Now they began to war in earnest, fighting not only the Nationalists but also for the peasants’ minds. From the first, the Communists understood that in a nation almost wholly peasant, only peasants have any political importance. Within two years, they won not only the war but the peasants’ minds. For the peasants would not understand, until too late, that the Communists wanted not justice for them, but to overthrow the entire fabric of Chinese life.
