7 MIN READ - The Cautious Optimism Correspondent for Economic Affairs continues with his analysis of the Chinese Civil War, this time detailing how Soviet intervention and deception aided Mao Zedong’s communist victory.
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| Together at last: Mao and Stalin |
In our last column we discussed American intervention’s role in providing the Chinese Communists a victory over Chiang Kai-shek’s seemingly larger and superior Nationalist (KMT) army. Both U.S. President Harry Truman and diplomatic envoy General George C. Marshall believed communist appeals for peace and democracy—all while the CCP broke every pledge it made—and tied Chiang Kai-shek’s hands with an arms embargo to pressure the Nationalist government into the same level of cooperation Mao Zedong’s communists professed to offer.
You can go back and read details of that sad story at:
https://www.cautiouseconomics.com/2025/10/china-history42.html
In this column we’ll discuss the role Joseph Stalin and the USSR played, aiding and supplying the Chinese Communists in a move that, unbelievably enough, took the U.S. government by surprise.
HELPING THE CCP?
To understand why Soviet support for Mao Zedong was a surprise to the U.S.—although it shouldn’t have been for more keen leadership—it’s helpful to remember that for eighteen years, from Chiang Kai-shek’s 1927 purge of the CCP to the closing months of World War II, Stalin had worked to keep Chiang in power and curbed Mao’s attempts to overthrow the Nationalist government.
Although fellow communist Mao may have seemed an obvious choice for Soviet backing, Stalin’s near-two decade pro-Chiang policy was a textbook case of rigid realpolitik and Soviet national security trumping ideological kinship.
The reason? Stalin’s primary concern from 1927 to 1945 was the Japanese threat to his east.
Ever since the 1905 Russo-Japanese war, when Japan defeated Imperial Russia and seized large tracts of Russian land and the port city of Dalian, Moscow viewed the Japanese as a constant threat. When Japan invaded and occupied all of Manchuria (1931) the Soviets suddenly found themselves with a new 2,600 mile border to defend as well.
Stalin’s mindset of Japanese treachery was on display during his Great Purge (1936-1938) during which many high ranking Soviet Communist Party officials were arrested, falsely tried, and executed on charges of Japanese espionage.
Since Chiang Kai-shek had control of the Chinese government and a large national army, but Mao Zedong had only a handful of rebel troops fighting a guerilla war, Stalin always favored Chiang who he viewed as more capable of resisting further Japanese incursions into China.
Thus for nearly two decades Chiang enjoyed a good working relationship with the Soviet leader, much to Mao’s irritation, until Japan was defeated by the Allies in 1945.
Once Japan was removed as a major threat, Stalin’s China policy changed completely because he no longer needed Chiang Kai-shek’s strong Chinese government. The benefits of a communist China to Russia’s south now seemed far more attractive. In the final year of the war Stalin’s allegiances changed and he shifted support from Chiang to the more ideologically inclined Mao, albeit quietly to avoid alerting either the Nationalist leader or his American allies.
SOVIET PROMISES
By early 1945 it was clear that Japan would lose the war and the “Big Three” of Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin began shaping their vision of a postwar Asia.
At the Yalta Conference (February, 1945) the Soviet delegation agreed to nearly all of Roosevelt’s China policy proposals. This primarily meant getting the USSR into the Pacific War by invading Manchuria within three months of Germany’s ostensibly inevitable surrender, thereby taking pressure off a prospective American invasion of the Japanese home islands. The Soviets also agreed to support a democratic power-sharing Nationalist/communist postwar government in China.
Stalin also pledged that until democracy was established in China “the Government of the USSR” would support only the central Nationalist government, but his language was deliberately worded to allow a backdoor loophole by which non-government bodies could still aid the Communists, such as the Soviet Communist Party or Comintern (Communist International).
When probed about possible Soviet sympathies for the Chinese communists, Stalin assured Roosevelt that Mao’s rebels were “not real communists,” referring to them as “radishes.” Besides, State Department officials told Roosevelt, the USSR was exhausted from years of war with Nazi Germany and eager to cooperate peacefully in world reconstruction with the global powers, not spreading global communist revolution.
The Americans were pleased with Soviet pledges, nearly all of which Moscow would violate in practice. Immediately after the Yalta meeting Stalin sent a secret cable to Mao Zedong instructing him to await Soviet support in overthrowing Chiang Kai-shek’s government while trumpeting “the Red Army is coming!”
ACTIONS, NOT WORDS
The Soviet Union invaded Manchuria on August 9, 1945. The Red Army’s 1.5 million troops easily overran Japan’s dilapidated Kwantung Army, Japan announced its surrender on August 15th, and the USSR had full control of the region in just eleven days.
During the temporary Soviet occupation Stalin also agreed that Japanese armies, POW’s, and puppet POW’s in Manchuria would only surrender to KMT troops, not to Mao’s communist army. However the Nationalist Army had insufficient railroad and truck capacity to transport enough troops to Manchuria; partly due to war damage, partly due to Nationalist corruption that misallocated funds, and into 1946 partly due to an arms embargo imposed by Harry Truman.
Therefore Chiang requested that the U.S. transport 400,000-500,000 KMT troops to Manchuria by ship which U.S. Lt. General Albert Wedemeyer arranged, reaching as far as just south of the Great Wall’s ocean terminus.
However when the USA tried to drop 200,000 KMT troops off at the large Manchurian port of Dalian the Soviets advised that, due to a technical clause in their 1905 treaty with Japan, the port could not be used for military purposes during peacetime.
After rejecting two more American requests to dock at Dalian Soviet General Rodion Malinovsky recommended the U.S. land at two small Manchurian ports further north. Once the American ships arrived they found the Soviets had already moved out and the docks were heavily fortified by Chinese communist troops. The Soviets refused to guarantee the safe landing of American vessels since their official position was “not to interfere in Chinese internal affairs”—all of course while they were quietly handing Japanese POW’s and Chinese puppet POW’s over to the CCP and arming Mao throughout Manchuria.
After months wasted sailing up and down the Chinese coastline the KMT troops had to be dropped off just south of the Great Wall again.
Chiang viewed all these Soviet activities as treachery and deception, but U.S. diplomatic envoy George C. Marshall continued to press forward with his idea of a Nationalist-Communist democratic coalition government.
Meanwhile the Soviets, who had pledged not to interact with or support Chinese communist soldiers, were asked by the U.S. State Department to confirm the Red Army was keeping its word. In response the Soviets reported they had not encountered any Chinese Communists in Manchuria at all, when in fact they were actively arming and supplying them, building up garrisons and fortifications for CCP use, and constructing a massive supply pipeline from Siberia into the Manchurian northeast.
During this time the CIA and its predecessor, the Central Intelligence Group, consistently reported that the Soviet Union was providing no aid of any kind to the Chinese Communists.
As we’ve discussed in previous columns, by the time widespread fighting began between the KMT and CCP, Soviet support had largely closed the Nationalist advantage in weaponry. Meanwhile Chiang Kai-shek suffered from a lack of supplies due to the one-year arms embargo imposed on his government by Harry Truman.
Even when the embargo was lifted, and the Nationalist government tried to buy more weapons, the U.S. had scant few to sell them due to its wholesale military surplus demolition in the Pacific. All the while Soviet material aid continued to pour into Manchuria, strengthening the Chinese Communists further and helping them gain the upper hand by late 1948.
In the last days of the civil war Stalin still remained focused on deception as a tool to neutralize any threat to his goal of achieving Chinese communism.
As the CCP’s position became insurmountable the Communists, who had previously flattered Marshall, praised the American delegation, and telegraphed warm sentiments to the State Department and the White House, abruptly shifted to a belligerent and contemptuous tone towards the Americans. As the Communists captured major Chinese cities they seized and openly looted American consulate buildings, even arresting some State Department officials.
Mao informed Stalin of this new anti-American policy, dubbed “cleaning house before entertaining guests.” Stalin, fearing angering the U.S. and providing a pretext for American intervention, ordered Mao to suspend his ransacking of U.S. buildings until the PLA had consolidated its gains and established total military control of the mainland.
Once the CCP victory was complete the Communists safely recommenced their public disdain for the Americans.
Just as they had been fooled by the Chinese Communists, the U.S. government was also duped by promises of peaceful cooperation and Chinese democracy from Stalin. Both the Chinese and Soviet communists lied repeatedly to American government officials, pledging no civil war in China while in fact Mao and Stalin cooperated clandestinely towards that very goal.
The Economics Correspondent credits much of the material in both the American and Soviet intervention chapters to the late historian Jay Taylor's book "The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China." Taylor's biography of Chiang's son, also succeeding Taiwan president, is an equally fascinating read: "The Generalissimo's Son: Chiang Ching-kuo and the Revolutions in China and Taiwan."
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