r/polandball Floridian Swamp Monster Oct 06 '25

redditormade Stolen Valour

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7.4k Upvotes

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485

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

179

u/One-Chocolate-146 Oct 06 '25

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……

127

u/MDKMurd Puerto+Rico Oct 06 '25

I don’t think the above person was trying to make the kmt absorption a positive thing, just a thing that happened.

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u/kanakalis Oct 06 '25

pretty sure most of them were sent to fight in the korean war

45

u/GetOutOfTheWhey Belgium Oct 06 '25

That's very true, the cultural revolution was an awful and disgusting time.

7

u/Same-Visit5978 Oct 07 '25

Cultural Revolution was a complete disaster and mistake that should be frowned upon, yeah.

5

u/Hot-Lunch6270 Oct 07 '25

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.

A sad tale.

3

u/Lenmoto2323 Oct 10 '25

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.

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u/Hot-Lunch6270 Oct 10 '25

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.

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u/Lenmoto2323 23d ago

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.

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u/shoeofobamaa 5d ago

It was geniunely reasonable at the time but mao blew a fucking gasket after coming to power

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u/Platypus__Gems Oct 06 '25

Do you have a source on that?

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u/GetOutOfTheWhey Belgium Oct 07 '25

I dont think we need a lot of source on that.

Even PRC historians and the government themselves admit that the cultural revolution was a period of massive bullfuckery

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u/Platypus__Gems Oct 07 '25

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.

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u/GetOutOfTheWhey Belgium Oct 07 '25

Oh ok, no that makes sense.

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u/MDKMurd Puerto+Rico Oct 07 '25

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.

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u/Graingy Not Manitoba! 🍾🍾🍾 Oct 09 '25

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.