REVOLUTION and COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA CHAPTER XXI
THE STRUGGLE FOR POWER The fusion of the two rival nationalist factions was a very devious and protracted process. The revolution having been betrayed by both the groups with equal ferocity, there began the endless struggle for power. The dominating factor of the new situation, however, was neither of them. The leadership of the process of the consolidation of counterrevolution was assumed by the so-called Wester n Hill Confer ence gr oup. The big bourgeoisie appeared on the scene as soon as their agents in both the Kuo Min Tang factions had accomplished the dirty job of killing the Communists and massacring the revolutionary masses. In 1911, the big bourgeoisie had succeeded in inducing Sun Yat-sen to deliver the new-born Republic to the tender mercies of the monarchist Yuan Shih-kai. The bankers, industrialists and compradores, represented by the Western Hill Conference group, had then opposed the reorganisation of the Kuo Min Tang on a broad popular basis and with a democratic programme. But in 1924, nationalism had found a mass basis, and Sun Yat-sen was forced to act contrary to the counsel of the counterrevolutionary bourgeois politicians. Having failed to stop its reorganisation, the latter had left the Kuo Min Tang. But their agents remained inside the party with the object of checking its development into an organ of revolutionary struggle. Later on, most of them also were driven out. Finally, in 1925, they met in the so-called Western Hill Conference and constituted themselves as the "White Kuo Min Tang", with the declared object of fighting Communism and Russian influence. During the short period of 1925-26, when under the pressure of the masses the Kuo Min Tang conducted a revolutionary struggle, it was entirely beyond the control of the "Old Guard". They looked upon