Chinese Civil War Begins

The Chinese Civil War was a long struggle between the Nationalist Party (Kuomintang, or KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) over who would govern China. It began in 1927, when the Nationalists violently broke with their Communist allies, and it ran, with a major interruption, until 1949. Its outcome was the founding of the People's Republic of China on the mainland and the retreat of the Nationalist government to Taiwan, a division whose political consequences continue today.

The roots of the conflict lay in the collapse of imperial rule in 1911 and the fragmentation of the country that followed. Regional warlords controlled much of China, and the weak central government in Beijing had little real authority. In the early 1920s, Sun Yat-sen's Nationalists and the young Communist Party formed a cooperative alliance, with Soviet advice and support, aiming to defeat the warlords and reunify the nation. Their joint military campaign, the Northern Expedition, began in 1926 under Chiang Kai-shek, who had taken over leadership of the Nationalists after Sun's death in 1925.

The alliance broke apart in 1927. Chiang, wary of growing Communist influence and the strength of labor organizing, ordered a violent crackdown in Shanghai in April, and similar purges followed in other cities. Thousands of Communists and suspected sympathizers were killed, though historians differ on exact numbers. The surviving Communists launched uprisings and established rural bases, most notably in Jiangxi. After repeated Nationalist encirclement campaigns, the Communist forces abandoned this base in 1934 and undertook the Long March, a grueling retreat of thousands of miles that ended in northern Shaanxi. During it, Mao Zedong emerged as the party's dominant leader.

Japan's invasion interrupted the fighting. After the Xi'an Incident of 1936, in which Chiang was briefly detained by his own generals, the two sides formed a tense united front against Japan following the full-scale war that began in 1937. The cooperation was limited, and each side kept its forces largely separate while also preparing for the struggle ahead. By the time Japan surrendered in 1945, the Communists had expanded their territory and following in the countryside.

Full-scale civil war resumed in 1946 after American mediation efforts failed. Although the Nationalists began with larger armies and better equipment, they were weakened by inflation, corruption, and declining popular support, while the Communists benefited from effective organization, peasant backing, and key victories in Manchuria and northern China. Mao proclaimed the People's Republic in Beijing on October 1, 1949, and Chiang's government relocated to Taiwan. The war reshaped Asia and the Cold War, and the status of Taiwan remains a major international issue.