Civil War, Victory, and the Proclamation of the People's Republic (1945-1949)

Japan's surrender in August 1945 immediately reignited the struggle for China between Nationalists and Communists. The Soviet Union handed Manchuria's captured Japanese weapons over to the communist People's Liberation Army, while the United States provided the Kuomintang with substantial economic and military aid and General George Marshall led a mediation mission (1945-1947) that failed to prevent all-out war. The CCP implemented radical land reform in the territories it controlled, winning enormous peasant support, while hyperinflation, corruption, and administrative incompetence steadily destroyed the legitimacy of Chiang Kai-shek's government between 1945 and 1949.