 Stalin had called for the Communist Party of China, led by Chen Duxiu, to ally itself with Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang (KMT) nationalists, viewing a Communist-Kuomintang alliance as the best bulwark against Japanese imperial expansionism.Instead, the KMT repressed the Communists and a civil war broke out between the two sides.The Soviet Union lagged behind the industrial development of Western countries, and there had been a shortfall of grain; 1927 produced only 70% of grain produced in 1926.