Chinese Communist Party

Chinese awareness of Marxism probably began around 1905 when the Min-pao published a biography
of Karl Marx in its second issue. Although there was an incipient recognition of Marx and Engels as the
founding fathers of “scientific socialism," the influence of Marxism remained small until the May
Fourth period when the success of the Bolshevik Revolution dramatized the power of such an ideology
points out Immanuel C Y Hsu. The intellectual appeal of Marxism-Leninism, the voluntary offer of
friendship by the Soviet regime, and the practical success of the Bolshevik Revolution combined to
create a powerful ideological impact in China. Marxist and Leninist study groups began to spring up,
and the National University of Peking, where intellectual curiosity and freedom of expression were
most pronounced, became a hotbed of radicalism.

As early as the middle of 1918, the librarian Li Ta-chao professed his conversion to Marxism and
founded the New Tide Society in the autumn of 1918, followed shortly by the Marxist Research
Society. Ch’en Tu-hsiu became the second most important convert to Marxism, and organized a
Marxist Study Society in May 1920 and a Socialist Youth Corps in August, which were the forerunners
of the Chinese Communist Party.

By March 1920 the various Marxist groups in Peking had united to form the Peking Society for the
Study of Marxist Theory. Grigorii Voitinsky, an agent of the Third (Communist) InternationaI,
arrived in China in early 1920 and he conferred with Li and Chen about organizing a party. The
upshot of these critical conferences was the decision to establish a branch party in Shanghai under
Ch'en and another in Peking under Li. Only the consolidation of these two branches remained for the
unification of communism in China.

On 1st July 1921, the founding meeting of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-since called the First
Congress of the Party-was held secretly at a girls' boarding school in the French Concession of
Shanghai and was attended by twelve delegates. In spite of their absence, Ch'en and Li were honored as
the co-founders of the party. Ch'en and Li differed considerably on the revolutionary role of the
workers and the peasants. Ch'en subscribed to the general European Marxist emphasis on the workers
and the implicit disdain toward the inert peasant mass. He believed that the progressive urban elements
should spearhead the movement while the backward peasantry followed meekly. Chu Chiu-pai
likewise rejected the idea that the agrarian sector could take the lead in reforming the Chinese society.
On the other hand, Li Ta-chao, imbued with a more romantic attitude toward social change, took the
opposite view to stress the importance of the peasantry.

Although the party supported Chen's position, Li's views offered a powerful alternative and strongly
influenced the thinking of his young assistant, Mao, whom he introduced to Marxism in 1918 and
whom he successfully inspired with the Populist, nationalistic views on the peasant role in the
revolution. After Li was executed in 1927, it was Mao who carried on the peasant struggle and put his
mentor's ideas into practice.

James E Sheridan states that although interest in Marxist ideas was widespread, and though these
ideas by the mid-20s were exerting a powerful influence on the intellectual world, membership in the
CCP grew slowly at the outset. It numbered only 200 or 300 by the beginning of 1923, and still didn’t
exceed 1000 by the spring of 1925. Only then did the membership mushroom.

The May 4th Movement initiated the modern labor movement in China. In response to the May 4th
incident many workers participated in the demonstrations, in the anti-Japanese boycott and the strikes
held in protest against government repression. A number of new labor organizations sprang into
existence in 1920 and 1921, including several genuinely working class groups. The first Chinese Trade
Union Congress was established in 1st May 1922. The Communists were active in organizing and
leading this movement, but Jean Chesneaux insists that the organizational impulse came directly
from the workers; the leaders simply helped guide and direct a movement that had spontaneously come
into being. This labor movement was most advanced in Shanghai and Canton, and its 1st great
achievement was the Hong Kong Seamen’s Strike of 1922. The year 1922 had been the year of worker’s
unrest throughout China opines Amit Bhattacharyya. Together with Li Li-san and Liu Shao-chi
Mao organized the Anyuan coal-mine workers and the railway workers and led them in a series of
strikes. He took the initiative in organizing worker’s demonstrations and spreading them throughout
Hunan and in this way, forming an All Hunan Workers’ Federation. In addition to the establishment
of labor unions, evening schools were set up for peasants and workers which bore impressive results.
Say for instance, by the end of 1922, 30,000 to 40,000 workers and artisans were enrolled in a
self-education college set up by Mao.

The momentum achieved by the Chinese labor movement after the Hong Kong strike came to a
bloody halt in February 1923 when Wu P’ei-fu, the dominant warlord of that time, quelled the
movement. For the next 2 years there was something of a lull in the movement, particularly in central
and north China where warlords ruled unopposed. However, on 30th May 1925 the lull came to a
crashing end with a massive demonstration involving several 1000 people. These great strikes, argues
Sheridan, were political in nature, not economic. It was a resounding cry of protest against
imperialism in China, and it resulted in specific demands for freedom of speech and assembly, the
withdrawal of foreign armed forces from Shanghai and the abolition of extraterritoriality.

Another mass movement also took hold during this period-among the peasantry. Like the labor
movement, the peasant movement started shortly after the May 4th era. Ever since 1921, Peng Pai had
started organizing the peasants in Kwangtung and was able to set up a strong political base there.
Movements such as these also took place in provinces like Hunan, Hupei, Kiangsi, Shensi, Shantung
etc. Its major growth, however, didn’t occur until 1926 and 1927. The Communists in their orthodox
preoccupation with the organization of labor, more or less ignored the peasantry in the first couple of
years of the party’s existence.

With the death of Sun Yat-sen in 1925, the Chinese Communists lost one of their most trusted friends.
Chiang Kai Shek followed Sun Yat-sen as the head of the KMT. With this change, the KMT also
underwent a metamorphosis. In place of a revolutionary organization, states Amit Bhattacharyya, it
degenerated first into a reactionary and then a fascist organization. A reactionary dictatorship grew
under Chiang. On the other hand, the CCP and the leftist elements within the KMT defeated the
main forces of the warlords and set up a revolutionary center in Wuhan. Thus Wuhan became the
center of revolutionary forces under the CCP and Nanking under Chiang became the center of
counter-revolutionary forces.

Meanwhile, military preparations had been made to initiate the “Northern Expedition”. These
northern warlords had been the main instruments of imperialist control inside China. The March of
the revolutionary army was so swift that between July and December 1926, a number of provinces
such as Hunan, Hupeh, Fukien, Chekiang, Kiangsi and Anhwei fell to the revolutionary forces.

At the end of 1925, the students of Hunan studying at the National Institute in Canton went into the
midst of the peasants and formed peasant associations first in the townships, then in the districts. The
victorious advance of the Northern Expeditionary Army towards the Yangtze Valley made Hunan the
center of the nation-wide peasant movement. The peasant association became the sole organ of
authority in the countryside. It was really a form of political power under the peasants’ revolutionary
dictatorship. Night schools were opened so that the peasants could learn to read and write for the first
time in their lives. Peasants’ militia was also organized for self-defense.

The rise of the nation-wide peasant movement could not be separated from Mao’s revolutionary
activities suggests Bhattacharyya. At that time, he had been running the National Institute of Peasant
Movement in Canton from 1925 to 1926. With the beginning of the Northern Expedition, he left for
Shanghai to take the post of Chairman of the Committee on the peasant movement. Afterwards, he
proceeded to Wuhan to be the secretary-general of the National Peasant Association.

Meanwhile, the advance of the Northern Expeditionary Army was followed by an uprising of the
workers in Shanghai in February 1927 which was brutally suppressed by Chiang. The right-wing KMT
officers staged similar massacres in Nanking, Canton and among the peasants in the countryside. An
armed uprising in Nanchang on 1st August 1927 marked the beginning of the struggle of the
revolutionary armed forces under the sole leadership of CCP against counter-revolution. It also
marked the birth of the People’s Army of China.

An emergency conference of the CC of the CCP, held on 7th August 1927 in the face of the armed
uprising in Nanchang and the counter-revolutionary onslaughts by the KMT, held that as the agrarian
revolution was the key to the Chinese democratic revolution the party must lead the peasants in solving
the agrarian problem by revolutionary means. The conference called on the peasants to launch
uprisings at the time of the autumn harvest to save the revolution. This uprising is known as the
Autumn Harvest Uprising. The Nanchang rising was followed by the Canton uprising on 11th
December 1927 under the leadership of the CCP wherein a democratic government of workers and
peasants was set up.

Meanwhile, the failure of the Autumn Harvest Uprising compelled Mao to take refuge in the isolated
mountain region of Chingkang-shan. There he was joined later by another armed group under the
leadership of Chuh Teh, thereby forming the revolutionary base of the Chinese Red Army.

The Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) Reorganization, 1923-24

The Bolshevik Revolution not only influenced the establishment of the Chinese Communist Party
(CCP), but also prompted the reorganization of the Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang (KMT). Dr.
Sun Yat Sun, father of the Chinese Revolution, had long been disappointed by the lack of unity and
discipline within his party, and by the Western reluctance to assist him in developing China.
Throughout the republican period, Sun was plagued by the three-fold problem of foreign imperialism,
party disunity, and civil strife, from which he could find no escape and solution. In his frustration, he
found the sparkling success of the Bolshevik Revolution doubly inspiring; and the Soviet offer of
friendship and abolition of the unequal treaties gratifying and refreshing. He was anxious to reorganize
the KMT after the successful Soviet model and to seek Soviet aid for his National Revolution points
out Hsu.

The Comintern dispatched Adolf Joffe to China to work out the basis of Soviet-KMT-CCP
cooperation. As a result of his negotiations with Sun the policy of "alliance with the Soviets; admission
of the Communists" was adopted on September 4, 1922. This became the cardinal principle in the
reorganization of the KMT. A nine-man committee including Ch'en Tu-hsiu was appointed to take
charge of the reorganization, and a manifesto drafted by Hu Han-min was announced on January I,
1923.

On January 12, the Comintern instructed the Chinese Communists to enter the Nationalist Party and
take part in Sun's bourgeois democratic revolution. However, the CCP itself was not dissolved; the
Communists entered the KMT as individuals rather than as a bloc and they agreed to accept the order
and discipline of the Nationalist leaders.

The Sun-Joffe negotiations led to a joint manifesto on January 26, 1923, which included four main
points: (I) it is not possible to carry out Communism or the Soviet system in China at present; (2) the
Soviet government reaffirms its earlier announcement of September 27, 1920, regarding the
renouncement of special rights and privileges in China; (3) a mutual understanding is reached with
regard to the future administration and reorganization of the Chinese Eastern Railway; and (4) the
Soviets disavow any imperialistic intentions or policies in Outer Mongolia. This manifesto became a
prelude to the United Front. Hsu points out that in his negotiations with Joffe Sun demonstrated
hardheaded practical statesmanship.

Following the Sun-Joffe agreement, the Soviets sent Mikhail Borodin, an experienced diplomat, to help
Sun reorganize the KMT, and General Galen to help train a party army. In March 1923, Sun set up a
revolutionary government in Kwangtung. In August 1923, he dispatched a young general, Chiang
Kai-shek, to study first-hand the Soviet military system, the political indoctrination of the Red army,
and the methods of discipline in the Bolshevik Party. Soon after his return, he was commissioned by
Sun to found the Whampoa Military Academy outside Canton.

At the first National Congress of the KMT held from January 20 to 30, 1924, and attended by 165
delegates, Sun stressed the importance of party unity and the development of a strong organization for
national unification and reconstruction. He called on the members to sacrifice their personal freedom
and contribute their talents unselfishly to the revolutionary objectives. The Congress created a
Presidium of five members, including Li Ta-chao. It closed with a manifesto emphasizing its
anti-imperialist and anti-warlord stand, its dedication to the Three People's Principles and the
Five-Power Constitution, and its determination to abolish the unequal treaties externally and to
establish local self-government internally.

The new aims of the Chinese revolution were laid down in the manifesto. KMT referred to itself as the
revolutionary party just like that of the Russian Bolshevik Party. Furthermore, the propaganda,
structure and methods of agitation were also the same. However, Sun made it clear that this similarity
was only superficial and it doesn’t mean the adoption of Communist ideology. Sheridan points out
that the party organization was modeled after that of the Russian Bolshevik Party to create a much
higher degree of centralization than had existed, and far more rigorous and effective party discipline.
The party accepted the principles of democratic centralism, in which each level of organization obeyed
unquestionably the decisions of higher levels, and Sun Yat-sen, at the apex of the party pyramid, was
given extraordinary dictatorial authority not common even to ordinary Communist organizations.
The manifesto of the restructured party consisted of 3 parts; objectives, modified 3 people’s principles
and immediate programs. The chief objective of KMT was the national revolution. It was stated that
the anti-imperialist slogan must be coupled with the creation of a strong centralized government which
will be the “people’s government”.

The reorganized party reaffirmed its commitment to the ideology developed by Sun Yat-sen; although
under Russian prodding, anti-imperialism was emphasized more strongly than ever. The core of Sun’s
political ideology lay in his so-called Three Principles of the People: nationalism, democracy and
people’s livelihood, which he had formulated in 1905.

Sun’s principle of nationalism (Min Tzu Chui) had undergone the greatest changes since its earliest
formulation. Originally it had been largely synonymous with anti-Manchuism. In the early 1920s Sun
began to revive the principle of nationalism, and in his 1924 lectures presented it as a vigorous
denunciation of imperialism in China. According to him, China must create a new national solidarity
on the basis of its clans and families, refuse to buy foreign goods, and try to limit foreign exploitation.
He envisaged the complete unity of the 5 races of China, viz. Han, Manchu, Tibetan, Mongol and
Muslim. KMT would be dependent on the support of the masses, encompassing, intellectuals,
laborers, peasants and merchants. The Kuomintang was to establish an organized connection with the
minority races in order that concrete measures may be devised for solution of their specific problems
and realization of their specific needs. After the successful completion of the national revolution, KMT
would form a union of independent nations.

In discussing his principle of democracy (Min Chian Chui), Sun reasoned that the 20th century was the
age of democracy and that China should be up-to-date and part of that age. He had worked out a new
and better system of democracy in which the populace would turn over political power to intellectually
superior individuals whom they would control through the rights of suffrage, recall, initiative and
referendum and to whom they would entrust a government organized on the basis of a “5-power
constitution” providing for executive, legislature and judiciary branches of govt and also for censorate
and civil service examination branches.

Sun’s 5 power constitution was not to come into effect immediately, rather he conceived of the
revolution in China in 3 phases: the military conquest of the country; a period of tutelage and the
realization of the constitutional government. In the first phase, the new army of KMT will be used to
put an end to warlordism, political reunification should be achieved and national government of KMT
established. This theory became the basis of the northern expedition. The 2nd phase is a phase of
benevolent paternalism by KMT leadership when the masses will be made aware of their rights and
obligations as well as the significance of democracy. A government based on the 5-power constitution
will be established in the last phase which is a phase of popular sovereignty. Only those who adhere to
the principles of KMT will be a part of the new system. However, supporters of the revolution could
remain as the citizens of China.

Sun, remarks Sheridan, was especially vague about his third principle, the principle of livelihood (Min
Sheng Chui). He identified it with socialism and with communism, but the comparisons among them
were far from rigorous. Sun vigorously attempted to repudiate Marx, particularly on the need of class
struggle; he wanted to improve the standard of living for the mass of the population through
industrialization and economic modernization, but he wanted even more to avoid class warfare. To
improve living standards without bloodshed, Sun advocated the regulation of capital and reduction of
the exploitative potentialities of land ownership. He recommended the use of agricultural machinery,
chemical fertilizers and the overall improvement of agricultural technology to achieve greater
productivity. In short he postulated humane and progressive economic goals. Unfortunately, he
developed no specific, practicable economic programs to achieve them.

The manifesto also enshrined the immediate programs of the party encompassing international as well
as domestic programs. The sovereignty of China has to be recognized by all nations of the world. All
unequal treaties must be given up by the imperial powers. Local self-government units have to be
established. The practice of military conscription should be introduced and the recruits should be
given political and vocational education. The interests of peasants and workers should be taken care of.
Moreover all citizens should be guaranteed certain civic rights.

The First Party Congress accepted Sun’s 3 Principles as the basis of party policy and the manifesto of
the congress summarized the principles with emphasis on their revolutionary and anti-imperialist
aspects. The congress also approved the policy of KMT-Communist cooperation by allowing
Communists to join the KMT-a step that had profound consequences.

The First United Front (1923-1927)

The Russians were largely responsible for establishing the coalition between the Kuomintang and the
Chinese Communist Party. In the Second Congress of the Comintern (3rd International), 1920, Lenin
put forth his arguments (Thesis on Colonial Questions) on the question of the alliance of bourgeois
democracy with the Communist party. The Communist Party was in its infancy and the Russians
thought that they could not count on it to initiate and carry through the kind of revolution they
hoped would undercut imperialism in China. Moreover the Russians considered that the socialist
revolution in China was a long time off, that the revolution was in its bourgeois-democratic phase and
that the KMT was the chief vehicle for the revolution during that phase. The KMT, the Russians told
the Chinese Communists, should not be viewed as the political party of the bourgeoisie, but as an
alliance of revolutionary elements from all 4 major classes: peasantry, workers, intellectuals and petty
bourgeoisie.

The CCP and KMT could both see that the combined power of warlordism and imperialism was so
great that the unity of all revolutionary forces was obviously desirable propounds Sheridan. The
Communists recognized that their party was still small and weak, and that it could profit from the
contacts and reputation of the KMT. Sun on the other hand, appreciated the potential strength of the
labor movement on which the Communists had concentrated their organizational energies
immediately after founding their party. It has been suggested that he specially wanted the Communists
subject to the control of the KMT as a means of precluding their independent development and the
class warfare he thought that development would produce. Sun with Comintern agreement, wanted a
coalition; he wanted the Communists to join the KMT as individuals; he would not agree to the 2
parties functioning separately but in tandem, as a kind of united front.

Some CCP leaders also favored the policy of coalition. Li Ta-chao, for example, thought that
international capitalism exploited all classes in China, and therefore all classes should unite to oppose
it. Li was less inclined to a single revolutionary class, the proletariat than to the entire nation, which he
considered a “proletariat nation,” all elements of which have to struggle together against imperialism.
Mao Tse-tung also supported the coalition policy. However, many communists strenuously objected to
joining the KMT; they didn’t agree with the Russians’ theoretical justification for the coalition. The
Chinese argued that the KMT was the party of the bourgeoisie; they might have added that the
conception of a party as an amalgam of several classes was not very good Marxism. In fact many
thought that the new policy meant the end of the independent existence of the CCP. Nevertheless, the
First United Front (1923-27) between the CCP and the KMT was formed at the third congress of the
CCP, 1923 at Canton.

A basic contradiction threatened the coalition from the outset. Despite the Russian analysis of the
mixed composition of the KMT, it was fundamentally the party of the bourgeoisie. Though some of
its leading spokesmen talked in fiery terms of world revolution they did not speak for all members of
the party, and they did not mean everything they said. The KMT wanted to eliminate the warlords,
abolish the unequal treaties and begin to modernize the country under the guidance of the educated
propertied class. The Communists also opposed warlords and imperialism, but they envisaged ultimate
power in the hands of the workers and peasants. The ultimate aims of the 2 parties, of course,
determined the method each was inclined to use. The Communists wanted to overthrow the warlords
and oust the imperialists through the organization of a social revolution, thus combining social and
national goals. The KMT wanted to achieve the first 2 objectives, but opposed class warfare. Conflict
between the 2 parties was, therefore, inevitable.
The contradiction at the root of the KMT-Communist coalition inevitably grew more acute as the 2
parties worked to develop their particular organizational and power interests. After Communist
members joined the KMT, they continued to put their energies into the labor movement and later into
the peasant movement as well. Many KMT people also participated in various aspects of this work, but
by and large the mass movements became Communist strongholds of organization and influence. The
KMT on the other hand, gathered chief strands of military power into its hands.

(Describe briefly about the NE from the initial paragraphs) The expansion of the mass movement after
the Northern Expedition (NE) reached Yangtze exacerbated the contradictions in the KMT-CCP
coalition and hastened its collapse. The expansion and militancy of the mass movement frightened
landlords, businessmen and moderate and conservative politicians and military officers. And this fear
of the mass movement nourished fear and suspicion of CCP opines Sheridan.

The burgeoning mass movement presented the Communists with a dilemma. If they encouraged the
peasants and provided them with leadership and support, it would doubtless bring to an end the
Communist coalition with KMT, to whose members such radicalism was unacceptable. If, on the
other hand, they tried to maintain the coalition, they would be in the awkward position of attempting
to restrain a revolutionary movement that they had earlier encouraged. Advice from the Comintern
was not very helpful because it advised doing both: “(support) all the economic demands of the
peasant masses,” but “stay in the KMT and intensify ….. work in it.”

Chiang Kai-shek had already begun during the Northern Expedition to take a strong anti-Communist
stance. At the end of 1926 one of his closest advisers, Chen Kuo-fu, had organized an anti-Bolshevik
League in Kiangsi, and early in 1927 Chiang had denounced the aggressive attitude of the Chinese
Communists and proposed to “put a stop to their activities.” In March he had executed several
Communist labor leaders, and ordered the dissolution of at least 2 trade union councils. He had also
reorganized the Municipal governments of Nanchang and Kiukiang, to remove Wuhan sympathizers.
In April 1927 came the most explicit-and overwhelming-evidence of Chiang’s anti-Communist
position. For now having occupied Nanking and Shanghai Chiang was ready to move in force against
the Communists. With military support from the staunchly anti-Communist Kwangsi Army, financial
support from Shanghai bankers and at the very least the moral support of the foreign powers, Chiang
struck at the Communists and revolutionary organizations with devastating force. This finally marked
the end of the united front between the CCP and the KMT. The Wuhan government promptly
branded Chiang a counter-revolutionary and stripped him of his offices. Chiang responded by setting
up his own national government in Nanking on 18th April 1927.
A great deal of dispute has taken place about the so-called Revolution of 1925-1927, with the
KMT-CCP conflict at its core and about the role of the Russians. Sheridan states that the Russians
used the Comintern to guide the Chinese revolution to their own ends and made decisions without
due regard for Chinese conditions, or, ironically, for Marxist ideology. The Chinese Communists, like
disciplined Communist revolutionaries, tried to obey the Comintern, but they also tried, like
revolutionary Communists, to promote social revolution. It was impossible to do both for very long
because sponsorship of agrarian revolution alienated the KMT, precisely what the Comintern did not
want. Russian and Chinese Communists alike got into convoluted theoretical discussions tryng to
resolve this matter, but the logic of the situation was perfectly obvious to the KMT. The KMT had
always been a party of the middle class, the socialist overtones of Sun Yat-sen’s program
notwithstanding, and to it the Communist vision of China’s future was frightening and repugnant.
When the Russian Communist influence, together with the burgeoning mass movement, became so
powerful as to threaten to transform the KMT or destroy it, party members had only 2 choices. They
could yield in which case the party would cease to exist in the form and with the aims it originally had,
or they could fight. They chose to fight and Chiang Kai-shek led the attack.

To sum up, the KMT-CCP collaboration was a marriage of convenience, each needing but distrusting
the other. The KMT desired Soviet aid in "revitalizing the party, in developing a party army, and in
carrying out the National Revolution; it also aspired to the utilization of Communist ties with the
workers, peasants, and the masses. On the other hand, the Comintern and the CCP wanted to use the
KMT base to expand their influence and eventually to subvert it from within. In this tenuous
relationship, remarks Hsu, cooperation lasted as long as it was in the interest of both; each hoped to
emerge as the victor when the other had outlived his usefulness. Sun's stature and prestige were decisive
factors in holding together the various elements, but once he passed away, divisive forces were
unleashed and loomed increasingly large on the horizon.

(Kindly give an introduction and conclusion according to the question asked)

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The KMT-CCP coalition came to an abrupt and bloody end in 1927, when Chiang Kai-shek set his
troops to closing down left-wing organizations and to slaughtering Communists wherever they could
be found. That attack decimated CCP. The leadership was changed, party headquarters in Shanghai
went underground and many communists fled into the mountains and rugged areas along certain
provincial borders. Here they reorganized their forces and recruited peasant soldiers. The key men in
the rejuvenation of CCP were Mao Tse-tung and Chu Teh. Late in 1927, Mao led a band of rugged
followers to Chingkangshan where he was joined early in 1928 by Chu Teh, a Communist military
officer and his small following. This meeting marked the beginning of what came to be known as the
Mao-Chu leadership with Mao the political leader, and Chu in charge of military affairs. It was also the
beginning of a long period during which Mao and Chu developed political and military concepts and
policies that were at odds with the central party leadership and the Comintern that stood behind it.

James E Sheridan suggests that in the face of military onslaughts by Chiang and in the total context of
warlordism, Mao envisaged the unification, development and expansion of the armed units under
various communist officers into a Red Army and he and Chu worked hard to improve and enlarge
their own forces. By the end of 1929 they had developed the largest and best disciplined Communist
army in China. Other commanders meanwhile organized armed forces and established political control
in other territorial bases. These areas were called rural soviets. By 1931, around half a dozen major
soviet areas had attained some permanence and stability as independent political entities. In December
representatives of a number of soviets and of Communist armies and organizations, met in Juichin,
Kiangsi and proclaimed the establishment of a new state - the Chinese Soviet Republic (CSR) -
embracing all the soviet areas. The representatives adopted the outline of a constitution, set up a
central government, and approved a political program, an agrarian policy and certain basic social and
economic policies. Mao Tse tung was elected the chairman of the Republic and Chuh the Chairman of
the Military Council, which in effect, meant Commander in chief of the Red armies.

The CSR, which may finally have contained a population of as many as 9 million people, was designed
to create a “democratic dictatorship of the workers and peasants in the Soviet districts”. Landlords,
gentry and others who were thought to live by exploitation were shorn of political rights and their land
was expropriated. Supreme political authority was vested in a Congress of deputies representing the
soviets and various organizations, but between meetings real power was in the hands of a Central
Executive Committee.

The CSR promulgated a highly advanced labor code and initially at least an extremely radical land law.
The labor law affected few people because there were few urban workers in Soviet areas; far more
relevant was the agrarian law, the culmination of a series of policy decisions taken by the party from the
time it was forced into the countryside. The agrarian law called for the confiscation of land belonging
to landlords, gentry and others who were said to live by exploitation. The seized land was to be
redistributed to the poor and landless peasants and to Red Army soldiers.

Amit Bhattacharyya propounds that the soviet that was set up on the Hunan-Kiangsi-Fukien
bordering regions in the late 1920s and early 1920s was important as a landmark not only in the history
of Chinese Communism, but also in the history of peasant movements. In fact the fusion of these 2
streams made possible the real agrarian revolution which brought with it a new historical perspective.
According to Jean Chesneaux, the earlier peasant movements led by secret societies made not the
political and social structure but the abuses of the old society their targets of attack. The new
movements, on the contrary, were aimed at uprooting the old society and creating an entirely new one
based on basic human values. It is also true at the same time that the theories about this agrarian
revolution did not emerge from within the villages, but from the towns ie through an external process.
No doubt the main force in the anti-KMT struggle was the peasantry; however this revolutionary
movement fed by a new ideology did not emanate from the peasantry. This Marxist theory arose in the
urban areas and inspired the peasantry into action. At the same time this ideology fought against old
notions about equality, adventurism etc. In the period of the Kiangsi soviet, the peasants fought under
new organizations such as the Red army and CCP-organizations which were fundamentally different
from the old secret societies. The Chingkang soviet was the first step towards an agrarian revolution
and based basically on the support of the poor peasantry. The agrarian revolution was truly the heir to
the old-style peasant revolts and emerged from the same social roots. At the same time, however, it was
also fundamentally different from the earlier peasant movements.

In the face of a tight blockade by Chiang, the Red Army and all the Party’s administrative and political
personnel-perhaps 100,000 strong-started the extraordinary flight-the Long March-in October 1934.
Meanwhile Mao was elected Chairman both of the Polit Bureau of the CC of the CCP as also of the
new Revolutionary Military Council at the Tsunyi Conference in January 1935. The Communists
were pursued by Chiang’s armies throughout the Long March. Nonetheless, they reached the Shensi
Soviet in northwestern China in October 1935.

From the mid-1930s onwards, remarks Sheridan, the argument that ‘Chinese should not fight
Chinese, but should join together to fight Japan’ started gaining momentum. The Communists
declared their willingness to stop trying to overthrow the KMT government, to re-designate
Communist regions and armies as units under the national government, to stop confiscation of
landlord lands and to institute universal suffrage in their area. The KMT didn’t respond formally to
this proposal but issued a set of 4 demands that closely paralleled the Communist offer. On the basis of
these statements, negotiations between the 2 parties continued and culminated in the United Front
(UF) in 1937.

On July 7, 1937, the Japanese initiated local attack on Chinese near Peiping. The Sino-Japanese war
had begun. The Japanese offensive produced the most effective national unity that China had known
in a generation, at least temporarily. The Communists declared the Red Army to be part (8th Route
Army & New 4th Army) of the national armed forces, under the ultimate command of Chiang and the
CCP and KMT declared their intentions to work together. Neither party publicly repudiated the UF
until the end of the war in 1945, but actual cooperation between them was minimal and short-lived.
Mutual denunciations led ultimately to clashes between government and Communist troops. Thus
the 2 parties operated in different regions, followed different policies, and generally functioned
separately-particularly after troops of the 2 camps clashed in early 1941.

The period 1937-45 is known in the history of China as Yenan phase. It was the capital of
Shensi-Kansu-Ninghsia base area. The importance that Yenan enjoyed was more than that of
ChingKang-shan. It was not just a base area, not just a new government or a new social system. It was
in reality a model of future China based on anti-Jap war of resistance, honesty and justice. From 1936,
1000s of youth and students braved their ways through hardships and repressive measures from the
KMT and reached Yenan to integrate with the struggle against the foreign invaders.

In the new situation, demands of the agrarian revolution were temporarily suspended and replaced by
the policy of resistance of Japan and the policy of ‘national salvation’. In an essay entitled ‘On New
Democracy’ (1940) which is regarded as one of his main contributions to Marxism-Leninism. The
theory behind new alliances was propounded by Mao in that essay. It was based on the alliance of the ‘4
revolutionary classes’-the proletariat, the poor and middle peasants, the petty bourgeoisie and the
national bourgeoisie. These 4 classes were associated together in the same historical mission: to defeat
imperialism by fighting the Japanese and to defeat feudalism. In the ‘liberated areas’, local governments
were set up on the ‘3-3-3’ principle comprising 3 Communists, 3 members of the center parties which
eventually included KMT and 3 non-party progressives. In the later period, the scope for political
alliance was extended further to include patriotic landlords who were encouraged to participate
actively in the struggle against Japan, despite their social position as the natural enemies of the
peasants.

In the opinion of Mao, this New Democratic Revolution was essentially an agrarian revolution.
However, though it was a bourgeois democratic revolution, it was not the revolution of the old type.
Chalmers Johnson in his book Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power argued that the Chinese
revolution was accomplished mainly due to the rise of peasant nationalism against Japan. During the
war against Japan patriotic motives replaced the aims of the social struggles in the minds of the peasants
that they were willing to renounce the struggle against landlords and feudal order, and that it was
‘peasant nationalism’ that in the end defeated Japan and brought Communists to power. According to
Johnson when in the period of Kiangsi soviet the strategy of CCP was agrarian revolution, they were
defeated; and they could attain success only when they replaced this aim with the aim of a national
liberation war. Nonetheless, Bhattacharyya argues that policy could well be one component of
victory in a revolutionary war, but it could be only one of many other factors and not the only factor.
Other key factors encompassed of unity within the party, united program, political and military
preparations, the strength of the enemy, whether the objective situation stands for or against the
revolutionaries etc. Besides these, success could never be the pre-condition of struggle. In fact success
comes through innumerable failures. Failures are the pillars of success.

The French historian, Jean Chesneaux has opposed Johnson’s view. He admits that the agreement
between KMT and CCP meant applying a brake to the agrarian revolution in theory at least. Thus
temporarily, for the sake of unity against Japan, the CCP agreed to renounce their radical agrarian
policy and confiscation of landlords’ holding without compensation. But what is important is that in
exchange, they obtained from the KMT a fundamental concession-the right to preserve their own
armed forces, the 8th Route Army and New 4th Army, to fight against Japan. This meant in effect the
right of peasants to keep their arms and the possibility of continuing at a later date their struggle for
land. John G Gurley expressed the same view in his book China’s Economy and the Maoist Strategy. In
his opinion the period of anti-Japanese resistance was not one of total retreat for the peasant
movement. In fact the policy of rent reduction and interest reduction was still pursued with the
intention of reducing the economic power of landlords.

According to Chesneaux, even more important is the fact that the development of armed resistance
against Japan led to a radical change in the political balance of power between the gentry and poor
peasants. Taking arms against Japan and contributing to the main war efforts, the peasants inevitably
became confident of their own strength. They knew it well that their arms would serve in the future to
defend their class interests and not just their country.

Bhattacharyya opines that the peasant society in Yenan was in one sense a military society, in which
the armed resistance was closely associated with the everyday life of everyone and in which the
traditional aspects of peasant life were adapted to military purposes. Moreover, it was also a democratic
society. In the old society there is a traditional opposition between the organs of power-military as well
as civil. In the recent period with the onset of revolutionary struggles, contradictions developed also
between the members of the party and the ordinary people. All these differences were reduced to the
minimum in the newly democratic society. Yet another peculiarity of the society was the equality
between men and women. Women were made free from the clutches of patriarchy and feudal fetters
and they fought hand in hand with men against feudal social oppression and foreign aggression. They
participated actively in the work of peasant committees, in guerrilla operations, in the production
campaigns and formed women’s associations.

To add to these, a new kind of culture bloomed in the Yenan society which was fed by peasant tradition
and at the same time integrated with the revolutionary struggle. The society was based on such political
and economic values that were essentially different from those of the cities. Despite serious problems, it
was never completely cut off from the outside world. Mark Selden in his The Yenan Way in
Revolutionary China writes that the “Yenan way synthesizes the most significant and distinct features
of the Chinese contribution to the practice of people’s war, revolution and the transformation of
peasant societies”.

Cheng feng, a cadre training and rectification movement which, according to Selden, marked a
turning point in the Chinese communist movement, was launched by Mao on February 1, 1942 and
was followed for the next 2 years. The main aim of Cheng feng was to build up a unified party
committed to common ideas, goals and methods. It was Marxist in character. But the stress had always
been on the creative application of Marxism, and not the mechanical implementation of it. John Rue
in his book Mao Tse-tung in the Opposition wrote that one of Mao’s major contributions to the
development of a unified communist movement was his stress on organizational and educational
methods to resolve intra-party conflicts. Mao held that the cheng feng movement was a successful
method to resolve problems. In his article On the Correct Handling of Contradictions among the People,
he wrote that the method of ‘unity-criticism-unity’ was a democratic method of resolving
contradictions among the people. Richard Solomon in Chinese Communist Politics in Action said that
intense criticism and self-criticism was an effective method for breaking down traditional conception
of leadership. The cheng feng was the first of a series of assaults on these patterns of leadership.

Closely tied up with cheng feng was another movement known as hsia-hsiang or “to the village”
movement which began in July 1941 when cadres and students went to the countryside to assist the
peasants at the time of the harvesting season. In the spring of 1942, preparatory to their assignments in
the countryside students and intellectuals studied in Yenan. The main aim of this movement,
according to Bhattacharyya, was to overcome the mutual ignorance and prejudice of intellectuals and
peasants through the sharing of a common experience. According to Selden, the spirit of hsia-hsiang
was idealistic. Through this experience, the privileged and educated urban youth would realize that
they had something to contribute meaningfully for the resolution of the problems faced by the
peasants.

In 1942, CCP made a frontal attack on rural poverty in the border region and in the next year it turned
its attention to economic matters in an all-out effort to strengthen the base areas. The new aim, known
as the production war, was the setting up of a self-sufficient and prosperous economy. During this
period CCP adopted the policy of “centralized leadership and dispersed management” which meant
unified planning for development and the establishment of broad economic goals in Yenan. The policy
of the government was to inspire the people to fulfill the economic priorities.

The political and economic innovations initiated in 1942 and 1943 were closely connected with the
broad vision of rural development. The main aim of CCP was the creation of local institutions by the
people and for the people. Known as the min-pan concept, it soon embraced the whole range of
village life. Such transformation in the field of education was central to the transformation in the
countryside. The cheng feng movement not only brought about the economic development in the
remotest corners of the village, it also created a broad vision of man and society in revolution. The
principle of mass line was applied to explain the relationship between the leadership and the people.
The main aim of the party leadership was to sum up the opinion of the people, then go back to them
so that people could extend bold support, and in this way, form correct ideas and carry forward their
struggles. The mass line principle puts emphasis on the establishment of close ties between the
leadership and the people based on experience in guerilla struggles. Jack Gray noted the utility of this
approach for forging national unity and labor discipline and minimizing official corruption and
rigidity.

The Communist Victory

On 1st October 1949, Mao Tse-tung formally proclaimed the establishment of the People’s Republic of
China and during the following few months the last pockets of KMT resistance were eliminated. In the
meantime, Chiang and his closest followers, with some 2 million troops and frightened citizens, had
fled to Taiwan. The factors that contributed to the victory of Communists in China will be elaborated
in the following paragraphs.

The Communist achievement was first of all military; it is partly explicable in purely military terms.
Communist leadership was excellent from top to bottom. Chu Teh and Mao Tse-tung carefully dealt
with military realities and gave no weight to considerations of prestige and face that often guided
Chiang Kai-shek. Mao developed a clear and practical long range strategy that put into effect a fast
mobile warfare that aimed at destruction of KMT armies rather than at the seizure of territory. Chiang
on the other hand, gave very little evidence of following a strategic plan that the chief American
military advisor asked if one even existed. Communist field commanders were selected on merit, and
given wide latitude to use their own judgment. They generally waged bold, aggressive, sometimes
brilliant campaigns. KMT generals, on the contrary, were chosen on the grounds of political loyalty to
Chiang and many who qualified on this basis demonstrated professional mediocrity or outright
incompetence. Time after time battles were lost because of the simple incompetence of government
officers. Leadership of government forces was further disrupted by frequent turnover of high officers
and by the reluctance of generals to cooperate with one another. Whereas the Communist armies were
marked by continuity of command and a willingness to work together for common goal. Not only
incompetence but corruption too was rampant among KMT generals.
With such leadership, opines Bhattacharyya, morale in the government armies was understandably at
rock bottom. Nor did the deplorable conditions that still prevailed in the army after the anti-Japanese
war help. The soldiers were inadequately paid and fed; training was poor to non-extent; discipline was
bad and so on and so forth. On top of that the Communists encouraged defections by indoctrinating
captured troops with communist peasant and national policies and then allowing them to return to
their units if they wished. Some remained with the Communists, but many who went back would
never be implacable anti-Communist warriors.

Exactly opposite traits characterized the CCP forces. Soldiers were well cared for, well trained,
thoroughly indoctrinated about the need and purpose of the struggle. The intelligent Communist
strategy of fighting only when success seemed assured cultivated a feeling of victory among the
Communist soldiers and stimulated a spirit of boldness and offense that contrasted vividly with the
defensive spirit of the government units. Morale in the Communist units was high.

Scholars in the West have disagreed about the extent to which the conquest of China was a product of
popular support. Some have claimed that the Communists rode to power on the crest of a peasant
revolution not unlike those that led to the establishment of new dynasties in China since time
immemorial. Others have argued that the conquest can be assessed only in military terms that it was
decided by military factors. The desire of many Americans to view the civil war purely in military terms
seems to derive partly from a post 1949 reluctance to acknowledge that Communists can have genuine
popular support.

Communist policies governing the anti-Japanese war bases have already been examined. To the
peasants in those regions, suggests Bhattacharyya, the wartime Communist administration was the
best government they had ever known. Their confidence was the unshakable base enjoyed by the
Communists when the civil war began and it was never seriously weakened throughout the years of
struggle with the KMT. In the course of the civil war, agrarian policies in the Communist base areas
became increasingly radical. Shortly after the Japanese surrender the Communist authorities reaffirmed
the moderate wartime land policy of reduced rent and reduced interest-without confiscation of land.

Without much question this revolutionary program commanded the enthusiasm of majority of
peasants. They already supported the CCP government because of the 8 or 9 years of honesty in the
resistance areas, a support manifested in their volunteering for Communist armies, helping in military
transport and supply and fighting as militia members. Mao’s land reform, coming as it did during the
civil war, added to the peasant enthusiasm to the Communist cause.

In sum the Communist victory was built on the basis of the political and military organization of the
anti-Japanese bases, and the legitimacy and moral authority derived from honest government and
effective action against the invader. Given the conditions that existed in China during the civil war, the
question of military and popular support are not separate issues, but 2 aspects of the same
phenomenon infers Bhattacharyya.

The crucial and major element in popular support of the Communists was that rendered by the
peasantry, for the peasants constituted the vast majority of China’s population, filled the Communist
armies and provided the food, intelligence and various forms of help needed if the Red armies were to
fight a guerilla war. Communist policies and ideology, however, were not without attraction to the
other chief classes in Chinese society: intellectuals, students and middle class. Aside from the peasants,
the intellectuals constituted the most important other class in China. They had been fiercely
anti-imperialistic, at least from the time of the 1919 May 4th Movement. The unequal treaties were
terminated in 1943, but the issue of imperialism remained very much alive during the civil war period
with the US considered the chief imperialist villain. That the US supported KMT subtly linked that
party with Japan and with imperialism generally. The intellectuals were impressed by the sincerity and
firmness of the Communist anti-imperialist attitude.

The KMT’s response to student movements and political agitations alienated the students from the
government and they turned towards the Communist alternative. Marxism-Leninism also had its
attractions for Chinese intellectuals. Indeed from the middle of 1920s, Marxist concepts and
assumptions permeated the Chinese intellectual world, influencing the thinking of many who were not
Communists in any direct political sense. Marxism purported to be scientific-“scientific socialism”-and
that too was an attraction to those intellectuals who, from the beginning of the 20th century, had been
enamored of science and viewed it as the essence of modernity. Finally after the May 4th movement
many intellectuals had more or less come to accept the idea that China could never be a strong power
until its peasants were liberated from tradition and ignorance. Whereas Communism had these various
appeals for Chinese intellectuals, the KMT offered them little more than a return to a tradition that
they had long ago rejected as sterile irrelevant to the modern world. The most appealing aspects of
KMT-its supposed commitment to constitutionalism, democracy and westernization-were so
flagrantly violated in practice that they had little positive effect on intellectuals.

Little is known about the attitude of China’s small proletariat toward Communism. But it seems
reasonable to assume that the workers saw many advantages in the ascendency of a party that claimed
to put the interests of the proletariat before all others. The middle class in the cities had ties with the
student-intellectual class and shared some of their views although generally they assumed a fairly
moderate stance. The corruption and incompetence of KMT rule convinced many of them that
Chiang and his party were hopeless. To sum up, Communist rule, then, seemed to promise something
for everyone, the best of the real available alternatives.