Chinese Communist Revolution

Chinese Communist Revolution

Part of the Chinese Civil War and the Cold War
Left to right, top to bottom: 1935: Chinese Red Army soldiers in the Jiajin Mountains of Sichuan during the Long March 1949: the flag of the People's Republic of China is raised over Tiananmen Square for the first time 1946: Students at Sun Yat-sen University protest American interference
Date	1 August 1927 – 1 October 1949
Location	China
Outcome	Communist victory Proclamation of the People's Republic of China Retreat of the government of the Republic of China to Taiwan
Casualties
1–2 million dead[1]

Part of a series on the
Chinese Communist Revolution
Mao Zedong and leading revolutionaries proclaim the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949.
Outline of the Chinese Civil War
Origins Context Century of Humiliation 1911 Revolution Warlord Era Ideas Nationalism Anarchism Marxism Movements New Culture Movement May Fourth Movement Diligent Work-Frugal Study Movement
Early history First United Front Founding of the Communist Party Far Eastern Bureau of the Communist International Sun–Joffe Manifesto Left Kuomintang Peasant Movement Training Institute Canton Coup 28 Bolsheviks Labor organizing 1922 seamen's strike May Thirtieth Movement Canton–Hong Kong strike Northern Expedition Wuhan Government Hunan Report Hankou incident Nanjing Incident Shanghai Commune Break with the KMT
Civil War Aftermath of purge Nanchang Little Long March Autumn Harvest Guangzhou Internal Purges AB League Incident Futian incident Chinese Soviet Republic Jiangxi Soviet Chinese Red Army Long March Zunyi Conference Anti-Japanese resistance Xi'an Incident
Second United Front Second Sino-Japanese War New Fourth Army Eighth Route Army East River Column Hundred Regiments Offensive New Fourth Army Incident Communist base areas Yan'an Soviet Jin-Cha-Ji Border Region Yan'an Rectification Campaign Yan'an Forum Women's movement
Resumed Civil War Military conflict "Millet plus rifles" People's Liberation Army Operation Beleaguer Liaoshen campaign Huaihai campaign Pingjin campaign Retreat of the ROC to Taiwan Urban support for Communists China Democratic League Shen Chong case Jiaochangkou incident Yu Zisan Incident Revolutionary Committee of the KMT
Forming the People's Republic Government Central People's Government Writing the Constitution 1954 Constitution Reforms Land Reform New Marriage Law First five-year plan Three-anti and Five-anti Campaigns Suppression of counterrevolutionaries Foreign relations Sino-Soviet Cooperation Annexation of Tibet Intervention in Korea Intervention in Vietnam
Legacy Mao Zedong Thought Marxism–Leninism–Maoism National Day 100th Anniversary of the CCP
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The Chinese Communist Revolution was a social revolution in China that began in 1927 and culminated with the proclamation of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. The revolution was led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which afterwards became the ruling party of China. The revolution resulted in major social changes within China and has been looked at as a model by revolutionary Communist movements in other countries.

During the preceding century, termed the century of humiliation, the decline of the Qing dynasty and the rise of foreign imperialism caused escalating social, economic, and political problems in China. The Qing collapsed in 1912 and were replaced with the Republic of China, which had itself fallen into warring factions by 1917. A small group of urban intellectuals, inspired by the October Revolution and European socialist ideas, founded the CCP in 1921. They created an alliance known as the First United Front with the much larger Kuomintang (KMT), having the shared goal of overthrowing the warlords governing China. During this period the CCP rapidly expanded its membership, organized a militant labor movement in several of China's major cities, and established rudimentary peasant associations in rural areas. Nonetheless, and despite the First United Front's military successes, KMT leader Chiang Kai-shek ended the alliance in 1927 by initiating a purge of Communists.

The Chinese Civil War between the Communists and Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists fundamentally changed the course of the Chinese Communist Revolution. Forced to flee into the remote countryside, semi-isolated CCP cadres began to experiment with land reform and other ways of appealing to the peasantry. One of the most successful local leaders was Mao Zedong, who turned the Jiangxi Soviet into a "state within a state".^[2] In 1935, the Communists were handed a major military defeat, and the survivors made the Long March to a new base in northwest China. During the Long March, Mao rose from a regional leader to undisputed leader of the entire CCP. After settling in their new base, the Communists undertook a campaign of ideological self-purification to solidify their allegiance to Mao and their new peasant-based strategy.^[3]

Meanwhile, Japan had taken advantage of China's disunity to seize Manchuria and other Chinese territories. Chiang Kai-shek, prioritizing "first internal pacification, then external resistance", avoided confronting Japan. The Communists argued that the CCP and KMT should cooperate to fight the Japanese, an appeal to patriotism that won them broad sympathy. In 1936, Nationalist troops who had become sympathetic to the Communists kidnapped Chiang Kai-shek and forced him to begin ceasefire negotiations. The Second United Front was finalized when the Japanese launched a full-scale invasion of China the following year. The renewed alliance allowed the CCP to once again expand their areas of influence by waging a guerrilla war behind Japanese lines. Following the Japanese surrender in 1945, China became a battlefield in the Cold War. The Nationalists received military support from the United States and the Communists from the Soviet Union. Although the Nationalists at first held most of the country, sympathy for the Communists grew in urban areas suffering from high unemployment, runaway inflation, and rampant government corruption. The presence of American Marines in Chinese cities further inflammed anti-imperialist sentiment, especially among students. When peace talks between the two sides floundered, the Civil War resumed. The Communists' newly-formed People's Liberation Army launched a successful series of campaigns that defeated the Nationalists and forced them to retreat to Taiwan.

The Communist victory had a major impact on the global balance of power: China became the largest socialist state by population, as well as a third force in the Cold War following the 1956 Sino-Soviet split. The People's Republic offered direct and indirect support to communist movements around the world, and inspired the growth of Maoist parties in a number of countries. Shock at the CCP's success and the emerging geopolitical domino theory postulating its spread across East Asia led the United States to stage successive military interventions in Korea and Southeast Asia. The CCP remains in government in mainland China, and is the second-largest political party in the world.^[4]