The largest political party in the world, the Chinese Communist Party, celebrates its birthday on July 1. As of June 2014, the party had over 86 million members. The Communist Party has played a colossal role in the modern history of China. In fact, this political organization defined the face of modern China, taking the helm of the socio-economic and cultural transformations that took place in the country in the period after the end of World War II. Since 1949, for 66 years, the Chinese Communist Party has been ruling the country. But even before coming to power, the Chinese communists, not without the support of their senior comrades from the Soviet Union, played a crucial role in the country's political life. In honor of the birthday of the largest party in the world, we will briefly share some moments in the history of the Chinese Communist Party.
The spread of communist ideas in China was a direct consequence of the gradual penetration of European trends into the country and the search for possible ways to modernize Chinese society. The most progressive part of the Chinese intelligentsia was well aware of the impossibility of preserving the old feudal order that prevailed in the Qing empire and hindered the development of China. Neighboring Japan, which was under the strong cultural influence of China, nevertheless, at the end of the 19th century, as a result of rapid modernization, turned into an economically and militarily developed power of regional importance, which gradually reached the world level. China was not lucky - even in the first half of the twentieth century. it was an extremely unstable politically, corroded by internal contradictions and armed conflicts, economically backward state. Japan viewed the territory of China as its sphere of influence, hoping sooner or later to completely subjugate the country. On the other hand, China was "divided" between the largest European powers and the United States. Russia also did not stand aside, placing under its control vast areas of northeastern China. In the late XIX - early XX centuries. in China, small circles of a nationalist orientation began to emerge, whose members were convinced of the need for cardinal political changes in the country. One of the first such organizations was the Society for the Renaissance of China (Xingzhonghui), founded in 1894 in Honolulu (capital of the Hawaiian Islands) by Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925). It was Sun Yat-sen who became the key ideologist of the national liberation movement in China in the first quarter of the twentieth century, putting forward three key principles - nationalism, democracy and people's welfare. Subsequently, Sun Yatsen approvingly reacted to the October Revolution in Russia, to the activities of the Bolshevik Party, but he never took up Marxist positions. But his political program was supplemented by a clause on the need for cooperation with the communists. The revolutionary nationalist Sun Yat-sen, however, was far from Marxist-Leninist theory. He was more impressed by progressive nationalism based on the desire to transform China into a strong nation-state.
The first communists of the Celestial Empire
Radical left-wing political groups began to appear in China during the Xinhai Revolution, as a result of which the Manchu Qing Dynasty was overthrown and the Republic of China was proclaimed. Representatives of the Beijing intelligentsia stood at the origins of the spread of Marxist ideas in the Celestial Empire. In fact, the Chinese Marxist circles at the first stage of their development were formed by university professors from among students sympathetic to revolutionary ideas. One of the first popularizers of Marxism in China was Li Dazhao (1888-1927). Coming from a peasant family living in the northeastern province of Hebei, Li Dazhao from childhood was distinguished by high abilities and this allowed him to get an education in Japan. In 1913, he went to study political economics at Waseda University and returned to his homeland only in 1918. It was while studying in Japan that young Li Dazhao became acquainted with revolutionary socialist, including Marxist, ideas. After studying in Japan, Li Dazhao got a job as head of the library and professor at Peking University. He openly supported revolutionary transformations in neighboring Russia and considered them an example for the possible development of Chinese society. It was Li Dazhao who in 1920 set about creating the first Marxist circles in higher and secondary educational institutions in Beijing. The thirty-year-old professor at Peking University enjoyed a well-deserved prestige among the educated youth of the Chinese capital. Young people who sympathized with revolutionary ideas and admired the experience of the October Revolution in neighboring Russia were drawn to him. Among Li Dazhao's closest assistants in his professional activities was a young man named Mao Zedong. Young Mao worked as an assistant at the Beijing University Library and Li Dazhao was his direct supervisor.
Li Dazhao's colleague Professor Chen Duxiu (1879-1942) was nine years older and had richer political experience. Coming from a wealthy bureaucratic family who lived in Anhui province, Chen Duxiu received a good home education, sustained in the classical Confucian traditions, after which he passed the state exam and received a shutsai degree. In 1897, Chen Duxiu entered the Qiushi Academy, where he studied shipbuilding. Like Li Dazhao, he received further education in Japan, where he went in 1901 to improve his knowledge. In Japan, Chen became a follower of revolutionary ideas, although he did not join the national liberation movement under the leadership of Sun Yat-sen. In May 1903, in his native province of Anhui, Chen founded the Anhui Patriotic Union, but due to the persecution of the authorities he was forced to move to Shanghai. There he started publishing the newspaper National Daily, then returned to Anhui, where he published Anhui News.
In 1905, after taking a job as a teacher at a school in Wuhu, Chen created the Yuewanghui National Liberation Society. Then there was another study in Japan - at Waseda University, teaching at a military school in the Chinese city of Hangzhou. In 1911, after the Xinhai Revolution, Chen became secretary of the new revolutionary government in Anhui province, but was dismissed from this post for his opposition views and was even arrested for a short time. In 1917, Chen Duxiu became the head of the Philology Department of Peking University. The dean of the faculty got acquainted with the head of the library, Li Dazhao, who by that time had already headed a small circle engaged in the study of Marxism. For his revolutionary activities, Chen Duxiu was removed from the post of dean of the faculty and even arrested for 83 days, after which he left Beijing and moved to Shanghai. Here he founded a Marxist group.
Creation of the Chinese Communist Party
In early 1921, the Marxist groups under the leadership of Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu decided to unite. The very process of uniting the groups into a single political organization took place under the supervision and with the direct participation of Grigory Voitinsky, the head of the Far Eastern sector of the eastern department of the Executive Committee of the Communist International. At the end of June 1921, a congress of Marxist groups was held in Shanghai, at which on July 1, 1921, the creation of the Chinese Communist Party was officially proclaimed. The congress was attended by 53 people, including only 12 delegates representing scattered Marxist groups operating in various cities in China. In accordance with the decision of the congress, the goal of the party was proclaimed the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat in China and the subsequent construction of socialism. The Chinese Communist Party has recognized the leading role of the Communist International as the leading structure of the world communist movement. The Congress was attended by Li Dazhao, Chen Duxiu, Chen Gongbo, Tan Pingshan, Zhang Guotao, He Mengxiong, Lou Zhanglong, Deng Zhongxia, Mao Zedong, Dong Biu, Li Da, Li Hanjuan, Chen Tanqiu, Liu Zhenzhou Fengjing Shuheng, Deng Enming. Chen Duxiu was elected secretary of the Central Bureau of the Communist Party of China, and Zhang Guotao and Li Da were members of the bureau. At first, the number of the party was very small by the standards of China and barely reached 200 people. Mostly, these were teachers and students who were members of Marxist circles operating in educational institutions of large Chinese cities. Naturally, at the beginning of its existence, such a small political organization could not have a real impact on the political life of China. Nevertheless, since Sun Yat-sen sympathized with the Bolsheviks and ordered the Chinese nationalists from the Kuomintang to cooperate with the Communists, the party had a chance to significantly strengthen its position - primarily among the revolutionary youth, dissatisfied with the policy of the "militarists". In 1924, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party was formed, and Chen Duxiu was also elected general secretary.
From the very beginning of its existence, the Chinese Communist Party has been actively involved in the political struggle in the country. In 1924, the National Revolutionary Front was created, the main participants of which were the Kuomintang Party and the Chinese Communist Party. With the direct assistance of the Soviet Union, the formation of the National Revolutionary Army began in Guangdong. Against this background, the communists significantly strengthened their positions, since they were closely associated with the Soviet Union, and the Kuomintang party counted on Soviet military and material and technical assistance. The Kuomintang and the Communists were temporary companions in the struggle against the militarist cliques that controlled a significant part of China's territory and hindered the revival of a unified Chinese state with centralized control. On May 30, 1925, mass demonstrations of protest against the pro-Japanese government of Zhang Zuolin and the intervention of Western powers in the internal affairs of the Chinese state began in Shanghai. The protesters launched a siege of foreign concessions, after which, in addition to the Shanghai police, a contingent of Sikhs who were guarding British facilities in Shanghai joined in the dispersal of the demonstrators. As a result of the dispersal of the demonstration, many people died, which further infuriated the Chinese not only in Shanghai, but also in other cities of the country.
Kuomintang coup and the communists
On July 1, 1925, the formation of the National Government of the Republic of China was announced in Guangzhou. A year later, the main provinces of southern China - Guangdong, Guangxi and Guizhou were under the control of the Guangzhou government. On June 9, 1926, the famous Northern campaign of the National Revolutionary Army began, as a result of which the territory of South and Central China was liberated from the power of the militarists. However, the first military successes of the National Revolutionary Army were followed by inevitable disagreements in the camp of the Chinese national liberation movement - between the supporters of the Kuomintang and the communists. The former were worried about the growing influence of the Chinese Communist Party and did not intend to share power with the communists, let alone yield it to the communists. The latter counted, in a tactical alliance with the Kuomintang, to put an end to the militarist cliques, and then proceed to socialist transformations in the country. Naturally, there was no place for the Kuomintang in "red" China, and the Chinese generals, officials and businessmen who were part of the leadership of the nationalist party perfectly understood this.
When units of the National Revolutionary Army of China occupied Shanghai at the beginning of 1927, the formation of a coalition national revolutionary government began in the city, consisting of representatives of the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party. However, on April 12, 1927, a group of representatives of the right wing of the Kuomintang under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek staged a military coup and declared the Chinese Communist Party outlawed. The Chinese communists were forced to go underground as the Kuomintang secret services began persecuting and arresting members of the communist movement. At the same time, the left wing of the Kuomintang did not support Chiang Kai-shek's policy towards the communists. Moreover, a significant part of the commanders and fighters of the National Revolutionary Army went over to the side of the Communists, which pushed the latter to create the Chinese Red Army - their own armed forces, which were to fight both the militarists and the Kuomintang of Chiang Kai-shek. On April 12, 1927, the last line was crossed in relations between the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party. By order of Chiang Kai-shek, a mass extermination of members of the Communist Party and sympathizers was organized in Shanghai, which was under his control, which was called the "Shanghai Massacre". During the mass anti-communist action, the Kuomintang militants killed at least 4-5 thousand people. The destruction of the Communists was carried out by military units of the 26th Kuomintang Army with the assistance of local Shanghai organized criminal groups. The Shanghai gangsters were involved by Chiang Kai-shek in the extermination of the communists, since they were viewed as an allied anti-communist force with great influence in Shanghai. From Chiang Kai-shek and the leaders of foreign concessions, the leaders of the Shanghai triads received large sums of money, after which they performed the bloodiest work - they killed thousands of unarmed communists who lived in the workers' districts of Shanghai. Meanwhile, in Beijing, militarist Zhang Zuolin ordered the arrest and destruction of Li Dazhao, one of the founders and leading activists of the Chinese Communist Party. In April 1927, Li Dazhao was captured on the territory of the Soviet embassy in Beijing and hanged on April 28. This is how the de facto founder of the Chinese communist movement ended his life. In the same 1927 he was ousted from the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and Chen Duxiu.
Chiang Kai-shek's repression of the Communists in 1927 led to the Comintern's decision to reorganize the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. The Central Committee included Zhang Guotao, Zhang Tilei, Li Weihan, Li Lisan, and Zhou Enlai. General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee Chen Duxiu was not included in the Central Committee, he was not invited to the conference of the Communist Party of China in Hankou, held on August 7, 1921. Chen Duxiu, in response to such a demonstrative disregard for his person, sent a letter to the conference participants asking for resignation from the post of General Secretary of the Communist Party. In response, Chen was accused of indecision and connivance with the Kuomintang policy and, in accordance with the decision of the Central Committee members, was relieved of his post as general secretary of the party. After that, Chen Duxiu tried to create his own communist organization. However, at the end of 1929, he and his supporters were expelled from the Chinese Communist Party. In December 1929, Chen Duxiu published an open letter in which he stressed the existence of serious errors in the policy of the Chinese Communist Party. In 1930, he organized a communist circle that took up Trotskyist positions and supported Leon Trotsky in his opposition to Joseph Stalin and the Stalinist majority of the Comintern. In May 1931, the Chinese Trotskyists attempted an organizational unification under the leadership of Chen Duxiu. A unification conference was held at which Chen Duxiu was elected leader of the new 483-member Communist Party. However, the history of the existence of this Trotskyist organization was short-lived - the party soon disintegrated, largely due to internal organizational and ideological contradictions. In 1932, the Kuomintang members also arrested the leader of the Trotskyist party, Chen Duxiu, who went to prison for five years. After his release, he was never able to regain his former political influence in the ranks of the Chinese communist movement, and later completely abandoned the Marxist-Leninist ideology, moving to the position of anti-authoritarian socialism and leaving the communist camp.
From Liberated Areas to Liberated China
Despite the fact that by 1928 Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang party led by him had occupied a dominant position in the political life of China and brought under control most of the country's territory, the Chinese communists also gained strength, switching to the tactics of creating "liberated regions." In 1931, the Chinese Soviet Republic was created on the territory controlled by the Chinese Red Army. On November 7, 1931, in Ruijing, in Jiangxi Province, the 1st All-China Congress of Soviets was held, at which the draft Constitution of the Chinese Soviet Republic and a number of other normative legal acts were adopted. The 38-year-old communist Mao Zedong (1893-1976) was elected chairman of the Provisional Central Soviet Government. In the ranks of the Communist Party of China, Mao was practically from the moment of its foundation, since, as noted above, he worked as an assistant to its founder Li Dazhao. In the past, Mao was a student in a teacher training school, but much more than studying in formal educational institutions, he was given self-education. By the way, before the transition to the communists, Mao sympathized with the anarchists who were also active in the early twentieth century. in China. The Revolutionary Military Council of the Chinese Soviet Republic was headed by Zhu Je (1886-1976), a professional military man by education who graduated from the Yunnan Military School and served for a long time in officer positions in the training and combat units of the Chinese army. By the time he joined the ranks of the Chinese Communist Party, Zhu De had the experience of commanding a battalion, regiment, and brigade. He held the rank of general, and for some time headed the police department in Kunming. However, after joining the Communists, Zhu De went to Moscow in 1925, where he studied at the Communist University of the Working People of the East and took courses in military affairs. On August 28, 1930, Zhu Te was appointed commander-in-chief of the Chinese Red Army.
However, the troops of the Kuomintang, armed and supported by Western powers, in the period 1931-1934. managed to recapture several areas previously controlled by the Chinese Red Army. In October 1934, the Central Soviet Region was abandoned by the communists. By the fall of 1935, fewer and fewer districts remained under communist control. In the end, their number was reduced to one area on the border of Gansu and Shaanxi provinces. It is likely that the Kuomintang would sooner or later be able to inflict a crushing defeat on the Chinese communists and destroy the communist resistance in the country if the military-political situation in the country did not change dramatically. We are talking about the military aggression of Japan against China, undertaken in 1937 and led to the temporary unification of yesterday's opponents - the armed forces of the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party - in the fight against a common enemy. China is the country that fought the longest in World War II. For China, the war with Japan began in 1937 and lasted for 8 years, until 1945, when Imperial Japan officially surrendered, being defeated by Soviet, Mongolian, Chinese troops and Anglo-American allies. In the anti-Japanese movement in China, the leading roles were played by the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party. At the same time, the authority of the Communist Party grew rapidly among the Chinese population, including among the peasants, who made up the bulk of the recruited fighters of the Chinese Red Army. As a result of the combined efforts of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China, an agreement was reached between the parties to form a new unit on the basis of the Chinese Red Army - the 8th National Revolutionary Army of China. Zhu Te was appointed commander of the army, Peng Dehuai as deputy commander, Ye Jianying as chief of staff of the army, and Ren Bishi as chief of the army political department. The 8th Army included the 115th Division under the command of Lin Biao, the 120th Division under the command of He Long, and the 129th Division under the command of Liu Bocheng. The total number of the army was determined at 45 thousand soldiers and commanders. At the same time, 7 security regiments were also deployed on the territory of Shaanxi province, which carried out guard duty at the facilities, a military-political academy and a higher party school. In internal affairs, the army practically did not obey the supreme command of the Kuomintang and acted independently, proceeding from the orders of its commanders and directives from the leadership of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.
War with Japan escalated into Civil War
The eight-year anti-Japanese war has become a real "school of life" for the Chinese Communist Party. It was in the guerrilla battles of World War II that the Chinese Communist Party was formed and strengthened, turning into a large and active political force. Unlike the Kuomintang troops, who preferred to wage trench warfare with the Japanese, restraining the offensive of the Japanese divisions, the guerrillas operating under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party destroyed enemy communications and delivered lightning strikes against the Japanese troops. As the modern researcher A. Tarasov notes, “Mao relied on an understanding of the peasant nature of the revolution and the fact that the revolutionary struggle in China is a partisan struggle. He was not the first to understand that the peasant war is a guerrilla war. For China, this was generally a characteristic tradition, because China can boast that it is a country in which the peasant war ended in victory, and the victors created a new dynasty "(Tarasov A. Mao's Legacy for the Radical of the XXI century. // https:// www.screen.ru / Tarasov). It is difficult to disagree with him, since it was the guerrilla peasant movement that contributed to the victory of the Chinese Communist Party in the internal political confrontation in the country. The peasantry in the poorest regions of China has become the most reliable support for the Chinese Communists in the struggle for power. The lower ranks of the Communist Party and the People's Liberation Army of China were also replenished from among the peasantry. The orientation toward the peasantry, which is the hallmark of Maoist ideology, is actually very successful in the Third World countries, primarily where the majority of the economically active population is made up of peasants. It was during the eight-year war that the Chinese Communist Party grew from 40,000 members to 1,200,000. There has also been a colossal increase in the armed formations controlled by the Communist Party. They grew from 30 thousand people to 1 million people. The fighters and commanders of the CPC's armed formations have gained invaluable combat experience, and the leaders and activists of party organizations and cells have gained experience in underground work. The Chinese Communist Party in the 1940s was by no means that small organization of twenty years ago, consisting of intellectuals and students, and subjected to police repression. In the 1940s. The Chinese Communist Party turned into a real political machine, the activity of which was subordinated to the main task - the liberation of the entire territory of China from the Japanese invaders and their satellites from the Manchukuo state, with the subsequent construction of a socialist state in China.
But Japan's defeat in World War II did not bring the long-awaited peace to Chinese soil. As soon as the Japanese troops surrendered and were expelled from China, the struggle intensified between the country's leading political forces - the Kuomintang and the Communist Party. In fact, the territory of China was again divided between two quasi-state formations - the Kuomintang and communist China. A bloody Civil War began. Initially, the Kuomintang troops even managed to take a number of important areas and points previously controlled by the communists. In particular, in March 1947, the city of Yan'an fell, which formerly housed the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and the main headquarters of the People's Liberation Army of China. But soon the Chinese communists managed to take revenge and go on the offensive against the Kuomintang positions. The war dragged on for another year, until, on January 31, 1949, after finally crushing the resistance of the Kuomintang, the People's Liberation Army of China entered Beijing. The Chinese capital surrendered without a fight. On April 23-24, the Chinese communists liberated the city of Nanjing from the Kuomintang, on May 27 - Shanghai. Meanwhile, while units of the People's Liberation Army of China fought on the coast against the Kuomintang, the People's Republic of China was officially proclaimed in Beijing on October 1, 1949. When Chinese paratroopers landed on the island of Hainan, seizing its territory and forcing a small Kuomintang garrison to flee, the Kuomintang troops were actually expelled from Chinese territory. Only the island of Taiwan and several other islands in the Taiwan Strait remained under Chiang Kai-shek's rule. For many decades, the Kuomintang turned into the ruling party of Taiwan, and under the leadership of the nationalists, the island, which was once a deep periphery, inhabited by local peoples akin to Indonesians, and Chinese colonists - peasants, turned into a developed industrial and scientific and technological country, which today is included in the list of t.n. "Asian tigers".
The communists built modern China
As for the Chinese Communist Party, having come to power in 1949 as a result of the Civil War, it remains the country's ruling party to this day. For more than half a century of being in power in the country, the Chinese Communist Party has undergone the most serious changes in its domestic and foreign policy, in particular - it stopped focusing on leftist, radical and extremist views and moved on to a more pragmatic economic policy. However, before the "reformist" turn of the leadership of the Communist Party of China, China played a key role in the world revolutionary movement, sometimes providing assistance to the same countries that were sponsored by the Soviet Union, and sometimes choosing independent objects for material and financial support (first of all, this applies to the armed detachments, guerrilla formations, political organizations pledging in exchange for comprehensive assistance to support the proposals of the Chinese leadership and its position on major foreign policy issues).
One of the most striking episodes in the history of the Chinese Communist Party was the “Great Cultural Revolution,” aimed at a final break with the past, its culture and traditions. The cultural revolution, which took place in 1966-1976, was carried out under the leadership of Mao Zedong and his associates, youth formations - "hongweipins", recruited from representatives of student youth - schoolchildren and students, and "zaofani", recruited from young industrial workers. It was the detachments of the Red Guards and Zaofan who carried out reprisals against representatives of the "old" and "bourgeois" intelligentsia, natives of "exploiting" circles, and at the same time against party activists who did not support the ideas of Mao Zedong. Some researchers estimate the number of victims of the Cultural Revolution in China at least one million. Subsequently, after the death of Mao Zedong and the departure from power of his main associates, the Cultural Revolution was condemned by the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. Nevertheless, for the ideological Maoists all over the world, it remains an example of the cleansing of society from the remnants of capitalist culture, value and ideological attitudes and ideological stereotypes inherent in the "exploiting society."
In 94 years of its existence, the Chinese Communist Party has increased its membership by millions of times. Indeed, only 12 delegates took part in the founding congress of the party, and by the time the second congress was held, the party was able to grow to 192 people. After the victory in the Civil War, the number of the Chinese Communist Party increased many times and by 1958 it had 10 million members. Currently, the Chinese Communist Party has at least 86 million members. In 2002, admission to the party of entrepreneurs was allowed, after which many prominent Chinese businessmen rushed to acquire party cards. Once one of the most radical communist parties in the world, leading the Cultural Revolution and supporting the Maoist underground in all parts of the world, the Chinese Communist Party has now become a very respectable and politically moderate political organization. But now it is causing the discontent of yesterday's "vassals" - the Maoists of South and Southeast Asia, Turkey and the countries of Western Europe, Latin America and the United States, who curse the Chinese Communist Party of "betraying the interests of the working people." But, be that as it may, the Chinese Communist Party succeeded in what the Soviet communists failed to - smoothly modernize the economy, using both the advantages of the market and the effectiveness of state planning. China is now an economically prosperous and politically reckless country. And it is the Chinese communists who are largely responsible for this.
