The Eighth Route Army was the larger of the two major Chinese communist forces that formed a unit of the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China which fought the Japanese from 1937 to 1945. In contrast to most of the National Revolutionary Army, it was controlled by the Communist Party of China and not the ruling Kuomintang. The Eighth Route Army was one of the main military forces of the Communist Party of China, active during the Chinese Civil War and the Second Sino-Japanese War.