THE CHINESE COMMUNISTS HAD LOST?

What was the situation in China leading up to the communist takeover in 1949?

China, on the eve of the communist takeover, was in terrible shape. The ruling KMT [Nationalist Party] government had descended into corruption on many levels and there was galloping inflation. China, of course, had been very hard hit by the Japanese invasion that began in the late-1930s. That had ended only in 1945 and so it was still a war-torn country, impoverished, with tremendous inequality, political disorder and poor public health. There was a great deal of unhappiness on the part of many different sectors of the population with respect to the KMT regime. Initially, when the nationalists unified China in 1927 1928, there was considerable hope that they would really usher in a kind of new age for China. However, after the Japanese invasion more and more people,