Regarding the kuomintang-communist civil war, there is a very clichéd topic that Chiang Kai-shek obviously has "a good hand of cards", but why did he play it poorly?
At the beginning of the Civil War, regardless of the comparison of troops (
4.3 million
Vs
1.27 million
Or the comparison of equipment (US weapons vs national style), or the comparison of the population and land area occupied, the Kuomintang is "crushing" dominant, but only 3 or 4 years later, it was overthrown by the Communist Party, which was founded only 20 years ago.
Some of them said that his military command skills were not good (mainly after comparing with Chairman Mao, he appeared to be less talented), some said that the Kuomintang top level was corrupt and degenerate (the four major families circled money), some said that the Kuomintang intelligence work was not good (many high-level people lurked around the Communist Party members), and even said that Chiang Kai-shek believed in Christ too much and lost his mind...
In short, in fact, there is a certain truth, the failure of the Kuomintang is not caused by a single factor, but mixed with many reasons.
However, today I would like to focus on what I want to say about it
Land reform
This factor.
To say why the Kuomintang lost, to put it another way, why did the Communist Party win? One of the most important reasons (the top three) is the resolute and successful implementation of land reform.
What is land reform?
To speak of land reform during the War of Liberation alone, it is simply to confiscate the landlord's land (leaving only a little bit for the landlord) and then distributing it to the poor peasants (of course, this is only agrarian reform in the narrow sense, and the land reform in the broad sense is more complicated).
In this way, the peasants who were neutral or slightly partial to the Communist Party completely followed the Communist Party, the young and middle-aged people wore big red flowers to become soldiers, the middle-aged and elderly people pushed carts to send food and drink to the front line, even the 80- and 90-year-old old wives were not behind, rushing to sew clothes for the soles of the shoes of the People's Liberation Army, with such a strong rear support, the People's Liberation Army won the battle is justified.
I would like to ask you, land reform is very important, did Chiang Kai-shek not know?
Many people in Chinese history have realized the importance of this problem, first Hong Xiuquan's "Tianchao Tianmu System", then Sun Yat-sen's "Equal Land Rights" and "Cultivators Have Their Land".
In his later years, Mr. Sun Yat-sen clearly put forward many specific measures for the land issue, and even envisioned China's transformation from an agrarian country to an industrial country, but "the sky is not a fake", and unfortunately died before it was concretely implemented (March 12, 1925), after which Chiang Kai-shek was too busy to suppress the Communists and did not care about carrying out land reform at all.
Although the Kuomintang promulgated the Land Law of the Republic of China in 1930 and subsequently issued many land reform program documents, these policies have one flaw:
Too mild
Chiang Kai-shek did not make a fierce move to carry out land reform, and in the end he did not succeed.
A list of data can roughly explain this thing.
In 1930, the Civil Affairs Department of Jiangsu Province investigated the land situation in the province and found that of the 347 large landlords (referring to the 1,000 to 60,000 mu of land owned), about 44% of them were senior officers and politicians, and about 34% of them were underground money bank owners or loan sharks. (Quoted from Kong Fanling: China's National Conditions and Land Issues)
This also means that this group of people engaged in land reform in the Kuomintang is "both referees and athletes", which is a serious violation of the law, allowing them to cut their own flesh, how can things be done.
Those who really inherited the mantle of Dr. Sun Yat-sen were the CPC, Chairman Mao, Liu Shaoqi, and others.
First, during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the relatively moderate "rent reduction and interest reduction" was not fundamentally different from the content of the Kuomintang's land reform, and then during the Liberation War, it was simply upgraded from "rent reduction and interest reduction" to confiscation of landlord land. (Specifically, the Directive on Land Issues issued on May 4, 1946, and the Outline of China's Land Law promulgated in October 1947)
Because the Kuomintang represents different interest groups, one is a big landlord and a big bourgeoisie, and the other is a middle- and lower-middle-class poor peasant proletariat, this is doomed
With regard to the matter of land reform, only the Communist Party can do it, and it is very difficult for the Kuomintang to do it.
The point that needs to be added here is that Chiang Kai-shek did not succeed in carrying out land reform on the mainland, and as a result, after going to Taiwan, he basically succeeded.
In fact, the reason is also very easy to understand, because the large landlords in Taiwan at that time were all natives of the island and were not so-called relatives of the emperor and the state, so Chiang Kai-shek was able to make up his mind to carry out land reform.
"Because all the landlords are Taiwanese, the Kuomintang can take the anger of others and carry it out in a bold and serious manner without scruples." If three or five of the large landlords with more than 100 ranks at that time belonged to the relatives of the emperor and the state, I think that whether Taiwan's land reform work could be smoothly carried out and successfully carried out, I am afraid that even Mr. Chen Cheng would not be sure to reply. (Quoting Sun Jialin: The Chiang Ching-kuo I know)
After completing the land reform in Taiwan, Chiang Kai-shek even lamented: "The most reasonable and perfect land reform without bloodshed has been completed." ”
However, this was already after the retreat to Taiwan, when the Kuomintang completely lost to the Communist Party in the land reform during the Kuomintang Civil War.
In a large agricultural country like China, where there are many people and little land, whoever solves the land problem is the "spokesman" of the peasants and wins the support of the peasants, who account for the overwhelming majority of the population.
In the "Selected Works of Mao Zedong", Chairman Mao also made a very clear statement about the reasons for the victory of the Communist Party:
"Only with the victory of land reform can we win the victory against Chiang Kai-shek."
There was a professor Xu Yan at the National Defense University who went to the Shenyang Military Region in the 1970s to interview those peasants who participated in the land reform.
They are very simple, and most of them are old, but when they mention the land reform of that year, they still have a very deep memory, and they tearfully say that without Chairman Mao and without the Communist Party, there would be nothing, and the land reform gave them a house, a land, a car, and a daughter-in-law.
When Xu Yan and others present heard "divided daughters-in-law", they were very surprised, how can daughters-in-law be divided?
It turned out that after confiscating the landlord's land in those years, at the same time, the landlord's servants and little wives were also distributed to the vast number of poor peasants, so that they suddenly turned over and became masters.
Therefore, wherever the Kuomintang went, the common people took refuge, the nationalist army needed military food to rely on Chiang Kai-shek's airdrops, and wherever the PLA went, there were ordinary people supporting it.
Marshal Chen Yi also said that the victory in the Huaihai Campaign was pushed out by Shandong migrant workers with small carts.
Why were these people willing to push carts back then? They were not paid salaries or bonuses, and they were very likely to be injured or even killed by stray bullets, because these simple peasants all believed that the PLA was a "good man" and that only when the Communist Party won the war could they preserve their hard-won land, otherwise they would have to return to their previous hard-working days.
So, this also echoes an old Chinese adage:
"Those who win the hearts and minds of the people win the world, and those who lose the hearts of the people lose the world."