 In the late 1920s under Chiang Kai-shek the republic became a national power in China, but unity in the chain of command eluded its government; it remained a shifting coalition of warlords.In 1917 the Bolsheviks had seized power in Russia.The Soviet government inherited the expansionist policies of the Czars, yet, Paine argues, duplicitously managed to project a benign international image sustained by the allure of its then novel party ideology.