Mao's Communist forces mobilized the peasantry in rural China against the Japanese, and at the time of the Japanese surrender in 1945 the CCP had built an army of nearly a million soldiers. The pressure Mao's forces placed on the Japanese benefitted the Soviet Union, and thus the CCP forces were supplied by the Soviets. The ideological unity of the CCP, and the experience acquired in fighting the Japanese, prepared it for the next battles against the Kuomintang. Though Chiang's forces were well equipped by the US, they lacked effective leadership and political unity.
