Where Chiang Kai-shek Lost China: The Liao-Shen Campaign, 1948 (Twentieth-Century Battles) by Harold M. Tanner (PDF)

Description

“A masterful contribution not simply to the history of the civil war, but also to the history of 20th century China.” —Steven I. Levine author, Anvil of Victory: The Communist Revolution in Manchuria, 1945-1948) The civil war in China that ended in the 1949 victory of Mao Zedong’s Communist forces was a major blow to U.S. interests in the Far East and led to heated recriminations about how China was “lost.” Despite their significance, there have been few studies in English of the war’s major campaigns. The Liao-Shen Campaign was the final act in the struggle for control of China’s northeast. After the Soviet defeat of Japan in Manchuria, Communist Chinese and then Nationalist troops moved into this strategically important area. China’s largest industrial base and a major source of coal, Manchuria had extensive railways and key ports (both still under Soviet control). When American mediation over control of Manchuria failed, full-scale civil war broke out. By spring of 1946, Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist armies had occupied most of the southern, economically developed part of Manchuria, pushing Communist forces north of the Songhua (Sungari) River. But over the next two years, the tide would turn. The Communists isolated the Nationalist armies and mounted a major campaign aimed at destroying the Kuomintang forces. This is the story of that campaign and its outcome, which were to have such far-reaching consequences. “Where Chiang Kai-shek Lost China is more than a fluidly written battle narrative or operational history. By tapping an impressive array of archival materials, published document collections, and memoirs, Harold Tanner has put the Liao-Shen Campaign in the larger context of the Chinese Civil War and significantly advanced our understanding of the military history of modern China.” —Michigan War Studies Review

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐The author had done thorough research on the topic, and the book is both engaging and informative. As he espoused in the text, history is inevitably interpreted; just as the Chinese Communist historians took their own perspective, a western scholar like Professor Tanner is not value-free. Yet, his detailed accounts of Chiang Kai-shek’s inaptitude and corruption, Biao’ and Mao’s audacity, and more importantly the common Chinese Communist soldiers’ bravery are a joy to read and to remember.One question I was left wondering, and one Prof Tanner would have been more than well equipped to tackle, is why the American Imperialists (the author kept calling them this) keep insisting to support rotten stooges like CKS?

⭐Very nuanced discussion of a particular time in history, wonderfully organized narrative. I know very little about the Chinese civil war and found this a fascinating starting point

⭐Expecting an in-depth research work on the Russian support for the Chinese Communist forces. The Chinese civil war was basically a proxy war between America-supported Nationalist troops and Russia-supported Communist forces. Much is needed for such factors, as the most important factor, logistics and ammunition factors which played the crucial role in the outcomes of the war. It seems that America was intentionally ruining the Nationalist victory over communists after the first battle of Siping by “mediating”, so that the communists could gain crucial breathing time and receive supplies from Soviet Union.I personally anticipated a work on such proxy war factors and if possible, impacts from frameworks of Yalta Pact on later division of China along Taiwan Strait. Without analyses of such factors, we cannot gain a clear picture of how Chiang lost China.

⭐Dr. Harold Tanner has written an overall terrific book for anyone wishing to understand the early days of the Chinese Communist Party and the People’s Liberation Army. He provides great context to help lead into the important battles in Manchuria/northern China 1948. I find the book extremely well cited and detailed, providing insight into how CCP and KMT military leadership operated.While the book does offer discussion of Soviet and American interventions (or lack thereof), its overall intent is to discuss the adaptations that Lin Biao and his generals made, and the issues ongoing within the KMT, that led up to the KMT’s disastrous defeats in 1948. For example, the PLA was able to successfully shift from guerrilla/mobile warfare to the pitched, city-taking strategies seen at Jinzhou and Changchun. Meanwhile, the KMT repeatedly had issues with military commanders taking liberties in interpreting and executing Chiang’s directives. If you are interested in these types of issues and want to “get inside the heads” of CCP and KMT generals, this book is for you.The book does get a bit “academic” at times, but the main points in the bigger context were always clearly present. I appreciate and applaud Dr. Tanner in helping me gain a better understanding of the Chinese Civil War.

⭐For anyone interested in the Chinese Civil War, this excellent book is an essential reading. For the first time in English, Harold Tanner explains the poorly understood succession of campaigns in Manchuria that brought the Communists to power. Rather than simply detailing military operations, he puts them in the greater context of the Chinese way of war, informed by Sunzi and practiced by Mao Zedong, Lin Biao, and others. Tanner then goes on to describe the strategic ramifications. He also puts military operations in the context of communist grand strategy, whose key elements included: base areas, institution building, economic development, land reform, indoctrination, guerrilla operations, and conventional warfare. Tanner bases his research on an extensive reading of Chinese-language primary and secondary sources. The book is a tour de force.

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