Founding and early history The
October Revolution and
Marxist theory inspired the founding of the CCP.
Chen Duxiu and
Li Dazhao were among the first to publicly support
Leninism and
world revolution. Both regarded the October Revolution in Russia as groundbreaking, believing it to herald a new era for oppressed countries everywhere. Some historical analysis views the
May Fourth Movement as the beginning of the revolutionary struggle that led to the
founding of the People's Republic of China. Following the movement, trends towards social transformation increased. Chen and Li were among the most influential promoters of Marxism in China during the May Fourth period. The CCP itself embraces the May Fourth Movement and views itself as part of the movement's legacy. Study circles were, according to
Cai Hesen, "the rudiments [of our party]". Several study circles were established during the
New Culture Movement, but by 1920 many grew sceptical about their ability to bring about reforms. China's intellectual movements were fragmented in the early 1920s. The May Fourth Movement and the New Culture Movement had identified issues of broad concern to Chinese progressives, including
anti-imperialism, support for
nationalism, support for
democracy, promotion of
feminism, and rejection of traditional values. At the time, there were 57 members of the CCP and 13 Chinese delegates present at the founding. While it was originally held in
a house in the
Shanghai French Concession, French police interrupted the meeting on 30 July and the congress was moved to a tourist boat on
South Lake in
Jiaxing, Zhejiang province. Neither Li Dazhao nor Chen Duxiu attended, the latter sending a personal representative in his stead. The resolutions of the congress called for the establishment of a
communist party as a branch of the
Communist International (Comintern) and elected Chen as its leader. Chen then served as the first general secretary of the CCP. The Soviets hoped to foster pro-Soviet forces in East Asia to fight against
anti-communist countries, particularly
Japan. They attempted to contact the warlord
Wu Peifu but failed. The Soviets then contacted the
Kuomintang (KMT), which was leading the
Guangzhou government parallel to the
Beiyang government. On 6 October 1923, the Comintern sent
Mikhail Borodin to Guangzhou, and the Soviets established friendly relations with the KMT. The
Central Committee of the CCP, Soviet leader
Joseph Stalin, and the Comintern all hoped that the CCP would eventually control the KMT and called their opponents "rightists". KMT leader
Sun Yat-sen eased the conflict between the communists and their opponents. CCP membership grew tremendously after the
4th congress in 1925, from 900 to 2,428. The CCP still treats Sun Yat-sen as one of the founders of their movement and claim descent from him as he is viewed as a proto-communist and the economic element of
Sun's ideology was socialism. Sun stated, "Our Principle of Livelihood is a form of communism". The communists dominated the
left wing of the KMT and struggled for power with the party's right-wing factions. When Sun Yat-sen died in March 1925, he was succeeded by a rightist,
Chiang Kai-shek, who initiated moves to marginalize the position of the communists. Chiang, Sun's former assistant, was not actively anti-communist at that time, even though he hated the theory of
class struggle and the CCP's seizure of power. The communists proposed removing Chiang's power. When Chiang gradually gained the support of Western countries, the conflict between him and the communists became more and more intense. Chiang asked the Kuomintang to join the Comintern to rule out the secret expansion of communists within the KMT, while Chen Duxiu hoped that the communists would completely withdraw from the KMT. In April 1927, both Chiang and the CCP were preparing for conflict. Fresh from the success of the
Northern Expedition to overthrow the warlords, Chiang Kai-shek turned on the communists, who by now numbered in the tens of thousands across China. Ignoring the orders of the Wuhan-based KMT government, he marched on Shanghai, a city controlled by communist militias. Although the communists welcomed Chiang's arrival, he turned on them,
massacring 5,000 with the aid of the
Green Gang. Chiang's army then marched on Wuhan but was prevented from taking the city by CCP General
Ye Ting and his troops. Chiang's allies also attacked communists; for example, in Beijing, Li Dazhao and 19 other leading communists were executed by
Zhang Zuolin. Angered by these events, the peasant movement supported by the CCP became more violent.
Ye Dehui, a famous scholar, was killed by communists in
Changsha, and in revenge, KMT general
He Jian and his troops gunned down hundreds of peasant militiamen. That May, tens of thousands of communists and their sympathizers were killed by KMT troops, with the CCP losing approximately of its members.
Chinese Civil War and Second Sino-Japanese War The CCP continued supporting the Wuhan KMT government, but on 15 July 1927 the Wuhan government expelled all communists from the KMT. The CCP reacted by founding the
Workers' and Peasants' Red Army of China, better known as the "Red Army", to battle the KMT. A battalion led by General
Zhu De was ordered to take the city of
Nanchang on 1 August 1927 in what became known as the
Nanchang uprising. Initially successful, Zhu and his troops were forced to retreat after five days, marching south to
Shantou, and from there being driven into the wilderness of
Fujian.
Mao Zedong was appointed commander-in-chief of the Red Army, and led four regiments against Changsha in the
Autumn Harvest Uprising, hoping to spark peasant uprisings across Hunan. His plan was to attack the KMT-held city from three directions on 9 September, but the Fourth Regiment deserted to the KMT cause, attacking the Third Regiment. Mao's army made it to Changsha but could not take it; by 15 September, he accepted defeat, with 1,000 survivors marching east to the
Jinggang Mountains of
Jiangxi. The near destruction of the CCP's urban organizational apparatus led to institutional changes within the party. The party adopted
democratic centralism, a way to organize revolutionary parties, and established a politburo to function as the standing committee of the central committee. The result was increased centralization of power within the party. At every level of the party this was duplicated, with standing committees now in effective control. The 1929
Gutian Congress was important in establishing the principle of party control over the military, which continues to be a core principle of the party's ideology. After being expelled from the party, Chen Duxiu went on to lead China's
Trotskyist movement.
Li Lisan was able to assume
de facto control of the party organization by 1929–1930. Li's leadership was a failure, leaving the CCP on the brink of destruction. The Comintern became involved, and by late 1930, his powers had been taken away. By 1935, Mao had become a member of
Politburo Standing Committee of the CCP and the party's informal military leader, with
Zhou Enlai and
Zhang Wentian, the formal head of the party, serving as his informal deputies. The conflict with the KMT led to the reorganization of the Red Army, with power now centralized in the leadership through the creation of CCP political departments charged with supervising the army. The
Xi'an Incident of December 1936 paused the conflict between the CCP and the KMT. Under pressure from Marshal
Zhang Xueliang and the CCP, Chiang Kai-shek finally agreed to a
Second United Front focused on repelling the Japanese invaders. While the front formally existed until 1945, all collaboration between the two parties had effectively ended by 1940. Despite their formal alliance, the CCP used the opportunity to expand and carve out independent bases of operations to prepare for the coming war with the KMT. In 1939, the KMT began to restrict CCP expansion within China. This led to frequent clashes between CCP and KMT forces which subsided rapidly on the realization on both sides that civil war amidst a foreign invasion was not an option. By 1943, the CCP was again actively expanding its territory at the expense of the KMT. ,
Huaihai, and
Pingjin Campaigns that decisively turned the war in favour of the CCP. Mao Zedong became the Chairman of the
Politburo in 1943 and the
Chairman of the Central Committee in 1945. After the
Japanese surrender in 1945, the war between the CCP and the KMT began again in earnest. The 1945–1949 period had four stages; the first was from August 1945 (when the Japanese surrendered) to June 1946 (when the peace talks between the CCP and the KMT ended). By 1945, the KMT had three times more soldiers under its command than the CCP and initially appeared to be prevailing. With the cooperation of the US and Japan, the KMT was able to retake major parts of the country. However, KMT rule over the reconquered territories proved unpopular because of its endemic
political corruption. Notwithstanding its numerical superiority, the KMT failed to reconquer the rural territories which made up the CCP's stronghold. Around the same time, the CCP launched an invasion of
Manchuria, where they were assisted by the Soviet Union. The second stage, lasting from July 1946 to June 1947, saw the KMT extend its control over major cities such as
Yan'an, the CCP headquarters, for much of the war. The KMT's successes were hollow; the CCP had tactically withdrawn from the cities, and instead undermined KMT rule there by instigating protests among students and intellectuals. The KMT responded to these demonstrations with heavy-handed repression. In the meantime, the KMT was struggling with factional infighting and Chiang Kai-shek's autocratic control over the party, which weakened its ability to respond to attacks. The third stage, lasting from July 1947 to August 1948, saw a limited counteroffensive by the CCP. The objective was clearing "Central China, strengthening North China, and recovering Northeast China." This operation, coupled with military desertions from the KMT, resulted in the KMT losing 2 million of its 3 million troops by the spring of 1948, and saw a significant decline in support for KMT rule. The CCP was consequently able to cut off KMT garrisons in Manchuria and retake several territories. The last stage, lasting from September 1948 to December 1949, saw the communists go on the offensive and the collapse of KMT rule in mainland China as a whole. Mao's
proclamation of the founding of the People's Republic of China on 1 October 1949 marked the end of the second phase of the Chinese Civil War (or the
Chinese Communist Revolution, as it is called by the CCP).
Proclamation of the PRC and the Mao era Mao proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC) before a massive crowd at Tiananmen Square on 1 October 1949. The CCP headed the
Central People's Government. As a result, informal personal ties between political and military leaders dominated civil-military relations. The constitution of the PRC in 1954 subsequently abolished the previous coalition government and established the CCP's one-party system. In 1957, the CCP launched the
Anti-Rightist Campaign against political dissidents and prominent figures from minor parties, which resulted in the political persecution of at least 550,000 people. The campaign significantly damaged the limited pluralistic nature in the socialist republic and solidified the country's status as a
one-party state. The Anti-Rightist Campaign led to the catastrophic results of the
Second Five Year Plan from 1958 to 1962, known as the
Great Leap Forward. In an effort to transform the country from an agrarian economy into an industrialized one, the CCP collectivized farmland, formed people's communes, and diverted labour to factories. General mismanagement and exaggerations of harvests by CCP officials led to the
Great Chinese Famine, which resulted in an estimated 15 to 45 million deaths, making it the largest famine in recorded history. Defense Minister
Peng Dehuai, who criticized Mao for his role in causing the disaster, was purged for this in 1959.
Sino-Soviet split and Cultural Revolution During the 1960s and 1970s, the CCP experienced a significant ideological separation from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union which had gone through a period of "
de-Stalinization" under
Nikita Khrushchev. By that time, Mao had begun saying that the "continued revolution under the
dictatorship of the proletariat" stipulated that class enemies continued to exist even though the socialist revolution seemed to be complete, leading to the
Cultural Revolution in which millions were persecuted and killed. During the Cultural Revolution, party leaders such as Liu Shaoqi,
Deng Xiaoping, and
He Long were purged or exiled, and the
Gang of Four, led by Mao's wife
Jiang Qing, emerged to fill in the power vacuum left behind.
Reform and opening up Following Mao's death in 1976, CCP chairman
Hua Guofeng removed the Gang of Four from power and began rehabilitating party leaders persecuted during the Cultural Revolution including Deng Xiaoping. A power struggle between Hua and Deng erupted. Deng won the struggle, and became China's paramount leader in 1978. Deng, alongside
Hu Yaobang and
Zhao Ziyang, spearheaded the
reform and opening up policies, and introduced the ideological concept of
socialism with Chinese characteristics, opening China to the world's markets. In reversing some of Mao's "leftist" policies, Deng argued that a socialist state could use the
market economy without itself being capitalist. This was justified on the basis that "
Practice is the Sole Criterion for the Truth", a principle reinforced through a 1978 article that aimed to combat dogmatism and criticized the "
Two Whatevers" policy. The new ideology, however, was contested on both sides of the spectrum, by Maoists to the left of the CCP's leadership, as well as by those supporting political liberalization. In 1981, the Party adopted a
historical resolution, which assessed the historical legacy of the Mao Zedong era and the future priorities of the CCP. With other social factors, the conflicts culminated in the
1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre. The protests having been crushed and the reformist party general secretary Zhao Ziyang under house arrest, Deng's economic policies resumed and by the early 1990s the concept of a
socialist market economy had been introduced. In 1997, Deng's beliefs (officially called "
Deng Xiaoping Theory") were embedded into the
CCP's constitution. CCP general secretary
Jiang Zemin succeeded Deng as paramount leader in 1989 and continued most of his policies. In the 1990s, the CCP transformed from a veteran revolutionary leadership that was both leading militarily and politically, to a political elite increasingly renewed according to institutionalized norms in the civil bureaucracy.
Xi Jinping and the new era Since taking power of the general secretary in 2012, Xi Jinping has initiated
a wide-reaching anti-corruption campaign, while centralizing powers in the office of CCP general secretary at the expense of the collective leadership of prior decades. Commentators have described the campaign as a defining part of
Xi's general secretaryship as well as "the principal reason why he has been able to consolidate his power so quickly and effectively." Xi's leadership has also overseen an increase in the Party's role in China. 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
persecution that some characterized as a
genocide or
crimes against humanity. Xi has added
his ideology, named after himself, into the CCP constitution in 2017. The National Congress of the CCP declared that China and the CCP entered a "new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics" in 2012. Celebrations of the
100th anniversary of the CCP's founding, one of the
Two Centenaries, took place on 1 July 2021. In the sixth plenary session of the 19th Central Committee in November 2021, the CCP adopted a
resolution on the Party's history, which for the first time credited Xi as being the "main innovator" of Xi Jinping Thought while also declaring Xi's leadership as being "the key to the
great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation". In comparison with the other historical resolutions, Xi's one did not herald a major change in how the CCP evaluated its history. After the
20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party held in 2022, Xi Jinping was
re-elected as the CCP general secretary for a third term, that made Xi the first
CCP leader since Mao Zedong to be chosen for a third term. ==Ideology==