By Lynne Ann Hartnett, Villanova University
In the 1920s, the man in charge of China’s newly formed Nationalist Party’s propaganda department was Mao Zedong, a young communist who had become committed to Marxist ideals while working in the library at Beijing University. While Sun Yat-sen preached a unified message of anti-imperialism and anti-militarism, Mao and the communists moved beyond patriotism, toward a social revolution.
Death of Sun Yat-sen
The Chinese communist agenda caused alarm among some nationalist leaders, who sought to circumvent the communists’ growing influence. The man in charge of directing Comintern assistance to China, Mikhail Borodin, made clear that the Soviets’ continued support was dependent upon communist participation in the nationalist movement.
As tension between the two camps rose, Sun Yat-sen died of cancer in March of 1925, and an important source of unifying authority was lost. Just before his death, the nationalist leader had urged those around him to remain united until China could be liberated from feudalism, foreign subjugation, and the warlords. For the time being, the revolutionary front remained outwardly united. But Sun Yat-sen rightly feared that the coalition wouldn’t survive him.
Nationalist-Communist United Front
Two months after Sun Yat-sen’s death, a confrontation in May 1925 between striking workers and foreign police and security forces in Shanghai led to violence. Over several weeks, worker strikes, and anti-foreigner protests and riots, incited violence. The upheaval amplified public sentiment against the archaic treaties that had given foreign entities so much power in China for decades.
The nationalist and communist parties both found new sources of support as a result of this latest violent affront to Chinese sovereignty. But it was the communists—who along with the Soviet Union gave material aid to striking workers—who fared especially well in popular opinion.
The united forces of the Guomindang and the Communist Party declared a new national government on July 1, 1925. This was an aspirational declaration rather than one rooted in practical reality.
Warlords still controlled many of China’s provinces and leading figures in the Nationalist-Communist United Front were split over political objectives. The nationalists sought to establish a liberal regime modeled on Western democracies while the communists aspired to a more radical revolution that would lead to a socialist society and state akin to the Soviet Union’s.
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A Plot to Expel Radical Elements
With every communist step forward, anxieties on the other end of the political spectrum were aroused. Chinese entrepreneurs and capitalists rightly saw communism as an existential threat to their own position.
Tensions flared in August of 1925 when Liao Chung-Kai—a vocal supporter of the nationalist alliance with the Soviet Union—was assassinated. The murder was evidence of a plot within the conservative faction of the Guomindang to expel radical elements. The plot stalled but counter-revolutionary impulses were in play.
The fault line surfaced again in November of 1925 when a group of Guomindang leaders moved to expel Chinese communists from the party. However, Chiang Kai-shek—the head of the National Revolutionary Army, and a contender to replace Sun Yat-sen as the party leader—opposed the purge. And the alliance held for the time being.
The Northern Expedition
In 1926, the National Revolutionary Army launched an offensive to crush the warlords and unify China, urged on by Soviet advisors. This took the revolutionary forces northward from their base of operations in Canton and became known as the Northern Expedition.
The revolutionary army’s tactics had been honed over the previous few years. Political officers accompanied armed soldiers. Adhering to strict discipline that contrasted with the warlords’ often-licentious and wanton behavior, they secured the favor and support of local populations.
But as soon as the warlords were displaced in one area, questions arose as to who or what would take their place. As the nationalist forces of the Guomindang, led by Chiang Kai-shek, and communist forces of Mao Zedong neutralized their common enemies, each began to see the other as the more imminent threat to their supremacy. As a result, whenever the revolutionary army cleared an area of opposition, communists lost no time in organizing the local population.
Differences between Chinese Communist Party and the Guomindang
Chinese Communist Party membership grew almost 60-fold to nearly 60,000 members between 1925 and 1927, and the base expanded from intellectuals to urban workers and peasants. But the class warfare preached by communists drove them and the Guomindang into irrevocably opposed camps.
Their fundamental differences meant there could never be a long-term consensus between the two. The antagonism came to a head in Shanghai in the spring of 1927. After communist figures in the central city of Wuhan had tried to thwart Chiang Kai-shek’s influence earlier in the year, the nationalist military leader struck back. He rounded up Communist Party members and labor leaders and killed hundreds of them in a bloody purge.
The Wuhan regime voted to relieve Chiang Kai-shek of his political and military posts. But loyal forces held the upper hand. Whenever communists tried to seize the advantage over the summer and fall of 1927, Chiang Kai-shek and the Guomindang retaliated violently. One of the bloodiest encounters took place in Canton, where thousands of communists died in a failed insurrection. In the days to come, at least 2,000 more alleged communist supporters were executed.
Common Questions about the Chinese Communist Party and the Guomindang
China‘s nationalists and communists were split over their political objectives. While the nationalists sought to establish a liberal regime modeled on Western democracies, the communists aspired to a more radical revolution that would lead to a socialist society and state akin to the Soviet Union’s.
In 1926, the National Revolutionary Army launched an offensive to crush the warlords and unify China, urged on by Soviet advisors. This took the revolutionary forces northward from their base of operations in Canton and became known as the Northern Expedition.
Chinese Communist Party membership grew almost 60-fold to nearly 60,000 members between 1925 and 1927, and the base expanded from intellectuals to urban workers and peasants.
