 Thereafter the final act of the Chinese Civil War commenced, starting in Manchuria.Here the Soviet-supplied Chinese Communists prevailed, then conquered the south by 1949.Paine argues that, despite massive American military assistance to the nationalist Kuomintang during World War II, it was the Communists who had secured what traditionally was called the "mandate of heaven" or the legitimacy to rule a unified China at the start of a new era.