At the end of the Anti-Japanese War, there was a huge disparity in strength between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party. The Kuomintang regime has external support from the United States, and its domestic economic and military strength has absolute advantages. But in the third civil war, the Kuomintang was defeated by the Communists. Why did the Kuomintang fail? "The Kuomintang has left both democracy and people's livelihood... By turning the government into a government that cannot solve people's problems, the party has become a party that cannot solve people's problems and has lost everyone's sympathy and support." The Kuomintang is not willing to lose what it has gained. interests, cannot protect the rights and interests of the people, insists on going its own way, and ultimately loses the support of the people. In addition to withdrawing from the Three People's Principles and losing popular support, the Kuomintang's political, economic and military performance also turned the Kuomintang's advantage into a disadvantage in the civil war.
Political logic: dictatorship
The Chinese people who have just experienced the 14-year war of resistance yearn for peace even more. Peace is what people want. ?In this dispute, the Kuomintang should bear the main responsibility. The Kuomintang, headed by Chiang Kai-shek , wanted to be "the head of the family", attempted to control the whole of China, and rejected China's democratization process. This de facto dictatorship was the result of the Kuomintang’s unwillingness to coexist with the Communist Party. One of the reasons.
Factional disputes within the Kuomintang and the loss of central authority
"Factional politics" is a major feature of the Kuomintang. After the Northern Expedition, many local forces merged into the Kuomintang system, making the Kuomintang more complicated. Although after a series of struggles, the Kuomintang's political and military power system with Chiang Kai-shek as the core was finally formed, factional struggles always existed. At the same time, Chiang Kai-shek needed to check and balance the forces of all parties and achieve centralization. This makes the Kuomintang appear to be strengthening the central authority, but in fact the central authority has been lost.
When the Kuomintang had a crisis in power, the party did not unite and work hard to reverse the situation. Many members of the Kuomintang were indifferent to the crisis, and the senior Kuomintang leaders took the opportunity to use their power to seek more benefits. The door was opened. In other words, “This structural corruption that is estranged from a free economy pervades the bureaucracy of the Kuomintang government at all levels.” This unbridled abuse of power accelerated the decline of the Kuomintang.
The "Double Ten Agreement" was torn up and a war was deliberately provoked.
After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, both the Kuomintang and the Communist Party hoped to win over the middle forces and focused on using public opinion. Paying more attention to the power of public opinion, out of peaceful struggle, Mao Zedong flew to Chongqing to negotiate with Chiang Kai-shek, and the Kuomintang and the Communist Party signed the " Double Ten Agreement ". Insist on tearing up the "Double Ten Agreement". He believed that the agreement was not conducive to the Kuomintang's rule over China and was also full of threats to his own status. Subsequently, the Kuomintang began to adopt a series of xenophobic and suppressive policies against the Communist Party, depriving the majority of workers and peasants of their interests. It advocates " one political party, one doctrine ", implements spy rule, implements anti-communist policies, launches wars, and attacks liberated areas.
"The foundation of political power construction is to put the interests of the people first." Chiang Kai-shek's behavior of betraying Sun Yat-sen's "Three Principles of the People" and disregarding the interests of the people was ultimately spurned by the people. people. In order to safeguard their own rights and interests, the people chose to deprive the Kuomintang regime of the rationality and legitimacy.
Freedom of speech is strictly prohibited, and the legitimacy of the Kuomintang is questioned
In order to consolidate its dictatorship, the Kuomintang ordered a ban on criticism from all walks of life, especially the confiscation of some progressive publications. There are even voices of doubt within the Kuomintang, and they are involved in debates about the rationality of the party. Chiang Kai-shek said: "Whether it is military, political, economic, or diplomatic, there is really no performance in any aspect. Not only the broad masses are dissatisfied, but the party's grassroots comrades are also dissatisfied."
"The spy organization is a dark force that coexists with terror and cruelty. Typical representative. "The Kuomintang agents not only suppressed and opposed parties such as the Communist Party, but also monitored local warlords and Kuomintang officials. This made many Kuomintang officials target the Kuomintang ruling group out of fear and disgust, and then abandoned the Kuomintang rule.
Although the Kuomintang later proposed reforms, it resolutely opposed bureaucracy, carried out rectification and rectification, and punished those who harmed national interests and restricted the implementation of Kuomintang policies. , making it impossible to realize a series of improvement measures implemented by the Kuomintang government.The KMT’s huge bureaucratic machine has become synonymous with inertia and inertia. Even Chiang Kai-shek lamented: "Why did we come to this point? Why did everyone feel at a loss and lose confidence? The environment and conditions were very good, but in our hands, there was nothing we could do. This is the most humiliating and painful problem."
Economic logic: The party manages capital
In 1927, the Kuomintang established political power in Nanjing and implemented the concept of one-party "political training". The national power controlled the economic lifeline. During the Anti-Japanese War, due to the continuous supply of resources to the front line, the Kuomintang accelerated the implementation of the "official capital" policy. Financial and industrial capital gradually controlled the lifeline of the national economy, and a series of corruption problems followed. Under the one-party " political training " concept, the internal supervision of the Kuomintang was weak. Many officials who were supposed to be responsible for managing these state-owned assets took advantage of their positions to convert state-owned assets into their own private property. The Kuomintang's corruption problem has been severely criticized by all walks of life for the Kuomintang's " bureaucratic capitalism " style.
First, the land consolidation policy is ineffective and people’s morale has collapsed. The Kuomintang regime has always been the representative of the big landlords and big bourgeoisie. Improving the land policy will undoubtedly affect the interests of the big landowners and the big bourgeoisie. Therefore, in the process of implementing the Kuomintang's land policy, officials at all levels followed the government's policies passively and passively. This doomed the Kuomintang government's land reform policy to failure.
In 1927, the Kuomintang government announced that it would continue to implement Dr. Sun Yat-sen's "affirmative action" policy, promote land improvement, and formulate the "Tenant Farmers Protection Law." However, these laws were only on paper and were not implemented, and farmers' rights and interests were not protected. .The subsequently promulgated " Land Law " and " Land Law Implementation Law " have not been effectively implemented.
From 1931 to 1937, although the Kuomintang continued to reform the land law, many local Kuomintang officials colluded with landlords and returned the land allocated to farmers to the landlords, regardless of the fact that farmers had no land to farm. China is a large agricultural country, and farmers account for 80% of the country's total population. Gaining the support of farmers means winning. The Kuomintang's illusory land reform policy was an important reason for its loss of popular support and the collapse of its regime.
The second is the prevalence of "bureaucracy" and the rapid collapse of the economy. During the third civil war, the Kuomintang's control of state-owned capital reached its peak. There was constant criticism of bureaucratic capital from all walks of life, and even the top leaders of the Kuomintang could not ignore it. Many state capitals are nominally controlled by state power, but are actually led by individuals. Through complex factional relationships and other factors, these people turn state-owned enterprises into tools for their own personal gain. In this context, all national capital is viewed with suspicion from all walks of life.
"Bureaucracy" promoted the rapid development of the investment industry at that time, which seriously affected normal social and economic life. Many Kuomintang officials acted opportunistically, resulting in large-scale hoarding in society. Many Kuomintang officials even sold gold directly. Under this situation, fewer and fewer people are engaged in the real economy, and fewer and fewer people are engaged in material production, which ultimately leads to shortages of goods, skyrocketing prices, and the collapse of the social and economic order, accelerating the economic collapse of the areas ruled by the Kuomintang.
Third, the currency reform failed and an economic crisis emerged. From 1935 to 1948, in order to repay the huge war expenses, the Kuomintang issued a large amount of legal currency , which led to hyperinflation, soaring prices, crazy depreciation of legal currency, and the collapse of the social and economic order. In order to alleviate inflation and save the economy on the verge of collapse, the Kuomintang regime implemented the gold dollar coupon reform on August 19, 1948, announcing the issuance of 2 billion gold dollar coupons and recovering legal tender at a very low speed. The ratio of 1:3 million is implemented, and the strictest price control is implemented, which puts pressure on prices. However, such violent means cannot save the Kuomintang's economic crisis, and currency reforms that rely on violent means have no effect at all. It tried to resolve various contradictions and disputes within the Kuomintang, but to a certain extent expanded its internal contradictions and further threatened the stability of the Kuomintang regime. On December 28, the Kuomintang regime reluctantly announced the failure of the reform and canceled the price limit. Subsequently, the legal currency and other gold dollar bonds devalued. Currency reform accelerated the collapse of the Kuomintang economy.
Military logic: strategic errors
Military struggle is dominated by politics, and the Kuomintang's military failure is closely related to its political and economic failure. When Chiang Kai-shek later analyzed the reasons for his failure on the mainland, he pointed out that the issue of military discipline was the primary issue, and the failure to implement the "Three Civil Principles" was an important reason. At the same time, it was also affected by imperfect military systems and strategic and tactical mistakes. .
Since the beginning of the third civil war, the Kuomintang has made a series of mistakes in military strategies and tactics, causing the Kuomintang to gradually lose its initial advantage. In the early stages of the all-out war, although the Kuomintang had the upper hand militarily, it had not yet formed a comprehensive strategic deployment and tactical plan to guide the war. At the same time, during the battle, Chiang Kai-shek decided the war plan and strategic deployment alone, ignoring the overall and long-term combat plan, making the Kuomintang army only care about short-term gains and losses. battle and lost the military initiative.
First, there is little strategic coordination and constant internal conflicts within the military. Strategically, the Kuomintang army had many shortcomings, which led to the Kuomintang's continuous defeat after the beginning of the all-out civil war. Wang Chaoguang pointed out that the Kuomintang was relatively passive during the battle and the level of coordination between the army and the army was relatively poor. There are few examples of successful coordination between various battlefields, within each battlefield, between armies, and between divisions. At the same time, there are many factions within the Kuomintang and various interpersonal relationships are relatively complex, which makes coordinated operations more difficult. "War is a comprehensive internal behavior that includes politics, military, economy, diplomacy, etc. The Kuomintang... only wants to use military to solve problems, and has fallen into the misunderstanding of pure military theory." The Kuomintang exists in strategy and tactics. A large number of problems will inevitably lead to military failure. Chiang Kai-shek reflected on his defeat in Taiwan and believed that the Kuomintang's military defeat was due to strategic errors.
Secondly, the military command ability is poor and the strategy and tactics are dogmatic. The command and intelligence capabilities of Kuomintang officials were low, and some people's understanding of strategy and tactics was close to dogma and machinery. Many commanders in the army are actually people who have not had actual combat experience for a long time. At the same time, Chiang Kai-shek was too dictatorial and improperly employed people, which led him to repeatedly make mistakes in the process of combat command. When conducting military operations, because Chiang Kai-shek liked to stick to the end, some commanders just waited and watched, unable to issue orders, dare not defend, and did not dare to attack, resulting in a vicious cycle of combat. Chiang Kai-shek alone arbitrarily planned the war, and improper personnel employment made the Kuomintang's reinforcements may not be able to complete the mission without adequate planning, so that the trapped team could not get help from the reinforcements. Trying to break through will lead to the annihilation of the entire army.
Third, military discipline is corrupt, and officials only care about pleasure. Corruption in military discipline is undoubtedly the fatal flaw of the Kuomintang. Politically, there are factional disputes within the Kuomintang, and conflicts between various forces continue to intensify. As a result, the Kuomintang was unable to coordinate and cooperate, and disciplinary corruption was very serious. Chiang Kai-shek also pointed out that the corruption of military discipline within the Kuomintang was extremely serious. Many commanders can leave their posts without taking leave and move freely. There are also many commanders who only care about their own safety in battle, regardless of the battle plan and the overall situation of the battlefield, and blindly preserve their own strength.
At the same time, many senior generals of the Kuomintang only care about their own promotion and wealth, value material enjoyment in life, and are arrogant. However, the subordinates of the armies they lead have no food to eat, and their lives cannot be guaranteed at all. This behavior caused the Kuomintang troops to lose their fighting spirit. They don’t need others to defeat them, they have already defeated themselves. When soldiers on the battlefield are unable to fight due to lack of food, and when their parents cannot solve the problem of survival, these soldiers must doubt what they have sacrificed for, and the senior Kuomintang generals cannot answer these soldiers' questions and cannot guarantee the soldiers and the survival of their relatives, why they fought is difficult to explain, and the defeat of the Kuomintang is doomed.
