What it was
The party descends from Sun Yat-sen’s Revive China Society (1894) and the Tongmenghui (1905); the Kuomintang itself was formed in 1912, after the republic’s founding. Its parliamentary leader Song Jiaoren won the first elections and was assassinated in 1913, and the party was banned by Yuan Shikai. Sun rebuilt it — as the Chinese Revolutionary Party in 1914, renamed the Chinese Kuomintang in 1919 — and reorganized it in 1924 on Leninist party lines with Soviet advice, admitting Communists in the First United Front and founding the Whampoa Military Academy.
Role
Under Chiang Kai-shek the party carried out the Northern Expedition (1926–28) and built the Nanjing party-state, then led the war against Japan before losing the civil war in 1949.
Fate
On Taiwan the party ruled under martial law until 1987, oversaw land reform and export-led growth, and later democratized. It handed over power peacefully after losing the 2000 presidential election and remains one of Taiwan’s major parties, generally favoring closer cross-strait ties.