Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 20:24 09 May 2016 The Third Chinese Revolutionary Civil War, 1945–49 This book examines the Third Chinese Revolutionary Civil War of 1945–49, which resulted in the victory of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) over Chiang Kaishek and the Guomindang (GMD) and the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. It provides a military and strategic history of how the CCP waged and ultimately won the war, the transformation of its armed forces, and how the Communist leaders interacted with each other. Whereas most explanations of the CCP’s eventual victory focus on the Sino- Japanese War of 1937–45, when the revolution was supposedly won as a result of the Communists’ invention of “peasant nationalism,” this book shows that the outcome of the revolution was not a foregone conclusion in 1945. It explains how the eventual victory of the Communists resulted from important strategic decisions taken on both sides, in particular the remarkable transformation of the Communist army from an insurgent / guerrilla force into a conventional army. The book also explores how the hierarchy of the People’s Republic of China developed during the war. It shows how Mao’s power was based as much on his military acumen as his political thought, above all his role in formulating and implementing a successful military strategy in the war of 1945–49. It also describes how other important figures, such as Lin Biao, Deng Xiaoping, Nie Rongzhen, Liu Shaoqi, and Chen Yi, made their reputations during the conflict, and reveals the inner workings of the First generation political-military elite of the PRC. Overall, this book is an important resource for anyone seeking to understand the origins and early history of the People’s Republic of China, the Chinese Communist Party and the People’s Liberation Army. Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 20:24 09 May 2016 Christopher R. Lew is a senior strategic analyst for the US Department of Defense, and a Captain in the reserve component of the US Army. He has a Ph.D in History from the University of Pennsylvania – his focus is on Chinese Military history and thought. Asian States and Empires Edited by Peter Lorge Vanderbilt University The importance of Asia will continue to grow in the twenty-first century, but remarkably little is available in English on the history of the polities that constitute this critical area. Most current work on Asia is hindered by the extremely limited state of knowledge of the Asian past in general, and the history of Asian states and empires in particular. Asian States and Empires is a book series that will provide detailed accounts of the history of states and empires across Asia from earliest times until the present. It aims to explain and describe the formation, maintenance and collapse of Asian states and empires, and the means by which this was accomplished, making available the history of more than half the world’s population at a level of detail comparable to the history of Western polities. In so doing, it will demonstrate that Asian peoples and civilizations had their own histories apart from the West, and provide the basis for understanding contemporary Asia in terms of its actual histories, rather than broad generalizations informed by Western categories of knowledge. 1 The Third Chinese Revolutionary Civil War, 1945–49 An analysis of Communist strategy and leadership Christopher R. Lew Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 20:24 09 May 2016 The Third Chinese Revolutionary Civil War, 1945–49 An analysis of Communist strategy and leadership Christopher R. Lew Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 20:24 09 May 2016 First published 2009 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. © 2009 Christopher R. Lew All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-203-88068-4 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 10: 0-415-77730-5 (hbk) ISBN 10: 0-203-88068-4 (ebk) ISBN 13: 978-0-415-77730-8 (hbk) ISBN 13: 978-0-203-88068-5 (ebk) Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 20:24 09 May 2016 Contents List of figures vi Preface vii Acknowledgments ix Introduction xi 1 Setting the stage 1 2 “March on the North, Defend in the South” (August 1945–June 1946) 16 3 The Guomindang high tide (June 1946–June 1947) 40 4 The turning point (July 1947–August 1948) 74 5 Three crucibles of victory 103 Conclusion 134 Notes 153 Bibliography 180 Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 20:24 09 May 2016 Index 197 List of figures 1.1 1945: Map of China 1 2.1 1945: Postwar scramble 17 2.2 1945: March on the North 21 3.1 1946–47: General and Strong Point offensives 42 3.2 1945–46: Communist counterattack in the west 51 3.3 1947: The fall of Yan’an 62 3.4 1946–47: The struggle for northeast China 67 4.1 1947: Turning the tide 75 4.2 1947: Seizing the initiative in north and northeast China 89 5.1 1948: The Liaoshen and Beiping Campaigns 107 5.2 1948: The Ji’nan and Huaihai Campaigns 114 5.3 1949: Carry the revolution to the end 129 Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 20:24 09 May 2016 Preface This study originated from a casual conversation with the head of my graduate committee, Arthur Waldron, about how astounding it was that some of the largest battles on the Asian mainland in the 20th century had been virtually ignored in the existing body of scholarship. The battles we spoke about were the Liaoshen, Huaihai, and Pingjin Campaigns which were the culmination of the Third Chinese Revolutionary Civil War or, as it is more commonly known in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Liberation War (1945–1949). Having already de- cided to focus on military history, I found this question arising frequently during the rest of my studies at the University of Pennsylvania. As I prepared for my exams and studied the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) role in the Cultural Revolution and the Korean War, I grew even more intrigued about how the Communists came to power in the first place and the lives of the party’s military elite before palace intrigues and purges ensued. As a soldier, I was also inclined to wonder who men like Peng Dehuai and Lin Biao really were. I felt that the existing literature in English identified them more for their political travails rather than their military exploits. Those same sources also dealt with these men and their peers as middle aged or elderly pawns being swept away by the course of events – not the decision-makers or masters of their own fates that they had been as young revolutionaries. I also had the creeping suspicion that other people besides Mao Zedong played a role in developing Communist military strategy between the Long March and the founding of the PRC – an assessment that is not always apparent in the current body of scholarship. These were the challenges I faced when I started researching my dissertation, Downloaded by [University of Defence] at 20:24 09 May 2016 which eventually evolved into this book. Still planning to focus only on the three aforementioned battles, I was largely stymied in my attempts to piece together information from works in English. However, the sources I was able to find pointed in two completely different directions. One strain seemed to suggest that I was wasting my time because Communist strategy was of little significance in light of the socioeconomic factors and Nationalist or Guomindang (GMD) incompetence. Other works, however, suggested that the war and the personalities involved were complicated and underwent an evolutionary process that finally culminated in an overwhelming victory in 1949. In the end, it was a combination of both views which made me realize that viii Preface there was much more to the story than just the three campaigns – no matter how large or how many men they involved. As I began to look at the war as a whole, it became clear that as important as Liaoshen, Huaihai, and Pingjin were, an even more critical story was how the Communists were in the position to even fight, much less win, those battles. This became the new focus of my study as I prepared to travel to the PRC to conduct my research. Basing myself in Nanjing, a city I had never visited before, I started at the Second Historical Archives of China and eventually made my way to Nanjing University as a visiting scholar. After four months of compiling data, including sitting in a corner of Nanjing University library with a flatbed scanner for days on end scanning in non-circulating collections of dispatches and selected compositions of high-ranking Chinese Communist Party officials, I began the arduous process of translating and arranging the data.