Daughters of Shandong

In 1911-12, millennia of rule by imperial dynasties ended in China with the revolution that established a republican government. The early republic was challenged by assorted warlords, against whom the Nationalist or Kuomintang (KMT) party created a united front with the Communist party (CPP), which was founded in Shanghai in 1921. The White Terror in 1927, during which the Nationalists attempted a Communist purge from the party, resulted in a decade of civil war. The resources of the Nationalist army were diverted to Japan with the advent of the Sino-Japanese war in 1937, and thereafter the second World War.

During World War II, Communists gained ground in rural areas with successful efforts at land reform that drew increasing support. After the Japanese surrender in 1945, a civil war emerged between the Nationalist Army led by Chiang Kai-shek and the Communist Army led by Mao Zedong. Mao’s ideology, based on the philosophies of Karl Marx as expressed in The Communist Manifesto (1848), called for dismantling the ruling class of China and elevating the status of the rural worker.

In October 1949, after a series of military victories that pushed the Nationalist armies out of significant urban centers, Mao declared the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), with himself at its head as Chairman.