The communist advisors to the CPC and KMT put forward an analysis of the situation in China which called for a united front between the two factions. The KMT, which was still under the leadership of Sun Yat-Sen, was reorganized along the disciplined lines of the Bolsheviks, which made it a much more effective organization than it previously was. This did not mean that the KMT embraced Marxism-Leninism, but it did help Sun Yat-Sen open up to some form of collaboration with the CPC.<ref name=":032" />
The first united front was put together, and under these terms, individual members of the CPC could join the KMT as well, and even serve as officers within units of the nationalist party. Many did join the KMT and participated within political activities or rose to cadre positions, including Mao himself who became leader of the Peasant Bureau within the KMT.<ref name=":032" />
The KMT was certainly not Marxist or even communist, but working with the CPC—who was still quite small at that time—was beneficial to them, as the communist organizers brought many members to the KMT and did diligent work. It was also beneficial to the CPC, who was able to gain experience and members through this arrangement.<ref name=":032" />
Sun Yat-Sen died in 1925, which marked a turning point for the united front. A leadership vacuum opened up, and it took over a year to find a successor, [[Chiang Kai-shek|Chiang Kai-Shek]] (蒋介石, Jiang Jieshi). He came from a military career, and had been sent by Sun Yat-Sen to study in Russia and learn about the Revolution, the Red Army, and their system of governance. He was very impressed by the successes of the Bolsheviks, but remained a staunch [[Anti-communism|anti-communist]]. As the commandant of the nationalist military academy outside of Guanzhou, he established a network of friendships and loyalties within the Nationalist Army. There, he used these loyalties to emerge as the new leader of the KMT.<ref name=":032" />
Chiang Kai-shek and the Northern Expedition
In 1926, Chiang Kai-Shek found himself in a strong position within the KMT to reunify China. He undertook the [[Northern Expedition]] that same year, which was very successful. Dr. Ken Hammond notes that in some ways, Chiang Kai-shek could be seen at this time as one of the many warlords that vied for control of China. Regardless, the Nationalist Army, departing from Guandong Province, marched North and then East towards Nanjing. Over the course of a few months, they had gained control of all of Southern China and absorbed warlords' troops into the Nationalist Army. Some of this control was gained through military conquest, but some negotiations were also made to bring some warlords under the umbrella of the KMT. In other instances, Chiang Kai-shek simply bribed them and bought their loyalty.<ref name=":032" />
The Northern Expedition succeeded by the spring of 1927, getting all of Southern China into KMT hands. In April of that year, the Nationalist forces reached the outskirts of Shanghai. At that point, Chiang Kai-Shek made a very critical decision; up until then, he had reluctantly maintained the United Front, as he was not strong enough to repudiate this arrangement previously.<ref name=":032" />
Breaking down of the First United Front
By April 1927, as the KMT emerged stronger than before, Chiang decided to eliminate the communists, destroying them as a political force. He did not march into the city however, but let CPC organizers within the city stage an uprising, who thought the KMT army would help them. Instead, Chiang Kai-shek's army remained outside the city, and the uprising was suppressed by a combination of troops from the foreign powers and organized crime organizations. They destroyed the communist movement in Shanghai: many communists were arrested and executed, along with workers who may or may not have taken part in the uprising. Several militants, of course, also died in the fighting. This bloody suppression of the uprising in Shanghai signalled the end of the United Front. A left-wing group in the KMT continued to align itself with the CPC, but were reined in shortly after.<ref name=":032" />
The CPC found itself in a difficult situation; their principal political orientation had been to organize the workers, taking from Marx's theories of the [[proletariat]]. The organizational base of the party had been destroyed, however: Shanghai was the most important location, but soon the CPC was systematically driven out of other cities and out of urban areas.<ref name=":032" />
To survive this crisis, Mao Zedong, as leader of the Peasant Bureau in the KMT, had spent a lot of time in the countryside and away from his home province of Hunan. What he saw there were large peasant movements, not unlike the peasant uprisings in China's history, but in a modern context—a modern peasantry which could benefit from a modern ideology. He saw peasant movements as a very powerful force, and, as he put forward to his comrades, they could either try to lead it, or get out of their way before it sweeps everything away.<ref name=":032" />
These ideas had been marginal until this time, but were accepted over a few years by the CPC. Initially, when the party was driven away from the cities, the remaining organizers and the advisors from the Internationale called for a greater revolution, and urged for communists to launch insurrections around the country, which led to a series of disastrous uprisings. Mao was drawn into one such uprising; he was ordered to lead a peasant army to take over a city in Central China, which they held for a few days before being driven out by the KMT, forcing Mao's army to the mountains of Jangxi Province. There, with the remnants of the CPC forces, he put forward the model for the [[rural base area]]. In the early 1930s, Mao, along with [[Zhu De]] and [[Zhou Enlai]] worked with millions of peasants in Jiangxi to carry out experiments in land reforms, the family structure, and other proposals in peasant society.<ref name=":032" />
In any case, Chiang Kai-Shek went on to continue the unification of China throughout the 1920s. During the second half of the Northern Expedition however, Chiang ran into trouble with the Japanese, notably turning into military confrontations in some places, where Japan had a presence. Chiang, however, considered that his main enemy were not the Japanese but the Chinese communists, and was willing to ignore the activities of the Japanese Army to focus on the communists.<ref name=":032" />
