April 12 Coup and Failure of the Great Revolution

During the Northern Expedition, revolutionary movements of workers and peasants rose quickly, touching the basic interests of the imperialist powers, big landlords and the big bourgeoisie. Chiang Kai-shek and other Kuomintang right-wingers, backed by the imperialist powers and Jiangsu–Zhejiang financiers, decided to betray the revolution. On 12 April 1927 Chiang launched a counter-revolutionary coup in Shanghai, seizing the arms of the workers' pickets, staging the Baoshan Road massacre and arresting and killing Communists and revolutionary masses on a large scale. Within three days more than three hundred people were killed, over five hundred arrested and over five thousand went missing; Communists including Wang Shouhua, Chen Yannian and Zhao Shiyan were killed one after another. On 18 April Chiang set up a rival National Government in Nanjing. On 28 April Li Dazhao was killed in Beijing by the Fengtian warlord Zhang Zuolin. Meanwhile the Party's General Secretary Chen Duxiu committed the error of Right opportunism, making only concessions to the Kuomintang. On 15 July the Wuhan National Government led by Wang Jingwei held a meeting to “split from the Communists”, formally broke with the Communist Party and then massacred Communists and revolutionary masses. The National Revolution (Great Revolution) jointly led by the two parties thus failed. By one count, from April 1927 to the first half of 1928, over 310,000 Communists and revolutionary masses were killed. Objectively the failure was due to the strength of the counter-revolutionary forces; subjectively, the Central Committee under Chen Duxiu made a Right opportunist error and gave up leadership of the proletariat, especially of the armed forces.