New Delhi: 3 September marked the 80th anniversary of China repelling Japanese forces at the end of World War II. Earlier this week, China showcased its military might with a massive parade at the historic Tiananmen Square in Beijing. This grand event was graced by international leaders, including Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un, and 24 others.
“Today, mankind is faced with the choice of peace or war, dialogue or confrontation, win-win or zero-sum,” Chinese President Xi Jinping told a crowd of more than 50,000 at Tiananmen Square, adding that the Chinese people “firmly stand on the right side of history”. In their largest ever military parade, China showcased their upgraded, nuclear-armed missile with near-global reach, and air defence lasers, hypersonic weapons, and sea drones.
The People’s Liberation Army, the largest in terms of active personnel and second largest in terms of funding, started as a ragtag guerilla army in the 1920s as tensions between Nationalists and Communists spilled into a brutal massacre. Since its establishment, the guerilla army of the Communists faced civil wars against its own government and Japanese aggression.
First Civil War
It was in 1927, when leader of the Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT), Chiang Kai Shek, decided to crack down on Chinese Communists. His decision was bolstered when Communists opposed the “Northern Expedition” against warlords to unify China and complete the Nationalist revolution. The KMT was internally divided into a right-wing faction, led by Chiang, and a left-wing faction, which was aligned with the Communists.
The Communist Party of China was formed in the early 1920s as a study group to discuss Marxism, eventually expanding to around 1,500 members, mostly in the industrial cities. Its members were allowed to join the KMT individually, but not as a bloc. In 1923, KMT founder Sun Yat Sen and Soviet representative Adolph Joffe formalised USSR’s support for the Chinese republic and support for unification, eventually leading to the “First United Front” of the KMT and CCP.
This united front broke up in April 1927 with Chiang’s decision to expel Communists from the KMT, leading to mass arrests and executions of suspected Communists in Shanghai. The brutal massacre perpetuated by KMT forces in the “Shanghai massacre” is seen as the start of “white terror” in the CCP’s narrative. Chiang’s position as the ROC’s premier was now confirmed.
In response to the massacre, Communists started an uprising in Nanchang, in the southeastern province of Jiangxi. The uprising, launched on 1 August 1927, led to the creation of the party’s armed wing, the workers’ and peasants’ Red Army. The date is recognised in China as the foundation day of the PLA.
Communists in the ROC’s National Revolutionary Army (NRA) mutinied and peasants mobilised to join the Red Army’s ranks.
The uprising was initially successful and led to the formation of the Jiangxi Soviet, a parallel government led by the CCP and defended by the Red Army. Chiang responded with a series of encirclement campaigns to uproot the communists. Between 1930 and 1934, the Nationalists launched a series of military campaigns against the Communists in an attempt to wipe out their bases. Using guerrilla warfare tactics developed by Mao Zedong, the Communists held off four campaigns. In October 1933, the Nationalists launched a fifth campaign, mobilising around 70,000 men, who built cement walls around the soviet areas of Jiangxi.
The blockade led to severe casualties in the territories guarded by the Red Army. Guerilla tactics were abandoned and positional warfare was adopted, but by mid-1934, the Red Army was defeated and in retreat. Party cadres and Red Army militants narrowly escaped the blockade and started the “Long March” to Northwestern China. The Red Army lost a significant proportion of its personnel in this period, which is remembered as a significant moment in the Communist narrative.
The Red Army regrouped in Shaangxi as the Jiangxi contingent was joined by the Second Front Army, which started the march from its base in Hunan, and the New Fourth Army from its base in the Sichuan-Shaanxi border area. As the Communists regrouped, they formed the Yanan Soviet by early 1937, a turning point in the civil war.
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Second United Front
In 1931, the Empire of Japan invaded and occupied Manchuria in Northeastern China. Thus the KMT forces were involved in a two-front conflict with the PLA and the Japanese. The CCP was calling for a “war of resistance” against the Japanese invaders, but for Chiang, the Japanese were a “disease of the skin” while the Communists were a disease of the “heart”.
In December 1936, as the conflict with Japan intensified, Chiang was kidnapped by his own generals and forced into an alliance with the Communists, forming the “Second United Front”. In 1937, the Japanese launched a full-scale invasion of China.
The Red Army regrouped into the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army units of the NRA to jointly fight the Japanese forces. The Communist units of the joint alliance were still under CCP’s command. The alliance continued until the end of the Second World War in 1945.
Second Civil War
On 9 September 1945, Japan surrendered to China, marking the end of the Second World War in China and set the stage for the resurgence of the civil war in the country. After the Japanese surrender, Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Nationalist party and Mao Zedong, leader of the Communist party, met for a series of talks on the formation of a post-war government. But these negotiations failed, and the civil war between the two parties resumed. This war is referred to as the “War of Liberation” in both mainland China and Communist history.
The strength of the Red Army had grown considerably by the end of the Second Sino-Japanese War. When the Japanese surrendered, the Communists’ “Liberated Zone” grew to contain 19 base areas (mostly in north China), making up one-quarter of the country’s territory and one-third of its population.
On 20 July 1946, Chiang Kai-shek launched a large-scale assault on Communist territory in North China with 113 brigades. Knowing their disadvantages in manpower and equipment, the Communist forces executed a passive defence strategy. It avoided the strong points of the KMT army and was prepared to abandon territory to preserve its forces. In most cases, the surrounding countryside and small towns had come under Communist influence long before the cities.
The CCP also attempted to wear out the KMT forces as much as possible. This tactic seemed to be successful; after a year, the power balance tilted towards the CCP. They had managed to wipe out 1.12 million KMT troops, while their strength grew to about two million.
After Japan’s 1945 surrender, the CCP retained the National Revolutionary Army structures until February 1947, when the Eighth Route Army and New Fourth Army were merged, and on 10 October 1947, the force was renamed the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), with reorganisation completed by late 1948.
The period of August 1948 through October 1949 included the three most significant Communist military campaigns of the civil war: The Liaoshen Campaign (northeast China), the Huaihai Campaign (east China), and the Pingjin Campaign (Beijing-Tianjin).
The Communists eventually won the Chinese Civil War, establishing the People’s Republic of China in 1949. On 7 December 1949, following their defeat, Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalist government, alongside many refugees, retreated to the island of Taiwan. Mao proclaimed the new “People’s Republic of China”.
The PLA became the official armed force of the new republic, with its central aim of defending the interests of the Communist party. This makes it a unique military, which pledges its allegiance to the ruling party and not the nation.
Kasturi Walimbe and Saksham Thakur are alums of ThePrint School of Journalism, currently interning with ThePrint
(Edited by Viny Mishra)
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