip to Dalian, Xiao spent two months in North Korea to establish the 'Delegation of the Northeast Bureau to Korea' (Dong-beiju zhu chaoxian banshichu), known publicly as the Pyongyang Limin Company. It had four branches in Korea, whose main task was to organize the supply, storage, and transportation of military materials for the CCP forces. Zhu Lizhi, later the deputy of the Logistics Department of the CCP forces in Manchuria, was in charge of this 'Limin Company.' The number of people working in one of the branches exceeded five hundred at one time. According to incomplete statistics, in the first seven months of 1947, there were 210,000 tons of war materials transferred to the CCP through North Korea. The figure in 1948 increased to 300,900 tons. Before the 'Company' was closed in February 1949, it obtained enough military cargo from the Soviet—North Korea source to fill more than 2,000 rail cars to ship to Manchuria. It also helped the CCP Shandong logistics department to buy and ship military supplies from North Korea...."

As Sheng notes (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
 
The KMT did not even control all of China before the war with Japan. They were SLOWLY handling corruption and consolidating control when Japan came in guns blazing. Modern China is closer to what Chiang wanted than Mao. Chiang would not like the censorship of the Great Firewall. He would also run a slightly more liberal economy. Modern China today, economically, reminds me of Taiwan and South Korea in the late 80s.

Chiang and Mao both implemented censorship during their reign.
 
Because capitalism has also laughably failed in the United States, which is a big percentage of internet browsers, especially on English language websites such as this.

If you're American, and under 30, statistically you've got a good view of communism as an economic model.


What you're trying to imply is that communism necessarily goes hand in hand with dictatorships and totalitarianism, which leads to curtailing of rights, mass executions, and repression regardless of whether its a capitalist (read: fascist) dictatorship or communist dictatorship.
It does lead to dictatorship in practice. Not necessarily totalitarian but authoritarian. You don't always get Stalin, but you do get something like modern vietnam or tito's yugoslavia.
 

Ian_W

Banned
I'm seeing a bunch of discussions about theoretical and applied socialism, but very little about what the US could do about the fact that Chiang was losing the Civil War from when the warlords forced him into a Popular Front.

So, to answer the OP. Yes. 1949 is too late. Remember, we're 18 months out from Chinese intervention against American ground and air forces in Korea, which was a draw. Fighting in China itself gives the Chinese communists a home ground advantage they didnt have in Korea.
 
It does lead to dictatorship in practice. Not necessarily totalitarian but authoritarian. You don't always get Stalin, but you do get something like modern vietnam or tito's yugoslavia.

Well, one commonality all of these have is their Leninist variants of Marxism which contains some aspects that scream authoritarian hierarchies. That isn't to say that if a Classical/Neo-Classical Marxist regime ever did manage to come to power it would manage to avoid the authoritarian/totalitarian trap, just that we don't have the data for it. One might argue that without the sort of leadership organization the Leninist model adds it becomes impossible for a Classical/Neo-Classical Marxist group to take power, making it something of a moot question.
 

FBKampfer

Banned
Americans under 30 have a favorable view of communism? Do you have a source for that?

In any case, the Communist Party of China was not exactly the closest representation of Marxism then, and is even less so now.

I've seen polls saying up to 60%, but from what I'm currently finding off a 30 second half-assed Google search (forgive me, I'm exhausted right now) it's right around 50%, and admittedly of socialism, not full communism (accepting that there is admittedly a large degree of ignorance among the US 18-30 demographic of what exactly is socialism vs communism, owing largely to scare propaganda from the older generation and lack of readily available information).


https://www.victimsofcommunism.org/...s-prefer-socialism-do-they-know-what-it-means

https://m.slashdot.org/story/344630



But my point to start is that changing public opinion is shifting what is blithely accepted as fact.
 
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