In the late 1920s under Chiang Kai-shek the republic became a national power in China, but unity in the chain of command eluded its government; it remained a shifting coalition of warlords.

The Soviet government inherited the expansionist policies of the czars, yet, Paine argues, duplicitously managed to project a benign international image sustained by the allure of its then novel party ideology.

After a review of the early years of the Civil War, she picks up the thread in 1937 with the military history, while touching regularly on political matters, fiscal policy, and the world context.

During the disorder and chaos caused by the ensuing violent struggle among the Chinese, the armies of Imperial Japan, already established in "Manchukuo", in 1931 launched a further invasion of China.

Consequently this regional conflict tipped the balance in the preexisting civil war in favor of the insurgent Chinese Communist Party under Mao Zedong, despite Japan's continually reiterated state policy of hostility to communism.

Paine writes that during the 1920s Soviet Russia had recognized the importance of China, and understood that its interests required political, diplomatic, and military involvement.

Paine argues that, despite massive American military assistance to the nationalist Kuomintang during World War II, it was the Communists who had secured what traditionally was called the "mandate of heaven" or the legitimacy to rule a unified China at the start of a new era.