in 1923, chiang kai-shek travelled to the soviet union to study military and politics with the communist party of the soviet union. in 1924, he became the leader of the whampoa military academy in china. most of the help from the soviet union was for that school, which taught soviet political and military ideas to the kmt and the ccp. the soviets gave books and guns to use for teaching about war and military things. with soviet help sun made an "army of the party". members of the ccp were also in the school and some were teachers. zhou enlai was a teacher in the school.