History of the Chinese Communist Party
The CCP grew rapidly in the Northern Expedition (1925–1927), a military unification campaign led by Sun Yat-sen's successor, Chiang Kai-shek.
The party, still led by urban intellectuals, developed a radical agenda of mass mobilization, labor organization, rural uprisings, anti-imperialism, and national unification.
As the Northern Expedition neared success, Chiang in December 1927 unleashed a White Terror that virtually wiped out the CCP in the cities.
Nevertheless, Mao Zedong, whose Autumn Harvest Uprising had been a spectacular failure in mobilizing local peasants, became the leader of the CCP and established rural bases and to protect them, he formed the Chinese Red Army.
[1][2] Sun Yat-Sen was also an early proponent of certain socialist ideals, arguing that socialism and communism were both subsets of the doctrine of Minsheng, or People's Livelihood, an idea centered around the taxation of land.
[8] During 1919 and 1920, reading groups focused on the study of Marxism began to develop in China, with participants who had been involved in political movements of the 1910s like Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao, as well as younger activists including Mao Zedong.
[9]: 24 Its first formal meeting took place on July 23, 1921, when 12 representatives of local Chinese groups that had met over the course of the preceding two years gathered in Shanghai.
[15]: 35 In the early 1920s, the Bolsheviks and the Communist International's leaders believe that in China, the Kuomintang should be supported as it was in their view the country's most viable progressive force.
Li Dazhao, Cai Heshen and Gao Yuhan opposed the motion, whereupon Sneevliet invoked the authority of the Comintern and forced the CCP to accept his decision.
Moreover, the CCP was divided into two camps, one led by Deng Zhongxia and Li Dazhao on the more moderate "bourgeois, national revolution" model and the other by Zhang Guotao, Lou Zhanglong, He Mengxiong and Chen Duxiu on the strongly anti-imperialism side.
[18] Mikhail Markovich Borodin negotiated with Sun Yat-sen and Wang Jingwei the 1923 KMT reorganization and the CCP's incorporation into the newly expanded party.
[9]: 25 Borodin and General Vasily Blyukher (also known as Galen in Chinese) worked with Chiang Kai-shek to found the Whampoa Military Academy.
[17]: 35 CCP leaders sought to respond with armed uprisings in Nanchang and Changsha, which briefly seized power before being defeated by KMT forces.
[9]: 27 CCP cadres fled urban areas and, in southern China, led their small armies to establish a base at Jinggangshan.
[9]: 29 At the Zunyi conference, party leadership addressed the events leading to the defeat of the CSR, the overall state of revolution in China, and how to proceed.
[9]: 29 The course set by previous leaders including Bo Gu, international advisor Otto Braun, Li Lisan, and Qu Qiubai were the subject of criticism.
[25]: 174 The Western world first got a clear view of the main base of the Chinese Communist Party through Edgar Snow's Red Star Over China.
With the Kuomintang's defeat & retreat to Taiwan, Mao Zedong established the People's Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949.
[36] Following Mao's death in 1976, a contest for power between CCP chairman Hua Guofeng and Vice-chairman Deng Xiaoping developed.
[41][non-primary source needed] While asserting the political power of the CCP, the change in policy generated significant economic growth.
[42] The protests having been crushed, Deng's vision on economics prevailed, and by the early 1990s the concept of a socialist market economy had been introduced.
[46] Since Jiang's administration, the highest positions in the party-state (General Secretary, Chair of the Central Military Commission, and President of China) have all been simultaneously held by a single leader.
[31] Leadership was largely selected based on rules and norms on promotion and retirement, educational background, and managerial and technical expertise.
[47]: 99 The major focus of the campaign was within education, and text books were revised to reduce narratives of class struggle and to emphasize the party's role in ending the century of humiliation.
[47]: 99 As part of the campaign, Patriotic Education Bases were established, and schools ranging from primary to the college levels were required to take students to sites of significance to the Chinese Revolution.
[49] Unlike Mao, Deng and Jiang Zemin, Hu laid emphasis on collective leadership and opposed one-man dominance of the political system.
To address these, Hu introduced two main ideological concepts: the Scientific Outlook on Development and Harmonious Socialist Society.
[54] Since 2014, the CCP has led efforts in Xinjiang that involve the detention of more than 1 million Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in internment camps, as well as other repressive measures.
[58] On the other hand, a greater number of countries signed a letter penned to the Human Rights Council supporting the policies as an effort to combat terrorism in the region.
