Kuomintang [Chin.,=national people's party] (KMT), Chinese and Taiwanese political party. Sung Chiao-jen organized the party in 1912, under the nominal leadership of Sun Yat-sen , to succeed the Revolutionary Alliance. The original Kuomintang program called for parliamentary democracy and moderate socialism. In 1913, Yüan Shih-kai , the president of China, suppressed the Kuomintang although it held a majority in the first national assembly. Under Sun Yat-sen, the party established unrecognized revolutionary governments at Guangzhou in 1918 and 1921 and even sent a delegation to the Versailles Peace Conference. Sun accepted aid from the USSR, and after 1922 many Comintern agents, notably Michael Borodin and V. K. Blücher, helped reorganize the Kuomintang. At the party congress in 1924 at Guangzhou, a coalition including Communists adopted Sun's political theory, which included the Three People's Principles (San Min Chu I), namely, nationalism, democracy, and the people's livelihood. Sun thought that Chinese national reconstruction must follow a progression of stages: military government, tutelage under the Kuomintang, and popular sovereignty. In 1926, Kuomintang general Chiang Kai-shek launched the Northern Expedition , advancing north from Guangzhou against the Beijing government. After halting temporarily in 1927, when the Communists were purged and the civil war between the two factions began, Kuomintang forces finally captured Beijing in 1928. The...
Kuomintang [Chin.,=national people's party] (KMT), Chinese and Taiwanese political party. Sung Chiao-jen organized the party in 1912, under the nominal leadership of Sun Yat-sen , to succeed the Revolutionary Alliance. The original Kuomintang program called for parliamentary democracy and moderate socialism. In 1913, Yüan Shih-kai , the president of China, suppressed the Kuomintang although it held a majority in the first national assembly. Under Sun Yat-sen, the party established unrecognized revolutionary governments at Guangzhou in 1918 and 1921 and even sent a delegation to the Versailles Peace Conference. Sun accepted aid from the USSR, and after 1922 many Comintern agents, notably Michael Borodin and V. K. Blücher, helped reorganize the Kuomintang. At the party congress in 1924 at Guangzhou, a coalition including Communists adopted Sun's political theory, which included the Three People's Principles (San Min Chu I), namely, nationalism, democracy, and the people's livelihood. Sun thought that Chinese national reconstruction must follow a progression of stages: military government, tutelage under the Kuomintang, and popular sovereignty. In 1926, Kuomintang general Chiang Kai-shek launched the Northern Expedition , advancing north from Guangzhou against the Beijing government. After halting temporarily in 1927, when the Communists were purged and the civil war between the two factions began, Kuomintang forces finally captured Beijing in 1928. The...
