Socialist ideology of the Kuomintang
He divided livelihood into four areas: food, clothing, housing, and transportation; and planned out how an ideal Chinese government can take care of these for its people.
The merchants were conservative and reactionary, and appointed Chen Lianbao, a prominent comprador trader, as leader of the Volunteer Corps.
[5] Sun initiated this anti-merchant policy and Chiang enforced it by leading his army of Whampoa Military Academy graduates against the merchants' Corps.
[10] Even after Chiang turned on the Soviet Union and massacred the communists, he still continued anti-capitalist activities and promoting revolutionary thought, accusing the merchants of being reactionaries and counter-revolutionaries.
The United States consulate and other westerners in Shanghai was concerned about the approach of "Red General" Chiang as his army was seizing control in the Northern Expedition.
Chiang also enforced an anti-Japanese boycott, sending his agents to sack the shops of those who sold Japanese made items, fining them.
Ching-kuo copied Soviet methods which he learned during his stay there to start a social revolution by targeting middle class merchants.
As riots broke out and savings were ruined, bankrupting shop owners, Ching-kuo began to pursue the wealthy, seizing assets and placing them under arrest.
Ching-kuo ordered Kuomintang agents to raid the Yangtze Development Corporation's warehouses, which was privately owned by H. H. Kung and his family.
[18] General Ma Bufang, the Kuomintang Muslim Governor of Qinghai, was described as a socialist by American journalist John Roderick.
While most of China is bogged down, almost inevitably, by Civil War, Chinghai is attempting to carry out small-scale, but nevertheless ambitious, development and reconstruction schemes on its own initiative".
[20] The Kuomintang also promotes government-owned corporations, and its founder, Sun Yat-sen, was heavily influenced by the economic ideas of Henry George, who believed that the rents extracted from natural monopolies or the usage of land belonged to the public.
[29] Marxists also existed in the Kuomintang and viewed the Chinese Revolution in different terms from the Communists by claiming that China has already gone past its feudal stage and in a stagnation period, rather than in another mode of production.
Contrary to the view that he was pro-capitalist, Chiang Kai-shek behaved in an antagonistic manner to the capitalists of Shanghai, often attacking them and confiscating their capital and assets for the use of the government, even while he was fighting the communists.
Chiang continued Sun's anti-capitalist ideology; Kuomintang media openly attacked the capitalists and capitalism, demanding government-controlled industry instead.
Gangster connections allowed Chiang to attack them in the International Settlement, to force capitalists to back him up with their assets for his military expenditures.
[36] Revolutionary and communist leader Vladimir Lenin praised Sun Yat-sen and the Kuomintang for their ideology and principles.
