28 SAVED BY WASHINGTON
28 美国人救了中共
(1944–47 AGE 50–53)
1944～1947 年 50～53 岁
IT WAS NO secret that many US officials were decidedly unenthusiastic about Chiang, and so Mao acted to exploit this ambivalence in the hope that America would withhold support from the Generalissimo and perhaps take a friendlier line towards the Reds. Mao carefully fostered the delusion that the CCP was not a real Communist party, but one of moderate agrarian reformers, who wanted to cooperate with the US.
蒋介石在美国朝野中名声不佳。为了争取美国不支持蒋，对中共采取友好立场，毛制定了“中立美国”的政策。声称中共只是温和的农村改革者，不是要搞共产主义，完全可以跟美国合作。
In mid-1944 Roosevelt sent a mission to Yenan. Just after the first Americans arrived, Mao floated the idea of changing the Party's name: “We've been thinking of renaming our Party,” he told the Russian liaison in Yenan, Vladimirov, on 12 August: “of calling it not ‘Communist' but something else. Then the situation … will be more favorable, especially with the Americans …” The Russians immediately chimed in. Later that month, Molotov fed the same line to Roosevelt's then special envoy to China, General Patrick Hurley, telling him that in China “some … people called themselves ‘Communists' but they had no relation whatever to communism. They were merely expressing their dissatisfaction at their economic condition by calling themselves Communists. However, once their economic conditions had improved, they would forget this political inclination. The Soviet Government … [was not] associated with the ‘Communist elements.' ”*
一九四四年，罗斯福曾派观察组去延安。美国人刚到，毛就在八月十二日对苏联联络员孙平说：“我们在考虑改变党的名字，不叫“共产党”， 而叫别的什么。这样形势会对我们更有利，特别是在跟美国的关系上”。莫斯科马上和毛唱起了同一调子。八月下旬，莫洛托夫对当时在苏联的赫尔利将军说，在中国，“有人称他们为“共产党人”，实际上他们跟共产主义一点关系也没有。他们不过是不满自己的经济状况，只要经济状况一改善，他们马上就会忘了他们是共产党。苏联政府与这样的“共产主义分子”毫无关系。”莫斯科跟毛唱的双簧欺骗了很多美国人，多年来这些人一直以为毛有可能被美国争取过去，美国没能把毛从苏联阵营里拉走是“失去的机会”。他们哪里知道，就在毛跟美国拉关系时，他反覆告诫中共干部，说这“只是在对蒋斗争中的一种策略”。
Red deception became especially important when Roosevelt's successor, Harry Truman, sent America's top general, George Marshall, to China in December 1945 to try to stop the civil war. Marshall, who had served in China in the 1920s, was already ill-disposed towards Chiang, mainly because of the corruption of Chiang's relatives, and was susceptible to CCP claims that it and the US had a lot in common. At their first meeting, Chou En-lai soft-soaped Marshall by telling him how much the CCP “desired a democracy based … on the American style.” A month later, Chou egregiously suggested that Mao preferred America to Russia, telling Marshall “a small anecdote which might be of interest to you. It has been rumored recently, that Chairman Mao is going to pay a visit to Moscow. On learning this, Chairman Mao laughed and remarked half-jokingly that if ever he would take a furlough abroad … he would rather go to the United States …” Marshall relayed these remarks uncritically to Truman. Even years later, he was maintaining to Truman that the Reds had been more cooperative than the Nationalists.
毛的策略也蒙住了杜鲁门(Harry Truman)总统的遣华特使马歇尔(George Marshall)。马歇尔一九四五年十二月来华，使命是停止内战。二十年代他曾在中国服务过，讨厌蒋介石，讨厌蒋的亲戚们的腐败。中共说他们跟美国相似之处甚多，这使他特别动心。他跟周恩来第一次见面，周就奉承他说中共“期望美国式的民主”。一个月后，周又说毛喜欢美国更胜于苏联，并告诉马歇尔：“有这么一个小故事，说了您或许有兴趣。最近传言毛主席要访问苏联，毛主席听说后大笑，半开玩笑地说如果他真有机会出国的话，他想去的倒是美国。”马歇尔完全当真，把这番话转述给杜鲁门。多年以后他还说，中共比国民党更跟他合作。
Marshall did not understand Mao, or Mao's relationship with Stalin. On 26 December 1945 he told Chiang that “it was very important to determine whether or not the Russian Government was in contact with and was advising the Chinese Communist party”—as though this still needed verification. Later (in February 1948), he told the US Congress that “in China we have no concrete evidence that [the Communist army] is supported by Communists from the outside.” This ignorance is particularly striking because the Americans, like the British, had been intercepting cables from Russia, some of them addressed to Yenan, clearly showing the relationship. Marshall was also given strong warnings by other American officials, including the head of the US mission in Yenan, who opened his final report with a three-word alarm: “Communism is International!”*
马歇尔对蒋说：“最重要的是得弄准确，苏联政府到底跟中国共产党有没有关系，是不是在给他们出主意。”到一九四八年二月，马歇尔还在对美国国会说：“在中国我们没有确凿的证据表明[中共军队]有外来的共产党支援。”美国怎么可能全然不知情，他们跟英国人都在不断监听苏联与中共的电讯联系，不少电报从莫斯科直达延安，清楚无疑地显示了两者的密切关系。其他美国官员也曾告诫马歇尔，延安美军观察组负责人最后的报告开宗明义就是：“共产主义是国际性的！”
Marshall visited Yenan on 4–5 March 1946. For the occasion, Mao made doubly sure that everything was shipshape and watertight. One step was to pack his son An-ying off to a village. He told An-ying this was to help him to learn farm labor and Chinese ways, but the real reason was that Mao was vexed by the attention the Americans were paying his English-speaking son. Soon after An-ying had arrived from Russia, Mao had introduced him to the Associated Press correspondent John Roderick, who then interviewed An-ying on the edge of the dance floor at a Saturday night party. Afterwards Mao exploded. He “did not even read the interview through,” An-ying recalled, “before he crushed it into a ball, and then told me sternly: … How dare you give an interview to a foreign reporter just like that, off the top of your head, without instructions?” An-ying had been schooled in the hard world of Stalin's Russia, but even that had not prepared him for the super-steely discipline of his father's laager. While An-ying was banished to the sticks, the non-English-speaking Mme Mao was very much on hand for her debut as First Lady.
马歇尔一九四六年三月四日至五日访问延安。为了把一切都控制得天衣无缝，毛连儿子都送下乡去。毛对岸英说，这是为了让他学习农活和中国习惯。但真正的原因是岸英会讲英语，毛怕他跟马歇尔等人交谈。在延安的美国人对岸英很感兴趣，一次星期六晚间跳舞会上，毛介绍他认识了美联社记者罗德里克(John Roderick)，罗就在舞场边上采访了他。据岸英说：“访问记翻译成中文，要我过目后发稿。”岸英请父亲看。”不料父亲并没有细看，就把稿子揉成一团，还严厉地批评了我”：“怎能对外国记者随便发表谈话？！” 岸英在斯大林的苏联长大，不是不熟悉管束，但对毛控制的严厉他仍然全无思想准备。毛对他不放心。
Marshall's report to Truman about Yenan oozed illusions: “I had a long talk with Mao Tze-tung, and I was frank to an extreme. He showed no resentment and gave me every assurance of cooperation.” Marshall informed Truman that Communist forces in Manchuria were “little more than loosely organized bands”; and, even more astonishingly, that: “It has been all but impossible for the Yenan headquarters to reach the leaders' in Manchuria. This was after the Russians had flown CCP leaders to Manchuria from Yenan (in a DC-3) and when Yenan was in daily contact with CCP forces in the field that numbered hundreds of thousands.
马歇尔向杜鲁门报告说：“我跟毛泽东作了一次长谈，我坦率得不能再坦率了，他没有表现任何不满，向我担保尽其所能合作。”马歇尔称在东北的“共产党势力比乌合之众强不了多少”，“从延安大本营跟[东北]当地共产党联系简直就办不到。” 其实，延安跟东北局和在东北的几十万大军天天都有长电来往。
While Marshall was still in Yenan, Mao summoned the GRU liaison, Dr. Orlov, and briefed him on the talks.
马歇尔在延安时，毛就已经向阿洛夫详细复述了跟他谈话的全部内容，请阿洛夫电告斯大林。
MARSHALL WAS to perform a monumental service to Mao. When Mao had his back to the wall in what could be called his Dunkirk in late spring 1946, Marshall put heavy—and decisive—pressure on Chiang to stop pursuing the Communists into northern Manchuria, saying that the US would not help him if he pushed further, and threatening to stop ferrying Nationalist troops to Manchuria. On 31 May, Marshall wrote to Chiang, invoking his personal honor:
马歇尔为毛的成功作出了关键贡献。一九四六年晚春，当毛的军队在东北全面溃败时，马歇尔给蒋介石施加了决定性的压力，迫使蒋介石停止在东北追击中共。马歇尔威胁蒋介石说，如果继续追击，美国就不再帮他运部队去东北了。五月三十一日，马歇尔甚至写信给蒋，称这事关系到他本人的荣誉：
Under the circumstances of the continued advance of the Government troops in Manchuria, I must … repeat that … a point is being reached where the integrity of my position is open to serious question. Therefore I request you again to immediately issue an order terminating advances, attacks or pursuits by Government troops …
“在目前政府军在东北继续推進的情况下，我不得不重申：事情已经到了这样一个关头，即我本人的立场是否正直成了严重问题。因此，我再次向您要求，立即下令政府军停止推進、打击、或追赶[中共]”。
Chiang gave in and agreed to a fifteen-day ceasefire. This came at the very moment when Mao had become resigned to abandoning the last big Red-held city in Manchuria, Harbin, and dispersing his army into guerrilla units. In fact, he had issued the order on 3 June but on the 5th, when he learned about the ceasefire, he dashed off a new order: “Hang on … especially keep Harbin.” The tide had turned.
措辞如此强硬严峻，蒋介石不得不屈服，答应停火十五天。这个决定，使毛绝处逢生。他刚于六月三日被迫同意放弃北满重镇哈尔滨。一得到停战令的消息，毛在五日至少两次发电东北追改部署：“周电称，蒋已允马停战十天谈判，请东北局坚守哈尔滨……至要至要。”“保持松花江以北地区于我手中，尤其保持哈市。”转折点就这样到了。
Marshall's diktat was probably the single most important decision affecting the outcome of the civil war. The Reds who experienced that period, from Lin Biao to army veterans, concurred in private that this truce was a fatal mistake on Chiang's part. Had he pressed on, then at the very least he might have prevented the Reds establishing a large and secure base on the Soviet border, with rail links with Russia, over which huge amounts of heavy artillery were brought in.
在东北的中共官兵，包括林彪在内，都说蒋介石停止向松花江北推進是大大的失策。蒋介石只要穷追猛打，至少能阻止中共在苏联边境建立强大巩固的北满根据地，切断中共与苏联的铁路运输线，使苏联重型武器不可能运進来装备中共。
Furthermore, having agreed to a truce of two weeks, Chiang then found Marshall proposing that it be extended to nearly four months and cover the whole of Manchuria—and that the Communists be allowed to keep northern Manchuria. For Chiang to press on would have meant a head-on collision with Marshall, who, Chiang noted, “was in an exceptionally violent fury” in this period.
蒋介石答应停火十五天之后，马歇尔又再施加压力，要蒋把停火期延长为四个月-- 甚至把整个北满让给中共。重开战火意味着跟马歇尔直接冲突，蒋在日记里写道，这一向的马歇尔，已是“态度暴躁异常”。
The Generalissimo found pressure bearing down on him not only from Marshall, but from President Truman himself. In mid-July, two prominent anti-Nationalist intellectuals were gunned down in the Nationalist area. That month, a public opinion poll in the US showed that only 13 percent favored aiding Chiang, while 50 percent wanted to “Stay Out.” On 10 August, Truman wrote to Chiang using very tough language, citing the two assassinations and saying that the American people “view with violent repugnance” events in China. Truman threatened that he might have to “redefine” America's position if there was no progress “toward a peaceful settlement.”
蒋介石被马歇尔逼得焦头烂额时，又接到杜鲁门总统的严厉警告。七月中旬，两名反蒋知识分子李公朴、闻一多在国民党统治的昆明被枪杀。美国民意测验立刻显示，只有百分之十三的人赞成继续援蒋，百分之五十的人要求“不介入”。八月十日，杜鲁门写信给蒋介石，声色俱厉地提到这两桩暗杀，说美国人民对这样的事“深恶痛绝”，威胁说如果和谈没有進展，他只好重新考虑美国对蒋政权的态度。
Under these circumstances, Chiang held his fire in Manchuria (although he pursued Mao's forces elsewhere, with some success). One of Chiang's closest colleagues, Chen Li-fu, disagreed with his restraint. “Be like Franco of Spain,” he told Chiang; “if you want to fight communism, fight it to the end.” A “stop-go” approach would not work, he told Chiang: “No good to fire and cease fire, cease fire and fire …” But Chiang needed American aid, which came to some US$3 billion for the whole civil war (almost $1.6 billion in outright grants, and about $850 million in de facto gifts of arms), and bowed to American pressure.
在这样的压力下，蒋介石在东北的停火继续了下去。蒋的亲信陈立夫对我们说，他不赞成蒋的做法，劝蒋“像西班牙的佛朗哥(Francisco Franco)， 反共就是要反到底。打打谈谈，谈谈打打，没用。”但是蒋离不开美国。整个内战中，美国给了他三十亿美金的援助，其中十六亿拨款，约八亿五千万是武器援助。
Mao thus gained a secure base in northern Manchuria some 1,000 km by 500 km, an area far bigger than Germany, with long land borders and railway links with Russia and its satellites. To his top brass, Mao compared this base to a comfortable armchair, with Russia as a solid back to lean on, and North Korea and Outer Mongolia on each side on which to rest his arms.
东北的停火使毛得以在北满建立了横一千公里，纵五百公里，面积比德国还大的根据地。毛把这块地盘比作舒适的“沙发”，背靠苏联，两臂有北朝鲜、外蒙古作依托。
WITH FOUR MONTHS' RESPITE, the Reds had the time to integrate the nearly 200,000-strong Manchukuo puppet army and the other new recruits, and to retrain and recondition the old troops. Any soldier the Communists could not control was “cleansed” (qing-xi), which often meant killed. Classified figures reveal that for the Red Army in this theater, the total for those “cleansed,” together with those who “escaped,” came to a staggering 150,000 in three years, almost as many as the total killed in action, assumed captured and invalided out (172,400).
停火的四个月使中共有了充裕的时间整顿部队，包括整编原满洲国的二十万军队。凡是信不过的被通通“清洗”。*
* 《东北三年解放战争军事资料》透露：这三年中“逃亡清洗可能有十五万人”， 几乎快赶上“战死、失踪、被俘、医院中死去和残废等”的总数：十七万二千四百五十四人。
Motivating the troops to fight Chiang was a key part of the reconditioning. This was mainly done through rallies at which soldiers were pushed to “speak bitterness.” Most had been poor peasants, and had histories of hunger and injustice. Bitter memories were stirred up, bringing out personal traumas. The crowds became febrile. A report to Mao said that one soldier had burst out at a rally with such a storm of grief and anger that “he passed out. And when he came to, he never recovered sanity and is now an idiot.”
整顿的重要内容是激发士气，办法是“诉苦大会”，由干部带头，战士们一个个上台去诉本人和家庭之苦。他们大多数出身于贫苦农民，目不识丁，因为忍饥挨饿，遭遇不公，有一肚子苦水。痛苦往事被勾了起来，大会上男子汉们哭得像泪人儿一般，空气变得像发烧似的滚烫。有份给毛的报告说：“一个战士对旧社会不满而诉苦，他气愤填膺感动的气死了。死而复活，现成傻子。”
When the rallies reached their emotional climax, the Party would tell the inflamed crowds that they were now fighting to “take revenge on Chiang Kai-shek,” whose regime was the source of all their woes. The soldiers thus found personal motivation to fight. People who went through the process testify to its effectiveness, even though they find this hard to believe when they reflect in a calmer state of mind.
党告诉那群哭得死去活来的战士们，他们的苦都是蒋介石政府造成的，他们要“向蒋介石报仇”。亲历者说，这类诉苦真是立竿见影：“一场诉苦会下来，一个个抽抽噎噎的……那颗心已经是共产党的了。”这样的魔力，正常冷静心态下的人们，会觉得不可思议。
Many, however, declined to be psyched up, and some made skeptical remarks. They quickly found themselves condemned as members of “the exploiting classes,” and joined the ranks of those destined for “cleansing.”
The military training was as intensive as the political reorientation. Here, the Russians were indispensable. When the first Chinese Red units arrived in Manchuria, the Russians had taken some of them for bandits. They did not look like regular troops, and could not handle modern weapons. During the truce, the Russians opened at least sixteen major military institutions, including air force, artillery and engineering schools. Many Chinese officers went to Russia for training, and others to the Russian enclaves of Port Arthur and Dalian. These two ports that Stalin had acquired at Yalta now also served as sanctuaries for Mao's shattered units and cadres in southern Manchuria; here they were given refuge, trained and rearmed.
与政治上洗脑齐头并進的是军事训练。苏联人起的作用举足轻重。中共第一支部队進入东北时，看上去不像正规队伍，也不会使用现代化武器，苏军还以为他们是土匪。停火期间，苏联人开办了十六所空军、炮兵、工程兵等军事学校。中共军官还到苏联去培训，有的去苏军控制区旅顺、大连。旅大也成了在南满被打散的中共部队和干部避难、休整、受训的集中地。
Moscow's arming of Mao accelerated. The Russians transferred some 900 Japanese aircraft, 700 tanks, more than 3,700 artillery pieces, mortars and grenade-launchers, nearly 12,000 machine-guns, plus the sizeable Sungari River flotilla, as well as numerous armored cars and anti-aircraft guns, and hundreds of thousands of rifles. More than 2,000 wagonloads of arms and war matériel came by rail from North Korea, which had housed major Japanese arsenals, and more captured Japanese weapons arrived from Outer Mongolia. Russian-made arms were also shipped in, plus captured German weapons with the markings chiseled out, which the Reds then pretended were captured American arms.
莫斯科为毛提供的武器包括缴获日本人的九百架飞机、七百辆坦克、三千七百多门各种大炮、将近一万二千挺机关枪、一支颇具规模的松花江小舰队，还有无数步枪、高射机枪、装甲车。北朝鲜是日本的重要军火库，那里的军火都给了毛，足足装了两千多车皮。还有更多的日本军火从外蒙古运到。苏联制造的武器也来了，外加苏德战场上缴获的德国武器，上面的德文被锉掉，中共宣称它们是美国制造，从“蒋介石运输大队长”那里缴获来的。
In addition, the Russians secretly transferred tens of thousands of Japanese POWs to the CCP. These troops played a major role in turning the ragtag Communist army into a formidable battle machine, and were crucial in training Red forces to use the Japanese arms on which they chiefly depended, as well as for servicing and repairing these weapons. It was Japanese, too, who founded the CCP air force, with Japanese pilots serving as flight instructors. Thousands of well-trained Japanese medical staff brought the Red wounded a new level of professional and much-welcomed treatment. Some Japanese troops even took part in combat operations.
中共从苏联秘密接收了数万日本战俘，他们在把中共军队训练成强大作战机器上功不可没。是他们教中共怎样使用日本武器，怎样保养、维修这些武器。是他们创建了中共的空军，由日本飞行员做教练。数千训练有素的日本医护人员悉心治疗护理中共伤病员，流过血的老人至今提起来还非常感激。
Another vital factor was Soviet-occupied North Korea. From there the Russians supplied not only arms but also a Japanese- and Russian-trained contingent of 200,000 hardened Korean regulars. In addition, with its 800-km border with Manchuria, North Korea became what the CCP called “our clandestine rear” and bolthole. In June 1946, when they were on the run, the Chinese Reds moved troops, wounded and matériel there. As the Nationalists took much of central Manchuria, splitting the Red forces in two, the Communists were able to use North Korea as a link between their forces in north and south Manchuria, and between Manchuria and the east coast of China, particularly the vital province of Shandong. To supervise this vast transportation complex, the CCP set up offices in Pyongyang and four Korean ports.
特别值得一提的是北朝鲜。中共从那里不仅得到了军火，而且得到了一支由日本加苏联训练的二十万人的强悍军队。北朝鲜与东北有八百公里边境线，中共把它称为“我们隐蔽的后方”。一九四六年六月中共被国民党赶着跑时，大量伤病员、后勤人员和战略物资转移到这里。国民党占领东北中部，把中共军队断开后，北朝鲜成了沟通北满与南满的走廊，也是连接关外与关内根据地，尤其是战略要地山东的要道。为了协调这张庞大的转运网，中共在平壤和北朝鲜的四个港口设立了办事处。
By no means the least of the Russians' contributions was to get the railway system running. Once the northern Manchuria base was consolidated, in late 1946, a team of Russian experts restored the extensive railway network in Mao's territory and had it linked with Russia by spring 1947. In June 1948, when Mao's army was preparing for its final push to take all Manchuria, Stalin sent his former railways minister, Ivan Kovalev, to oversee the work. Altogether, the Russians supervised the repair of more than 10,000 km of track and 120 major bridges. This railway system was critical in allowing the Communists to move vast numbers of troops, and heavy artillery, at speed, to attack the main cities that autumn.
斯大林的贡献还不止这些。一九四六年下半年，苏联铁路专家组开始修复东北铁路。一九四八年六月，斯大林派前铁道部长科瓦廖夫(Ivan Kovalev)来华总领全面修复工作。苏联人共修复了一万多公里的铁道线，一百二十座桥梁，使中共能快速运输大部队和苏联重型武器，得以在那年秋天攻打大城市。
The gigantic assistance from Russia, North Korea and Mongolia was carried out in the greatest secrecy—and is still little known today. The Reds went to great lengths to conceal it. Mao told Lin Biao to delete mention of the fact that their base “was supported by Korea, the Soviet Union, Outer Mongolia” even from a secret inner-Party document.* Moscow played its customary part by calling reports of Soviet assistance “fabrications from start to finish.” The real fabrication was Mao's claim that the CCP was fighting with “only millet plus rifles.”
苏联、北朝鲜、外蒙古对中共的这一切援助都是在绝对保密的状态下進行的。中共用各种办法掩盖它，毛特意命令林彪从党内秘密文件里“删去“展开背靠朝鲜、苏联、外蒙、热河的根据地”一句”。毛还叫林彪写上战争目的是“为经济上、政治上、军事上的民主”，“阶级斗争口号不要提。”莫斯科的宣传机器说苏联援助毛的传言“是彻头彻尾的谎言”。事实上，中共声称打蒋介石靠“小米加步枪”， 才是货真价实的谎言。
This Russian help, however, came at a grievous price for those living under Mao's rule. Mao did not want to be beholden to Stalin for this aid, and he wanted to feel free to ask for more. Twice, in August and October 1946, he offered to pay for it with food, an offer Russia's trade representative in Harbin at first declined. So in November Mao sent one of his most dependable acolytes, Liu Ya-lou, to Moscow to insist. A secret agreement was reached for the CCP to send Russia one million tons of food every year.
毛不想欠斯大林的情，大规模苏联军援开始后，一九四六年八月和十月，中共两次主动提出用食品偿付。苏联驻哈尔滨的贸易代表谢绝了。毛十一月派亲信刘亚楼到莫斯科去游说，达成秘密协议，中共每年给苏联一百万吨粮食。这些粮食都是从老百姓口中夺走的。
The result was famine and deaths from starvation in some areas of China occupied by the Communists. In the Yenan region, according to Mao's logistics manager, over 10,000 peasants died of starvation in 1947. Mao knew the situation very well, as he was traveling in the region that year, and saw village children hunting for stray peas in the stables of his entourage, and women scrabbling for the water in which his rice had been washed, for the sake of its driblets of nutrient. In the neighboring Red base in Shanxi, his guard chief told him after a visit home that people were starving, and that his own family was lucky to be alive—and this was soon after harvest time. In Manchuria itself, civilian deaths from starvation were in the hundreds of thousands in 1948, and even Communist troops were often half-starved.
Few knew that the famine in Red areas in those years was largely due to the fact that Mao was exporting food; the shortage was put down to “war.” Here was a foretaste of the future Great Famine, which was likewise Mao's creation: again the result of his decision to export food to Russia.
AT THE TIME of the Marshall-dictated ceasefire, in June 1946, Chiang was militarily still far superior to Mao. The Nationalist army stood at 4.3 million, easily outnumbering Mao's 1.27 million. For a while, the Generalissimo seemed to prevail. While he left the Reds in peace in Manchuria, he drove them out of most of their strongholds in China proper, including the only important city they still held, Zhangjiakou, in October. Farther south, the Reds were swept virtually completely out of the Yangtze area. In all theaters, Mao repeated his failed Manchuria approach, and urged his generals to seize big cities at any cost. His plan for eastern China on 22 June, for instance, called for closing in on Nanjing, where Chiang had just reinstalled his capital. Though Mao called this a “no-risk” undertaking, it had to be abandoned, like his other plans.
东北停火时，蒋的军事力量仍远远优于中共。国民党军队有四百三十万人，中共只有一百二十七万。蒋把中共军队赶出了关内的大部分城市，和几乎整个长江流域。毛在所有这些战区里，一再坚持要部队夺取和保卫大城市，都遭到失败。在华北，有“三路四城”之战(指夺取三段铁路，及保定、石家庄，太原、大同四大城市)。在华东，毛指示向蒋介石刚恢复的首都南京挺進，说这个计划“并不冒险”。
In spite of these substantial losses, Mao remained totally confident—because he had the north Manchuria base. When Chiang did begin to attack it, in October 1946, after the ceasefire had given the Reds more than four months to consolidate, he was unable to break their defenses. In that winter of 1946–47, the coldest in many people's memory, the Nationalists found themselves fighting hard see-saw battles with the transformed Communist forces under Lin Biao, whose military talent came into its own in these harsh months. Mao summed up Lin's style appreciatively as “merciless and devious.” One method of Lin's was to make use of the cold weather. In temperatures as low as –40°C, when passing water could cause frostbite on the penis, his troops lay in ambush in ice and snow for days on end. Red veterans estimated their own dead and crippled from frostbite at up to 100,000. The Nationalists suffered much less because they had better clothes—and less ruthless commanders.
挫折一个接一个，毛毫不灰心，他有把握赢得最后胜利，因为他有北满这个“沙发”。一九四六年十月，当蒋介石重新進攻时，中共已利用四个月停火把“沙发”建得如铁打的一般。那年冬天，国共双方恶仗不断。国民党发现他们的对手今非昔比，顽强善战。中共军队总指挥林彪的军事才能这时发挥得淋漓尽致，打起仗来“又狠又刁”。在摄氏零下四十度的天气里，他的部队日夜卧在冰雪地里打伏击。据亲历者推测”冻死冻伤总数，当在十万人以上。”几番大战下来，国民党在东北黑土地上的主动权，遂告易主。
By spring 1947, the Reds' north Manchuria base had become unshakable. Marshall had left China in January, marking the end of US mediation efforts. The US later gave considerable aid to Chiang, but it made no difference. The goal the Communists had been secretly seeking for more than two decades, “linking up with the Soviet Union,” had been accomplished—with help from Washington, however unwitting. Mao's victory nationwide was only a matter of time.
一九四七年一月，马歇尔离华，美国调停宣告失败。美国开始认真援蒋，但为时已晚。中共二十多年来孜孜以求的“打通苏联”，已经大功告成，而且是在美国人的帮助下实现的。毛泽东在全国的胜利只是时间早晚问题。
*The Moscow–Mao double act deceived many into suggesting for decades that Mao could have been won over by the US, and that the US had lost the chance to detach Mao from the Soviet camp. In fact, in secret, Mao always told his Party that the friendliness towards America “is only a tactic of expedience in our struggle against Chiang.”
*Washington's savvy ambassador in Moscow, Averell Harriman, had been concerned about Marshall's appointment precisely because he felt Marshall was not sufficiently aware of the “Russian danger.”
*Lin was also told: “say we struggle for political, economic and military democracy … Do not put forward the slogan of class struggle.”