The high point of the United Front was the partnership in China between the Chinese Communist Party and the nationalist Kuomintang, a policy imposed by Stalin. The United Front policy in China effectively crashed to ruin in 1927, when Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek massacred the native Communists and expelled all of his Soviet advisors, notably Mikhail Borodin. A short war erupted in 1929 as the Soviets successfully fought to keep control of the Chinese Eastern Railway in Manchuria.