ABSTRACT
In military terms, it had an industrial base for the eventual manufacture of its own weapons and could welcome back groups from the Maritime Provinces who had served in the Russian armed services, including technicians and pilots. Although Mao was still fighting the Nationalists he allowed the Korean partisans based at Yan'an to go home, in return for which, when Lin Piao's forces in Manchuria were defeated by the Nationalists in 1946, the North Koreans provided them with bases and aid, which Mao would later remember with gratitude.
