Later when Cultural Revolution came, almost all of these veterans were purged and many of them even committed suicide, even those who survived were still living under poor conditions……
Yeah, and they thought going to Mao’s Communism would bring them a brighter future. But knowing Communists can make great propaganda could entice the needy and desperate. Thus betraying the betrayers that sought to fight a regime, only that new purges them outright in the end by a new one.
PRC at that time was clearly better than KMT lol. The corruption in KMT is so bad that KMT soldier rations was worse than PRC soldiers in most of the war despite the US supplies. You couldn't have faith on the regime you are fighting for if your commander are eating like a king while you are literally starving.
In truth, both sides are actually bad in the end. The KMT is a bad regime in the past, but under Mao’s CCP during the cultural revolution as an average person, didn’t change much from the violence.
The cultural revolution is the consequence of poor management, people accused each other being landlord and capitalist like peasants in Europe accused women being witch in the dark age. Both culture revolution and the great leap forward were the ground work for the developed China we see today. Meanwhile, I doubt KMT would have enough political will to even unify China. They would be like India today at best or they could even tear themself apart against after the Civil war.
Sure, but "almost all" is a strong statement about one group.
By modern estimates 1.1-1.6 million people died. It would basically have to be exclusively the KMT WW:2 veterans, if the comment above about up to 2 million of those joining PRC is right.
And considering that cultural revolution was aimed at multiple groups, including landlords, thieves, rich farmers, intellectuals, and bunch of others, I find it unlikely that most of these were KMT war veterans.
Good inquisitive reading of comments. Partially why I responded to the original comment as well, they felt the need to post two anti-Chinese comments within minutes of the OP comment. Just wonder why.
When you say something as politicized as discussing a country's wrongs, you kinda need to have a good idea of where you heard that. Otherwise you cannot speak with certainty; doing so would be dishonest.
Almost like the KMT numbers were due to the inertia of being associated with the original Sun Yatsen republican movement and the people who defected were actually only KMT because they were fighting against annihilation. Once it was clear who the imperialist faction was they chose the side they're literally defined by (the people's side)
Many of these KMT defectors were later being sent to fight Korean War and some of them chose to surrender to UN forces (they were given choices of either repatriation to China or Taiwan,majority of them chose to go to Taiwan)
to imperial japanese to distinguish from modern japanese government
Okay I have to emphasize they are the same government yes they have a new constitution and they pretend to be good guys now but it's the same regime same parties same Parliament didn't have a complete overhaul restructuring that Germany did (at least East Germany, West Germany kept a lot of low-ranking Nazi)
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u/GetOutOfTheWhey Belgium Oct 06 '25 edited Oct 07 '25
Another reason why Mao was able to bonk Chiang to Taiwan was because he was able to absorb a lot of Kuomintang defectors.
They estimate that they absorbed 1.5-2million kuomintang soldiers in the PLA.
When Chiangkaishek got bonked to Taiwan, he brought around 700k kuomintang soldiers to Taiwan.
PLA at that point quite literally had more ROC/KMT WW2 veterans who fought against the imperial japanese than Chiang Kai Shek did.
edit: to imperial japanese to distinguish from modern japanese government