%0 Journal Article
%T Apparently asymmetric symmetric war
%A Polit, Jakub
%J History Notebooks
%V 2016
%R 10.4467/20844069PH.16.041.5343
%N Issue 143 (4)
%P 789-804
%K China, Civil War 1946–1949, symmetric war, Communists, Nationalists
%@ 0083-4351
%D 2016
%U https://ejournals.eu/en/journal/prace-historyczne/article/pozornie-asymetryczna-wojna-symetryczna-chinska-wojna-domowa-1946-1949
%X 
	The Chinese Civil War of 1946–1949 is treated as a typical example of an asymmetric war. The peasant guerilla, led by the Communists, weakly armed but fuelled by the hope for the division of landowners’ lands, was to defeat the regular army of Kuomintang (KMT), fully armed by the USA. The Nationalists were to be constantly supported by Washington. The Communists were to act alone. However, in light of the sources this image cannot be maintained. In fact, the war in China was a conventional conflict between two armies of comparable size. Both of them were formed as a result of compulsory draft. Both had been equipped with the help of an outside ally. However, the support of the USA for the KMT was all the time limited, and in the decisive period of 1946–1947 Washington put an embargo on the sale of weapons to China. It hit the KMT only, as the Communists were all the time supplied by Moscow, mainly from the Japanese stockpiles won in Manchuria. The agrarian question influenced the conflict in a negligible way, whereas the Communist secret service deeply penetrated the enemy’s command. It is not true that soldiers and officers of the KMT (apart from the mentioned agents) en masse went over to the Communist side. The fate of China was decided not by the political sympathies of the citizens, but by the results of battles.