When Sun Yat Sen declared the Republic of China on October 10, 1911, China embarked on 40 years of internal struggle and civil war. Warlords quickly took over sections of the country and ruled them as individual fiefdoms. Fifteen years later, in 1926, Chiang Kai Shek took control of the Kuomintang Party (as it was known in the West,) and the Army. He began a campaign to overthrow them. He was allied with the Communist Chinese until the conquest …showed first 75 words of 665 total…

…showed last 75 words of 665 total…became clear that due to the political differences and the widespread corruption, China would be a secondary theatre of operations to the island hopping campaigns of the central and south pacific. On August 8, 1945, the Soviet Union attacked, occupying most of Manchuria by the armistice on August 14th. The Soviets regained the rights they had lost during the first Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05. The Soviets occupied Manchuria until 1949, when the Communists took control of the country.