Sun Yat Sen

Under the wise guidance of Dr. Sun China struggled to learn the ways of democracy. Sun Yat Sen worked in an alliance with the Communists. The Kuomintang in those days was a more progressive body than it is today, and much good work was done by a union of these two parties.

The separation of the left and right in China goes back to the death of Dr. Sun Yat Sen; from then on the impending break-up became apparent. The right wing of the party, led by Marshal Chiang Kai Shek, increasingly broke away from the principles laid down by Sun Yat Sen. In 1927 the blow fell. The right wing Kuomintang allied with the war lords and manufacturing barons effected a coup d'etat. which broke up and decimated the democratic and left wing forces, including, of course, the Chinese Communist Party. From oppression of the peasantry by the landlords, who were supporters of the government, came revolt and a peasants' army. It was joined by trade unionists and communists who had had to fly from the towns, and thus became the Red Army, and eventually moved, after continual attack by government forces, to its present situation—a soviet area called a 'special' area or North-west Border region.

China has been at war with Japan, on and off, officially and unofficially, since 1931. In 1937, the official beginning to this war, Japan attacked again and in this same year Chiang Kai Shek, representing the Kuomintang, the official party, came to an agreement with the Communists who controlled a considerable area of China. The two parties agreed to peace between them—National Unity against fascist Japan. Despite provocation, attack and once or twice massacres of Chinese Red Army Units by Government forces, (sometimes it. seems as Kuomintang policy, sometimes at the whim of the local general) this United Front continues.