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Movements in China
In the 1920s, most of China was controlled by two main groups: the Nationalists and the
Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Under the advice of Comintern agents from the Soviet Union,
the CCP joined the more experienced nationalists to combat local warlords and unite China. In
1925, Sun Yat-sen, the leader of the Nationalists, died and was succeeded by the general Chiang
Kai-shek.
Chiang pretended to support the alliance with the communists until April 1927 when he
struck against the communists and their supporters in the Shanghai Massacre, killing thousands.
Led by Mao Zedong, the CCPs militant wing (army) Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) fought
against Chiang Kai-shek using guerilla warfare (e.g. hit-and-run tactics, blending into the
population/ not uniformed, etc.). Eventually surrounded, Mao and ninety-thousand PLA troops
broke through and begin the Long March to safety in the hills of North China. Of the ninetythousand troops that had embarked on the journey, only nine-thousand survived. The
Communists seem finished.
With the Nationalists in control, they pushed for their goal of modernizing the country
through industry. However, to do this, they needed to sell modernization as consistent with
ancient Confucian values. Thus Chiang and his wife Mei-ling began a New Life Movement,
which promoted traditional values like integrity, modesty, and righteousness while rejecting the
notion that modernization would mean accepting the excessive individualism and material greed
of Western capitalism.