← Section II (National Study): China 1927-1949
Why did Chiang Kai-shek destroy the First United Front in 1927, and what were the consequences for the Communist Party?
The Shanghai Massacre of April 1927 and the destruction of the First United Front, including the role of the Green Gang, the Wuhan-Nanjing split, and the impact on the Chinese Communist Party
A focused answer on the Shanghai Massacre (12 April 1927), the destruction of the First United Front, and the near-annihilation of the urban Communist Party. Covers Chiang's alliance with the Green Gang, Shanghai capital, and Western powers, the Wuhan KMT split, the failed Autumn Harvest and Canton uprisings, and the historiography of Lloyd Eastman, Stephen MacKinnon, and Steve Smith.
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What this dot point is asking
NESA expects you to explain why Chiang Kai-shek turned on his Communist allies in April 1927, how the massacre was executed, and what its consequences were for the CCP and the KMT regime. Strong answers integrate the Green Gang and Shanghai capital, the Wuhan-Nanjing split, and the rural turn under Mao.
The answer
Background: the unstable United Front
The First United Front (formed January 1924) was based on Sun Yat-sen's calculation that the KMT needed Soviet aid and CCP organising capacity to overthrow the warlords. By early 1927 the Front was straining. CCP membership had grown from around 1,000 in 1925 to 58,000 by April 1927. CCP-led peasant associations claimed 9 million members in Hunan alone. Shanghai unions claimed 800,000 affiliates.
The KMT was already split between a left wing in Wuhan under Wang Jingwei, with Borodin and the CCP, and a right wing around Chiang at Nanchang and Shanghai.
The Shanghai context
Shanghai was the financial heart of China. The Shanghai Bankers' Association, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Western-dominated International Settlement and French Concession depended on labour discipline. The Green Gang, a Shanghai underworld syndicate under Du Yuesheng ("Big-Eared Du") and Huang Jinrong, controlled opium, prostitution, and labour-contracting; it had longstanding KMT links.
CCP organising had paralysed Shanghai in three armed uprisings between October 1926 and March 1927. The third uprising (21 March 1927), led by Zhou Enlai, took control of the Chinese-administered districts before NRA troops arrived on 22 March.
The bargain with the Green Gang and the bankers
Through March and early April 1927 Chiang met Du Yuesheng, leaders of the Shanghai bourgeoisie (T.V. Soong, Yu Xiaqing), and foreign consuls. He secured a loan of around 30 million yuan from the Shanghai Bankers' Association. In return he agreed to disarm the union pickets and break the Communist apparatus. Western powers tacitly agreed not to oppose action against the Communists.
The massacre
In the early hours of 12 April 1927 Green Gang gunmen attacked union pickets across Shanghai under the cover of "labour-versus-labour" violence. NRA troops under General Bai Chongxi disarmed the workers and shot demonstrators. On 13 April a peaceful protest at Baoshan Road was fired on by NRA soldiers. The killing continued for days.
Around 5,000 Communists, union activists, and sympathisers were killed in Shanghai. Similar purges followed in Guangzhou, Xiamen, Ningbo, Fuzhou, Changsha, and elsewhere. Total CCP casualties through 1927 reached perhaps 25,000.
The Wuhan break and the Roy Telegram
The Wuhan KMT under Wang Jingwei initially condemned Chiang and continued the United Front with the CCP. In June 1927 the Comintern emissary M.N. Roy showed Wang a telegram from Stalin instructing the CCP to seize land, build its own army within the KMT, and prepare to take power. Wang concluded he was being prepared as Chiang's next victim. The Wuhan KMT expelled the Communists in mid-July 1927. Borodin returned to Moscow on 27 July.
The unified KMT under Chiang and Wang followed, formalised through Wang's reconciliation with Nanjing in 1928.
The failed urban risings
The CCP, under Comintern direction, tried to recover by armed action.
- Nanchang Uprising (1 August 1927). Zhu De, Zhou Enlai, He Long, and Ye Ting led around 20,000 troops in a city rising. They held Nanchang for three days before retreating. The People's Liberation Army still dates its founding to 1 August.
- Autumn Harvest Uprising (September 1927). Mao Zedong led a rising in his native Hunan with around 5,000 men. KMT and warlord forces crushed it within a week. Mao retreated south with around 1,000 survivors.
- Canton Commune (11 to 13 December 1927). Around 20,000 Communists and workers seized Guangzhou. KMT forces retook the city in 72 hours; perhaps 5,700 were killed.
Mao at Jinggangshan and the rural turn
In October 1927 Mao led his survivors to Jinggangshan, a bandit-controlled mountain area on the Hunan-Jiangxi border. He coordinated with the local outlaw leaders Yuan Wencai and Wang Zuo, then linked up with Zhu De's remnant Nanchang force in April 1928 to form the Fourth Red Army.
This is the strategic break with Soviet doctrine. Where the Comintern still demanded urban risings (the "Li Lisan line" of 1930 was the final attempt), Mao began building a rural Soviet on the model that would win in 1949.
Timeline 1927
| Date | Event | Significance |
|---|---|---|
| Jan-March 1927 | CCP unions paralyse Shanghai | Stake for the purge |
| 21 March 1927 | Third Shanghai uprising under Zhou Enlai | CCP takes the Chinese city |
| 12 April 1927 | Shanghai Massacre | End of First United Front |
| April-June 1927 | Purges in southern cities | CCP membership collapses |
| June 1927 | Roy Telegram shown to Wang Jingwei | Wuhan break |
| July 1927 | Wuhan expels Communists | Unified KMT |
| 1 August 1927 | Nanchang Uprising | PLA founding date |
| Sept 1927 | Autumn Harvest Uprising | Mao's failed Hunan rising |
| Oct 1927 | Mao reaches Jinggangshan | Rural turn |
| 11-13 Dec 1927 | Canton Commune | Last urban rising fails |
Historiography
Lloyd Eastman (The Abortive Revolution, 1974) treats the 1927 purge as ending whatever genuinely modernising potential the KMT had under Sun Yat-sen.
Stephen MacKinnon and Steve Smith (A Road is Made: Communism in Shanghai, 1920-1927, 2000) recover the Shanghai labour movement as a serious revolutionary force in its own right, not just as a CCP cadre.
Hans van de Ven (War and Nationalism in China, 2003) is more sympathetic to Chiang's calculation that the foreign powers and Shanghai capital were unavoidable.
Stuart Schram (Mao: A Preliminary Reassessment, 1983) traces the rural strategic turn to the autumn 1927 defeats.
How to read a source on this topic
Sources include the North China Daily News, photographs of the Baoshan Road shootings, Comintern correspondence, and memoirs by Zhou Enlai and Du Yuesheng's biographer. Three reading habits.
First, separate Stalin's instructions to the CCP from CCP actions on the ground. The Roy Telegram embarrassed Stalin but the urban risings of August-December 1927 were Comintern-driven, not local initiatives.
Second, watch the "labour-versus-labour" framing. Green Gang and KMT propaganda presented 12 April as a workers' faction fight. The dead were overwhelmingly on one side.
Third, treat 12 April 1927 and the Nanchang Uprising (1 August 1927) as a paired sequence. The PLA's founding date is the CCP's answer to Shanghai.
Common exam traps
Confusing the two KMT governments. Wuhan (left-KMT, Wang Jingwei) and Nanjing (right-KMT, Chiang) were rivals from April to July 1927. Both ended up purging the Communists.
Treating the Shanghai Massacre as a single event. Purges across southern Chinese cities continued for months. The Canton Commune in December was the last gasp of the urban revolution.
Missing the Stalin angle. The CCP was bound to the KMT by Stalin's directive over Trotsky's objections. The 1927 defeat is part of the Stalin-Trotsky dispute, not just a Chinese event.
In one sentence
On 12 April 1927 Chiang Kai-shek, allied with the Shanghai Green Gang, the Shanghai bourgeoisie, and foreign capital, destroyed the First United Front, killed around 5,000 Communists and unionists in Shanghai (and around 25,000 nationally through 1927), and forced the surviving CCP from urban insurrection to the rural-base strategy that Mao would build at Jinggangshan and, after 1929, in the Jiangxi Soviet.
Past exam questions, worked
Real questions from past NESA papers on this dot point, with our answer explainer.
Practice (NESA)10 marksWhy did Chiang Kai-shek destroy the First United Front in 1927, and what were the consequences for the Chinese Communist Party?Show worked answer →
A 10-mark "why and consequences" answer needs causes, the event, and outcomes, with a named historian.
Thesis. Chiang destroyed the United Front in April 1927 because the Communist-led mass movement threatened the Shanghai business elite and foreign capital on whose support his Nanjing project depended. The consequences were the destruction of the urban CCP and the forced shift to rural revolution.
Causes. CCP-organised unions controlled Shanghai labour (500,000 members). Peasant associations attacked landlords. Shanghai bankers and foreign capital demanded protection. Stalin's directive bound the CCP to the KMT.
The massacre. On 12 April 1927 Green Gang gunmen under Du Yuesheng, with NRA troops, attacked union pickets. Around 5,000 killed in three days. CCP membership fell from 58,000 (April 1927) to under 10,000 by year end.
Wuhan split. Wang Jingwei's left-KMT expelled the Communists in July 1927 after the Roy Telegram.
CCP response. Nanchang Uprising (1 August), Autumn Harvest Uprising (September), and Canton Commune (December 1927) all failed.
Long consequences. Mao retreated to Jinggangshan in October 1927 and built the Jiangxi Soviet. The rural guerrilla strategy dates from this defeat.
Historiography. Eastman (1974); MacKinnon and Smith (2000). Markers reward the Green Gang, the casualty figure, and the Mao-Jinggangshan turn.
Practice (NESA)5 marksExplain the impact of the Shanghai Massacre on the Chinese Communist Party.Show worked answer →
A 5-mark "explain" needs three developed impacts.
Quantitative collapse. CCP membership fell from around 58,000 in April 1927 to under 10,000 by the end of 1927. The Shanghai underground organisation, the largest in China, was effectively destroyed.
Strategic shift to the countryside. After three failed urban uprisings (Nanchang August 1927, Autumn Harvest September 1927, Canton December 1927), Mao retreated to the Jinggang Mountains and began building a rural base on Marxist-Leninist principles adapted to peasant revolution. The "land reform plus guerrilla war" model that wins the civil war in 1949 dates from this defeat.
Soviet credibility damaged. Stalin's directive to stay inside the KMT until the bourgeois revolution was complete had bound the CCP to its executioner. The defeat fuelled the Trotsky-Stalin dispute in Moscow and weakened Comintern authority over the CCP in the long run, although Wang Ming and the "28 Bolsheviks" retained leadership until Mao consolidated control at Zunyi in 1935.
Markers reward the membership figures, the rural turn (Jinggangshan, October 1927), and the link to the Soviet line.
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