Nanjing decade

The Nanjing decade (also Nanking decade, ) was the decade from 1927 (or 1928) to 1937 in the history of the Republic of China. It began when Nationalist Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek took the city from Zhili clique warlord Sun Chuanfang halfway through the Northern Expedition in 1927. He declared it to be the national capital despite the other Nationalists already having made Wuhan the capital. The Wuhan faction gave in and the expedition continued until the rival Beiyang government in Beijing was defeated in 1928.

The location was of symbolic and strategic importance. It was there that the republic was established and where Sun Yat-sen's provisional government sat. Sun's body was brought over and placed in a grand mausoleum to cement Chiang's budding personality cult. Chiang was born in the neighboring province and the general area had strong popular support for him.

While the Nanjing decade was far more stable than the preceding warlord era, it was still beset with violence.

The party-state

The organization and function of the KMT single-party state was derived from Sun's Three Stages of Revolution and his policy of Dang Guo. The first stage was military unification which was carried out with the Northern Expedition. The second was "political tutelage" which was a provisional government led by the KMT to educate people about their political and civil rights. The third stage was constitutional government. The KMT considered themselves to be at the...
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