Chinese Civil War
The civil war between the government of the Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party
The Chinese Civil War was fought between the government of the Republic of China (ROC), led by the Kuomintang (KMT), and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Armed conflict continued intermittently from 1 August 1927 until Communist victory that led to the Kuomintang's retreat to Taiwan on 7 December 1949.
The war is generally divided into two phases with an interlude. In 1926 and 1927, the KMT and the CCP, allied with one another in the First United Front, had carried out a very successful campaign, the Northern Expedition, against warlords in central China. The CCP calls this the First Revolutionary Civil War. The united front broke up and war broke out between the KMT and the CCP on 1 August 1927. The CCP calls this the Second Revolutionary Civil War; it lasted until 1937. From 1937 to 1945, hostilities were mostly put on hold as the Second United Front fought the Japanese invasion of China with eventual help from the Allies of World War II. However, armed clashes between the groups remained common.
The civil war resumed as soon as it became apparent that Japanese defeat was imminent, with the communists gaining the upper hand in the second phase of the war from 1945 to 1949, generally referred to as the Chinese Communist Revolution. The CCP calls this the Third Revolutionary Civil War.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Chinese Civil War” is the civil war between the government of the Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Chinese, Civil and civil, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “the civil war between the government of the Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q179975. The Library of Congress control number is sh85024120. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1927, 1949, 1926 and 1937.
Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Chinese Civil War”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Chinese Civil War primary sources, Chinese Civil War archive and Chinese research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Chinese Civil War”?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
- Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Chinese Civil War” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.