Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
dong, was the internationally acknow-
ledged leader of China during this peri-
od, and despite his government's many
flaws, he maintained resistance to the
end. The communists had an important
role as guerrilla fighters, but did far less
fighting in battle than the Kuomintang.
The real winners from WWII, however,
were the communists. By the end of the
war with Japan the communist areas
had expanded massively, with some
900,000 troops in the Red Army, and
party membership at a new high of 1.2
million.
The Kuomintang and communists plunged into civil war in 1946 and after
three long years the CCP was victorious, prompting Nationalist troops to re-
treat to Taiwan. On 1 October 1949, Mao ascended the Gate of Heavenly
Peace in Beijing and declared the establishment of the People's Republic of
China.
2 GULANG YU, NEAR XIAMEN,
3 QINGDAO,
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4 HONG KONG,
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5 MACAU,
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Mao's China
Mao's China desired, above all, to exercise ideological control over its popula-
tion.
The US refused to recognise the new state at all. The 1950s marked the
high point of Soviet influence on Chinese politics and culture. However, the
decade also saw rising tension between the Chinese and the Soviets, fuelled
in part by Khrushchev's condemnation of Stalin (which Mao took, in part, as a
criticism of his own cult of personality).
Mao's experiences had convinced him that only violent change could shake
up the relationship between landlords and their tenants, or capitalists and their
employees, in a China that was still highly traditional. The first year of the re-
gime saw some 40% of the land redistributed to poor peasants. At the same
time, some one million or so people condemned as 'landlords' were perse-
cuted and killed.
