During the Warlord Era, the Chinese Revolutionary Party which ruled in southern China renamed itself as the Chinese Nationalist Party in 1919. Meanwhile, the Beiyang government in northern China held its own elections in 1918 which were won by the Anfu Club and followed by the Communications Clique and the Research Clique (successors to the Progressives). The Anfu Club dissolved after the 1920 Zhili–Anhui War, the Communications Clique in the Northern Expedition, and the Research Clique after the 1924 Beijing Coup.
The Republic of China was founded by the Kuomintang (KMT) leader Dr. Sun Yat-sen in 1912. The Kuomintang's prior revolutionary political group, the Revive China Society, was founded on 24 November 1894. It later merged with various other revolutionary groups to form the Tongmenghui in 1905. In August 1911, the Tongmenghui further merged with various other political parties in Beijing to form the KMT. In July 1914, the KMT re-organized itself as the "Chinese Revolutionary Party" in Tokyo, Japan. In 1919, the party officially renamed itself as "Kuomintang of China", which literally translates to "Chinese Nationalist Party".[1] It was China's first major political party. In 1921, the CCP was founded by Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao in Shanghai as a study society and an informal network. Slowly, the CCP began to grow. These were the two major political parties in China, during the time when the ROC ruled mainland China from 1911 to 1949.[citation needed]
During the Chinese Civil War, under the leadership of the CCP, the People's Liberation Army defeated the National Revolutionary Army of the Kuomintang in 1949. The Kuomintang had no choice but to leave mainland China and move to Taiwan. It continued to use the name "Republic of China" even though the CCP claimed that the Republic of China ceased to exist after 1949.
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