Shanghai was marked by political and social unrest throughout the 1920s. This was due to the extreme divisions between rich and poor, white and Chinese, but also the turmoil in the rest of China. China had fallen apart into a patchwork of territories governed by a variety of warring warlords. The nationalistparty, the Guomindang, and the Chinese Communist Party were trying to reunify the country. The plan for this was that the Communists would paralyze cities with strikes followed by the Guomindang army attacking and occupying them.
By early 1927 the Guomindang army under the leadership of general Chiang Kai-shek had reached Shanghai. Around 6,000 Communists under the leadership of Zhou Enlai helped organize the already restless labor unions in the Chinese districts of the city to organize a paralyzing general strike on February 19. But Chiang's army halted, allowed the local warlord Sun to capture and decapitate much of the strike leadership. Chiang didn't order the attack and occupy the Chinese districts until March 22 when the Communists and the unions were on the verge of conquering the city on their own.
Between March 22 and April 12 the concessions found themselves under siege. Large numbers of troops had been sent from the motherlands to the concessions in order to defend the city and it had been fortified using barbwire, barricades and gunnery emplacements. However, on the night between April 12th and April 13th the Communists and union leaders came under attack by gangsters allied with Chiang Kai-shek and the white city council, resulting in heavy losses. Over the following days around 12,000 were executed on charges of Communism, followed by a further 200,000 over the next year.
Following his betrayal of his allies, Chiang Kai-shek was welcomed as a hero by white Shanghai, which helped finance his war to become the new leader of China. He succeeded in 1928 and was the dictator of China until 1949. His political idol was Mussolini, the leader of the Italian Fascists.
The Guomindang army conquered the Chinese parts of Shanghai from a local warlord on March 22, 1927. The conquest happened in an alliance with the Communists and the labor unions who had paralyzed the city using strikes and control over strategically important locations. The photo shows the body of some of soldiers of the local warlord, Sun, draped over one of the barricades guarding the concessions. The location is North Zhejiang Road on the border of the Chinese district of Zhabei.