井冈山
To fight back against the Nationalists, the Communists established the Chinese Red Army, launching their first uprising against the government in Nanchang and beginning the Chinese Civil War. Initially successful, the Red Army was forced to retreat by a nationalist counter-offensive, withdrawing to the mountains of south-western Jiangxi. Another uprising in Changsha, but this was defeated and the survivors retreated to the Jinggang Mountains, where Mao Zedong established a base, uniting five villages into a self-governing territory and implementing a policy of confiscating lands from rich landowners. It was here that Mao began to advocate for a peasant-based revolution, contrary to the Communist Party's favor towards urban cadres, in order to overthrow the "four systems of authority" (state, clan, religion and patriarchy). However, after a number of KMT attacks against their base, Mao's forces were eventually forced to evacuate south. Despite coming into conflict with the new leadership of the CCP for his agrarianist position, initiating a purge of dissenters and repressing a rebellion against him, Mao was able to establish the Chinese Soviet Republic with the Jiangxi–Fujian Soviet as his revolutionary base area and was able to defeat both the first and second encirclement campaigns against it through the use of guerrilla tactics.