<P> After 1911, China entered the Warlord Era . During this time, industrialization was slow to non-existent; between the years 1920 and 1949, the industrial sector had only increased by less than three million members, mainly women and children working in cotton mills . The main changes in social structure were military . </P> <P> In 1924, the Soviet Union helped Sun Yat - sen rebuild the Nationalist Kuomintang, GMT, and KMT military force, most notably through the Military Academy, an island on Pearl River near Guangzhou . Many military leaders of the following decades were Huangpu graduates, including Lin Biao, as well as nationalist Chinese generals . </P> <P> After the allied forces of the Kuomintang and the Communists reunified China, Chiang Kai - shek, with the help of underworld forces such as the Green Gang, attacked the Communists . This had the effect of suppressing labor unions . </P> <P> After 1949, the revolutionaries became the ruling class . The Communist Party cadres became the new upper class . The misuse and manipulation of the ration system by members of the cadre class threatened to change them into a new class of privileged bureaucrats and technicians, mere descendants of the pre-revolutionary ruling class of cadre technocrats and selected representatives of the old proletariat . Whereas in the past, their position had been accessed primarily through acceptance to the best schools, now cadre status came to give them access to materials and options not fairly distributed amongst all . Housing had always been in demand in China, particularly in the larger cities, and cadres were protected from the intense competition for living space . </P>

What were the three main classes in chinese society