Civil war and the founding of the People's Republic
The Communists defeat the Nationalists; Mao proclaims the People's Republic in Beijing, and Chiang Kai-shek's government retreats to Taiwan.
- The Search for Modern China — Jonathan D. Spence, W. W. Norton (1990)
- The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China — Jay Taylor, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2009)
- Mao: A Life — Philip Short, Henry Holt (1999)
- Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937–1945 — Rana Mitter, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2013)
- China: A New History (2nd enlarged edition) — John King Fairbank and Merle Goldman, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2006)
The Nationalists and Communists had been enemies since 1927, when Chiang Kai-shek turned on his Communist allies in Shanghai. Driven out of their southern bases, the Communists made the Long March of 1934–35 to Yan’an in the northwest, an ordeal that became the founding legend of the Party and of Mao Zedong’s leadership.
- The Search for Modern China — Jonathan D. Spence, W. W. Norton (1990)
- Mao: A Life — Philip Short, Henry Holt (1999)
From uneasy truce to civil war
The two sides formed a second “united front” against Japan in 1937, but it was always fragile. When Japan surrendered in 1945, the Nationalists were exhausted and the Communists had grown from a few tens of thousands to an army of about a million, with bases across northern China. American efforts to mediate failed, and full civil war broke out in 1946.
- Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937–1945 — Rana Mitter, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2013)
- The Search for Modern China — Jonathan D. Spence, W. W. Norton (1990)
- The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China — Jay Taylor, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2009)
The Nationalists began with more troops and American equipment. But hyperinflation wiped out the savings of the urban middle class, corruption sapped morale, and many soldiers defected. The Communists’ land reform, which seized landlords’ land for poor peasants, often violently, won them recruits in the countryside. In 1948–49 three huge campaigns in Manchuria and northern and central China destroyed the Nationalist armies.
- The Search for Modern China — Jonathan D. Spence, W. W. Norton (1990)
- China: A New History (2nd enlarged edition) — John King Fairbank and Merle Goldman, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2006)
1 October 1949
On 1 October 1949 Mao stood on the Gate of Heavenly Peace (Tiananmen) in Beijing and proclaimed the People’s Republic of China. A week earlier he had told the new consultative conference: “Ours will no longer be a nation subject to insult and humiliation. We have stood up.”
- The Chinese People Have Stood Up! (Opening address at the First Plenary Session of the CPPCC, 21 September 1949) — Mao Zedong, Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, vol. V, Foreign Languages Press (1977)
- Mao: A Life — Philip Short, Henry Holt (1999)
Chiang retreated to Taiwan with about a million to two million soldiers and civilians, along with much of the imperial art collection now in Taipei’s National Palace Museum. He kept the name Republic of China and claimed to be the legitimate government of all China. The Korean War, which began in June 1950, brought the US Seventh Fleet into the Taiwan Strait and froze the division.
- The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China — Jay Taylor, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2009)
- Taiwan — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
The new order
The early 1950s brought land reform across the countryside, campaigns against “counter-revolutionaries”, and the remaking of cities, schools and families under Party control. Historians estimate that between several hundred thousand and two million or more people were killed in land reform and related campaigns. At the same time, the new state ended inflation, restored order, expanded literacy and health care, and banned opium, concubinage and arranged child marriage, changes many Chinese of that generation remembered with real gratitude.
- The Search for Modern China — Jonathan D. Spence, W. W. Norton (1990)
- China: A New History (2nd enlarged edition) — John King Fairbank and Merle Goldman, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2006)
- Mao: A Life — Philip Short, Henry Holt (1999)
Families divided
1949 split countless families. Many people who fled to Taiwan or Hong Kong did not see relatives on the mainland again for decades; cross-strait family visits only became possible in 1987. For Chinese people today, 1949 is the founding of the nation; for many older Taiwanese and overseas Chinese families, it is also a story of exile.
- Taiwan — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China — Jay Taylor, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2009)
The Communist Party, backed by the peasantry, liberated China from imperialism, feudalism and a corrupt Nationalist regime, ending the century of humiliation. "Without the Communist Party there would be no new China," as a popular song puts it.
- Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party since the Founding of the People's Republic of China — Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (1981)
- Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations — Zheng Wang, Columbia University Press (2012)
The Communists won by exploiting a war against Japan that the Nationalists had fought at enormous cost, with Soviet help. Many who fled in 1949 saw themselves as preserving the legitimate Republic of China and traditional culture.
- The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China — Jay Taylor, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2009)
- Taiwan — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
The Communists won through superior organisation, land reform that won rural support, and the Nationalists' exhaustion after eight years of war, hyperinflation and corruption. The early years of the PRC brought real gains in unity, literacy and health, but also violent land reform and campaigns in which hundreds of thousands to millions were killed.
- The Search for Modern China — Jonathan D. Spence, W. W. Norton (1990)
- Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937–1945 — Rana Mitter, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2013)
- China: A New History (2nd enlarged edition) — John King Fairbank and Merle Goldman, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2006)
Why it matters today
1 October is National Day, and 1949 is the founding moment of the state Chinese people live in today: in the official story, the year China "stood up". It also created the division with Taiwan that is still unresolved, and split millions of families between the mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong and abroad.