Chapter 89 Soviet troops help Japanese forces in war 1945-1949

Journalist: “How did you defeat the Northeast?”

Mao: “With the help of the Soviet Union! When my troops entered the Northeast, they could not use modern weapons, and the Soviets thought we were bandits. During the cease-fire, the Soviets opened 16 military schools for the air force, artillery, and engineers. Chinese Communist officers also went to the Soviet Union for training, some to Lushun and Dalian, which were controlled by the Soviets. Lutai became a place of refuge, rest and training for the Communist troops dispersed in South Manchuria.

Moscow provided me with weapons, including 900 captured Japanese aircraft, 700 tanks, over 3,700 artillery pieces of all kinds, nearly 12,000 machine guns, a small fleet of the Songhua River, countless rifles, anti- aircraft machine guns, and armored vehicles. North Korea was an important arsenal for Japan, and all the arms there were given to us, loaded with more than 2,000 train cars. Many more Japanese arms arrived from Outer Mongolia. Soviet weapons also came, plus captured German weapons with the German text filed off, which I called American-made, captured from the ‘Chiang Kai-shek transport brigade.’

Journalist: “Oh, the Soviet Union gave the weapons, and you lied and said Chiang Kai-shek shipped them from the United States? ”

Mao: “Yes.

The Chinese Communist Party secretly received tens of thousands of Japanese prisoners of war from the Soviet Union, and they are credited with training the Communist army into a powerful fighting machine. They taught the communist army to use Japanese weapons, to drive tanks, to maintain and repair weapons. They created the Communist Chinese Air Force with Japanese pilots as instructors. Thousands of Japanese medical personnel treated and cared for the sick and wounded of the Communist army.

In Japan, there is a ‘Sino-Japanese Battlefield Comrades Friendship Association’ and a ‘38th Army Friendship Association,’ with hundreds of people in Tokyo, which holds activities every year. It was a great experience. Lin Biao’s Four Fields had more than 100,000 Japanese troops, and a company in the Four Fields was usually organized with a Japanese infantry squad. These Japanese troops were well-trained, which improved the overall combat strength of the Four Fields and contributed to the defeat of the Kuomintang Army. In the northeast, the technical soldiers in the early days of the CCP were almost all foreigners, Soviets or Japanese.”

Journalist: “Oh, not only the Soviet Union, the Japanese army also helped you a lot?”

Mao: “Yes, hundreds of thousands of the main force of the national army in the northeast was destroyed, the Soviet army made a great effort. Liao Shen campaign battle plan, six months ago in Moscow to develop, June 1948, headed by Kovalev 21 people Soviet experts arrived in the northeast. Liao was ostensibly the head of the railroad transportation department, but was actually the highest military and political governor of Northeast China appointed by the Soviet Union, and the commander-in-chief of the Liaoshen Campaign, commanding all Soviet and Chinese forces.

At this time the battlefield situation has been reversed, the communist army from the equipment, the number of personnel, has gained the advantage. During the preparation stage of the Liaoshen Campaign, the Soviet Union equipped all four fields with $4 billion of heavy weapons from the $13 billion of military aid that the United States supported the Soviet Union through the Lend-Lease Act. The National Army, because of the U.S. arms embargo policy, led to a lack of ammunition for the American weapons used, and had to take up the Japanese 38 guns and launch Japanese mountain guns for defense, while the Four Fields had American equipment, tanks, armored vehicles, American howitzers, and four-wheeled trucks. In order to facilitate the command of the entire army, the Soviet advisers configured to the four field battalion level, all advisers directly under the command of Kovalev’s Soviet operational command, they are long experience of the Soviet-German war Soviet officers.”

Journalist: “Haha, how interesting, the U.S. aid on World War II to the Soviet Union weapons, and then transferred to your hands to fight Chiang, this is a long transport route, ah?”

Mao: “Yes, the Battle of Liaoshen was personally commanded by Soviet generals and fought with a mixed army of mainly Soviet troops, plus Communist troops. Soviet elite infantry, air force, armor, artillery, fully engaged in the battle, the national army was completely defeated. The Battle of Jinzhou was also fought and won by the Soviet Army mainly, in concert with troops from the Four Fields.

Soviet troops were mixed into the Four Fields, and the Tianjin National Army found that among the bodies of the Communist attackers, there were many yellow-haired Soviet soldiers who died in battle wearing Communist uniforms among the technical soldiers.”

Journalist: “The Soviet Army also contributed to the effort?”

Mao: “Yes, World War II began 1938 to 1949, the U.S. arms aid to China had 800 million U.S. dollars for the battlefield against Japan.June 26, 1946, the Chinese civil war broke out. At the end of 1946, the U.S. government, under Marshall’s armistice proposal, imposed an arms embargo on Chiang, which was not lifted until November 1948.After the lifting of the arms embargo, the first batch of It was six months after the arms and ammunition embargo was lifted that the first shipment arrived in Chinese ports. By this time the war in the northeast had long since ended, and the national campaign to cross the river had begun in April 1949.”

Journalist: “The U.S. hindered by the horse, Chiang Kai-shek was tragically defeated?”

Mao: “Yes, my ploy won.”