civil and military, and on their advice the system of government had been reorganized on lines similar to those of the soviet and commissar system.  This change had been advocated by an old friend of Sun Yat-sen, Chiang Kai-shek, who later married Sun’s sister-in-law.  Chiang Kai-shek, who was born in 1886, was the head of the military academy at Whampoa, near Canton, where Russian instructors were at work.  The new system was approved by Sun Yat-sen’s successor, Hu Han-min (who died in 1936), in his capacity of party leader.  It was opposed by the elements of the right, who at first had little influence.  Chiang Kai-shek soon became one of the principal leaders of the south, as he had command of the efficient troops of Canton, who had been organized by the Russians.

The People’s Party of the south and its governments, at that time fairly radical in politics, were disliked by the foreign powers; only Japan supported them for a time, owing to the anti-British feeling of the South Chinese and in order to further her purpose of maintaining disunion in China.  The first serious collision with the outer world came on May 30th, 1925, when British soldiers shot at a crowd demonstrating in Shanghai.  This produced a widespread boycott of British goods in Canton and in British Hong Kong, inflicting a great loss on British trade with China and bringing considerable advantages in consequence to Japanese trade and shipping:  from the time of this boycott began the Japanese grip on Chinese coastwise shipping.

The second party congress was held in Canton in 1926.  Chiang Kai-shek already played a prominent part.  The People’s Party, under Chiang Kai-shek and with the support of the communists, began the great campaign against the north.  At first it had good success:  the various provincial governors and generals and the Peking government were played off against each other, and in a short time one leader after another was defeated.  The Yangtze was reached, and in 1926 the southern government moved to Hankow.  All over the southern provinces there now came a genuine rising of the masses of the people, mainly the result of communist propaganda and of the government’s promise to give land to the peasants, to set limits to the big estates, and to bring order into the taxation.  In spite of its communist element, at the beginning of 1927 the southern government was essentially one of the middle class and the peasantry, with a socialistic tendency.

3 Second period of the Republic:  Nationalist China

With the continued success of the northern campaign, and with Chiang Kai-shek’s southern army at the gates of Shanghai (March 21st, 1927), a decision had to be taken.  Should the left wing be allowed to gain the upper hand, and the great capitalists of Shanghai be expropriated as it was proposed to expropriate the gentry?  Or should the right wing prevail, an alliance be concluded with the capitalists, and limits be set to the expropriation of landed estates?