Chapter 24 Chapter 24 Comments on Chiang Kai-shek

Chiang Kai-shek had his own courage, energy, and leadership qualities, and he was not only a deeply flawed figure, but also, in the sense of Greek tragedy, a tragic figure. His tragedy was his own making. Chiang Kai-shek was one of those rare and extraordinary characters: a man whose courage, capacity for work, personal will and energy—all his stamina—were unimaginable.The impact of such people on their time and on posterity varies depending on the political context in which they operate, the historical legacy they inherit, and the size, power, or importance of their nation. We are all still influenced by Lenin and Stalin today.Hitler brought great disaster to his generation.Churchill's contribution to defeating Hitler left his mark for years to come.Franco and Tito changed the face of their country, just as Mustafa Kemal changed a generation before.

The accident of history forced Chiang Kai-shek to meet another more unique person—— It was Chiang Kai-shek's misfortune that Mao Zedong co-ruled China and fought his way out of the country. That is to say, Chiang Kai-shek lacked the prerequisite for those generals and statesmen to be famous forever - luck. His luck was terrible, and his mistakes were indeed immeasurable. Since Chiang Kai-shek is Chiang Kai-shek, he must do everything thoroughly. It is meaningless to study Chiang Kai-shek as a man, soldier, writer and thought leader, politician and leader (just as de Gaulle cannot be studied in this way).Motivation, failure, and achievement are intricately intertwined and inextricably linked.

Chiang Kai-shek will undoubtedly appear in history as a "man who lost China", and my main purpose of writing this book is to describe the background of this major failure in order to find its reasons. In fact, in the course of my narrative I have emphasized Chiang Kai-shek's errors of negligence and dereliction of duty, and I have also pointed out the misfortunes surrounding him, whether or not they interfered with his efforts to avoid them.Now, it may be useful to take all these factors into account. Most of Chiang Kai-shek's mistakes were probably due to latent flaws in his character and thinking, and the little education he received in his childhood.

Due to reasons of education and beliefs, his thoughts are very conservative, but he considers himself a revolutionary, and the meaning of revolution includes several important aspects: overthrowing the rule of the Qing Dynasty; abolishing foreign privileges in China; and Confucianism to restore China's rightful place in the world. Although he also has social ideals, these ideals are relegated to a secondary status compared with other goals. He was good at turning one man or faction against another, but his point of view was a narrow military one.He tried to rely on force to realize his authority, and his way of dealing with rebels was to punish rather than reform.In his opinion, the greatest crime is infidelity.There are three contradictions in his character, one of which is that while he can exact vengeance on his opponents with brutality, often by means of instant trial and execution, he lacks all that is required to be a thoroughly memorable tyrant. That cruel character.

Chiang Kai-shek's mind is too simple.From the perspective of propaganda, this simplification makes sense, but from the perspective of political decision-making, oversimplification is lack of originality. Chiang Kai-shek referred to the Chinese Communist Party as a "puppet" for a while in the 20s, but he continued to do so long after the communists had proved themselves independent of Moscow, and even after the Sino-Soviet break in the 60s them. A false label can quickly destroy the credibility of the labeler, and it appears that Chiang Kai-shek lacked awareness of the problem.

Chiang Kai-shek used punishment or warnings that he would be punished to establish his absolute authority and cultivate people's loyalty to him, out of this idea.He will not allow any reluctance to carry out his orders, and must see that his policies are faithfully carried out. That, he said, would be enough.If it was found that his orders were not being carried out, he would throw a fit and order a shot or two or a crusade.But there is no mass institution to determine whether the impact of policies on the people has achieved the desired effect, perhaps in this point is obviously different from Mao Zedong.

On the other hand, in terms of ideology, Mao Zedong undoubtedly had the upper hand. No one who has studied this book in depth will think that I am an admirer of Marxism-Leninism; but Marxism as an anti-religious force and Leninism as a revolutionary strategy cannot be denied. Mao Zedong saw the possibility of taking Marxism-Leninism and adapting it to the realities of China, a country dominated by peasants.He also exploited the potential appeal of Marxist philosophy to Chinese intellectuals who had lost their roots. In contrast, Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang alienated the intelligentsia, leaving them with nowhere to go but to Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party.

It was Sun Yat-sen, not Chiang Kai-shek, who accepted the suggestion of Soviet representatives such as Borodin to reorganize the Kuomintang along the lines of the Communist Party. Chiang Kai-shek appreciated the top-down hierarchical structure of everything that started with him. However, Mao Zedong won over the peasants, while Chiang Kai-shek was convinced that the landlords treated the peasants cruelly, and for a long time did not solve the problem of land reform. From the original Soviet model, Chiang Kai-shek introduced an all-pervasive secret state security apparatus, with extensive use of espionage, informers, and terror.But this alone cannot maintain his rule in the mainland.

He recognized the need for an ideology, but the new ideas he was trying to create were so unacceptable that they failed. His "New Life Movement," which was a combination of Confucianism and A strange concoction made of Christian thought. This time, Mao Zedong published "On New Democracy", which was slightly better. Although Chiang Kai-shek's "The Destiny of China" was vigorously promoted as an official classic, it was not taken seriously by the intellectuals, and most people knew nothing about it. known. It must be said that Chiang Kai-shek faced enormous difficulties: the general chaos following the failure of Sun Yat-sen's revolution, the challenge of Chinese Communist and Soviet supporters, and the Japanese invasion, and no small amount of misjudgment, deceit and betrayal of him.

But we cannot stand on his side and say that his difficulties are greater than those encountered by the Communist Party in its early days. Mao Zedong, as the leader of a struggling minority party, was surrounded by far stronger government forces without Soviet aid for several years.However, in the end, the aid from the Soviet Union played a big role in the Communist Party's advantage, while Chiang Kai-shek lost the corresponding foreign aid. Chiang Kai-shek's first, and in some ways the deadliest, mistake was his vision of conquering China during his march northward between 1926 and 1928.In the history books of the Kuomintang, this march is called the "Northern Expedition".Chiang Kai-shek was well prepared to formally accept the leadership entrusted to him by the warlords, which was a sign of punishment and a symbol of Chiang Kai-shek's expansion of power.

For Chiang Kai-shek, this transfer of power was a brilliant victory, because Chiang Kai-shek hoped to achieve this goal by simple means. Perhaps, it was because he had no choice.Some warlords, such as Yan Xishan and Feng Yuxiang, are powerful enough to launch a frontal attack.Intent on quick results, Chiang Kai-shek did not want to drive the warlords from their strongholds or replace them with his chosen ones.He hoped to end the Northern Expedition and bring it to an end, so that he could free up his hands to do what he was really interested in—"eliminating the Communist Party." During the rest of the time on the mainland, Chiang Kai-shek often reaped the consequences of his rash actions. In the eyes of the warlords, he was just one of them - but undoubtedly the largest and most powerful warlords. But they never regarded him unconditionally as their leader, not even when he was chairman of the Nanking National Government in 1928.They would send troops to support Chiang Kai-shek when it was profitable, but in general they always refused to cooperate with Chiang outside their sphere of influence, which was the case during the Japanese invasion, and was no exception during the Civil War. I have pointed out that Chiang Kai-shek's biggest error of judgment was instructing Zhang Xueliang not to resist when the Japanese invaded in 1931. From a military point of view, Chiang Kai-shek had very good reasons for making such false instructions. The Japanese army greatly surpassed the Chinese army in terms of equipment, training, discipline, and command. Chiang Kai-shek's anti-war deployments were still in the initial stage. He hoped to complete these arrangements before counterattacking the Japanese army to make up for military deficiencies. First, he hoped to "eliminate the Communists" if things went well before dealing with the Japanese. On all these issues, the policies he instituted in 1931 failed miserably.This gave the Chinese people, intellectuals and warlords an obvious impression that Chiang Kai-shek was not going to fight against Japan, he just wanted the Chinese to fight the Chinese. Because of this, the Marshal detained him in Xi'an in 1936.The ignominious release and the dramatic appearance of Zhou Enlai made Chiang Kai-shek never forgive Zhang Xueliang, so he was imprisoned endlessly in the house, which was also a big mistake made by Chiang Kai-shek. Although Chiang Kai-shek was often the worst enemy in the way of his own success, he also had some truly formidable "legitimate" enemies. His fifth "suppression of communism" plan in 1934 thwarted the Red Army's experiment in Jiangxi, but Mao broke through his tight blockade and led the Red Army and their followers on a 6,000-mile march to Shaanxi Province in northwestern China.They not only continued to fight there but completely overthrew Chiang Kai-shek's rule on the mainland. For Chiang Kai-shek, the fifth "Communist Suppression" campaign was undoubtedly a victory, but in the long run, the significance of the Red Army's Long March shattered Chiang Kai-shek's victory.Therefore, this must also be counted as one of the reasons for Chiang Kai-shek's failure.On the win-loss evaluation form, this should be counted as a score for his opponent and not as a loss for him. The complete failure of the "encirclement and suppression" plan and the disastrous defeat in the Xi'an Incident left Chiang Kai-shek with no choice but to resist the Japanese, although he still wished for more time to prepare. I once had an argument with Japanese military writer Wu Zhimo. I think Chiang Kai-shek's strategy of buying time with a large retreat is correct and successful, but it has brought long-term political consequences that are not good for him, making large areas of land infiltrated by communist guerrillas , And showed the heroism of the anti-Japanese. At this time, the Kuomintang allowed the people to be trampled by the Japanese.Except for a few areas, such as Shanxi under the leadership of the "model chief" Yan Xishan, the KMT failed to build up a well-trained, successful and strong guerrilla army in most areas. As a result, by the end of the War of Resistance, Mao had established his own army in much of the north.Chiang Kai-shek's focus on large-scale strategy, and his concern with great power politics outside of China, neglected the "miniature wars" that enabled Mao and his followers to achieve their political and military Goals lay the groundwork. More than that, although Chiang Kai-shek's strategy seemed sound from the standpoint of military conventions and to the beleaguered senior Japanese generals, it had a deeply catastrophic feel on the part of the KMT. Despite all the hardships they endured in their transition to the interior in the face of brutal invaders, morale remained high during the early part of the war—from the summer of 1937 to the beginning of 1939.From the beginning of 1939, a kind of corruption emerged. The Kuomintang was isolated in Chongqing, an ill-adapted wartime capital with overcrowded and inconvenient public facilities and an unbearable climate.The Nationalist regime soon became rife with corruption, which became a way of life for high-ranking military officers and bureaucrats; mass conscription was outraged, and peasants in chains starved.The fact that the peasants - the vast majority of the Chinese population - were under threat of illness and death ruled out the slightest possibility of supporting Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang.In the end, huge inflation first appeared in Chongqing and reached the peak after the war, which brought endless disasters to the people and made the regime generally corrupt. Chiang Kai-shek's failure to recognize what was happening and to do nothing about it was a gross oversight on his part. Confident in his own moral integrity, he turns a blind eye to the scandalous enrichment of his family members and subordinates. The actions of the ruling Kuomintang happened to be exploited by its opponents and those who attacked it, and it was the Kuomintang regime itself that gave the communists the justification for their successful revolution and campaign against the Kuomintang.It must be pointed out that from the time of his visit to the Soviet Union at the end of 1923, Chiang Kai-shek had a fixed view of the international communist movement.He understood Lenin's views and the work of the Comintern better than most of his contemporaries, but later, his simplistic view of communism as monolithic got him into trouble, and he couldn't see the nationalism burning in Mao's heart flames. In the early days of the Sino-Japanese War, Stalin was willing to give some help to the Chiang Kai-shek government. The "Sino-Soviet Nonaggression Treaty" signed in August 1937 gave the Soviet Union some temporary benefits. It dragged the Japanese into the Chinese war and kept them away from the Soviet Far East, which was beneficial to the Soviet Union; from this time on, the Soviet Union Begins supplying arms and loans to Kuomintang China. According to Stalin's hope, Mao Zedong began to implement the policy of the united front, so that the Kuomintang and the Communist Party could achieve a temporary reconciliation.During this period, the worldwide propaganda organization of the Communist International spoke highly of Chiang Kai-shek, calling him a great national leader and international statesman. But the "Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Treaty" signed in April 1941 was a big blow to Kuomintang China, which allowed Japan to act freely in China in matters related to the Soviet Union. At this time, Stalin no longer wanted to establish the image of Chiang Kai-shek, and the caliber of the huge international propaganda system suddenly changed.At the same time, a false view was widely disseminated and almost universally accepted by Western editorial writers, commentators, and the general intellectual class: the Chinese Communist Party was not really communist at all, they were just agrarian reformers. The impact of this two-way propaganda is immeasurable, especially on American public opinion.The US embassy in China sent back messages from Chongqing and Nanjing respectively during the war and after the war to prove this point. Distorted views about the Communist Party became dogma accepted by the US State Department and the White House, while Chiang Kai-shek's own propaganda had little effect.Chiang's wife, Soong Meiling, carried out a lot of publicity in the United States in her private capacity for the benefit of her own regime and to win the support of the United States for her actions. Therefore, we can say that the Comintern, through its conscious and unconscious allies, played a large role in the Sino-US friction.It must be said that of course there have been some frictions between China and the United States. General Stilwell, who represented the United States in various senior positions in China from March 1942 to September 1944, soon turned against Chiang Kai-shek in general.After the United States was forced to enter the war - as a result of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor - Chiang Kai-shek returned to his old view that opposing the Japanese was relatively unimportant (since the US could do it for him) , and saving strength, preparing for a decisive battle with the Communist Party to seize power is the most important thing. Stilwell was not the only American who found Chiang's attitude incomprehensible and indeed intolerable.He telegraphed this idea to his superiors—President Roosevelt and General Marshall of the Department of Defense.The relationship between Chiang Kai-shek and the American allies became tense as a result.This divide was deepened by negative reporting by journalists in Chongqing and later in Nanking, and by the active efforts of the Communists and their fellow travelers to form a "united front" with the Americans and American organizations. At the Cairo Conference held in 1943, Roosevelt actively advocated the return of Taiwan to the Republic of China.He supported the large-scale defense war in Burma in the spring of 1944. The purpose of this defense war was to break the blockade against China; he also promised to support China in preventing the Soviet Union from seizing the Northeast after the war.As a condition, he got a promise from Chiang Kai-shek to solve domestic problems with the Communist Party. However, the US President was in Tehran with Stalin and Churchill (without Chiang Kai-shek) Further meetings were held.At the Tehran Conference, he assured the Soviet leaders that he would not fulfill the conditions he had promised Chiang Kai-shek, and in fact, the Americans did not fulfill any of the promises Roosevelt had made to Chiang Kai-shek at the Cairo Conference.At the Yalta Conference held in February 1945 to carve up spheres of influence, as a condition for Stalin to participate in the war against Japan, President Roosevelt agreed to Stalin's request for China's territorial sovereignty.The Soviet Union entered the war on time and occupied the Northeast.They allowed the CCP to occupy most of the countryside, preventing the Nationalist government from returning to the Northeast, and also sent large quantities of Japanese military equipment to the Communist forces. These actions in themselves—on Stalin's side, as well as on Roosevelt's—may have met their own needs, but made Chiang Kai-shek inevitable military defeat in the civil war. Moreover, Chiang Kai-shek compounded his misfortune by making some of the biggest mistakes of his life.Chiang Kai-shek himself failed to rein in the tyrannical methods his men used to rule the territories they occupied; ten years after the Xi'an Incident, he still brooded over what had happened to him, and he was hopeful that the young marshal would be released and Proposals to send him back to the Manchuria to secure Kuomintang rule were ignored, and Zhang Xueliang continued to be imprisoned instead; he disbanded the 300,000 puppet troops who had served the Japanese and freed them all in Manchuria, thus replenishing the strength of the Communists. None of the wise advice of the best strategists was adopted by Chiang Kai-shek.He probably should have done better retreating from the occupied Northeast and strengthening his hold on the South while he hoped to keep everything and every place forever.His army was overstretched, and he lost city after city, province after province.General Marshall's mission had worked on a never-attainable goal—reconciliation between the KMT and the Communist Party—and this effort not only failed but reduced Chiang Kai-shek's chances of maintaining mainland rule. The Soviet Union sent Japanese equipment to the Chinese Communist Party.This is a decisive force; and the United States is not far behind. From July 1946 to November 1948, it stopped aid to the Kuomintang, which was also a decisive blow to the Kuomintang.Between the United States and the Soviet Union, this unconsciously carried out decision put Chiang Kai-shek at a hopeless military disadvantage, and finally, demoralized and defeatist sentiments led to the collapse of Kuomintang rule. So, how do we evaluate Chiang Kai-shek's life?As a soldier, Chiang Kai-shek proved to be a major strategic decision maker during the civil wars of the 1920s and 1930s; he also demonstrated an understanding of strategy during the first phase of World War II. But his strategy was one of avoiding defeat, not one of winning.His overall defeat in the Civil War buried his military prestige. As a statesman and political leader, Chiang Kai-shek was a tactician rather than a strategist. He has a slight edge over his competitors and is good at controlling them. However, although he ruled a majority of the Chinese population, he actually did not understand the social basis of the entire regime. Worldwide, he knew the threat posed to him by the International Communist Movement, but he ruined himself by oversimplifying the issue and overpromoting himself. In terms of writing, he is not like other military politicians, because he does not have his own works and doctrines, but he provides the ideological basis for these works.His xenophobic thoughts run through the book "The Destiny of China".Neither ideologically nor historically, he was neither the founder nor anything remarkable. He doesn't know economics, and the ideas in his (ghost-written) homegrown "On Chinese Economics" are flashy and unsuccessful. Finally, summarize Chiang Kai-shek's life. Chiang Kai-shek has his own courage, energy and leadership qualities. He is not only a character with great flaws, but also a tragic figure in the sense of Greek tragedy.