During the 1920s the CCP operated from within the KMT party apparatus. Part of this was the doings of the Comintern, but it also made sense from a party development point of view. The KMT gave the CCP cover to grow as a party, and many once and future CCP leaders — people with names like ‘Mao’ and ‘Zhou’ — cut their political teeth working for the KMT. When Chiang Kai-shek began his Northern Expedition to reunite the country, the CCP softened up the ground for him by entering cities along the route and spreading propaganda, organizing general strikes, and generally agitation in advance of the KMT army. It’s a story most people know.
It was idyllic and peaceful on the outside. Kind of like Tiger and Elin.
Like Tiger though, Chiang enjoyed occasionally sleazing it up. But instead of banging cocktail waitresses two at a time, Chiang liked to mix with his boys from the Shanghai underworld, a group that included the notorious criminal boss ‘Big Eared’ Du Yuesheng.
Chiang was also about as a jumpy as a coked-up hamster in a bathtub full of cats. It wasn’t likely he was going to keep the Communists around even a