From a brief perusal of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuomintang, I am told that the KMT modelled itself on Soviet lines after receiving aid from the USSR in 1923. What I don't understand is why then the Communists needed to exist and fight a massive war with them. Can somebody clarify this for me?
They were a "party of professional revolutionaries", "a party of cadres" but they didn't intend to take over the state to defend the supposed interests of workers and the peasants against the established upper class, the land- and the capital owners. They intended to take it over for the heck of it, much like the later "Fascist" parties did all over Europe. They all have used Lenin's tactics but they didn't share his ideology.