Here it is hardly a digression to pause for a brief survey of the organization, tactics and aims of the new enemy who was about to prolong the Korean conflict by intervening on behalf of the beaten NKPA. The powerful, ever-ready military instrument which the Chinese Reds knew as the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had been forged and tempered in the fires of civil strife. It came into being in the late summer of 1927 during the abortive Nanchang rebellion. Following their defeat, the Communists found a refuge in Kiangsi Province of south China and gained strength as disaffected Kuomintang units came over to their side.[211] [211] Richard L. Walker, _China under Communism_ (New Haven, 1954), 111–112; Order of Battle Branch, Office of the AC/S G-2, HQ Eighth United States Army (Fwd), _CCF Army Histories_ (hereafter _CCF Army Histories_), 1. The infant PLA managed with difficulty to survive the first four “bandit suppression campaigns” waged by Chiang Kai-shek. When he launched his fifth in 1933, the Chinese Reds planned the celebrated “Long March” which has become one of their most cherished traditions. Breaking out of Chiang’s encirclement in October, 1934, they took a circuitous, 6000-mile route to avoid Nationalist armies. Of the 90,000 who started, only 20,000 were left a year later when the PLA reached Yenan in Shensi Province.[212] [212] _U. S. Relations with China_, 43–44, 207, 323. This destination in northwest China gave the Communists a refuge with Mongolia and Soviet Russia at their backs. There Mao Tse-tung and his colleagues alternately fought and negotiated with the Government. Finally, in 1941, the Communists and Nationalists agreed to cease fighting one another in order to make common cause against the Japanese invaders. The Communists took advantage of their membership in the People’s Political Council--a Nationalist-sponsored organization which theoretically united all factions in China against the Japanese--to continue their “boring-from-within” tactics. Chiang’s estimate of his troublesome allies was summed up in a quotation attributed to him in 1941: You think it is important that I have kept the Japanese from expanding.... I tell you it is more important that I have kept the Communists from spreading. The Japanese are a disease of the skin; the Communists are a disease of the heart.[213] [213] Quoted in George Moorad, _Lost Peace in China_ (New York, 1949), 33. _Communist Victory in Civil War_ In late 1945, with the Japanese no longer a menace, the grapple for mastery began anew. Chiang Kai-shek held the material and moral advantage as a result of the arms and other assistance supplied by the United States.