Chinese Communist Party

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Communist Party, Chinese (CCP) Founded in Shanghai on 1 July 1921 by Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu, it was a response partly to international developments, most notably the Bolshevik Russian Revolution of 1917, and partly to domestic events. Most important of these were the spread of Communist and left-wing ideas during the May Fourth Movement (1919), and the current political anarchy in a country dominated by local warlords. In 1922 it accepted the direction of Comintern, and followed its orders to cooperate with the Guomindang (KMT) of Sun Yat-sen. Initially, the party was slow to take off, with around 1,000 members in 1925, but its effective membership drives based on trade union organization and nationalism meant there were around 50,000 members by 1927, to the concern of the KMT leader, Chiang Kai-shek, who came to identify the Communists as his biggest rival. Chiang thus set out to destroy the CCP, by means of brutal massacres in Shanghai and elsewhere in April 1927.

On the run from the KMT in the cities, the CCP sought refuge in the countryside, and established its base in Jianxi in 1931. Here, it grew into a mass party with around 300,000 members, while it gained vital experience in government and party organization. It also developed an effective army, hardened by five attacks from Chiang's National Revolutionary Army in an effort to exterminate the Jianxi Soviet. In 1934, around 100,000 Communist Red Army soldiers embarked upon the epic Long March of 6,000 miles, during which Mao Zedong finally asserted his leadership, aided by his lieutenant, Zhou Enlai. Mao arrived with around 8,000 soldiers at Yan'an. Whereas the time at Jianxi and the Long March transformed the party from a fledgling urban movement to a party with a mass peasant base, the time at Yan'an was not only one of regeneration and growth. It was also a pivotal time for the party's ideology and mythology. It was here that the roots of Mao's leadership cult developed, while a leadership elite formed which continued to lead the party into the 1990s. An idea of revolutionary dynamism and change, as well as strict party discipline, developed among this elite which was at the root of later purges, most notably the Cultural Revolution. At the end of the United Front in 1945, the party could claim a membership of around one million. This number had tripled by the end of the Chinese Civil War, when the People's Republic of China was established.

From 1949, party primacy was established throughout the country. Despite a series of purges, most notably in the Hundred Flowers campaign, and the Great Leap Forward, the party grew to seventeen million in the 1960s. This made it more cumbersome and bureaucratic, while the number of committees and subcommittees also reduced Mao's scope for control of the party. As a result, millions of party members were purged in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, though even greater numbers were admitted to the party.

The CCP managed to overcome the shock of the death of Mao and Zhou Enlai with relative ease, mainly because power remained in the hands of the gerontocracy. While under Hua Guofeng and then Deng Xiaoping the leadership displayed a considerable sense of economic pragmatism, their commitment to stern party rule remained unchanged, as was displayed most brutally at the Tiananmen Square Massacre of 1989. Nevertheless, among the 57 million members making up the rank and file of the party, there remained considerable disagreement over the party's ideal role in politics, economy, and society, which became increasingly dominated by capitalism. The liberalization of the economy, coupled with heavy-handed administration and low salaries of party officials, predisposed much of the party hierarchy to corruption. A number of scandals came to light, the worst of which involved the discovery in late 1999 of a smuggling ring in Xiamen involving goods worth $20 bn., which implicated hundreds of party and local government officials.

Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chinese political party. Interest in communism was stimulated by the RUSSIAN REVOLUTION (1917) and the May Fourth Movement and promoted by Li Dazhao, librarian of Beijing University, and Chen Duxiu. They were co-founders of the Chinese Communist Party at its First Congress in Shanghai in July 1921. Under COMINTERN instructions, CCP members joined the KUOMINTANG and worked in it for national liberation. Early activities concentrated on trade union organization in Shanghai and other large cities, but a peasant movement was already being developed by Peng Pai. Purged by the Kuomintang in 1927 and forced out of the cities, the CCP had to rely on China's massive peasant population as its revolutionary base. It set up the Jiangxi Soviet in southern China in 1931 and moved north under the leadership of MAO ZEDONG in the LONG MARCH (1934–35). Temporarily at peace with the Kuomintang after the Xi'an Incident in 1936, the communists proved an effective resistance force when the Japanese invaded the country in 1937. After the end of World War II, the party's military strength and rural organization allowed it to triumph over the nationalists in the renewed civil war and to proclaim a People's Republic in 1949. It has ruled China since 1949. Internal arguments over economic reform and political doctrine and organization led to the chaos of the CULTURAL REVOLUTION (1966–76), during which the CCP appeared to turn on itself. After the death of Mao Zedong and the purge of the GANG OF FOUR the CCP pursued a more stable political direction under the leadership of DENG XIAOPING; but allegations of corruption and demands for more open government led to a prolonged crisis in 1987–89, culminating in the Tiananmen Square massacre of an estimated 2000 protesters in June 1989.

Communist Party, Chinese Political organization founded in July 1921 by Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu. The party was strengthened by its alliance (1924) with Chiang Kai-shek's nationalist Kuomintang, but virtually shattered when the communists were expelled from the alliance in 1927. Mao Zedong was the guiding force in revitalizing the party in the early 1930s. Under his leadership, solidified during the Long March (1934–35), the party revised the Soviet proletariat-based model to fit the peasant-oriented economy of China and, after another four years of civil war from 1945, the People's Republic was proclaimed in Tiananmen Square (October 1949). The party had achieved complete political and military power. Its structure and hierarchy was nearly destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, but re-established after Mao's death (1976) by Deng Xiaoping. Following pro-democracy demonstrations (May 1989), the party swung away from political reform and hardline conservatives consolidated power. Yet, its flexible approach to economic reform enabled it to survive the collapse of Soviet communism. Jiang Zemin became president in 1993. The National People's Congress is the supreme legislative body, and nominally elects the highest officers of state. Today, there are more than 40 million members.

Chinese Communist party see Communist party , in China.