The Chinese Soviet Republic (CSR) was an East Asian proto-state in China, proclaimed on 7 November 1931 by Chinese communist leaders Mao Zedong and Zhu De in the early stages of the Chinese Civil War. The discontiguous territories of the CSR included 18 provinces and 4 counties under the communists' control. The CSR's government was located in its largest component territory, the Jiangxi–Fujian Soviet (alternatively romanised as the Kiangsi–Fukien Soviet). Due to the importance of the Jiangxi–Fujian Soviet in the CSR's early history, the names Jiangxi Soviet and Kiangsi Soviet are sometimes used to refer to the CSR as a whole. Other component territories of the CSR included the Northeastern Jiangxi, Hunan-Jiangxi, Hunan-Hubei-Jiangxi, Hunan-Western Hubei, Hunan-Hubei-Sichuan-Guizhou, Shaanxi-Gansu, Szechuan-Shensi, Hubei-Henan-Anhui and Haifeng-Lufeng Soviets. Mao Zedong was both CSR state chairman and prime minister; he led the state and its government. Mao's tenure as head of a "small state within a state" gave him experience in mobile warfare and peasant organization; this experience helped him accomplish the Communist reunification of China during the late 1940s. The CSR was eventually destroyed by the Kuomintang (KMT)'s National Revolutionary Army in a series of 1934 encirclement campaigns. Following the Xi'an Incident of December 1936, the Communists and Kuomintang formed an uneasy "United Front" to resist Japanese pressure, which led to the Communists recognizing at least for the moment Chiang Kai-shek as China's leader and the official dissolution of the Soviet Republic on 22 September 1937 with remnants reconstituted as the Yan'an Soviet formed by the leadership of the CSR. Establishment On 7 November 1931 (the anniversary of the 1917 Russian October Revolution) a National Soviet People's Delegates Conference was held in Ruijin (), Jiangxi province. Ruijin was the national capital, and the Republic had received assistance from the Soviet Union to host the gathering. The Chinese Soviet Republic () was born, although most of China was still controlled by the National Government of the Republic of China; an opening ceremony was held for the new country, and Mao Zedong and other communists attended the military parade. Because the CSR had its own national bank, printed its own money and collected its own taxes, this is considered the beginning of the Two Chinas. With Mao Zedong as both head of state (), "Chairman of the Central Executive Committee") and head of government (, "Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars"), the CSR gradually expanded. At its