Lesson 23: Outbreak of the Civil War

Chongqing Negotiations

In August 1945, Chiang Kai-shek invited Mao Zedong by telegram three times to Chongqing to meet and discuss the country's major plans. Chiang's purpose was, on the one hand, to buy time to launch the civil war and, on the other hand, to gain the initiative in political opinion and impose the charge of being unwilling to make peace on the Chinese Communist Party. In order to strive for peace by all means possible, Mao Zedong, with great foresight and astonishing boldness, went to Chongqing himself to conduct peace negotiations with the Kuomintang.

After the negotiations, on October 10, 1945, the two sides signed the "Minutes of the Talks between the Government and the Chinese Communist Party Representatives", or the "Double Ten Agreement". Both sides agreed to cooperate for a long time on the basis of peace, democracy, unity and reunification, to resolutely avoid civil war, and to build a new independent, free and strong China; to convene a political consultation conference, to invite representatives of all parties and social wise men to discuss the national issues, and to discuss the peaceful establishment of the country.

On January 10, 1946, the Political Consultative Conference was held in Chongqing. The conference discussed the establishment of a coalition government, the platform of peaceful nation-building, the convening of the National Convention, the revision of the draft constitution, the integration of the army, etc, and adopted a series of resolutions, once again determining the policy of avoiding civil war and building a peaceful nation. The convening of the Chongqing Talks and the Political Consultative Conference brought a ray of hope for the realization of democratic unification and peaceful nation-building in China.

The Kuomintang Launches a Civil War

In June 1946, Chiang Kai-shek openly violated the "Double Ten Agreement", tore up the resolution of the CPPCC and launched a full-scale civil war by besieging the liberated areas in Central China. In October, the Kuomintang army occupied Zhangjiakou, and the full-scale offensive reached its peak.

In March 1947, the Kuomintang's all-out offensive was crushed and it began to launch a focused attack on the liberated areas in northern Shaanxi and Shandong.

Self-defense counterattack by the military and people in the liberated areas

Faced with the frenzied attack of the Kuomintang army and the actual situation that the enemy was strong and we were weak, Mao Zedong made the famous assertion that "all reactionaries are paper tigers". The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) called on the military and people of the PLA to crush the attack of the Kuomintang army by self-defense warfare, and formulated the operational principles and guidelines of using movement warfare as the main method, with the main goal of annihilating the enemy's living forces and concentrating superior forces to destroy the enemy individually.

The armies of the various liberated areas, following the strategic deployment and operational guidelines of Mao Zedong and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, and with the support of the general public, engaged in large-scale movement warfare against the Kuomintang troops.

After more than half a year of self-defense counterattacks, the military and people in the liberated areas crushed the all-out attack of the Kuomintang army. Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and others led the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the headquarters of the PLA to withdraw from Yan'an on their own initiative and move to northern Shaanxi. The Northwest Field Army led by Peng Dehuai won the battles of Qinghuazhen and Shajiadian, crushing the key attacks of the Kuomintang army on northern Shaanxi; the East China Field Army destroyed the 74th Division of the Kuomintang's ace main force at Mengliang Mount in Shandong, repelling the key attacks of the enemy on the liberated areas in Shandong.（636words）