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The Communists, who have now ruled longer than he, succeeded precisely where Chiang failed. The generalissimo never completely freed himself from the militarists and the feudal landlords who stood in the way of fundamental reforms. The Communists, on the other hand, swept the past away. But their accomplishment came only at incalculable social and personal cost, and even they, after 26 years of rule, have not solved all the problems of lack of stability and cohesion that have historically plagued China.
In reunifying China after more than a decade of debilitating fragmentation, Chiang performed a critical service for the nation, one that paved the way for greater centralization under the Communists. But in the final analysis, given the scope of his problems, it is not surprising that he was unable to construct a durable political system. "In great things," Erasmus once wrote, "it is enough to have tried." Chiang's try was on a grand scale. His failure in the end diminishes but should not obscure his historical importance.
Born the son of a small-town salt merchant in Chekiang province on China's central coast, Chiang trained as a soldier, spoke like a revolutionary, and seemed destined for power. His climb began with an introduction, through a friend, to Sun Yatsen, the zealous revolutionary whose nationalistic movement brought down the already doddering Manchu empire in 1911. Cadet Chiang, a 24-year-old student at a military school in Japan, rushed home to join Sun's fledgling revolution. Chiang rose steadily through the military ranks of Sun's Canton-based Kuomintang (Nationalist Party). At 31, he was a general—and a powerful figure in his own right.
Sun died in 1925, and Chiang soon took command of the Kuomintang. Over the next two years he led his armies on a brilliant series of campaigns against the warlords that resulted in a precariously unified nation. Despite his ardent opposition to Communism, Chiang at first collaborated with the vigorous fledgling Chinese Communist Party and its Soviet advisers; but with the work of reunification well advanced, he turned against the Communists, executing thousands and driving others out of the new national government. Among those he shunted aside was the head of Kuomintang propaganda, a firebrand named Mao Tse-tung. In the midst of these heady successes, Chiang took a portentous step in his personal life, marrying Soong Meiling, a delicately beautiful, Wellesley-educated younger sister of Sun Yat-sen's widow. In doing so he put aside his first wife, the mother of his son and heir, Taiwan's current Premier Chiang Ching-kuo; he became a convert to Christianity before the wedding.
By 1928, when he was installed as head of the Nationalist government, the generalissimo's power and influence were at their crest. Even then, however, Chiang was continuously troubled by rebellious warlord generals, rival Communist governments and revolts within his own Kuomintang. When Japanese troops marched into Manchuria in 1931, the Nationalist army was already fully occupied with a series of vast, costly annihilation campaigns against the Communists' rural bases. Not until 1936 did Chiang agree to set aside the civil war and join the Communists in the fight against the Japanese invaders. His armies tied down huge numbers of enemy troops.