The never-ending war in the 1900s between Guomindang (GMD) and the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP) in China was a big part of the Chinese history. Although
throughout the most part GMD seemed more powerful, CCP allied the Japanese and
defeated GMD. Jiang Jieshi and many of his followers fled to Taiwan and Hong Kong to
survive. Various reasons caused GMD’s failure; Jiang’s dictatorship, CCP’s strengthened
armies and members, and the brutal civil war. There was a chance for Jiang to win this
war, but his narrowed mind led him to the wrongful decisions which impacted the loss of
the war.
When father of China’s Republican Revolution, Sun Zhongshan, returned to Guangzhou
after his educational trip to Japan; his GMD was only a tiny organization which had no
influence to the Chinese population. It was not until he sought Soviet’s advices and
supports that he recognized his party on the Leninist model. Sun stated his “three
principles of the people” in 1905, and stood by it as his motto. The “three principles of the
people” was nationality, livelihood, and rights. His interpretation after 1912 was
democracy for the rights, equalizing landholdings and nationalizing industries for the
livelihood, and a nationalism redirected against Western imperialism.
Jiang Jieshi was Sun’s loyal lieutenant; Sun sent him to the Soviet Union and sought
advice from Russian advisors. When Jiang returned, he started the Huangpu military
academy to the South of Guangzhou. The academy was training “party army.” Graduates
from Huangpu would be the front line soldiers of GMD. During this time, GMD had
around 200,000 members where the CCP only had 20,000. GMD had every chance to
completely defeat the CCP; but not only did they not take the opportunity, they opened
their doors and welcomed members of the CCP to join GMD, concurrently. When Sun
passed in 1925, Jiang took over the heavy load of GMD; which was divided into a left and
a right wing.
Jiang decided that they were strong enough and could march north against the warlord
domains. Jiang conquered multiple provinces including Shanghai and the Yangzi area.
During this period of time, Jiang was trying to remove all the CCP members in his party;
which the CCP fought back by trying to take over the left wing of GMD. CCP’s attempts
failed and the surviving members fled to the mountainous border region of Hunan and
Jiangxi. While GMD was busy planning to gain control over Chins, the CCP survivors
