Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
7
First Breath to Mao's Death
Mao Zedong was both the Lenin and the Stalin of the Chinese
Revolution, both the revolutionary founder and the post-
revolutionary tyrant.
Maurice Meisner (Meisner 2007, 192)
CIVIL WAR IN CHINA
The use of two atomic bombs by the Americans against Japan in
August 1945 ended the war sooner than anyone in China expected.
Chiang Kai-shek returned in triumph to Nanjing in the fall of 1945,
but soon the ebullient mood in China was muted by what everyone
knew was on the horizon: the final showdown between the National-
ists and the Communists.
For a time the Americans tried to mediate in China and prevent civil
war. This, however, turned out to be an impossibility because each side
was determined to defeat the other and was not sincerely interested in
