In this video we'll give you the complete picture of what happened after Mao's Communists successfully defeated Chiang Kai-Shek in the Chinese Civil War. Often in historical commentary, commentators jump straight from the Civil War to the Great Leap Forward and by doing so, miss 8 crucial years of commentary. By filling you in on Mao's controversial Domestic and Foreign Policy (including the campaign to suppress counter-revolutionaries) we aim to fix that.
This episode will also be launching our new series on China, China Before World War III. This will be the complete series to bring you up to speed on all Chinese issues; domestic and foreign since World War II. With all the global angst about China and Taiwan, this is an area of history you can't afford to be illiterate in.
Mr Mitchell history I know what you're
going for because you're just doing it
with your students but I think that that
is actually a really important Channel
and you should give it a name that is
memorable
for what it is you know like
preventing world war three
China before world war three or
something you know yeah yeah preventing
world war three look there's other
things that you can aim for it but
that's that's a cool Channel man that's
a cool channel it's a really good idea
okay so before we address the title of
this video I'm just gonna let you know
what this series is about throughout
2021 we did two series on China the
first was just a straight history of
China set at a pretty basic level and
then the second was the history of the
Sony us relationship to give you context
for World War III unfortunately those
videos were in the era of the 20 mic and
a PC that had the processing power of a
Kodak so the production quality was
especially home brand according to dumb
China needed to modernize its
agriculture its industry its military
but the tech is better my knowledge in
the area is better and with the release
of Kenobi there's even more material for
Star Wars cutaways but this new series
is far more than just a remastering this
is the complete chronological series to
bring you up to speed on all things
China including their relationship with
America this is the story of how China
left Decades of internal War to plunge
into further unimaginable chaos but to
then Rise From the Ashes
so the day is October the 1st 1949 and
Mao heads out to a pack crowd in
Tiananmen Square to announce the
beginning of the People's Republic of
China
according to Mao the Civil War is Over
and Chiang Kai-shek is lost Chang would
say otherwise but he'd been so badly
defeated that from Taiwan he was in no
position to threaten Mao but Mal
couldn't take any risks if you don't
know much about Chinese history
essentially they'd been in on and off
again War for the first half of the 20th
century first it was the 1911 Revolution
to end the Qing Dynasty then it was the
era of the Warlords when the
Revolutionary government became
fractured then it was fighting off the
Japanese from 1931 to 1945 and then it
was the Chinese civil war between Mao
Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek from 1945 to
1949. if Mao wasn't careful his PRC
would be just another chapter in the
turbulent period of Chinese history so
what did Mao do to ensure that Chang's
kmt would be no risk to his regime well
surprisingly his first move was to
reward kmt defectors for example fujaoi
had surrendered his Garrison to the
Communists when they Advanced from
Beijing and as a result Mao gave him the
ministry of Hydraulics you're fired no
oh you're gonna overrule me on that too
however for most wood sided with the kmt
a much more Sinister fate was to fall
upon them all Mouse campaigned to
suppress counter-revolutionaries was a
government-led drive to weed out any
people who are still sympathetic towards
the kmt have a look at this poster here
promoting the campaign this Shady Fedora
wearing guy who reminds you of the best
year of YouTube
[Music]
was the classic stereotype for a
conspiring counter-revolutionary
plotting treason against Mao's PRC
okay my MLG video editing is a little
rusty like the video if you want MLG to
make a comeback and let me know below
what your favorite MLG video was mine
was MLG it's academic but another really
popular depiction was the overweight
cigar smoking capitalist now Mouse
Minister for public security said this
about the campaign we must not miss this
opportunity probably this is our only
operation for suppressing
counter-revolutionaries the purpose is
not just to kill several
counter-revolutionaries more importantly
this campaign is for Mass mobilization
and make no mistake Mao was completely
on board with this though Mao made it
clear he didn't want the wrong people
being killed he put quotas on executions
in accordance with population size he
argued that Hardline
counter-revolutionaries counter for less
than one percent of the population in
all regions and that roughly 0.1 percent
of the population would have to be
executed in order to get rid of the
worst counter-revolutionary elements
however in reality many provinces did
not have enough Bandits to meet this
quota and so many were recklessly
arrested and not even tried before being
determined as guilty of trumped up
charges that included collaborating with
imperialism bribing government officials
participating in armed Rebellion
participating Inspire Espionage and
looting and sabotage based on the
seriousness of the crime people received
either life imprisonment of the death
penalty in terms of exercising control
this was incredibly successful and meow
could actually go on to consolidate
power as at least 2.6 million people
were arrested 1.3 million were
imprisoned and then 712 000 were
executed now before we moralize about
how terrible this was which it was it is
important to remember the context China
had been an internal War for nearly four
decades and had only had brief stints of
a functioning government despite clearly
acknowledging what was happening is
dangerously terrible many Chinese were
broadly okay with what was happening
because it prevented Anarchy
unfortunately for them the success of
this would pave the way for me to begin
his cultural revolution a decade later
but in terms of bringing about out the
revolution more had to happen than just
the elimination of the Old Guard
obviously Mao needed to put forward new
policies however the leadership of the
party actually opted for slow and
Progressive implementation of Communism
rather than radical and immediate unlike
the industrialized Soviets the Chinese
Revolution began from an agricultural
context and there was little expertise
in running factories only five percent
of China's 600 million people had worked
in Industry not only that but many key
Business Leaders had fled to Hong Kong
and Taiwan when the Communist Victory
started to look inevitable and with
Factory output 44 below that of 1937
when Japan went beyond Manchuria to
invade all of China males number two
Lucia Chi felt as though the time wasn't
right to eliminate the ruling class so
private Enterprise was still allowed and
in cities like Xi'an most businesses
stayed in private hands it is also worth
noting that by the end of the Civil War
hyperinflation had reached dangerously
high levels and so the Communists
removed many yuan notes from circulation
and in terms of social problems see
polygamy sex trafficking and infanticide
were now all declared illegal and I'll
Bridge the domestic and foreign policy
sections by talking about the two major
annexations that the PRC completed upon
the end of the Civil War firstly Mao's
pla entered xinjiang in 1949 and
completed the annexation in 1950.
xinjiang was an interesting part of
China because part of it was controlled
by the soviet-backed East Turkestan
Republic and then the rest by Chang's
kmt the main group of people that were
from here were not actually Han Chinese
but actually turkic Muslims also known
as uyghurs and so in 1955 the PRC gave
Ying Zhang the title of being a
semi-autonomous province what this meant
was that the uyghurs had their own local
government but this government answered
to the Communist party and yielded its
resources over to the PRC secondly Mouse
China annexed Tibet which had been
independent since the fall of the Qing
Dynasty in 1912. the two fought from
1950 to 1951 but Tibet didn't have the
strength to resist and signed a 17-point
peace deal China's military Focus to be
in consolidating its borders rather than
fighting in Foreign Wars with one major
exception
okay so when it comes to Mouse foreign
policy he had to immediately adapt to
the emerging Cold War during the Civil
War America gave Chiang Kai-shek
tentative backing but when Chang
repeatedly ignored instructions America
started to pull back their support
however as tensions between America and
the Soviets grew over their interests in
Europe by 1950 America was ready to
resume support for Chang Chiang
kai-shek's Taiwan was seen as the
legitimate representative of China to
the UN and America said it would wait
for the dust to settle before
considering recognizing the PRC not only
that but the CIA got involved too the
CIA in 1947 and it really isn't the root
up some of the uh corrupt out of control
Elites in America you see the CIA backed
Air Raids on the mainland from Taiwan
and Burma from the end of the Civil War
to 1967 the CIA supported black bats
flew more than 800 missions over the PRC
including bombings of Shanghai and
Nanjing this obviously pushed Mao's
China further towards Stalin who had
already supported them with armaments in
the Civil War and so in 1950 Stalin and
mouse signed the Treaty of friendship
Alliance and mutual assistance
essentially this was the deal China
would receive 300 million US dollars in
loans Soviet experts would oversee the
factories that China lacked expertise in
and Stalin promised Military Support in
the event of a war in exchange Western
xinjiang and Eastern Manchuria would be
Soviets fears of influence and China had
to sell surplus metal to the Soviets and
so finally these Cold War tensions broke
China into the Korean War if you know
nothing about this war essentially Japan
had governed Korea from 1910 until the
end of World War II and long story short
the Soviets and Americans had different
ideas as to who should take over the
leadership
the Americans wanted sigmundry while the
Soviets wanted Kim il-sung a temporary
division along the 38th degree of
Northern latitude was set up with Kim in
the north and sing when ray in the South
Ray called for elections to be held for
the leadership but Kim protested with
much fewer people in the north and it is
generally accepted that these elections
were manipulated so in 1950 Kim invaded
the South and then Truman brought in U.S
troops to defend the South and with U.N
approval Cross northwards of the 38th
parallel at this point Mao decided
intervention was essential to avoid an
american-backed regime sharing a border
with them and so China immediately sent
300 000 troops to repel the American
advance and then a further 1.2 million
would fight in this war now opted for a
war of attrition in some of the worst
conditions with soldiers literally
freezing to death once the U.S backed
forces had been repelled back to the
38th parallel the leader of the army
punctu Hawaii wanted a settlement after
all this would prevent an
american-backed regime from sharing a
border with them however marijuana total
Victory and 400 thousand would die in
the course of the war to give you a
taste of whom our was three months after
his son Mao Wan Ying died in the war his
advisers went to break the news to him
petrified of his reaction Mao's response
to them was this and a revolutionary war
you always pay a price anying was one of
thousands you shouldn't take it as
something special just because he was
one of my sons
ultimately the war would result in a
stalemate and Kim il-sung's North Korea
would be an important buffer State
between China and american-backed South
Korea however with China directly
fighting against the US America stepped
up as Cold War support for Chang Taiwan
was known to be a vital part of
America's containment strategy in East
Asia and America would veto any attempt
to have Beijing rather than Taipei
recognizes the true China before the
United Nations Mao was now firmly on the
side of Stalin but in 1953 his close
Ally died and the new Soviet leader
Nikita Khrushchev would be much less
friendly to Mao
thanks for watching stay tuned for next
week as we look at how Mao was forced to
react to crew service desalinization in
Russia and at best see now make a plan
that seriously backfires or at worst see
me I'll make a seriously Sinister plan
don't forget to let me know what your
favorite MLG video is as well we can't
wait to see you next time for our next
venture into a fascinating part of
History