Once a province of neighboring China, Manchuria was granted its independence by Qing Emperor Pu Yi (the Xuantong Emperor) in October 1949, three years following the region's liberation from Japanese rule (as the puppet state of Manchukuo) at the end of World War II, in September 1945. Pu Yi's decision to grant Manchuria its independence stemmed from a necessity to rebuild a war-torn China without attempting to reintegrate Manchuria into the Empire. Within four years of its independence, Manchuria was overtaken in a Communist revolution led by Mao Zedong and the exiled former Communist Party of China, which was reformed into the Communist Party of Manchuria in 1950, with support from the neighboring Soviet Union.