Li Dazhao and Voitinsky (of Comintern)
Chen Duxie
The Communist Party of China was initially founded by Chen Duxiu
and Li Dazhao in the French concession of Shanghai in 1921 as a study society and an informal network (this points to the founders: intellectuals. If founded by military men, it would be more like an army). There were informal groups in China in 1920, and also overseas, but the official beginning was the 1st Congress held in Shanghai and attended by 53 men in July 1921
House in which the CCP was founded in 1921
The CCP went through 2 “popular fronts”, and both proved that they were
damaging to the communists. First, 1922-28: with the Nationalist party, against the warlords. Ended in Shanghai massacre of the communists. Second: again with the Nationalist party, against the Japanese, in 1930’s (During the Second Sino-Japanese war (1937–1945), the CPC and KMT were temporarily in alliance to fight their common enemy)
In August 1922, Sneevliet called a surprise special plenum of the central committee and proposed that party members join the Kuomintang (KMT, or Chinese Nationalist Party) on the grounds that it was easier to transform the Nationalist Party from the inside than to duplicate its success. According to Chen Duxiu, Li Dazhao, Cai Heshen and Gao Yuhan opposed the motion, whereupon Maring invoked the authority of the Comintern and forced the CCP to accept his decision.
it was divided into two camps, led by Deng Zhongxia and Li Dazhao on the more moderate "bourgeois, national revolution" model and Zhang Guotao, Lou Zhanglong, He Mengxiong and Chen Duxio on the strongly anti-imperialism side – immediately, 2 wings, as “Mensheviks” and “Bolsheviks”
Very strong influence of Comintern in the founding period.
the North Expedition (1926–1927) led by Kuomingtang and participated by CCP gained some quick successes in overthrowing the warlord government
The purge of Communists in 1927
In 1927, as the Northern Expedition approached Shanghai, the Kuomintang leadership split. The Left Kuomintang at Wuhan kept the alliance with the Communists. Chiang Kai-shek at Nanking grew increasingly hostile to them and launched a campaign against them. This happened after the capture of Shanghai, which occurred with the Communists and Kuomintang still in alliance.
The CPC was massacred with more than four in five members being killed.
As Chiang Kai-shek consolidated his power, various revolts continued, and Communist armed forces created a number of 'Soviet Areas'. The largest of these was led by Zhu De and Mao Zedong, who established Soviet Republic of China in some remote areas within China through peasant riots. A number of military campaigns from KMT army failed, but meantime the party leadership were driven out of Shanghai and moved to Mao's base, sidelining him. – a new state is founded upon a revolt of the masses, in this case the peasants. A state cannot be founded by Blanquist methods. Nor by mere “protest” movements.
The CPC had to give up their bases and started the Long March (1934–1935) to search a new base. During Long March, the party leadership re-examined its policy and blamed their failure on the CPC military leader Otto Braun, a German sent by Comintern.[citation needed] During the Long March, the native Communists, such as Mao Zedong and Zhu De gained power. The Comintern and Soviet Union.[citation needed] lost control over the CPC – through the Long march and re-examination of the past policies, they break from the Comintern. But not completely…
Japanese occupation of China
CCP
+ KMT against Japanese, 1937- In eight years, the CPC membership increased from 40,000 to 1,200,000 and its military forces - from 30,000 to approximately one million in addition to more than one million militia support groups.
It is a well accepted idea that without the Japanese invasion, the CPC might not have developed so fast. - !
After the conclusion of WWII, the civil war resumed between the Kuomintang and the Communists. Despite initial gains by the KMT, they were eventually defeated and forced to flee to off-shore islands, most notably Taiwan. In the war, the US supported the Kuomintang
Stalin's 70th birthday in China. China was established as a Stalinist state.
1949 – establishment of the People’s Republic of China (formal)
Mao's revolution that founded the PRC was nominally based on Marxism-Leninism with a rural focus based on China's social situations at the time
Since then Mao's peasant revolutionary vision and so-called "continued revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat" stipulated that class enemies continued to exist even though the socialist revolution seemed to be complete, giving way to the Cultural Revolution. This fusion of ideas became known officially as "Mao Zedong Thought", or Maoism outside of China
Following the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, however, the CPC under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping moved towards Socialism with Chinese characteristics and instituted Chinese economic reform. In reversing some of Mao's "extreme-leftist" policies, Deng argued that a socialist country and the market economy model were not mutually exclusive. While asserting the political power of the Party itself, the change in policy generated significant economic growth. The ideology itself, however, came into conflict on both sides of the spectrum with Maoists as well as progressive liberals, culminating with other social factors to cause the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests – Deng – an equivalent of Khruschev-Gorbachev in the Soviet history. More like Gorbachev – stress on “cooperatives”, “coexistence”, etc.
The "third generation" of leadership under Jiang Zemin, Zhu Rongji, and associates largely continued Deng's progressive economic vision while overseeing the re-emergence of Chinese nationalism in the 1990s. – modern Chinese nationalism is an echo of modern “post-Soviet” nationalism, i.e. an ideology of privatization, capitalism.
the CPC ratified the Three Represents into the 2003 revision of the Party Constitution as a "guiding ideology", encouraging the Party to represent "advanced productive forces, the progressive course of China's culture, and the fundamental interests of the people." There are various interpretations of the Three Represents. Most notably, the theory has legitimized the entry of private business owners and quasi-"bourgeoisie" elements into the party
The CPC's "fourth generation" of leadership under Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, after taking power in 2003, attempted reversing such a trend by bringing forth an integrated ideology that tackled both social and economic concerns. This new ideology was known as the creation of a Harmonious Society using the Scientific Development Concept.
the CPC has transitioned to endorse economic neoliberalism
The CPC's current policies are fiercely rejected as capitalist by most communists, especially anti-revisionists, and by adherents of the Chinese New Left from within the PRC.
there are parties other than the CPC within China, which report to the United Front Department of the Communist Party of China and do not act as opposition or independent parties. Since the 1980s, as its commitment to Marxist ideology has appeared to wane, the party has begun to increasingly invoke Chinese nationalism as a legitimizing principle as opposed to the socialist construction for which the party was originally created. The change from socialism to nationalism has pleased the CPC's former enemy, the Kuomintang (KMT), which has warmed its relations with the CPC since 2003 – so, KMT is winning, for now!
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