the fields. The party recruited into its ranks the younger leaders who emerged from populist activities. Thus, it penetrated and to some extent controlled the multitude of villages in areas behind Japanese lines. As the Japanese military grip weakened, the experienced communist armies and political organizers spread their system of government ever more widely. By the time of the CCP’s Seventh Congress in Yan’an (April–May 1945), the party claimed to have an army of more than 900,000 and a militia of more than 2,000,000. It also claimed to control areas with a total population of 90,000,000. These claims were disputable, but the great strength and wide geographical spread of communist organization was a fact.

Efforts to Prevent Civil War

Between May and September 1944, representatives of the government and the CCP carried on peace negotiations at Xi’an. The main issues were the disposition, size, and command of the communist armies, the relationship between commu- nist-organized regional governments and the Nationalist government, and problems of civil rights and legalization of the CCP and its activities in Nationalist areas. Suggestions for a coalition government arose for the first time. No settlement was reached, but it appeared that the antagonists were seeking a peaceful solution. U.S. Vice Pres. Henry A. Wallace visited Chongqing in June and had several discussions with Chiang,

who requested U.S. assistance in improving relations between China and the Soviet Union and in settling the communist problem.

In September 1944, Patrick J. Hurley arrived as U.S. ambassador to China and as Roosevelt’s personal representative. Hurley attempted to mediate, first in discussions in Chongqing and then by flying to Yan’an in November for a conference with Mao Zedong. But the positions of the two sides could not be reconciled, and the talks broke off in March 1945. Between June and August, Hurley resumed protracted discussions, both indirect and in conferences with high-level representatives from both sides. Each side distrusted the other; each sought to guarantee its own survival, but the KMT intended to continue its political dominance, while the CCP insisted on the independence of its armies and regional governments under whatever coalition formula might be worked out.

The Pacific war (which in China became known as the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression) ended on Aug. 14 (Aug. 15 in China), 1945, and the formal Japanese surrender came on September 2. China rejoiced. Yet the country faced enormously difficult problems of reunification and reconstruction and a future clouded by the dark prospect of civil war.

Civil war (1945–49)

In a little more than four years after Japan’s surrender, the CCP and the

People’s Liberation Army (PLA; the name by which communist forces were now known) conquered mainland China, and, on Oct. 1, 1949, the People’s Republic of China was established, with its capital at Beijing (the city’s former name restored). The factors that brought this about were many and complex and subject to widely varying interpretation, but the basic fact was a communist military triumph growing out of a profound and popularly based revolution. The process may be perceived in three phases: (1) from August 1945 to the end of 1946, the Nationalists and communists raced to take over Japanese-held territories, built up their forces, and fought many limited engagements while still conducting negotiations for a peaceful settlement; (2) during 1947 and the first half of 1948, after initial Nationalist success, the strategic balance turned in favour of the communists; and (3) the communists won a series of smashing victories beginning in the latter part of 1948 that led to the establishment of the People’s Republic.

A Race for Territory

As soon as Japan’s impending surrender was known, the commander of the communist armies, Zhu De, ordered his troops, on August 11, to move into Japanese-held territory and take over Japanese arms, despite Chiang Kaishek’s order that they stand where they were. The United States aided the Chinese government by flying many divisions from the southwest to occupy

the main eastern cities, such as Beiping, Tianjin, Shanghai, and the prewar capital, Nanjing. The U.S. Navy moved Chinese troops from southern China to other coastal cities and landed 53,000 marines at Tianjin and Qingdao to assist in disarming and repatriating Japanese troops but also to serve as a counterweight to the Soviet army in southern Manchuria. Furthermore, U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur ordered all Japanese forces in China proper to surrender their arms only to forces of the Nationalist government. They obeyed and thereby were occasionally engaged against Chinese communist forces.

Immediately after the surrender, the communists sent political cadres and troops into Manchuria (Northeast China). This had been planned long in advance. Gen. Lin Biao became commander of the forces (the Northeast Democratic Allied Army), which incorporated puppet troops of the former Japanese Manchukuo regime and began to recruit volunteers; it got most of its arms from Japanese stocks taken over by the Soviets.

Manchuria was a vast area with a population of 40 million, the greatest concentration of heavy industry and railways in China, and enormous reserves of coal, iron, and many other minerals. The Soviet Union had promised the Nationalist government that it would withdraw its occupying armies within 90 days of Japan’s surrender and return the region to China. The government was determined to control Manchuria, which was vital to China’s future as a world power. However,

Lin Biao’s army attempted to block the entry of Nationalist troops by destroying rail lines and seizing areas around ports of entry. Soon the two sides were locked in a fierce struggle for the corridors into Manchuria, although negotiations were under way in Chongqing between Mao Zedong and Chiang for a peaceful settlement. The Soviet army avoided direct involvement in the struggle, but it dismantled much industrial machinery and shipped it to the Soviet Union together with hundreds of thousands of Japanese prisoners of war. By the end of 1945 the Nationalists had positioned some of their best U.S.-trained armies in southern Manchuria as far north as Mukden (pres- ent-day Shenyang), a strategic rail centre to which Nationalist troops were transported by air. The government’s hold was precarious, however, because the communist Eighteenth Army Group and the New Fourth Army had regrouped in northern China, abandoning areas south of the Yangtze after a weak bid to take Shanghai. By the end of 1945, communist forces were spread across a band of provinces from the northwest to the sea. They had a grip on great sections of all the railway lines north of the Longhai line, which were vital supply lines for Nationalist armies in the Tianjin-Beiping area and in Manchuria. The Nationalist government held vast territories in the south and west and had reestablished its authority in the rich provinces of the lower Yangtze valley and in a few important cities in northern China; it had also assumed civil control on Taiwan.

Attempts to End the War

Peace negotiations continued in Chongqing between Nationalist and communist officials after Japan’s surrender. An agreement reached on Oct. 10, 1945, called for the convening of a multiparty Political Consultative Council to plan a liberalized postwar government and to draft a constitution for submission to a national congress. Still, the sides were far apart over the character of the new government, control over the areas liberated by the communists, and the size and degree of autonomy of the communist armies in a national military system. Hurley resigned his ambassadorship on November 26, and the next day U.S. Pres. Harry S. Truman appointed Gen. George C. Marshall as his special representative, with the specific mission of trying to bring about political unification and the cessation of hostilities in China.

Marshall arrived in China on December 23. The Nationalist government proposed the formation of a committee of three, with Marshall as chairman, to end the fighting. This committee, with Generals Chang Chun (Zhang Qun) and Zhou Enlai as the Nationalist and communist representatives, respectively, met on Jan. 7, 1946. The two agreed on January 10 that Chiang and Mao would issue orders to cease hostilities and halt troop movements as of January 13 midnight, with the exception of government troop movements south of the Yangtze and into and within Manchuria to restore Chinese

sovereignty. The agreement also called for the establishment in Beiping of an executive headquarters, equally represented by both sides, to supervise the cease-fire.

This agreement provided a favourable atmosphere for meetings in Chongqing of the Political Consultative Council, composed of representatives of the KMT, the CCP, the Democratic League, the Young China Party, and nonparty delegates. For the remainder of January, the council issued a series of agreed recommendations regarding governmental reorganization, peaceful national reconstruction, military reductions, the creation of a national assembly, and the drafting of a constitution. President Chiang pledged that the government would carry out these recommendations, and the political parties stated their intention to abide by them. The next step was meetings of a military subcommittee, with Marshall as adviser, to discuss troop reductions and amalgamation of forces into a single national army.

Early 1946 was the high point of conciliation. It soon became clear, however, that implementing the various recommendations and agreements was being opposed by conservatives in the KMT, who feared these measures would dilute their party’s control of the government, and by Nationalist generals, who objected to reducing the size of their armies. The communists attempted to prevent the extension of Nationalist military control in Manchuria. On March 17–18 a communist army attacked and

captured a strategic junction between Mukden and Changchun, the former Manchukuo capital; on April 18 communists captured Changchun from a small Nationalist garrison directly following the Soviet withdrawal. On that day Marshall returned to China after a trip to Washington and resumed his efforts to stop the spreading civil war.

Resumption of Fighting

Each side seemed convinced that it could win by war what it could not achieve by negotiation—dominance over the other. Despite the efforts of Chinese moderates and General Marshall, fighting resumed in July in Manchuria, and in northern China the Nationalists attempted massive drives in Jiangsu and Shandong to break the communist grip on the railways. The communists launched a propaganda campaign against the United States, playing upon the nationalistic theme of liberation; they were hostile because of the extensive U.S. military and financial assistance to the KMT at the very time that Marshall was mediating. The Nationalist government had become increasingly intransigent, confident of continued U.S. help. To exert pressure and to try to keep the United States out of the civil war, in August Marshall imposed an embargo on further shipment of U.S. arms to China. By the end of the year, however, he realized that his efforts had failed. In January 1947 he left China, issuing a statement denouncing the intransigents on both sides. All

negotiations ended in March; the die was cast for war.

In the latter half of 1946, government forces made significant gains in northern China and Manchuria, capturing 165 towns from the enemy. Buoyed by these victories, the government convened a multiparty National Assembly on November 15, despite a boycott by the CCP and the Democratic League. The delegates adopted a new constitution, which was promulgated on New Year’s Day, 1947. The constitution reaffirmed Sun Yat-sen’s Three Principles of the People as the basic philosophy of the state; called for the fivefold division of powers among the executive, legislative, judicial, control, and examination yuan (“governmental bodies”); and established the people’s four rights of initiation, referendum, election, and recall. The way was prepared for election of both central and local officials, upon which the period of Nationalist tutelage would end.

The Nationalist government struggled with grave economic problems. Inflation continued unabated, caused principally by government financing of military and other operations through the printing press: approximately 65 percent of the budget was met by currency expansion and only 10 percent by taxes. Government spending was uncontrolled; funds were dissipated in maintaining large and unproductive garrison forces. Much tax revenue failed to reach the treasury because of malpractices throughout the bureaucracy. Inflation inhibited exports and enhanced the demand for

imports. The government had to import large amounts of grain and cotton, but, in the months immediately after Japan’s surrender, it also permitted the import of luxury goods without effective restrictions. As an anti-inflationary measure, it sold gold on the open market. These policies permitted a large gold and U.S. currency reserve, estimated at $900 million at the end of the war, to be cut in half by the end of 1946. Foreign trade was hampered by excessive regulation and corrupt practices.

The spiraling effects of inflation were somewhat curbed by large amounts of supplies imported by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, chiefly food and clothing, a wide variety of capital goods, and materials for the rehabilitation of agriculture, industry, and transportation. In August 1946 the United States sold to China civilian-type army and navy surplus property at less than 20 percent of its estimated procurement cost. In spite of these and other forms of aid, the costs of civil war kept the budget continuously out of balance. Speculation, hoarding of goods, and black market operations as hedges against inflation continued unabated. The constant depreciation in the value of paper currency undermined morale in all classes who depended on salaries, including troops, officers, and civilian officials.

By contrast, it appears that the communists in their areas, which were mostly rural, practiced a Spartan style of life close to the common people. Morale remained high in the army and was