The First Cooperation Between the KMT and the CPC

The first cooperation between the Communist Party of China and the KMT to overthrow the reactionary rule of the Northern Warlords during the revolutionary period lasted for three and a half years, from January 1924, when the First National Congress of the KMT was held, to July 1927, when Wang Jingwei betrayed the revolution and launched the July 15 counter-revolutionary coup.

The Second Party Congress in July 1922 had originally envisioned "outer-Party cooperation". In June 1923, the Third National Congress of the Communist Party of China decided that all Communists should join the KMT as individuals and establish a revolutionary united front with the KMT. From January 20 to 30, 1924, with the help of the Communist International and the CPC, Sun Yat-sen convened the First National Congress of the KMT in Guangzhou and reinterpreted the Three Principles of the People. The new Three Principles of the People, with the three major policies of uniting with Russia, uniting with the Communist Party and helping the peasants and workers, became the political basis for the cooperation between the KMT and the Communist Party. Then the KMT was transformed from a bourgeois party into a democratic revolutionary alliance of workers, peasants, the urban petty bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie, and became a united front organization of all revolutionary classes. The "Grand Congress" of the KMT marked the formal establishment of the First KMT-Communist Cooperation.

The formal establishment of the KMT-Communist Party Cooperation accelerated the course of the Chinese Revolution and created a roaring revolution in the history of the Chinese Revolution. However, at the late stage of the revolution, in April and July 1927, the First KMT-Communist Party Cooperation broke up because the right wing of the KMT controlled by Chiang Kai-shek and Wang Jingwei declared a break with the Communist Party in spite of the resolute opposition of the left wing of the KMT represented by Soong Ching Ling, and staged the April 12 counter-revolutionary coup and the July 15 counter-revolutionary coup to openly betray the revolution.

The formation of the First KMT-Communist Party Cooperation accelerated the pace of the Chinese Revolution; it promoted the rapid development of the Northern Expeditionary War and deterred the imperialist powers and the Beiyang warlords; the CPC also underwent training and development in the revolution and established a certain number of workers' and peasants' armies. After the breakup of the KMT-Communist Party Cooperation and the failure of the revolution, the CPC learned the lessons from its experience and understood the importance of carrying out agrarian revolution and mastering the revolutionary armies and began to lead the Chinese Revolution on a new path of revival.