Chinese Communists

The Chinese Communists under Mao Tse-tung fought a brutal three-way war with the Japanese and the Kuomintang. Driven to the mountains of Shensi Province by Chiang Kai-shek before the war, and cynically abandoned by Stalin, they fought alone until Allied victory in the Pacific changed Stalin's attitude and brought renewed Russian support. They would then seize control of all of China except Formosa and usher in a reign of terror (the Great Cultural Revolution) that was among the worst the world has ever seen.

The actual contribution of the Chinese Communists to Allied victory remains difficult to assess. This is partly because of their isolation during the war years, and partly because neither they, the Kuomintang, nor the Japanese had much interest in keeping an accurate account. Reports of the skill and success of Communist guerrillas against the Japanese may have been exaggerated to excuse their subsequent success against the Kuomintang.

However, Chang and Halliday have recently made the case that the Communist contribution to fighting the Japanese was negligible. They conclude that Mao never had any intention of engaging in serious fighting against the Japanese. His policy was to wait for the Japanese to clear an area of Kuomintang forces, then move into the vacuum behind the front line. He commented that "The more land Japan took, the better." The Communists appear to have fought just two significant actions in eight years of Japanese incursion. These were an ambush of a column of 5 Division at Pingxingguan, and the Hundred Regiments Offensive in August 1940. Both were carried out against Mao's wishes. The Hundred Regiments Offensive managed to greatly annoy the Japanese, who responded by killing 90,000 Communist troops and unleashing the Three Alls on northern China: "Kill all, loot all, burn all."

The bottom line is that there is little evidence that the Communists fought against anyone but the Kuomintang during the Pacific War.

Order of battle, 7 December 1941:

People's Liberation Army (Mao Tse-tung; at Yanan)
	Eighth Route Army (Chu Teh; in Shansi province)		Claimed to have grown from 80,000 to 600,000 troops during the war. Chu Teh, who was not trusted by Mao, was largely a figurehead; de facto command was exercised by his deputy, Peng Dehuai.
		115 Division (Lin Biao)	Ambushed and nearly annihilated 5 Division in 1937 at Pingxingguan
		120 Division (Ho Lung)
		129 Division (Liu Po-ch'eng)
	New Fourth Army (Chen Yi; in Fukien and Kiangsi provinces)		Ordered north of the Yellow River by Chiang in 1940. This resulted in clashes with the Kuomintang and the end of effective cooperation betweeen the Kuomintang and the Communists.

References

Chang and Halliday (2005)

Dorn (1974)

Dunnigan and Nofi (1998)

Sih (1977)

Wilson (1982)