I document the relentless intraparty power struggle within the KMT from 1925 to 1945 following the sudden death of its founder, Sun Yat-sen, and investigate the profound impact of elite conflicts on party- building efforts. Although Chiang Kai-shek at first ascended the KMT ranks by exploiting ideological conflicts between the KMT-Left and KMT-Right factions, he constantly faced challenges from his intraparty rivals, who coalesced around regional military strongmen. Similar to the rise of Mao, Chiang benefited from contingent events and finally eliminated threats from Hu Han-min and Wang Ching-wei. Chiang, however, was only a quasi-dominant party leader because regional strongmen remained defiant in the face of his reform efforts. Importantly, the KMT remained a party deeply entrenched in an elite mobilization infrastructure, heavily reliant on the cooperation of regional strongmen and local elites for policy implementation. The lack of infrastructure for mass mobilization capacity became an impediment later when the power of those elites was weakened during the Japanese invasion, as shown in its ineffectiveness in grain mobilization detailed in Chapter 4.