What do you know about the Rise of the communist Party of China ?

1. When the Japanese invaded China in 1937, the Guomindang retreated. The long and exhanusting war weakened China. Prices rose 30 per cent per month between 1945 and 1949, and utterly destroyed the lives of ordinary people.
Rural China faced two crises : one ecological, with soil exhaustion, deforestation and floods, and the second, a socio-economic one caused by exploitative land-tenure systems, indebtedness, primitive technology and poor communications.

2. The CCP had been founded in 1921, soon after the Russian Revolution. The Russian success exercised a powerful influence around the world and leaders such as Lenin and Trotsky went on to establish the Comintern o the Third International in march 1918 to help bring about a world governmnet that would end exploitation.

3. The Comintern and the Soviet Union supported communist parties around the world but they worked within the traditional Marxist understanding that revolution would be brought about by the working class in cities.
Its initial appeal across national boundaries was immense but it soon became a tool for Soviet interests and was dissolved in 1943. Mao Zedong (1893-1976), who emerged as a mzy’or CCP leader, took a different path by basing his revolutionary programme on the peasantry. His success made the CCP a powerful political force that ultimately won against the Guomindang.

4. Mao Zedong's radical approach can be seen in Jiangxi, in the mountains, where they camped from 1928 to 1934, secure from Guomindang attacks. A strong peasants council (soviet) was organised, united through confiscation and redistribution of land. Mao, unlike other leaders, stressed the need for an independent government and army.
He had become aware of women's problems and supported the emergence of rural women's associations, promulgated a new marriage law that forbade arranged marriages, stopped purchase or sale of marriage contracts and simplified divorce.

Tips: -