Its tremendous impact on Malraux is apparent in this novel and he seems intimately familiar with the underground involvement. .
One prominent group discussed is the Kuomintang. They were formed in 1912, with Sun Yat-sen as the leader, with their original plans being to achieve parliamentary democracy and moderate socialism, goals that sound good on paper. However, in 1922, the Kuomintang was reorganized, mostly with the help of Comintern agents such as Michael Borodin. In 1924, a coalition including Communists adopted Yat-sen's theory, based on the Three People's Principles developed by San Min Chu I. These principles were nationalism, democracy, and the people's livelihood. Yat-sen believed that the Chinese reconstruction would follow a progression of stages: military government, tutelage under the Kuomintang, and popular sovereignty (Palmer 356).
What Yat-sen didn't count on was Chiang Kai-Shek. Rusty Johnson provides the following summary: .
Chiang Kai-Shek completed his military training with the Japanese army and returned to China where he participated in the 1911 revolution against the Manchus. Between 1913-1916, Kai-Shek helped attempt to overthrow Yuan Shih-kai's government. Sun Yat-Sen formed the Guangzhou government in 1917 and chose Kai-Shek as a military aide. In 1926, Kai-Shek, then a Kuomintang general, launched the Northern Expedition. In this campaign, Kai-Shek and his Nationalist army were victorious in Hankou, Shanghai, and Nanjing. Yat-Sen died in 1925, and for a while, Kai-Shek followed his predecessor's policy of cooperating with the Chinese Communists. He even accepted Russian aid until 1927, when he reversed his beliefs, and so began the civil war between the Kuomintang and Communists.
Malraux's vivid descriptions of happenings during this civil war could only come from firsthand knowledge. He achieves a balance between the setting of the story and exploring the psyche of a character.