ABSTRACT
The communist victory in the Chinese Civil War was attributed, by Chinese as well as foreign analysts, to the specific strategy of the communists. Four decades later calling collectivization and communist agricultural policy a success may seem overly generous, but in 1945-9 there is no doubting that peasant mobilization in North China greatly facilitated communist military operations. Nationalist military supported itself by direct confiscation, in the warlord manner, and Nationalist government agencies were increasingly paid in kind as the inflation wrecked the money economy. Nationalist political and economic failures contributed to the sense that they had lost the Mandate of Heaven in traditional terms, so that there was little chance of holding out south of the Yangtze, as had occurred in earlier periods of Chinese history. Prior to the Boxer Rebellion, Chinese reform efforts had been partial and sporadic, and had resulted in the creation of partially modernized armies and a limited industrial infrastructure to support them.
