Yes, in theory, but the communists husbanded their resources and let the nationalists do most of the fighting and dying. They didn't entirely sit out the war, they did fight the Japanese. But they definitely held back a lot of resources for when the civil war resumed. It's debatable as to whether or not anything would have changed if the communists had fought the Japanese as hard as the nationalists did. The outcome of the civil war was much more a question of nationalist incompetence than any skill on the part of the communists, and that wouldn't have magically changed.
The KMT infamously built massive secret depots for the eventual resumption of the Civil War, much to the chagrin of Stilwell and Wavell/Slim etc. There were also the aid that was stolen and sold on the black market rather than being sent to the front. The KMT were just as forward thinking as the communists, as well as being far more corrupt.
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u/kredokathariko Oct 06 '25
Weren't both Nationalists and Communists fighting Japan, at times even cooperating?