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there had previously taken place a complete rupture withthe Soviet embassy in Peking.Throughout the first six months of 1927 the situationhad been growing more and more out of hand. TheChinese Communists were heading for out-and-out socialrevolution. The left-wing Kuomintang was vacillating.The right could at least combine to crush the left.Chiang Kai-shek and other generals and the leaders ofthe right had reluctantly used Communist help only upto a point: they were not prepared, if they could helpit, to tolerate the incitement of class-war and "redspears" among the peasantry or of such extreme violenceagainst the foreigners as would cut their ownpurse-strings and endanger the attainment of Chineseunity.Ferocious reprisals were launched against everythingthat could be branded with the name of Communism orSoviet influence. J3y the beginning of 1928 the routof the Left was complete, except among the peasantry incertain regions. In Manchuria, where Russian Whiteemigres added to the complexity of local politics, the anti-Communist drive threatened the Soviet position on theChinese Eastern railway and resulted in an armed clash(1029) when a Chinese attempt to oust the Russians wasrebuffed by force.Whether the debacle of the Communist Internationalin 1927 in China was primarily due to Chinese Communiststhemselves, or to the policy of Stalin or to thatof Trotsky and other exponents in Moscow of extremetactics, it was the most severe blow that it suffered in anycountry, with the possible exception of Germany. Thetactics to be pursued in the Chinese Revolution hadcaused much dispute in Moscow, and the events of 1927in China added to the bitterness of the struggle whichwas being waged at this time on other vital issuesbetween Stalin, Trotsky, and various groups.Nothwithstanding the rout of 1927, Communism ofan indigenous, agrarian brand was a power in certainof the south-central provinces where peasant Sovietsestablished control and maintained a long guerrilla waragainst Chiang Kai-shek. Even when finally defeated310