First United Front

The First United Front, also known as the KMT–CPC Alliance, of the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Communist Party of China (CPC) was formed in 1923 as an alliance to end warlordism in China. Together, they formed the National Revolutionary Army and set out in 1926 on the Northern Expedition. The CPC joined the KMT as individuals, making use of KMT's superiority in numbers to help spread communism. The KMT, on the other hand, wanted to control the communists from within. Both parties had their own aims and the Front was unsustainable. In 1927 Nationalist Field Marshal (Generalissimo) Chiang Kai-shek purged the Communists from the Front while the Northern Expedition was still half-complete. This initiated a civil war between the two parties that lasted until the Second United Front was formed in 1936 to prepare for the coming Second Sino-Japanese War.

During the time of warlords Sun Yat-sen kept the idea of a united Chinese republic alive. His goal was to establish a rival government in Guangzhou, southern China, and go from there to fight against the warlords in the North and their Beiyang government. Upon his return from exile in 1917, Sun revived his banned nationalist party, the Kuomintang, but this time he gave it the new name, the Kuomintang of China. His plan was that after defeating the warlords the party would guide China until the country would be ready to move to democracy.

The rival government led by Sun, however, was at a disadvantage against the warlords from a military point of view. Despite his requests for aid from the West, badly needed financial and arm support never arrived in the country. In the 1920s the Kuomintang eventually received helped from a surprising source: the Russian Bolsheviks. Material aid from Russia was good enough for Sun, who had previously shown flexibility when the question was about the promotion of the republic. He had neither sympathy towards Marxism nor did he see communism as a solution to China's problems. In Sun's view, China was not of the rich and the poor; rather, it was the country of the poor and the poorer. The guidelines of the Kuomintang were based on Sun's “Three Principles of the People”: nationalism, democracy and the people's livelihood (socialism).

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