Explore how the Chinese Communist Party was founded with this clip from The Story of China. The party began in Shanghai in 1921, by political activists involved in the May Fourth Movement. After Chiang Kai-shek's brutal purge of the communists in 1927, Mao led several thousand followers into the mountains at the Hunan-Jiangxi border, where they set up the Jiangxi Soviet, promoting land reform. Forced to flee Jiangxi, Mao and other communist leaders in 1934 set out on the Long March, eventually reaching Yan'an, in north China, where they established a new base. In Yan'an, Mao developed his vision of Marxist revolution led by China's peasants, and he eliminated rivals for power.