The United States and China in Power Transition - Strategic Studies ...

In October 1928, the ROC government proclaimed
its unification of China. Chiang Kai-shek assumed the
presidency and delivered his directive that the KMT
was to become an unchallenged ruling party of the
ROC and exercise authoritarian rule in China until its
political, economic, and social conditions were ripe
for constitutional rule.
Yet by this time, the Chinese Communist Party
(CCP), founded in 1921, had become a formidable
challenger to the KMT and Chiang. The Chinese Communists,
as one of the founders of the CCP and its
eventual leader Mao Zedong (毛泽东) puts it, learned
about Communism through the Bolshevik Revolution
of October 1917. 21 They believed that Communism
would make a better future for China and were determined
to turn it into reality.
Chiang Kai-shek had no desire for the Communist
idea and the Soviet model. He got a bad taste of them
during his “study trip” to the Soviet Union in 1923.
(He was dispatched by Sun Yat-sen and is believed
to have seen the dark side of Soviet communism.) He
opposed Sun Yat-sen’s decision to join hands with
the Communists to fight for the new China and reluctantly
let the Communists participate in the KMT’s
Whampoa Military Academy (黄埔军校), KMT party
affairs, and the Northern Expedition. With the passing
of Sun and shortly before the conclusion of the Northern
Expedition, Chiang made a “bloody split” with
the Communists, killing many of them (the controversial
“Purifying of the Party” in the KMT’s terms, and
the “April 12 Tragedy of 1927” in the CCP version).
He subsequently launched a campaign to purge the
Communists everywhere (in violent ways).
Following this setback, the Communists accepted
Mao Zedong’s call that “political power grows out of
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