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Emergence of the CCP - Coggle Diagram
Emergence of the CCP
The Role of Leaders
Mao Zedong played an important role in the CCP from the outset. He studied Marxism while at university in Beijing and adapted the ideology to suit the needs of China.
Mao was also a military leader, he lead the Autumn Harvest Uprising in the September of 1927. He lead a small victorious peasant army against the Kuomintang and the landlords of Hunan and established a Soviet government that lasted two months.
Mao made use of guerrilla warfare tactics and continued this approach to military engagements throughout the 1930's and 1940's.
The Long March was an important series of events for the CCP: the Communists managed to survive, but lost many of their members, and Mao was able to use the opportunity to increase his own position and power within the party.
Many other influential CCP members played key roles, such as Zhou Enlai and Lin Shaoqi.
Some of the CCP leadership disagreed with Mao's ideology and took a more pro-Soviet view; the 28 Bolsheviks who had been trained in Moscow were especially critical.
Mao launched a number of self-criticism campaigns during the early 1940's, such as the Recertification of Conduct Campaign. He wanted to remove any revisionist ideas from the CCP, and taught revolutionary correctness to his followers to keep them strictly in line with his ideology.
Persuasion and Coercion
The CCP had very different policies and approaches from the GMD. Throughout its control of the Jiangxi Soviet, and later in the Yanan years, it was able to increase its membership through the popularity of its policies.
The CCP particularly appealed to the rural peasantry with policies such as land reform, literacy campaigns and medical programmes, and the creation of local peasant associations to provide representation and the ending of the usury (a system that placed high levels of interest on loans).
Peasant membership of the party grew from 40,000 in 1937 to 1 million in 1945.
Rules were established for good conduct by the Red Army, such as 'be courteous and help out where you can' and 'replace all damaged articles'.
Coercion was also a tactic and there was a threat of force from the CCP if people did not cooperate with its practises. The communists could also veto the local peasant associations if they did not agree with their decisions.
Ideology
The party's initial ideology was Marxism-Leninism, and was important to their rise to power.
The Soviet Union set up Comintern to spread communism worldwide. In the 1920's this had an influence on the early development of the CCP.
Gradually, a challenge to the Soviet ideological position emerged, mainly through Mao's ideas and teachings. He spoke regularly about the revolutionary potential of rural peasants in China, who made up the majority of the population.
The main difference between Maoist and Soviet ideology was that Mao stressed that revolution would come from the peasants, whereas Soviet ideology placed emphasis on the working class. This is reflected in the saying 'The peasants are the sea; we are the fish. We live in the sea.'
The CCP held ideological appeal through policies such as land reform and gender equality. It was also committed to Nationalism, which had appeal during the Japanese war.
Propaganda
The Long March was used as propaganda by the CCP, giving Mao and the other leaders cult status.
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The leaders wrote literature to promote the movement, for example Liu Shaoqi wrote 'How to Be a Good Communist' in 1939.
Use of Force
Early examples of CCP violence against opposition can be seen in the Futian Incident in 1930, where hundreds of Red Army members were executed, most likely under Mao's orders.
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Land redistribution was often done by force, where landlords had their land confiscated from them; this often involved violence and loss of life.
The Chinese Civil War
After the Japanese had been defeated in 1945, a civil war began between the GMD and the CCP. A conference at Chongqing was held in 1945 between the two warring parties with the USA acting as mediator. It failed to deliver lasting peace between the two parties. Despite early successes during the civil war, the GMD lost successive campaigns and eventually retreated to Taiwan in 1949.