Assignment 5

Even though the Communist Party eventually won the Chinese Civil War that lasted from 1926 to 1950, different versions of the Civil War’s history have been written by both the Nationalist and the Communist Parties. In the China Mainland, where the Communist Regime is the government, the tales of the Civil War are mainly made up of all the glories and victories of the Communist Commanders. Likewise, in Taiwan where the Nationalist takes the rein of power, the stories of the Civil War somehow become a series of heroic and victorious tales that nevertheless ends in a glorious defeat and retreat. The true account of the Civil War, however, remains obscure, and while the two sides of the Taiwanese Strait are still holding firmly on their own versions of the history, not many people have actually considered to find out the truth back to that chaotic era.

Born in Taiwan and spent my early childhood with a Nationalist grandfather who once commanded in the Chinese Civil War, I undoubtedly was informed of the Nationalist version of the history. I held it to be absolute and unquestionable (Of course, I did not know it could be questioned) until I visited China Mainland on a business trip with my family. We stayed in the Chinese Capital, Beijing, for approximately half a year, and in the mean time I learnt a great deal of “the other side” of the story or, to put it more correctly, the winner’s interpretation of history

In the Communist version of the Chinese Civil War, the Nationalist Party as well its soldiers was a gathering of selfish and corrupted people. According to the Communist, the high officials of the Nationalist Government were only seeking for their own benefits and thus took away the civilians’ profits and harvests. Also, the Nationalist soldiers were mainly looting people along the way throughout the Civil War. As a result, the goal of the Communist Party was a holy one: to liberate the people from endless suffering under the Nationalist Regime. The Communist soldiers acted bravely on the people’s side and taught the poor, the rural people, and those who lived in the remote areas essential knowledge such as writing and reading. They also helped to build irrigation, harvest, and most important of all, redistribute wealth for the impoverished farmers and workers. In short, the Communist was portrayed to be the very symbol of justice while the Nationalist was the source of all that evil and unjust.

The same history, in the Nationalist version, forms a sharp contrast with the Communist one, even though it took place in the same space and time with the same people involved. In this version, the Communist Party was a hodgepodge of criminals, robbers, thieves, and some power-thirsty hypocrites. In the name of fighting against Capitalism as well as building a perfect Marxist paradise of the poor, the Communist made empty promises and exploited the wealth of the civilians for their own profits. They conducted a multitude of looting, enslaving, and unfair trials before and after they came to power, while the Nationalist, despite their eventual loss, fought bravely against the Communist and had the people’s support. Unfortunately, as the story goes, the Communist was backed by the Soviet Union and the Nationalist was weakened by the previous war against the invading Japanese forces, so the Civil War ended in the Nationalist’s final defeat and retreat. The retreat to Taiwan, interestingly, was termed “migration”, and it was still a glorious event in which the selfless Nationalist soldiers helped the civilians from boarding the leaving ships to rebuild their households in Taiwan.

Facing an apparently contradicted “fact” of a history half a century ago, I have nothing but to say that maybe both accounts of the Civil War are true and false. Both the Communist and the Nationalist have omitted the dishonored aspects of their pasts while adding more dramatic effects to the glorified parts of the very same history. The result, as we see, is a distorted account of truth that will hardly be uncovered again.