The Wuhan Nationalist government (), also known as the Wuhan government, Wuhan regime, or Hankow government, was a government dominated by the left-wing of the Nationalist or Kuomintang (KMT) Party of China that was based in Wuhan from 5 December 1926 to 21 September 1927, led first by Eugene Chen, and later by Wang Jingwei. Following the capture of Wuhan during the Northern Expedition, the Nationalist government based in Guangzhou moved there in December 1926. In April 1927, after National Revolutionary Army (NRA) commander-in-chief Chiang Kai-shek purged communists and leftists in the "Shanghai massacre", the Wuhan government split from Chiang in what is known as the "Nanjing–Wuhan split" (). Chiang subsequently formed his own government in Nanjing. While Chiang continued the Northern Expedition on his own, increasing tensions between communists and the KMT in the Wuhan government resulted in a new purge of communists from that government, and an eventual reconciliation with the Nanjing faction, after which the government moved to Nanjing. History Background Despite Kuomintang founder Sun Yat-sen's policy of collaborating with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the First United Front, a discrepancy existed between the two parties' ultimate goals for the revolution, and there had been constant conflict between them, such as the March 1926 Canton Coup. Joseph Stalin tried to persuade the small Communist Party to merge with the Kuomintang to bring about a bourgeois revolution before attempting to bring about a Soviet-style working class revolution. Stalin funded the KMT during the Northern Expedition to reunify China. Stalin said that NRA commander-in-chief Chiang Kai-shek was the only one capable of defeating the imperialists, and that his forces were to be squeezed for all usefulness like a lemon before being discarded. During the expedition, labour movements led by the Communist Party endangered commercial interests' support of the KMT. Land reform incited further dissatisfaction among generals and soldiers in the National Revolutionary Army who came from landowning families. For example, the landholding family of General He Jian were paraded through the streets as criminals by communists. Formation of the Wuhan government The National Revolutionary Army, military arm of the KMT, captured the three cities of Wuchang, Hankou, and Hanyang in a series of battles from August to October 1926 during the early stage of the Northern Expedition, and merged their municipal governments to form Wuhan. After the Wuhan area had fallen to the KMT, local workers organized themselves