Joanna's+Response

= Assess the reasons for the communist victory = There were many reasons as to why the Chinese Communist Party, (CCP) were the party who triumphantly gained the government position in China. The main reason for their win came from the internal situation of the time, thus, the political, economic and military factors of the country were three of the most important reasons as an explanation for their victory. (You need to be more specific in terms of mentioning events, incidents for each of the factors, ie economics - inflation.)

The military factors were the last important key factor that would not have been so successful without the economic and political reforms created by the CCP, as these better economic and political conditions encouraged the peasants to join the armed forces. The Communist Army, first called The Red Army, which then was renamed to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) ( in what year ). This renaming can be seen as propaganda for the party. The peasants, who were now becoming educated and free of their landlords, would’ve eagerly believed in joining this army with a name that suggested any of the peasants could join, ‘Even those who formerly supported it turned bitter against it and were ready to sacrifice it in exchange for their own lives.’ Without the peasants voluntarily joining the military the Communist campaign would not have been successful. Due to the large popularity of the party, there were many Communist spies who gave away any Nationalist plans. One instance was when ‘the head of military operations at the Battle of Jinan gave the entire Nationalist battle plan to the Communists.’ As the first started out as an army whose goal was the defeat any military attack from the Nationalist’s army. As these attacks became increasing successful, the PLA changed from a defensive position to strategic offensive. The dropping of Guerrilla tactics to a full on warfare gave them the advantage over the surprised Nationalists soldiers. Their victory can be seen in figures; by January 1949, well over 1,000,000 Nationalists soldiers were lost."The heart of their army was destroyed" was historian Hsu’s conclusion. The economic situation of the country was the second most important reason as to why the communists were able to gain their victory. Inflation was one of the main economic problems the country was facing. The rate of inflation went out of control in 1948, and affected all people. For example, the middle classes were affected as they lost their savings and at the time, the United Press even agreed that: “The people below the middle class are not able to go on living”. ‘Inflation became worse... the value of money was falling every half hour.’ People were now losing credit for the Nationalists and they soon there was national unrest in the cities. In Shanghai alone, there was over 2538 strikes and industrial disputes. Historian Hsu even agreed, it “Destroyed the livelihood of hundreds of millions of Chinese and totally discredited the government.” The government did not improve the situation when they responded to these protests and disputes harshly. The Chinese people had lost any remaining credit towards the nationalists. On the other hand, Mao Zedong and his party helped control this situation. When the Communists visited peasants home, instead of redistributing land that had once belonged to the warlords who unfairly charged the peasants many taxes, they instead redistributed it evenly and also reduce rent payments, lowered and fixed interest rates and even exempted poor families from land tax. Of course, the Communists became the favoured party by the highly influential mass of peasants. The political factors was still a significant way in which the Communist Party gained their victory. At the time were the policies that came from Mao Zedong and his campaign of becoming a government with Communism. To do this he and his army we went around to the all peasants, who made up 80% of the population, and used them to gain support and crush the Nationalists. Mao first created a new doctrine for the “new democracy”. This doctrine became successful in “winning the hearts and minds of all patriotic Chinese, whatever their class background”. This doctrine also showed their dedication to listening to all problems of the people. The Nationalists, however, saw any plea for help in the form of a protest as a time to use their brutal forces to show their underlying power. This is was why they had to revert to military tactics. Even Mao said “In this sense war is politics and war itself is a political action”. As mentioned previously, Mao introduced education among the people and especially to the members of the PLA as it gave them motivation to fight for this good cause. Mao also stripped the landlords of their power and allowed the peasants to remove all the landlords who had brutally executed so much power of time, including heavy taxes and harsh conditions. The Land Reform Law was a specific example of policies by the CPP. This law states that the peasants were responsible for the “Confiscation of the land and property of the landlords”. This destruction of landlord power was encouraged by the party and committed openly “the crowd accused the landlord of many crimes”. Again, this led to the people joining up within the military, as their support grew from their new conditions of freedom. In conclusion, the Communist victory was successful due to the three internal factors of the situation in China. The political factors, which educated and supported the Communists, the harsh economic factors that the Nationalists bought to the people and the military factors that bought all aspects of the army together and helped the CCP achieved all its aims of defeating the Nationalist Party.

This is a good attempt. I think you need to be more specific and you do that by adding in concrete examples of each of your ideas. Go through your notes or even a timeline and make sure that when you mention something if there is an opportunity to show dates, names events etc then make sure you do. Otherwise I am pleased with your structure and the sequencing of information.

This essay was good because you were clear about the three main reasons for victory and then you expanded on each. you also referenced immanuel Hsu quotes well.