The CCP then and later

One historical question concerning the next 30 years (1919 to 1949) that I'll in turn be concerned with here is why did the CCP succeed and the GMD fail? The answers are both ideological and practical. In short, the CCP proved to be better nationalists (and fighters of the external enemy) than the nominal Nationalists and also had better economic and social programmes but this state of affairs took time to develop. Another question that I will also get into is how did this period shape the CCP, what is that shape and what has this meant for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) even today? One feature to especially note is the CCP's vastly different effects on each succeeding generation: within the space of three generations China experienced a time before Mao and Communist rule, the Cultural Revolution and other aspects of Maoism and Dengist capitalism and beyond.

In 1920, Communist International (Commintern) agents arrived in China (following the success of Li Dazhou and the May Fourth Movement). At first (founded in July 1921 at Shanghai) the CCP was a party of city intellectuals influenced by the recent (1917) Russian Revolution attempting to inspire a very small urban proletariat in an economically ‘backward’ country. This had not been directly contemplated by Marx in such a country but had been by Lenin. Lenin had also directly suggested that socialist revolution in the mature advanced West (from the Marxian point of view) now in fact depended on national revolutions in the East due to the ameliorative effect on working conditions for the Western proletariat (and thus delay of revolutionary impetus) permitted by exploitation of the East by the West. So in Lenin’s book world revolution or indeed any and all Communist revolutions now actually depended on anti-colonial and anti-imperial revolutions that hadn’t even especially interested Marx as potential historical prime movers. And the Commintern had only just been set up in 1920 in Moscow to set these newly envisaged processes in motion.

The founding leader of the CCP was Chen Duxiu (陳獨秀). The party together with others was easily able to organise strikes and protests in the industrialised cities especially against the extremely harsh working conditions of the time (both local and foreign capitalists were involved) thus linking intellectuals opposed to capitalism with city workers. Membership in the party increased rapidly (from 1,000 in 1924 to 58,000 in 1927) and there was widespread support. Politically, though, the Commintern ordered the party (in 1924) to subordinate itself to the GMD as the GMD then had more resources and political capital and the parties shared a nationalist agenda.

Unity with the GMD was somewhat tested especially with the death of Sun Yat-sen (actually 孫逸仙 – Sun Yixian) in 1925 and accession to the role of GMD leadership of the less charismatic (and more conservative and frankly anti-Communist) Chiang Kai-shek (strictly Jiang Jieshi (蔣介石)) in June 1926. However the push north to unify the country was ready to begin so on it went. The combined GMD/CCP armies defeated 34 warlords in six month in 1926-27. They were at that time disciplined and passionate and had the support of the people. The CCP especially promised better conditions and the CCP forces made a point of always paying for what they ate and drank. Many people readily joined the Communists as they sought to abolish many cruel, outdated or exploitative practices such as foot-binding and the charging of exorbitant rents but there were already reservations. The CCP also sought to do away with sometimes cherished ideas and traditions.

Chiang’s next move upon arrival in Shanghai in April of 1927 (the planned end of the first phase of the northern push) was to bloodily purge the alliance of any Communists and labour activists he could find there. This naturally brought on violent opposition and in the end thousands of Communists were summarily executed.

Chiang then formed his GMD government with its capital at Nanking. He was really now the preeminent warlord of China but was now threatened by both the CCP and Japan. As part of legitimising his rule he then brought Sun’s body to be reburied at Nanking (really Nanjing – literally “South Capital”) and married one of Sun’s relatives. She proved to be a benefit to his rule as she was able to be an appealing Diana Spencer to his less appealing Prince Charles thus aiding in the public relations department. The GMD were now coming to control the heartland of China and were able to modernise and unify China’s currency. Forms of exploitation however persisted (in both the cities and the countryside) and this enabled the CCP to remain a popular force.

I’ll be dividing this history of the rise of the CCP to eventual power in the next few posts into four more stages that also consolidated the power of the then young Mao Zedong: the Jiangxi Soviet period (1927 to 1933), the Long March (1934 to 1935), the Yan’an period when the parties were forced to recombine (however weakly and tactically) against Japan (1936 to 1945) and the second civil war period (1945 to 1949).