Motivating the troops to fight Chiang was a key part of the reconditioning. This was mainly done through rallies at which soldiers were pushed to “speak bitterness.” Most had been poor peasants, and had histories of hunger and injustice. Bitter memories were stirred up, bringing out personal traumas. The crowds became febrile. A report to Mao said that one soldier had burst out at a rally with such a storm of grief and anger that “he passed out. And when he came to, he never recovered sanity and is now an idiot.” When the rallies reached their emotional climax, the Party would tell the inflamed crowds that they were now fighting to “take revenge on Chiang Kai-shek,” whose regime was the source of all their woes. The soldiers thus found personal motivation to fight. People who went through the process testify to its effectiveness, even though they find this hard to believe when they reflect in a calmer state of mind.
Many, however, declined to be psyched up, and some made skeptical remarks. They quickly found themselves condemned as members of “the exploiting classes,” and joined the ranks of those destined for “cleansing.”
The military training was as intensive as the political reorientation. Here, the Russians were indispensable. When the first Chinese Red units arrived in Manchuria, the Russians had taken some of them for bandits. They did not look like regular troops, and could not handle modern weapons. During the truce, the Russians opened at least sixteen major military institutions, including air force, artillery and engineering schools. Many Chinese officers went to Russia for training, and others to the Russian enclaves of Port Arthur and Dalian. These two ports that Stalin had acquired at Yalta now also served as sanctuaries for Mao’s shattered units and cadres in southern Manchuria; here they were given refuge, trained and rearmed.
Moscow’s arming of Mao accelerated. The Russians transferred some 900 Japanese aircraft, 700 tanks, more than 3,700 artillery pieces, mortars and grenade-launchers, nearly 12,000 machine-guns, plus the sizeable Sungari River flotilla, as well as numerous armored cars and anti-aircraft guns, and hundreds of thousands of rifles. More than 2,000 wagonloads of arms and war matériel came by rail from North Korea, which had housed major Japanese arsenals, and more captured Japanese weapons arrived from Outer Mongolia. Russian-made arms were also shipped in, plus captured German weapons with the markings chiseled out, which the Reds then pretended were captured American arms.
In addition, the Russians secretly transferred tens of thousands of Japanese POWs to the CCP. These troops played a major role in turning the ragtag Communist army into a formidable battle machine, and were crucial in training Red forces to use the Japanese arms on which they chiefly depended, as well as for servicing and repairing these weapons. It was Japanese, too, who founded the CCP air force, with Japanese pilots serving as flight instructors. Thousands of well-trained Japanese medical staff brought the Red wounded a new level of professional and much-welcomed treatment. Some Japanese troops even took part in combat operations.
Another vital factor was Soviet-occupied North Korea. From there the Russians supplied not only arms but also a Japanese-and Russian-trained contingent of 200,000 hardened Korean regulars. In addition, with its 800-km border with Manchuria, North Korea became what the CCP called “our clandestine rear” and bolthole. In June 1946, when they were on the run, the Chinese Reds moved troops, wounded and matériel there. As the Nationalists took much of central Manchuria, splitting the Red forces in two, the Communists were able to use North Korea as a link between their forces in north and south Manchuria, and between Manchuria and the east coast of China, particularly the vital province of Shandong. To supervise this vast transportation complex, the CCP set up offices in Pyongyang and four Korean ports.
By no means the least of the Russians’ contributions was to get the railway system running. Once the northern Manchuria base was consolidated, in late 1946, a team of Russian experts restored the extensive railway network in Mao’s territory and had it linked with Russia by spring 1947. In June 1948, when Mao’s army was preparing for its final push to take all Manchuria, Stalin sent his former railways minister, Ivan Kovalev, to oversee the work. Altogether, the Russians supervised the repair of more than 10,000 km of track and 120 major bridges. This railway system was critical in allowing the Communists to move vast numbers of troops, and heavy artillery, at speed, to attack the main cities that autumn.
