Answer:While revolution in China began with reaction to imperialism and was influenced by Western
ideas, in the end, it was the internal pressures and the lack of reforms by the Kuomintang
regime that are the most important reasons for the 1949 revolution, bringing the
Communists to power. The Kuomintang regime failed to adequately deal with the condition
of the peasant masses and with the conditions of the urban classes. In Origins of the
Chinese Revolution, 1915-1949 Lucien Bianco writes, “Discontent and the bankruptcy of
rural society created an inexhaustible supply of potential revolutionaries, but it was the
Chinese Communist Party that gave this blind force purpose and direction.” Almost nothing
was done to satisfy the peasants’ most basic needs. No steps were taken to protect them
against excesses and the violence on the part of the military. Nothing was done to reform
and expand the system of agriculture, or to reduce the despair caused by land tax and land
rent. It was this failure to deal with the China’s rural social conflict that contributed the
most to the Chinese Revolution.
