CCP Military Contributions in the War of
Resistance
In a chapter entitled “Fight Chiang and Rivals – Not Japan,” Chang and Halliday attack the popular conception that Mao’s patriotic resistance against Japanese aggression was an important basis on which the Communist Party consolidated its popular support. They constantly reiterate scenarios in which the Communist armies had opportunities to engage Japanese offensives but, because of Mao, refrained from taking any action. Instead, they claim that “Mao did not want the Red Army to fight the invaders at all. He ordered Red Commanders to wait for Japanese troops to defeat the Nationalists, and then, as the Japanese swept on, to seize territories behind Japanese lines.”[1]
In support of this claim, Chang and Halliday cite a number of telegrams from Mao to his military commanders from September of 1937. If one examines these documents, far from showing that “Mao did not want the Red Army to fight the invaders at all,” they outline Mao’s strategy in the early months of the war for “independent guerrilla warfare in the mountain areas.” Although they do warn against frontal attacks on main Japanese units and propose a strategy of dispersing forces to better build a mass base for resistance, advocating guerrilla struggle is hardly equivalent to not wanting to fight the invaders at all. At one point, Mao writes to Zhou Enlai and others: “If there is a failure in the conventional war in North China, we will not be responsible; but if the guerrilla struggle fails, we will bear serious responsibility.” Furthermore, Mao does not argue against any main force engagement of the enemy. On September 25, he orders the Red Army commanders to propose to Chiang Kai-shek a coordinated attack on the Japanese as they sweep into Shanxi province, and suggests that even without coordination, Lin Biao should consider at attack on the Japanese forces as they advance through the Hengshan mountain range.[2]
There is no doubt that, especially in the early months of the war, when the Communists commanded only a few tens of thousands of poorly equipped troops, Mao had no intension of engaging Japanese main force units. Indeed, throughout the war, any examination of logistical statistics reveals the relative weakness of Communist army in terms of men and materials. However, the real significance lay not in military victories, but rather in the way their resistance served as an inspiration to the locals around them.
In their effort to
dispel the myth that the Red Army actively and consistently engaged Japanese
forces, Chang and Halliday credit the army with fighting only once during the
Operation of 100 Regiments, which they described as “the only large-scale
operation carried out by any Communist forces during the whole eight years of
Japanese occupation.”[3]
While scholars accept the fact that the Communists rarely engaged in open
positional warfare, Chang and Halliday consistently remind readers that
Communist accounts of battles against the Japanese were only one of “a number
of exaggerated claims,”[4]
perpetuated by top CCP officials such as Mao and Zhou Enlai
in order to enhance its public image as defenders of
In keeping a realistic expectation regarding the army’s capabilities, nearly every source points to the CCP’s lack of resources as a fundamental weakness that hindered their ability to fight open-field, conventional battles. A report by the United States War Department assessed in 1945 stated that “shortage of ammunition has had noticeable effect on the tactics of the Chinese Communists. By necessity they are forced to fight small engagements of short duration. They are precluded the use of long-range fire.”[7] Because of these conditions, the report also commented on the lack of proper infantry training; instead, “the units have been forced to combine the problem of subsistence with the problem of training.”[8] Since they lacked the conventional means of industrial production, Communist forces relied almost exclusively on captured or confiscated weapons and equipment. With regards to tactics and the use of auxiliary military aid, their knowledge and methods were archaic. The army lacked specialists, and “knew very little of modern signal corps work, mechanization, or medical practice.”[9] Though it was clear that these primitive armaments did not constitute much of a threat to the main Japanese force, their efforts nevertheless contributed significantly in tying up Japanese forces from further offensives into Nationalist territories.
Further research
illustrates that while the small operations may not have involved the “large
contingents” boasted by Mao, they were nevertheless effective in disrupting the
Japanese’ plans to establish an efficient military order. After the Operation of 100 Regiments, the
Communists shifted their strategy away from major military encounters to a
political offensive that sought to take advantage of local anti-Japanese
sentiments, since the military offensive led to a vicious Japanese
counterattack against Communist territory that “was soon reduced by half.”[10]
For self-perseverance, “the
According to Benton, New Fourth Army engagements often took the form of ambushes against inadequate numbers of Japanese troops stationed to safeguard secondary roads and railways in the hinterland; it was from these areas where it became most feasible to launch forays disrupting Japanese communications. Beginning in the middle of 1938, the New Fourth Army engaged in its first offensive, driving south of the Yangtze in ambushing a Japanese convoy, which was followed by the destruction of a Japanese-held railway station in Xinfeng. Afterwards, “between June 18 and early September 1938, the New Fourth waged its first ‘active offensive,’ advancing from sporadic encounters to systematic harassment of Japanese lines of communication. In those three months, it was in action against the Japanese almost every day.”[13] As small operations as these may have been, they were nevertheless essential in gaining the confidence of locals as a legitimate contender against Japanese occupation. Their role in tying down Japanese offensives from further expansions was further accredited by their archrivals, the Nationalists, as “both Chiang Kai-shek and Gu Zhutong spoke highly of its achievements. The army received some fifty telegrams of congratulation from Nationalist military and political leaders.”[14]
Due to the increasing intensity and frequency of such small disruptions against their communications network, Japanese forces dedicated more of their infantry to conducting “mopping-up” campaigns intended to uproot Communist networks within the local population. Typical characteristics of these campaigns included the infamous ‘Three-All’ approach that called upon the Japanese infantry to “kill all, burn all, [and] loot all.”[15] Japanese field commanders attested to its necessity, as General Hata, Commander-in-Chief of the Japanese Expeditionary Force in China, explained in an interview: “the Communist bandits…are the chief disturbing factors endangering peace and order…In the pacification of North China, suppression of the Communists is a matter which should not be overlooked.”[16] During certain periods, as many as 40 percent of all Japanese in China were tied down in battling Communist troops throughout territories occupied by both Japanese and Communist influences. Their presence “diverted Japanese attention away from expanding into the neutral zones to concentrating their military strength at crushing the various Communist-led guerilla bases in North China.”[17] Mao’s writings during this period frequently cite the practical advantages of fighting small-scale mobile warfare, in which “guerillas would generally have the task of pinning down or otherwise diverting regular enemy forces…Their function would be to expand their control over the gaps between enemy-held strong points.”[18] Emphasis was placed on their ability to infiltrate villages and provide organizational support for villagers who accepted such assistance, despite the certain prospect of death (possibly for entire communities) if their affiliations with Communist elements were uncovered or even suspected by the Japanese. This threat remained a constant disruption in everyday rural life that Chang and Halliday for all purposes ignored.
Chang and Halliday’s account misrepresents the role of the Chinese Communist Army, caricaturizing it as an encumbering nuisance that, rather than helping, hindered the national war effort against Japanese aggression. Instead of focusing on the ways local lives were affected by Communist involvement, much of their account concerns alleged schemes, conspiracies, and backstabbing that miraculously came together in the end to tilt the balance to the Communist side after the war. Historically and realistically, a much more plausible explanation of Communist territorial expansion is given by the Taiwan scholar Chen Yung-fa: “During Japanese drives…KMT forces frequently turned to flight, so, when the high tide ebbed, the CCP was left in control of territory previously contested by both.”[19] It is important to remind readers that whatever the Communists lacked in military capabilities was made up for by their efforts in stirring up organized forms of nationalist resistance in their rural surroundings. That this “ragtag” army was able to carry on guerilla operations behind enemy lines should be a credit, if not to its tactical effectiveness, then at least to its success in garnering popular support.
Tony Wan
[1] Jung Chang and Jon Halliday. Mao: The Unknown Story. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005 p. 204
[2] Mao Zedong telegrams of September 12, 21 and 25, 1937, in Zhonggong zhongyang wenxian yanjiushi and Zhongguo renmin jiefangjun junshi kexueyuan [Document Research Office of the CCP Central Committee and the Military Science Academy of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army], Mao Zedong junshi wenji [Collected military writings of Mao Zedong] (Beijing: Junshi kexue chubanshe and Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1993), vol. 2, pp. 44, 53-54, 57-61; Tony Saich. The Rise to Power of the Chinese Communist Party. Armonk: Sharp Inc., 1994 p. 793-794
[3] Chang p. 224
[4] ibid., p. 218
[5] ibid., p. 208
[6] Gregor Venton. New Fourth Army. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999 p. 315
[7]
[8] ibid., p. 190
[9] Theodore White and Annalee Jacoby. Thunder Out of China. New York: William Sloane Associates, Inc. 1946 p. 217
[10] Chang p. 224
[11] Chen Yung-fa. Making Revolution. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986 p. 98
[12] Chang p. 205
[13] Benton p. 324
[14] Benton p. 315
[15] Lyman
Van Slyke. “The Chinese Communist movement during the
Sino-Japanese War.” The
[16] US War Department, p. 106
[17]
[18] William Whitson. The Chinese High Command. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1973 p. 484
[19] Chen, p. 78