Chinese Revolution

conflict in China resulting in the establishment of Communist rule. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was founded in July 1921 in Shanghai, with around 60 members. Just over 28 years later, on October 1, 1949, it inaugurated the People�s Republic of China.

Many factors contributed to the victory of the CCP in this second revolution in China within 40 years (the first having resulted in the overthrow of the Qing dynasty in 1911): decisive leadership and flexible strategies, the discovery of ways of mobilizing large-scale peasant support, the bravery and self-sacrifice of countless Party members and soldiers, the personal leadership of Mao Zedong, governmental weakness and corruption, the Great Depression ultimately leading to invasion by Japan, support from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and luck. All of these were essential.

However, the CCP did not merely have to contend with domestic forces. When it was founded, China had almost disintegrated, squabbled over by factious warlords, and overshadowed by foreign powers which controlled pockets of Chinese territory. Both the CCP and the rival Nationalist Party or Kuomintang (KMT) had to try to rebuild the Chinese state around themselves. Though stigmatized by the KMT as one of the chief causes of national division, since it was an ally of Moscow, the CCP proved more successful because it offered the ideal of a new, more prosperous, more equal, more just, and more democratic China. By insisting upon its members striving to live up to that ideal in their personal lives, it stood out from political rivals and won supporters to its side.

The rise of the CCP to power can be divided into two almost equal periods. The first, from 1921 to 1936, constituted a cycle of failure, despite surges of success. The second, from 1937 to 1949, was the opposite. It represented a long cycle of success, interrupted by major disasters.