The Rise of the Communist Party of China When the Japanese invaded China in , the Guomindang retreated. The long and exhausting war weakened China. Prices rose per cent per month between and , 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.
The CCP had been founded in , 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 or the Third International in March to help bring about a world government that would end exploitation. 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 .
Mao Zedong ( - ), who emerged as a major 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. Mao Zedong’s radical approach can be seen in Jiangxi, in the mountains, where they camped from to , 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. In a survey in in Xunwu, Mao Zedong looked at everyday commodities such as salt and soya beans, at the relative strengths of local organisations, at petty traders and craftsmen, ironsmiths and prostitutes, and the strength of religious organisations to examine the different levels of exploitation. He gathered statistics of the number of peasants who had sold their children and found out what price they received – boys were sold for - yuan but there were no instances of the sale of girls because the need was for hard labour not sexual exploitation.
It was on the basis of these studies that he advocated ways of solving social problems. P ATHS TO M ODERNISATION T HEMES IN W ORLD H ISTORY The Guomindang blockade of the Communists’ Soviet forced the party to seek another base. This led them to go on what came to be called the Long March ( - ), , gruelling and difficult miles to Shanxi. Here, in their new base in Yanan, they further developed their programme to end warlordism, carry out land reforms and fight foreign imperialism.
This won them a strong social base. In the difficult years of the war, the Communists and the Guomindang worked together, but after the end of the war the Communists established themselves in power and the Guomindang was defeated.