First United Front

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The First United Front (a.k.a. the KMT—CCP Alliance) of the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) 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 CCP 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 which lasted until the Second United Front was formed in 1936 to prepare for the coming Second Sino-Japanese War.

[edit] See also

• Second United Front
• Third United Front
• United Front (China)

v • d • e Chinese Civil War
Main events pre-1945	Main events post-1945	Specific articles
First United Front (1924) Shanghai massacre of 1927 Nanchang Uprising Autumn Harvest Uprising Guangzhou Uprising Encirclement Campaigns (1930–1934) Chinese Soviet Republic (1931–1934) Long March (1934–1936) Xi'an Incident (1936) Second United Front (1937–1946)	Part of the Cold War Full-scale Civil War (1946–1949) First Taiwan Strait Crisis (1955) Second Taiwan Strait Crisis (1958) Third Taiwan Strait Crisis (1996) Pan-Blue visits to mainland China (2005-)	Political status of Taiwan Legal status of Taiwan Chinese reunification Taiwan independence Cross-Strait relations Primary participants Kuomintang of China Communist Party of China