Inspired by the
Russian Revolution the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP) was established in Shanghai by Chen
Duxiu and Li Dazhao in
June 1921.
Early members included Mao
Zedong, Zhou
Enlai, Zhu
De and Lin Biao. Following instructions
from the Comintern
members also joined
the Kuomintang.
Mao
Zedong
soon became the most important member of the CCP. He adapted the ideas
of Lenin who had successfully achieved
a revolution in Russia in 1917. He argued
that in Asia it was important to concentrate on the countryside rather
than the towns, in order to create a revolutionary elite.
With the help of advisers
from the Soviet Union the Kuomintang
gradually increased its power in China.
Its leader, Sun Yat-sen died on 12th March
1925. Chiang
Kai-Shek eventually
emerged as the most important figure in the organization. He now carried
out a purge that eliminated the communists from the organization.
Those communists who survived managed to established the Jiangxi Soviet.
The nationalists now imposed
a blockade and Mao
Zedong decided
to evacuate the area and establish a new stronghold in the north-west
of China. In October 1934 Mao, Zhou
Enlai, Lin
Biao, Zhu
De, and some
100,000 men and their dependents headed west through mountainous areas.
The marchers experienced
terrible hardships. The most notable passages included the crossing
of the suspension bridge over a deep gorge at Luting (May, 1935),
travelling over the Tahsueh Shan mountains (August, 1935) and the
swampland of Sikang (September, 1935).
The marchers covered about
fifty miles a day and reached Shensi on 20th October 1935. It is estimated
that only around 30,000 survived the 8,000-mile Long
March.
When the Japanese
Army invaded the heartland of China in 1937, Chiang
Kai-Shek was
forced to move his capital from Nanking to Chungking. He lost control
of the coastal regions and most of the major cities to Japan. In an
effort to beat the Japanese he agreed to collaborate with Mao
Zedong and
his communist army.
During the Second
World War the communist guerrilla forces were well led by
Zhu De and Lin Biao.
As soon as the Japanese
surrendered, Communist forces began a war against the Kuomintang.
The communists gradually gained control of the country and on 1st
October, 1949, Mao
Zedong announced
the establishment of People's Republic of China.
In 1958 Mao
Zedong announced
the Great Leap Forward, an attempt
to increase agricultural and industrial production. This reform programme
included the establishment of large agricultural communes containing
as many as 75,000 people. The communes ran their own
collective farms and factories. Each family received a share of the
profits and also had a small private plot of land. However, three
years of floods and bad harvests severely damaged levels of production.
The scheme was also hurt by the decision of the Soviet Union to withdraw
its large number of technical experts working in the country. In 1962
Mao's reform programme came to an end and the country resorted to
a more traditional form of economic production.
As a result of
the failure on the Great
Leap Forward,
Mao retired from the post of chairman of the People's Republic of
China. His place as head of state was taken by Liu
Shaoqi. Mao remained important in determining overall policy.
In the early 1960s Mao became highly critical of the foreign policy
of the Soviet Union. He was appalled by the way Nikita
Khrushchev backed
down over the Cuban
Missile Crisis.
Mao
Zedong
became openly involved in politics in 1966 when with Lin
Biao he
initiated the Cultural Revolution.
On 3rd September, 1966, Lin Biao made a speech where he urged pupils
in schools and colleges to criticize those party officials who had
been influenced by the ideas of Nikita
Khrushchev.
Mao was concerned
by those party leaders such as Liu Shaoqi,
who favoured the introduction of piecework,
greater wage differentials and measures that sought to undermine collective
farms and factories. In
an attempt to dislodge those in power who favoured the Soviet model
of communism, Mao galvanized students and young workers as his Red
Guards to attack revisionists in the party. Mao told them the
revolution was in danger and that they must do all they could to stop
the emergence of a privileged class in China. He argued this is what
had happened in the Soviet Union under Joseph
Stalin and Nikita
Khrushchev.
Zhou
Enlai
at first gave his support to the campaign but became concerned when
fighting broke out between the Red Guards
and the revisionists. In order to achieve peace at the end of 1966
he called for an end to these attacks on party officials. Mao
Zedong remained
in control of the Cultural Revolution and with the support of the
army was able to oust the revisionists.
The Cultural
Revolution came to an end when Liu Shaoqi
resigned from all his posts on 13th October 1968. Lin
Biao now
became Mao's designated successor.
Mao now gave his support
to the Gang of Four: Jiang
Qing (Mao's third wife), Wang Hongwen, Yao Wenyuan and Zhange
Chungqiao. These four radicals occupied powerful positions in the
Politburo after the Tenth Party Congress of 1973.
Mao
Zedong
died in Beijing on 9th September, 1976. After the death of Mao the
power of the Gang of Four declined dramatically. In 1980 they were
found guilty of plotting against the state. Jiang Qing and Zhange
Chungqiao, who were considered to be the leaders, were sentenced to
death (later commuted to life imprisonment). Wang Hongwen and Yao
Wenyuan received lengthy prison sentences.
(1)
Mao
Zedong, interviewed by Edgar
Snow in Red Star Over China (1936)
In the winter of 1920,
I organized workers politically, for the first time, and began .to
be guided in this by the influence of Marxist theory and the history
of the Russian Revolution. During my second visit to Beijing I had
read much about the events in Russia, and had eagerly sought out what
little Communist literature was then available in Chinese. Three books
especially deeply carved my mind, and built up in me a faith in Marxism,
from which, once I had accepted it as the correct interpretation of
history, I did not afterwards waver. These books were the Communist
Manifesto, translated by Chen Wangdao, and the first Marxist book
ever published in Chinese; Class Struggle, by Kautsky; and
a History of Socialism, by Kirkupp. By the summer of 1920 I
had become, in theory and to some extent in action, a Marxist, and
from this time on I considered myself a Marxist.
In June of 1921, I went
to Shanghai to attend the foundation meeting of the Communist Party.
In its organization the leading roles were played by Chen Duxiu and
Li Dazhao, both of whom were among the most brilliant intellectual
leaders of China. Under Li Dazhao, as assistant librarian at Beijing
National University, I had rapidly developed towards Marxism, and
Chen Duxiu had been instrumental in my interests in that direction
too. I had discussed with Chen, on my second visit to Shanghai, the
Marxist books that I had read, and Chen's own assertions of belief
had deeply impressed me at what was probably a critical period in
my life.
(2)
Su Kaiming, Modern China (1985)
In February 1923, Sun
Yat-sen returned to Guangzhou where he immediately set up a headquarters
of a new revolutionary government. Soviet Russia sent Michael Borodin
(1884-1951) and some military advisers to help him, and a provisional
central committee of the Kuomintang which included a number of Communists
was organized.
The Chinese Communist Party
held its Third National Congress in Guangzhou in June 1923, and the
question of forming a revolutionary united front with the Kuomintang
was discussed. The congress affirmed Sun Yat-sen's contribution to
the Chinese revolution and resolved to help him in reorganizing the
Kuomintang and establishing cooperation between the two parties.
The gap between Sun Yat-sen
and the West continued to widen. When he threatened in December to
seize the customs revenues in the port of Guangzhou, the powers staged
a naval demonstration to preserve the status quo. Thwarted, Sun angrily
stated, "We no longer look to the Western powers. Our faces are
turned toward Russia."
In January 1924, Sun Yat-sen
called the First National Congress of the reorganized Kuomintang in
Guangzhou. Among the Communists who attended were Li Dazhao, Mao Zedong
and Qu Qiubai. The congress adopted the anti-imperialist, anti-feudal
policy advanced by the Communists, agreed to absorb individual Communists
and Socialist Youth League members into the Kuomintang, and decided
to reorganize the Kuomintang into a revolutionary alliance of workers,
peasants, the petty-bourgeoisie and national bourgeoisie. In this
way, new blood was infused into the ranks of the Kuomintang and Sun
Yat-sen became the leader of a revitalized revolutionary movement.
(3)
Qi Wen, China (1979)
China's industrial proletariat
was born with the emergence of modem industry. Around 1870, industrial
workers in modern China totalled less than 10,000. The number increased
to about two million prior to the May 4th Movement in 1919. Though
not very numerous, this industrial proletariat represented China's
new productive forces and was the most progressive class in modern
China.
From the time of its birth
the Chinese proletariat continuously fought against oppression and
exploitation by foreign capitalism, domestic feudal forces and the
bourgeoisie in various ways - political, economic, and otherwise.
In 1917, the great October Socialist Revolution broke out in Russia
under Lenin's leadership. It inspired China's advanced elements to
study and publicize Marxism and the ideas of the Revolution. Consequently
a group of intellectuals with incipient communist ideas like Li Dazhao
and Chen Duxiu appeared, and these helped to spread Marxism in China.
Under the influence of the October Revolution, the May 4th Movement
- a great anti-imperialist and anti-feudal revolutionary movement
- took place in China, at which the Chinese proletariat demonstrated
its might for the first time. Meanwhile Marxism-Leninism spread and
linked itself with the revolutionary practice of the Chinese people.
In ideology and in training cadres, the May 4th Movement set the stage
for the founding of the Communist Party of China. On July 1, 1921,
Mao Zedong, Dong Biwu, Chen Tanqiu, He Shuheng, Wang Jinmei, Deng
Enming and others, representing the communist groups in different
places, met and held the First National Congress in Shanghai to found
the Communist Party of China, the vanguard of the Chinese proletariat.
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