Chinese Civil War: Effects of War Notes

Key Questions

1. What were the social and economic effects of the war?
2. What were the short term and long term political effects of the war?
3. What territorial changes took place as a result of the war?
4. What was the impact of the war on the role and status of women?

For China

1. Around 3.5 million people were killed during the Chinese Civil War (1946–1949).
   1. This came after the devastation of the Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), in which 15–20 million Chinese died.
   2. Of these wartime deaths, around 4 million were soldiers, 10 million were civilians killed through military campaigns and massacres, and about 5 million perished from famine and disease linked to the war.
2. These huge losses created a society scarred by violence, dislocation, and trauma, which shaped the CCP’s revolutionary culture of sacrifice and endurance.

1. Social impact

1. The Communist victory initiated radical changes in family and gender relations.
2. The 1950 Marriage Law was one of the first major acts of the PRC.
   1. It granted women equal legal status, banned arranged and child marriages, legalized divorce for both sexes, and gave women rights to land ownership.
   2. This represented a major break from centuries of Confucian patriarchy.
3. Children born outside of wedlock were granted equal rights, which undermined old hierarchies of legitimacy.
4. The CCP also attacked religion and traditional belief systems. Christianity, Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism were denounced as “superstitions.” Religious institutions were often closed, and clergy persecuted.
5. These social changes laid the foundation for a new “socialist culture,” although in practice many traditional attitudes persisted, especially in rural China.

2. Economic impact

1. The Civil War left the Chinese economy shattered, with agricultural production disrupted and millions suffering from hunger and displacement.
2. Mao introduced radical land reform in the early 1950s, redistributing land from landlords to peasants.
   1. These campaigns were violent: landlords were humiliated, beaten, and often executed during “speak bitterness” sessions.
   2. By 1956, collectivization was enforced in the countryside. Peasants were forced into collective farms, and the state seized land, tools, and livestock. Farmers were required to sell grain at state-fixed prices, which often left rural families with barely enough to survive.
3. Urban industry and commerce were also targeted. By 1952, the state heavily regulated businesses under the All-China Federation of Industry & Commerce.
   1. By 1956, all private enterprises were nationalized, creating a command economy.
4. In 1957, Mao launched the Great Leap Forward, aiming to modernize China through mass mobilization. Instead, it created economic chaos, with failed “backyard furnaces,” crop failures, and unrealistic targets.
   1. The Great Famine (1959–1961), caused by collectivization, bad weather, and disastrous state policies, killed between 20 and 40 million people.
   2. Historian Frank Dikötter calls it the “worst man-made famine in history.”

3. Political impact

1. The CCP rapidly consolidated power, drawing on experiences from Yan’an, guerrilla warfare, and wartime mobilization.
2. Mao Zedong emerged as the undisputed leader with an almost god-like status, his thought elevated into an ideological guide for the nation.
3. Campaigns became a central method of governance: short, intense mass mobilizations aimed at reshaping society.
   1. In 1950–1951, Mao launched the “Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries,” also known as the “Great Terror.” Quotas were set for executions, leading to widespread killings.
   2. Even children could be accused of spying; Frank Dikötter records cases of schoolchildren as young as six tortured to death. By 1951, around 2 million people had been killed, and hundreds of thousands were imprisoned in a growing gulag system of labour camps.
4. The legal system was abolished and replaced with a Soviet-style one-party system. Free speech was eliminated, and even mild criticism of the regime was treated as counter-revolutionary.

For Asia

1. Mao’s victory marked the spread of the Cold War into Asia, transforming it from a Europe-centred conflict into a global one.
2. The success of the Chinese Communists inspired insurgencies and left-wing movements across Asia, including in Indonesia, Malaya, Vietnam, and Thailand.
3. The Communist victory also emboldened Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Minh in Indochina, influencing the course of the First Indochina War against the French.
4. The Korean War (1950–1953) became the first direct confrontation of the Cold War in Asia. China played a central role, sending over 1 million troops to fight against UN and US forces.
   1. This confirmed China’s position as a major actor in the Cold War.
5. Asia thus became a key theatre for superpower rivalry, with Mao’s victory shaping decades of conflict in the region.

For the USSR

1. Stalin did not initially welcome Mao’s success, as he saw Mao as a potential rival for leadership of the Communist world.
   1. Stalin had previously encouraged cooperation with Jiang Jieshi in 1945, fearing a collapsed China would destabilize the Soviet border.
   2. Stalin also distrusted Maoism, seeing it as a hybrid ideology that fused Marxism with Chinese traditions, rather than being “purely” revolutionary.
   3. He compared Mao’s potential independence to Tito in Yugoslavia.