The Chinese Civil War, also sometimes called the Chinese Communist Revolution, refers to the protracted, violent struggle between China’s Nationalist Party (the KMT) and its Communist Party (the CCP) between 1927 and 1949. In the early part of the twentieth century, China’s Communist and Nationalist parties were actually allied, and CCP members could and did join the KMT. But the sharp ideological differences between the KMT, which controlled China’s government, and the Communists soon split them apart.