Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 36, Number 16. 12th July 1973
Army Related to the People
Army Related to the People
Only one other foreigner was in the area at the time and they both reached the same conclusions about the conditions then prevailing. The mobile Communist army could defeat the Japanese and above all it had the support of the people. "The Army did all the things that you read in Mao's comments". It moved in the countryside and organised the people. When they moved in the people did not take to the hills as they did when Chiang Kai Shek's forces arrived.
Unlike the nationalist army which had become corrupt in the warlord period, Mao's forces stole nothing from the people for they were an altogether new style of army. They discussed all plans in detail at all levels. "I'd never met anything like this before" said Bertram.
In 1938, while Chiang Kai Shek's forces were being rolled back, Bertram went shouth to Hanchow. In Hong Kong he formed the China Defence League to get medical supplies to the north west area. After travelling to England to win support he returned in 1939 to Hong Kong. Meanwhile all supplies for the 'united front' was going to Chiang Kai Shek's forces, one convoy of supplies for the north west ended up in Haiphong.
The war then broke out over a much wider front and Bertram returned to New Zealand, continuing to do further work for the Chinese Defence League. The direction of the Japanese war effort changed to Manchuria and northern China. The United Front came under stress with Chaing Kai Shek keeping his best troops away from the front to blockade the 8th Route Army. The troops 'guarded' trucks from Russia so that material did not reach the Communist forces.
At the end of the war the Kuomintang appeared to have the upper hand for on paper the Communists had no supplies. Civil war broke out with "America thinking Mao had only a few months". Chiang moved into Yenan after the Communists had voluntarily left the area. But, for all their foreign aid, the armies of the Kuomintang exposed their military incapacity even more than against the Japanese.
As for the inevitable clash between Mao Tsetung and Chiang Kai Shek, Professor Bertram put it aptly: "History has given its verdict."