In 1927, after having formed an alliance with them, Chiang Kai-shek of the Chinese Nationalist Kuomintang turned on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and executed many of its leaders. The remnants fled into the mountains of Jianxi Province. In 1934, driven out of their mountain bases, the CCP's forces embarked on a “Long March” across some of China's most forbidding terrain to the northwestern province of Shaanxi, where they established a guerrilla base at Yan’an. Before and during the “Long March,” the communists reorganized under a new leader, Mao Zedong . [Source: Eleanor Stanford, Countries and Their Cultures, Gale Group Inc., 2001]
With the 1927 split between the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the CCP began to engage in armed struggle against the Chiang regime. The Red Army was established in 1927, and after a series of uprisings and internal political struggles, the CCP announced the establishment in 1931 of the Chinese Soviet Republic under the chairmanship of Mao in Jiangxi Province in south-central China.
