The Chinese Civil War was a formative phase in the history of modern China. The conflict was comprised of two opposing parties: The Kuomintang (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The two parties were allies during World War II, due to the impending threat of the Chinese, but they had been in conflict with one another since before the war, and the conflicts arose again afterwards. The KMT was led by Chiang Kai-shek, and the group was widely known as the Nationalist party, or the capitalists. The CCP was led by Mao Zedong, and, as their name suggests, the CCP advocated Communism in both government and economy. These opposing views led to clashes, but the KMT were the more popular and more powerful of the two parties for the majority of the war. Chiang Kai-shek regularly ordered attacks on the CCP both before and during the war, but the fight against the Japanese took its toll on the strength of the KMT, as Mao and the CCP let the capitalists do most of the fighting, as Mao took on a role as a man of the people, ordering Communist soldiers to be respectful of civilians they encountered. He had them be respectful of women and personal property, and also to perform such common courtesies as paying for food. Essentially, as the KMT was losing men, and therefore support, Mao and the CCP were gathering followers and expanding.
After World War II came to a close, the KMT and CCP continued fighting. The KMT appeared to still have power, even capturing one of the main CCP bases of operations at Yan’an, but Mao’s work during war payed off. Mao spoke of land reform policies, which made the CCP popular with the lower class, as the KMT policies were capitalist, and therefore skewed towards the upper-middle class and tended towards corruption (at least in the eyes of the peasants). Mao now had the power to “mobilize hundreds of thousands of peasants for his military campaigns” (Chinese Revolution and Civil War: Nationalists). These huge numbers proved to be an asset, shown in 1949, when the CCP captured Nanjing, the KMT base of operations. The capitalists were forced to retreat, and were subsequently pushed further and further by the communists that they eventually ended up in Taiwan, or, as they call it, the Republic of China (ROC). Mao then took over in mainland China, declaring it the People’s Republic of China (PRC). However, the goals of the PRC, while admirable and ethically commendable in idea, were less than desirable in reality.