Backed by the United States

Chiang and the Nationalists, were defeated and forced to evacuate the Chinese mainland for the island of Taiwan.

From 1911 to 1945, China experienced a revolution, a struggle against warlords, between the Nationalists and the Communists, and invasion by the Japanese.

He had little success in rallying Chinese nationalism

Chiang himself held dictatorial powers

they demanded an end to the civil war and a communist government

Chiang established a new Kuomintang government on Taiwan, but claimed he was still
the president of all China.

They only cared for city business interest and rural landlords, not the peasants

The government often punished peasants for participating in Mao’s land-distribution programs.

China began to adopt free-market reforms that introduced elements of capitalism
into its economy.

People’s Republic of China today has greatly improved
the standard of living

The battle for China,” he said, “is a battle for the hearts and minds of the peasants.”

He destroyed traditional landbord structure in the villages and replaced it with new peasant leadership under the control of the Chinese Communist Party

Thousands of historic Chinese sites and books were destroyed.

Peasants and laborers, who owned little or no land, met to force wealthy landlords to confess their bad treatment of the poor in the "struggle meetings"

Land reform built Mao’s peasant revolution to transform China into a Communist society. As he kept reminding his cadres, land reform was “the mother of all other work.”

transformed small guerilla bands into a modern conventional army capable of moving quickly to take advantage of the much larger but uncoordinated Nationalist armies.

As the Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, Mao possessed absolute power.