Pause is not peace
1937-45 did not cancel 1927.
Darker cells mean a higher score for this topic on that metric.
Scale72
Intensity76
Duration65
Tech shift40
Political impact88
Cultural memory52
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Quick answers
Are the scores a ranking of nations or armies?
No. Scores are browsing aids inside an era-bounded atlas — not live league tables of countries.
How many died?
A wide band, often about 6-10 million for civil-war related deaths across phases, overlapping the Japanese war and postwar campaigns. Treat any single number as a false census.
Did Japan pause the civil war?
It forced a united front and moved the main enemy, but both parties positioned for the next round. 1945 was a restart, not a blank slate.
Why did the Communists win?
Rural organisation, KMT inflation and corruption, Manchurian campaigns, and a more coherent political-military command. US aid was real and insufficient to offset legitimacy collapse.
What happened on 1 October 1949?
Mao proclaimed the PRC in Beijing. The ROC government relocated to Taipei. Both claimed to be the government of China.
How does this connect to the Korean War?
The new PRC intervened in Korea in October 1950. The US interposed the Seventh Fleet in the Strait, blocking an immediate Taiwan campaign.
The Long March was a retreat. The three campaigns were a conventional annihilation of KMT main force. Both belong; they are not the same kind of campaign.
Crossing the Yangtze was political theatre as well as an operation -- the capital fell in the newsreels.
Principles
Legitimacy is logistics plus justice
Inflation can lose a war.
Rear areas decide
North China bases outgrew Chongqing's prestige.
Foreign aid is not a state
US equipment without a political compact failed.
Founding dates hide leftovers
1949 left a second government and a later Korean sequel.
Steps
- Alliance and split
United front, then 1927.
Sharing a march is not sharing a state.
- Rural survival
Soviets, encirclement, Long March.
A remnant can outlast a purge.
- Anti-Japanese interval
United front again; expansion in the rear.
A larger enemy can be a political opportunity.
- Failed mediation
Marshall 1945-47.
Great-power talks cannot invent a coalition.
- Conventional finish
Three campaigns, Yangtze, PRC.
Guerrilla parties can end as field armies.
- Leftover state
Taiwan, 1950 Fleet, long standoff.
Victory on a mainland can still leave a second capital.
Diagrams
1927-37 / 1937-45 / 1945-49 as three bars, one conflict.
Liaoshen-Huaihai-Pingjin as the end-game set.
Limits
Overlapping death counts
Japan war and civil war share years and victims.
PRC and ROC archives
Still political; figures stay in bands.
No live plan
Strait history is not an invasion manual.
Campaign names here are history. They are not a guide to fighting a civil war.
Urban uprisings in 1949 often followed military collapse, not the other way around.