Communist areas in 1934 Mountains Route of the Long March Great Snow Mountains Mao s Route Yan an October 1935 Yangtze R The Great Wall Xian SHAANXI 4th army route Chonging NUBEI HUNAN Beijing Yellow R Nanjing JIANGXI Yangtze R FUJIAN October 1934 3 Shanghai East China sea TAIWAN Figure 1 2 The route of the Long March The Spirit of Yan an Here as in their earlier soviets in the provinces of Jiangxi and Hubei the Communists began to carry out the reforms that had made them popular Such policies won them new recruits and they were also reinforced by other Communist forces that had escaped from the south As a result their Red Army soon numbered over 80000 n 1937 Japan invaded China so beginning the Second Sino Japanese Var though Japanese incursions into northern China had been creasing since their seizure of the Chinese province of Manchuria 1931 As Jiang had been much more concerned to destroy the CP GMD forces had done little to oppose these Japanese incursions Owever the CCP s Red Army had soon used their guerrilla tactics to st the Japanese a consequence despite suffering further losses the CCP s Red Army ed much support from the peasants eventually in December 1936 g s own troops had forced him to form a United Front with the Introduction Communists against the Japanese invaders However Jiang turned once again on the Communists in 1938 In later years the Spirit of Yan an and the Long March were frequently invoked to remind the Party and the people of the sufferings sacrifices and heroism of the first generation leaders of the CCP The final stages of the Civil War After Japan s surrender and the end of the Second World War in 1945 Mao s Red Army was re organised as the People s Liberation Army PLA and in December 1945 a truce between the GMD and the CCP had been arranged by the US and the Soviet Union Mao s earlier resentment of the Soviet Union s attempts to advise the CCP on what tactics to adopt in the civil war was increased by the pressure that Stalin partly as a result of his agreements with the US and the West about spheres of influence placed on the CCP to form a coalition government with the GMD However civil war broke out again in 1946 when Jiang launched a major offensive against the Communists Despite US aid to the GMD the Communists were strong enough by 1948 to move from guerrilla warfare to direct attacks on Jiang s armies During 1948 49 large numbers of GMD troops then began to desert to the PLA and Jiang even lost control of Nanjing his capital Eventually in October 1949 Mao and the CCP were able to claim victory and announce the formation of the People s Republic of China PRC Government in China today Communist China still officially known as the People s Republic of China PRC is a one party state run by the Chinese Communist Party CCP In theory power is shared between the CCP the People s Government and the People s Liberation Army PLA Although the CCP did have a General Secretary at first the most important Party post in practice was that of Party Chairman the first one being Mao Zedong who held the post until his death in 1976 This post however was later abolished under Deng Xiaoping and the role of General Secretary became more important The CCP also has a Politburo which contains the top leaders of the CCP and a Central Committee The Politburo s smaller Standing Committee meets almost continually and comprises the most powerful and influential leaders Th government known as the State Council is headed by a premier