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Chapter One ‖ The Founding of the Chinese Communist Party and Its Entry into the Torrent of the Great Revolution

Editorial Group of This Book

January 1, 2021

第一章 中国共产党的创建和投身大革命的洪流

本书编写组

Chapter One ‖ The Founding of the Chinese Communist Party and Its Entry into the Torrent of the Great Revolution第一章 中国共产党的创建和投身大革命的洪流

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Originally Written By
Editorial Group of This Book本书编写组
Publisher
CPC History Press中共党史出版社

Chapter One ‖ The Founding of the Chinese Communist Party and Its Entry into the Torrent of the Great Revolution

第一章 ‖ 中国共产党的创建和投身大革命的洪流

On a night in July 1921, the First National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party opened in secret in a two-story residential building in the French Concession of Shanghai. A completely new type of proletarian party, guided by Marxism-Leninism, was born. This was an earth-shattering transformation. Like a blazing torch held aloft, this momentous event brought light and hope to the Chinese people, who had suffered through war and calamity in modern times. From that point forward, the Chinese people’s struggle for national independence, the liberation of the people, national prosperity, and the happiness of the people had a backbone. The Chinese people underwent a spiritual transformation from passivity to initiative.

I. The Historical Tasks of National Rejuvenation in Modern China and the Arduous Explorations of Various Forces

Over thousands of years of historical development, the Chinese nation created a long and brilliant Chinese civilization, made outstanding contributions to mankind, and became one of the world’s great nations. In modern times, due to the invasion of Western powers and the corruption of feudal rule, China gradually became a semi-colonial, semi-feudal society. The country was torn apart, the people suffered terribly, and the Chinese nation endured unprecedented hardship.

▶ A Brief History of the Chinese Communist Party

Beginning in 1840, the Western powers, through multiple wars of aggression against China—chief among them the Opium War of 1840–1842 waged by Britain, the Second Opium War of 1856–1860 waged by the Anglo-French alliance, the French war of aggression against China from 1884 to 1885, the Japanese war of aggression against China from 1894 to 1895, and the Eight-Power Allied Forces’ war of aggression against China in 1900—and through other means, forced China to cede territory and pay indemnities, and greedily seized all manner of special privileges. Britain seized Hong Kong; Japan occupied Taiwan; Tsarist Russia seized territories in China’s northeast and northwest. They also extorted indemnities from China: war reparations alone cost China over a billion taels of silver, while the Qing government’s annual fiscal revenue at the time amounted to only slightly more than 80 million taels. Through a succession of increasingly harsh unequal treaties, the Western powers obtained many important privileges in China—establishing ports and concessions, opening mines and factories, building railways, setting up banks and trading houses, constructing churches, stationing troops, carving out spheres of influence, and enjoying consular jurisdiction and one-sided most-favored-nation treatment, among others. Hundreds of unequal treaties, regulations, and special agreements formed a vast net that bound China in every respect—politically, economically, militarily, and culturally—leaving China unable to take a single step without incurring blame in the face of the Western powers’ endless demands, while the Western powers used these instruments to do as they pleased. They controlled China’s treaty ports, customs, foreign trade, and transportation, dumped their goods in massive quantities, and turned China into a market for their products and a base for extracting raw materials.

The Anglo-French forces burned the Old Summer Palace; the Beiyang Fleet was annihilated in the First Sino-Japanese War; the armies of the eight powers—Britain, the United States, France, Germany, Russia, Japan, Italy, and Austria—savagely burned, killed, and plundered in Beijing. All of this left the Chinese nation with painful memories that could not be erased. The Qing government, representing the interests of the landlord class and the comprador bourgeoisie, increasingly became a tool of foreign capitalism for ruling China—a traitorous, corrupt, and incompetent regime that strangled China’s vitality. The contradiction between imperialism and the Chinese nation, and the contradiction between feudalism and the broad masses of the people, became the principal contradictions of modern Chinese society.

The Chinese people lived in an abyss of misery, and what lay before the Chinese nation was a bleak and tragic prospect of near-total ruin.

From this point on, realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation became the greatest dream of the entire nation. Winning national independence, liberating the people, and achieving national prosperity and the happiness of the people became the historical tasks of the Chinese people. The Chinese nation has a glorious tradition of self-improvement and never ceased its resistance in defense of national independence and dignity and in defense of Chinese civilization. Before the founding of the Chinese Communist Party, many patriotic pioneers devoted to the cause of national progress made one after another unceasing effort to change the circumstances and fate of their country. Yet whether it was the successive wars of resistance against foreign aggression, the Taiping Peasant Uprising, the Self-Strengthening Movement with its approach of “Chinese learning as the foundation, Western learning for practical use,” the Reform Movement of 1898 that sought to strengthen the country through institutional change, or the Boxer Movement that arose from the lower strata of society and had a broad popular base—all failed one after another, because they had not found a scientific theory, a correct path, or social forces they could rely upon. Countless men of noble aspiration went to their graves with this as their lifelong regret.

The Revolution of 1911, which broke out in October of that year, overthrew the Qing dynasty, established the Republic of China, and ended the monarchical autocratic system that had ruled China for more than two thousand years. Although the Revolution of 1911 led by Sun Yat-sen did not change the semi-colonial, semi-feudal social character of old China, did not change the tragic fate of the Chinese people, and did not complete the historical task of achieving national independence and the liberation of the people, it inaugurated a fully modern national democratic revolution, opened the floodgates of China’s progress, spread the ideals of democracy and republicanism, greatly advanced the intellectual emancipation of the Chinese nation, and drove China’s social transformation with tremendous force and influence, making it impossible for the reactionary order to stabilize itself again.

Reality can be harsh. The Beiyang warlords, headed by Yuan Shikai, with the support of imperialism and domestic reactionary forces, usurped the fruits of the Revolution of 1911, and the newborn bourgeois republic in China survived only a few months before it collapsed. After Yuan Shikai’s death, the Beiyang warlords split into the Zhili, Anhui, and Fengtian cliques. Manipulated by the imperialist powers, China fell into fragmentation under warlord rule and incessant warlord warfare. Under the despotic rule of the feudal warlords, China sank ever deeper into the abyss of semi-colonial, semi-feudal society.

“Boundless gold and boundless blood—what a pity, all to purchase a false republic.” After the Revolution of 1911, China tried imperial restoration, parliamentary government, multi-party systems, presidential systems, and various other forms. Political forces and their representatives came and went on the stage, but none found the right answer. The social character of old China and the tragic fate of the Chinese people remained unchanged. China remained torn apart, impoverished, and weak; the foreign powers continued to run roughshod over China and seize its interests; and the Chinese people continued to live in suffering and humiliation.

History has fully demonstrated that without the guidance of an advanced theory, without the leadership of an advanced party armed with that advanced theory, and without an advanced party that follows the tide of history, boldly shoulders its historical responsibilities, and dares to make great sacrifices, the Chinese people cannot defeat the various reactionary forces bearing down upon them, and the Chinese nation cannot change its fate of oppression and enslavement.

History called for a bearer truly capable of leading the Chinese nation to realize its great rejuvenation. This glorious task fell upon the shoulders of the Chinese working class—the representative of the most advanced productive forces.

II. The May Fourth Movement and the Spread of Marxism in China

The Rise of the New Culture Movement and the Influence of Russia’s October Revolution on China

The founding of the Republic of China did not bring the people the national independence, popular democracy, and social progress they had anticipated; crushing disappointment replaced hope. The old road was no longer viable, and a new way forward had to be found. Some advanced intellectuals, starting from a summing-up of the lessons of the Revolution of 1911, worked to dispel ignorance and enlighten reason, liberating the broad masses from the shackles of feudal thought. The New Culture Movement of intellectual enlightenment became the harbinger of great social upheaval.

In September 1915, Chen Duxiu founded Youth Magazine in Shanghai, later renamed New Youth, and the New Culture Movement began from this point. In 1917, he was appointed Dean of the School of Letters at Peking University, and the editorial office of New Youth moved to Beijing. Peking University and New Youth became the main bastions of the New Culture Movement.

The basic slogans of the New Culture Movement were to champion “Mr. Democracy” and “Mr. Science.” The advocates of the New Culture Movement used the theory of evolution and ideas of individual liberation as their primary weapons to fiercely attack the “ancient sages and worthies” represented by Confucius, vigorously promoting new morality and opposing old morality, promoting new literature and opposing old literature—including promoting vernacular Chinese and opposing classical Chinese. By critiquing Confucianism, they shook the dominant position of feudal orthodox thought, opened the floodgates that had suppressed the flow of new ideas, and set off a tide of intellectual emancipation in Chinese society.

▶ A Brief History of the Chinese Communist Party

The New Culture Movement still looked to bourgeois democracy as its formula for saving the nation. But in the European and American countries where these currents of thought had originated, the internal contradictions of the capitalist system had already become quite acute, and the First World War had further exposed, in an extreme form, the inherent and insurmountable contradictions of the capitalist system. Added to this was the fact that China’s efforts to learn from the West had repeatedly ended in failure, which caused China’s advanced elements to harbor profound doubts about the viability of the bourgeois republican formula in China. China’s advanced elements, in their search for a formula to save the nation, once again found themselves at a crossroads.

It was precisely at this moment that in 1917, a single cannon shot from Russia’s October Revolution brought Marxism-Leninism to China. China’s advanced elements saw in the scientific truth of Marxism-Leninism a way out for solving China’s problems. The October Revolution’s call to oppose imperialism resonated with the Chinese people, who had long suffered at the hands of the imperialist powers, as something “especially poignant, especially grave, and especially meaningful.” This drove China’s advanced elements to incline toward socialism and to earnestly study the Marxist doctrine that had guided the October Revolution. Under these circumstances, a group of intellectuals emerged in China who supported the path of Russia’s October Revolution and held nascent communist ideas.

Li Dazhao was the first person in China to raise the banner of the October Revolution and the earliest propagator of Marxism in China. Beginning in July 1918, he successively published articles such as “A Comparative View of the French and Russian Revolutions,” “The Victory of the Common People,” and “The Victory of Bolshevism,”[1] enthusiastically celebrating the victory of the October Revolution. He declared that the October Revolution was “the forerunner of the world revolution of the twentieth century” and “a new dawn for all of humanity.” He predicted that the tide raised by the October Revolution was unstoppable: “Look at the world of the future—it will surely be a world of the Red Flag!” After the May Fourth Movement, he devoted himself even more to propagandizing Marxism. His article “My Marxist Views” systematically introduced Marxist theory and had a major impact on the intellectual world of the time, marking the entry of Marxism in China into a phase of comparatively systematic dissemination. His articles such as “Further Discussion on Problems and Isms” refuted anti-Marxist currents of thought and argued the profound reasons why Marxism suited China’s needs.

Why was it that Russia’s October Revolution of 1917 produced such a powerful resonance in China? The fundamental reason lay in the changes taking place within Chinese society itself. While China’s intellectual world was undergoing violent upheaval, profound changes were quietly occurring in China’s social structure as well. During the First World War, the major Western imperialist powers were busy fighting on the European front and temporarily relaxed their economic aggression against China, allowing China’s national capitalist economy to develop comparatively rapidly and further strengthening the forces of the Chinese working class and the national bourgeoisie. On the eve of the May Fourth Movement, the industrial working class had grown to approximately two million people, becoming an increasingly important new social force.

The Chinese working class was a great new revolutionary class born in modern China. In addition to the basic advantages of being connected to the most advanced economic forms, being rich in organizational discipline, and having no privately owned means of production, it also possessed the outstanding advantage of being resolute and thoroughgoing in its revolutionary character. On the soil of China’s semi-colonial, semi-feudal society, the Chinese working class was bound to become the most fundamental driving force of the revolution. At the same time, students and teachers in various new-style schools, journalists at newspapers and magazines, and others rapidly increased in number, forming an intellectual stratum far larger and possessed of a far more modern consciousness than that of the period of the Revolution of 1911.

The rise of a new great people’s revolution became inevitable.

The May Fourth Movement Marks the Great Beginning of the New Democratic Revolution

China’s diplomatic failure at the Paris Peace Conference was the immediate trigger of the May Fourth Movement.

In the first half of 1919, the victorious Allied Powers of the First World War held a “peace conference” in Paris. China’s representatives put forward seven requests—including the abolition of foreign spheres of influence in China and the withdrawal of foreign troops from China—as well as a statement calling for the cancellation of the “Twenty-One Demands”[2] and the related exchange of notes. The conference rejected China’s reasonable demands and transferred all of Germany’s privileges in Shandong to Japan. The Beiyang warlord government, yielding to pressure from the imperialist powers, prepared to sign the peace treaty. When the news reached China, the long-accumulated fury of the Chinese people finally erupted like a volcano.

On May 4th, more than 3,000 Beijing students gathered in front of Tiananmen to hold a demonstration. They raised slogans such as “Externally, struggle for sovereignty; internally, eliminate the traitors,” “Cancel the Twenty-One Demands,” “Return our Qingdao,” and “Punish the traitors Cao Rulin, Zhang Zongxiang, and Lu Zongyu,”[3] broke through the obstruction of reactionary troops and police, converged on Tiananmen from all directions, and held a protest rally.

★ During the May Fourth Movement, a student march from Peking University advances toward Tiananmen. The May Fourth Movement, which shook China and the world, erupted.

During the May Fourth Movement, the Chinese working class began to step onto the political stage as an independent force. Beginning on June 5th, Shanghai workers spontaneously went on strike in support of the students; within a few days, the number of striking workers reached sixty to seventy thousand. Subsequently, workers in Beijing, Tangshan, Hankou, Nanjing, Changsha, and other places also went on strike in succession, and merchants in many large and medium-sized cities shut down their shops, forming a high tide of strikes, class boycotts, and shop closures. The struggle rapidly spread to more than twenty provinces and regions and over one hundred cities.

The May Fourth Movement broke through the narrow confines of the intelligentsia and became a nationwide mass movement involving the working class, the petty bourgeoisie, and the bourgeoisie. Under pressure from the masses of the people, the Beiyang warlord government was compelled to release the arrested students and announced the dismissal of Cao Rulin, Zhang Zongxiang, and Lu Zongyu. On June 28th, China’s representatives did not attend the signing ceremony of the Paris Peace Treaty.

The May Fourth Movement was an epoch-making event in the history of modern China’s revolution, marking the great beginning of the New Democratic Revolution. Through its revolutionary character of thoroughgoing anti-imperialism and anti-feudalism, its progressive character of pursuing the truth of national salvation and national strengthening, and its breadth of active participation by the masses of all ethnic groups and all walks of life, the May Fourth Movement advanced China’s social progress, promoted the widespread dissemination of Marxism in China, promoted the integration of Marxism with the Chinese workers’ movement, and made ideological and cadre-level preparations for the founding of the Chinese Communist Party. The May Fourth Movement gave birth to the great May Fourth Spirit, whose main content is patriotism, progressivism, democracy, and science, with patriotism as its core. It holds milestone significance in the historical process of the Chinese nation’s pursuit of national independence and development and progress since modern times.

The Spread of Marxism in China

Around the time of the May Fourth Movement, China’s advanced elements, drawing practical lessons from the Paris Peace Conference, came to understand the true nature of the imperialist powers’ united oppression of the Chinese people.

This was the direct cause of the further spread of socialist thought in China. In March and April of 1920, Eastern Miscellany and other publications printed the Soviet government’s first declaration to China, announcing the abolition of all privileges that Tsarist Russia had enjoyed on Chinese territory, giving a new and powerful impetus to the spread of socialist thought in China. Studying and propagandizing socialism gradually became the mainstream of progressive intellectual circles.

It was precisely under these circumstances that many advanced intellectuals with different backgrounds, after careful deliberation and repeated reflection, found their way to Marxism through different paths.

In China’s early Marxist intellectual movement, Li Dazhao played the leading role. In 1919, he edited the fifth issue of the sixth volume of New Youth as a special issue on “Research into Marxism” and helped the supplement of the Beijing Morning Post open a column on “Research into Marx.”

Chen Duxiu, the intellectual leader of the New Culture Movement, also took a stand on the side of Marxism at this time. After the May Fourth Movement, he declared that we should no longer follow “the erroneous path of Europe, America, and Japan,” and explicitly announced his intention to use revolutionary means to build a state of the laboring class.

Mao Zedong, in the Xiang River Review that he edited, enthusiastically celebrated the victory of the October Revolution, holding that this victory would surely spread throughout the world and that we should rise up and follow its example. After his second visit to Beijing, he eagerly sought out and read books on communism and established his faith in Marxism. Mao Zedong later recalled: “By the summer of 1920, I had become, in theory and to some extent in action, a Marxist.”

Some veteran members of the Revolutionary Alliance also began to turn toward proletarian socialism at this time. Dong Biwu recalled that in the past, working together with Sun Yat-sen on revolution, “as the revolution developed, Sun Yat-sen could not keep hold of it, and in the end others took it over. So we began to study the Russian way.”

China’s advanced elements, guided by Marxism, actively threw themselves into the practice of mass struggle. In early 1920, some revolutionary intellectuals in Beijing went to the neighborhoods where rickshaw workers lived to investigate their miserable living conditions. Deng Zhongxia and others went to Changxindian to carry out revolutionary propaganda among the workers and began to establish ties with them. The process by which advanced intellectuals united with the working masses was the process by which Marxism became integrated with the Chinese workers’ movement.

III. The Founding of the Chinese Communist Party and the Formulation of the Democratic Revolutionary Program

The Establishment of Early Communist Organizations and Their Activities

With the widespread dissemination of Marxism in China and the emergence of a group of advanced elements who had established their faith in Marxism, the ideological and cadre-level conditions for establishing a communist organization in China were in place, and the task of founding a working-class party was placed on the agenda.

The first to contemplate founding a communist party in China were Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao. They gradually came to recognize that in order to use Marxism to transform China, it was necessary to establish a proletarian party to serve as the organizer and leader of the revolution. In February 1920, to escape persecution by the reactionary warlord government, Chen Duxiu secretly moved from Beijing to Shanghai. While escorting Chen Duxiu out of Beijing, Li Dazhao discussed with him the question of establishing a communist organization in China.

In March 1920, Li Dazhao organized the establishment of the Society for the Study of Marxist Theory at Peking University. This was both the earliest organization in China for studying and researching Marxism and an important preparation for founding the Party. In April, Voitinsky and other representatives of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) came to China. They met successively with Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu in Beijing and Shanghai to discuss the question of founding a communist party. This played a certain role in promoting the founding of the Chinese Communist Party.

The early organizations of the Chinese Communist Party were first established in Shanghai, the city with the highest concentration of China’s working class. In May 1920, Chen Duxiu initiated the organization of a Marxist Research Society to explore socialist doctrine and the question of transforming Chinese society. In August, an early communist organization was established at the editorial office of New Youth in Shanghai, with Chen Duxiu as secretary. In November, the early communist organization drafted the Declaration of the Chinese Communist Party, stating that “the goal of communists is to create a new society in accordance with the communist ideal.” The early communist organization established in Shanghai was in effect the founding organization of the Chinese Communist Party and served as the coordinating center for communist party-building activities across the country.

In October 1920, Li Dazhao and others established an early communist organization in Beijing, then called the “Communist Group.” By the end of that year, it was decided to establish the Beijing Branch of the Communist Party, with Li Dazhao as secretary.

Under the coordination and encouragement of the party organizations in Shanghai and Beijing, early party organizations were established in various places in rapid succession. From autumn 1920 to spring 1921, Dong Biwu, Chen Tanqiu, Bao Huiseng, and others established an early communist organization in Wuhan; Mao Zedong, He Shuheng, and others did so in Changsha; Wang Jinmei, Deng Enming, and others in Jinan; Tan Pingshan, Tan Zhitang, and others in Guangzhou. Early communist organizations composed of advanced elements among overseas students and overseas Chinese were established in Japan and France.

After the early communist organizations were established in various places, they carried out a great deal of work. This included: studying and propagandizing Marxism and researching China’s actual problems; engaging in polemics against anti-Marxist currents of thought and helping a group of progressive elements draw a clear line between socialism and capitalism, and between scientific socialism and other socialist schools, so as to find their way to Marxism; conducting propaganda and organizational work among workers, enabling workers to begin receiving Marxist education and raising their class consciousness; establishing Socialist Youth League organizations, organizing league members to study Marxism and participate in actual struggles, and cultivating and training reserve forces for the Party.

In the ideological and theoretical preparations for founding the Party, the Communist Manifesto played a very important role. In February 1920, Chen Wangdao secretly returned to his home in Yiwu, Zhejiang, to translate the Communist Manifesto. So absorbed was he in the translation that he dipped glutinous rice dumplings in ink and ate them without noticing, yet declared: “Sweet enough, sweet enough!” “The taste of truth is very sweet”—this revealed the Chinese communists’ thirst for the Marxist truth of national salvation and their steadfast faith in the communist ideal. In August 1920, the complete Chinese translation of the Communist Manifesto was published, marking a major event in the history of Marxism’s dissemination in China.

The First Party Congress

In July 1921, the First National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party opened at No. 106 Wangzhi Road (now No. 76 Xingye Road) in the French Concession of Shanghai.[4]

The delegates attending the congress were: Li Da and Li Hanjun from Shanghai; Zhang Guotao and Liu Renjing from Beijing; Mao Zedong and He Shuheng from Changsha; Dong Biwu and Chen Tanqiu from Wuhan; Wang Jinmei and Deng Enming from Jinan; Chen Gongbo from Guangzhou; and Zhou Fohai,[5] who was based in Japan. Bao Huiseng attended the congress as a delegate sent by Chen Duxiu. They represented more than fifty party members across the country. Comintern representatives Maring and Nikolsky attended the congress. Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao did not attend due to other commitments.

★ The site of the First Party Congress

Because the meeting venue came under the attention of secret agents and was searched by the French Concession police, the final day’s session was moved to a pleasure boat on South Lake in Jiaxing, Zhejiang.

The First Party Congress determined that the Party’s name would be the “Chinese Communist Party.” The congress passed the first program of the Chinese Communist Party, clearly stipulating that “the revolutionary army must overthrow the capitalist class’s political power together with the proletariat,” “acknowledge the dictatorship of the proletariat until class struggle ends,” “abolish capitalist private ownership,” and affiliate with the Third International. From the moment of its founding, the Chinese Communist Party forthrightly designated socialism and communism as its goals of struggle and insisted on using revolutionary means to achieve these goals.

The First Party Congress decided to establish a Central Bureau as the provisional leading body of the Center and elected a Central Bureau with Chen Duxiu as secretary.

The First Party Congress proclaimed the formal founding of the Chinese Communist Party. The founding of the Chinese Communist Party was the inevitable product of the development of modern Chinese history, the inevitable product of the Chinese people’s tenacious search for a way forward in their struggle to save the nation from extinction, and the inevitable product of the drive to realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. As the party of China’s most advanced class—the working class—the Chinese Communist Party represented not only the interests of the working class but also the interests of the entire Chinese people and the Chinese nation. From the very beginning, it upheld Marxism as its guide to action and always took seeking happiness for the Chinese people and rejuvenation for the Chinese nation as its founding aspiration and mission.

The founding of the Chinese Communist Party was an earth-shattering transformation in the history of the Chinese nation’s development, with great and far-reaching significance. The most important reason why the Chinese people’s struggle against imperialism and feudalism in modern times repeatedly suffered setbacks and failures was the absence of an advanced and strong party to serve as the leadership core that could consolidate forces. The birth of the Chinese Communist Party fundamentally changed this situation.

The site of the First Party Congress in Shanghai and the Red Boat on South Lake in Jiaxing were the “cradle” of the Chinese Communist Party—the place where the Party’s dream set sail. The founding of the Chinese Communist Party fully demonstrated a pioneering spirit of breaking new ground and daring to be first; a spirit of struggle marked by steadfast ideals and indomitable perseverance; and a spirit of dedication to founding the Party for the public good and serving the people with loyalty. This is the source, foundation, and root of China’s revolutionary spirit. The Red Boat Spirit is an important embodiment of this. It is precisely through upholding and practicing, carrying forward and developing this spirit that the Chinese Communist Party has created miracles on earth—”daring to make the sun and moon shine in a new sky”—becoming the world’s largest party, profoundly transforming China and profoundly influencing and shaping the world.

The Second Party Congress and the Formulation of the Democratic Revolutionary Program

The most important task for the newly founded Chinese Communist Party was to learn to apply scientific theory to observe and analyze the practical problems facing China. The most prominent problem in China at the time was the increasingly fierce warlord warfare being manipulated by imperialist forces. The Party came to a profound recognition that with the situation in such turmoil, if the great and petty warlords who were ruining the country and bringing calamity to the people, along with imperialism, were not first overthrown, there could be no talk of realizing any beautiful ideal.

In July 1922, the Second National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party was held in Shanghai. Twelve delegates attended the congress, representing 195 party members nationwide.

Through its analysis of China’s economic and political conditions, the Second Party Congress revealed the semi-colonial, semi-feudal nature of Chinese society. It pointed out that the Party’s highest program was to realize socialism and communism, but that the program for the current stage—the minimum program—was to overthrow the warlords, throw off the oppression of international imperialism, and unify China as a genuinely democratic republic. The congress pointed out that in order to achieve the revolutionary goal of opposing imperialism and the warlords, it was necessary to unite all revolutionary parties in the country and unite with the bourgeois democratic forces to form a “democratic united front.”

Only one year after its founding, the Party put forward for the first time a clear democratic revolutionary program of opposing imperialism and feudalism, and this program quickly spread widely—”Down with the foreign powers, eliminate the warlords” became the common rallying cry of the broad masses. This demonstrated that only the Chinese Communist Party, armed with Marxism, could point the way forward for the Chinese revolution.

The Second Party Congress passed the first party constitution, which made specific provisions on conditions for party membership, party organizations at all levels, and party discipline, embodying the principle of democratic centralism. This was of great significance for strengthening the Party’s own development. The congress also passed a resolution confirming that the Chinese Communist Party was a section of the Communist International.

The Second Party Congress passed a resolution clarifying that the Chinese Communist Party is a party composed of the most revolutionary elements of the proletariat—a party “fighting for the proletarian masses”—and emphasizing that all of the Party’s activities must go deep among the broad masses and must never be separated from the masses. This was of great significance for the development of the workers’ and peasants’ movements in the Party’s early period.

The Second Party Congress elected a Central Executive Committee, which in turn elected Chen Duxiu as its chairman.

The First High Tide of the Workers’ Movement and the Initial Development of the Peasant Movement

After its founding, the Party devoted itself to organizing and leading the workers’ movement. In August 1921, it established the Chinese Labor Secretariat—the general organ for openly conducting the labor movement. The Secretariat published the Labor Weekly, ran workers’ schools, organized industrial unions, and carried out strike struggles. The Party’s political influence among workers and throughout society expanded unceasingly.

Under the Party’s leadership, beginning with the Hong Kong Seamen’s Strike of January 1922 and ending with the Beijing-Hankou Railway Workers’ Strike of February 1923, the first high tide of the Chinese workers’ movement surged forward. Over the course of thirteen consecutive months, more than one hundred strikes of varying sizes broke out across the country, with over 300,000 participants. Among these, the Anyuan Road and Mine Workers’ Great Strike and the Kailuan Coal Mine Workers’ Great Strike were the most representative, fully demonstrating the power of an organized working class.

The Anyuan Road and Mine had more than 17,000 workers. In the autumn and winter of 1921, Mao Zedong, secretary of the Hunan branch of the CCP, went to Anyuan to conduct an investigation, after which the Hunan party organization sent Li Lisan to

★ Group photo of members of the preparatory committee of the Anyuan Road and Mine Workers’ Club open up work there. On May Day 1922, the Anyuan Road and Mine Workers’ Club was formally established. In early September of that year, Mao Zedong went to Anyuan to make arrangements for the strike. The Hunan party organization then sent Liu Shaoqi to work there as well. The strike began on September 14th, with workers putting forward demands including guarantees of political rights and improved treatment. Thanks to the workers’ courageous struggle and the support of various sectors of society, the road and mine authorities were compelled to accept most of the workers’ demands, and the strike won a victory.

The Beijing-Hankou Railway Workers’ Great Strike, which broke out on February 4, 1923, aimed to win the right to establish the Beijing-Hankou Railway General Union. On the 7th, with the support of the imperialist powers, the warlord Wu Peifu dispatched troops and police to bloodily suppress the striking workers. The reactionaries tied Lin Xiangqian—chairman of the Jiangan branch of the Beijing-Hankou Railway General Union and a Communist Party member—to a utility pole and forced him to order a return to work. Lin Xiangqian refused to yield even in the face of death and died a heroic martyr. Shi Yang—legal counsel of the Beijing-Hankou Railway Union and a Communist Party member—was shot three times as he was being executed but still cried out three times, “Long live the workers!” In the February Seventh Massacre, 52 people were killed, more than 300 were wounded, more than 40 were arrested and imprisoned, and more than 1,000 were dismissed and forced to flee. After this, the workers’ movement across the country entered a period of low tide.

In the course of leading the workers’ movement, the Party’s own development began to be strengthened. Grassroots party organizations in factories and mines began to be established. As the workers’ struggle developed, a group of outstanding figures emerged—including Su Zhaozheng, Shi Wenbin, Xiang Ying, Deng Pei, and Wang Hebo—who joined the Party’s ranks one after another.

While concentrating its efforts on leading the workers’ movement, the Party also began to go to the countryside to develop the peasant movement. A peasant assembly was held in Yaqian Village, Xiaoshan, Zhejiang, in September 1921, and China’s first new-type peasant organization was proclaimed. In July 1922, Peng Pai established the first secret peasant association in Haifeng County, Guangdong. By May 1923, peasant associations had been established in many places in Haifeng, Lufeng, and Huiyang counties, with membership reaching more than 200,000. In September, peasants in the Baiguo area of Hengshan County, Hunan, inspired by the Shuikoushan workers’ movement and under the Party’s leadership, established the Yuebei Workers’ and Peasants’ Association and carried out a series of struggles, raising the first banner of the peasant movement in Hunan. The Party also organized youth movements and women’s movements.

The workers’ and peasants’ movements—especially the workers’ movement—that the Party led, mobilized, and organized demonstrated the resolute revolutionary character and strong fighting capacity of the Chinese working class, expanded the Chinese Communist Party’s political influence throughout the country, and prepared certain conditions for the Party to cooperate with other revolutionary forces and set off a nationwide Great Revolution.

IV. The First United Front Between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party and the Rise of the Revolutionary High Tide

The Third Party Congress and the Establishment of Kuomintang-Communist Cooperation

Chinese Communists, drawing lessons from the failure of the Beijing-Hankou Railway Workers’ Great Strike, saw that the revolutionary forces at that time were far weaker than the forces of imperialism and feudalism. The Party recognized the importance of forming the broadest possible united front and decided to take active steps to unite with the Chinese Kuomintang led by Sun Yat-sen.

Sun Yat-sen at this time had repeatedly suffered setbacks from his strategy of using one warlord against another and was mired in frustration. He saw the influence produced by the Chinese Communist Party’s leadership of the workers’ movement and recognized the Chinese Communist Party as a new, vigorous revolutionary force, and was willing to cooperate with it. In January 1923, the Executive Committee of the Communist International passed a “Resolution on the Relations between the Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang,” which played a role in promoting Kuomintang-Communist cooperation.

In June 1923, the Third National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party was held in Guangzhou. More than thirty delegates attended the congress, representing 420 party members nationwide.

The Third Party Congress correctly assessed Sun Yat-sen’s revolutionary stance and the possibility of reorganizing the Kuomintang, and decided that Communist Party members would join the Kuomintang as individuals in order to realize Kuomintang-Communist cooperation. It clearly stipulated that when Communist Party members joined the Kuomintang, the Party must maintain its own independence politically, ideologically, and organizationally.

The Third Party Congress revised the party constitution for the first time, making several amendments to the constitution adopted at the Second Congress. It was the first time a probationary period for new party members was stipulated, and the first time it was stipulated that party members could “voluntarily request to leave the Party,” i.e., voluntarily withdraw from the Party.

The Third Party Congress elected a Central Executive Committee and also formed a Central Bureau with Chen Duxiu as chairman.

After the Third Party Congress, the pace of Kuomintang-Communist cooperation accelerated greatly. Party organizations at all levels mobilized party members and revolutionary youth to join the Kuomintang and actively promoted the national revolutionary movement throughout the country. In early October 1923, at Sun Yat-sen’s invitation, Soviet representative Borodin arrived in Guangzhou. Sun Yat-sen engaged him as an organizational trainer for the Kuomintang and later as a political adviser. The reorganization of the Kuomintang quickly entered the implementation phase.

In January 1924, the First National Congress of the Chinese Kuomintang was held in Guangzhou. Among the 165 delegates who attended the opening ceremony, more than 20 were Communist Party members. Li Dazhao was designated by Sun Yat-sen as a member of the congress presidium.

The Manifesto of the First National Congress of the Chinese Kuomintang, reviewed and passed at the First Kuomintang Congress, offered a new interpretation of the Three People’s Principles—the “New Three People’s Principles.” The Principle of Nationalism was given new emphasis on opposing imperialism; the Principle of Democracy stressed that democratic rights should be “shared by the common people”; and the Principle of People’s Livelihood took “equalization of land rights” and “regulation of capital” as its two major principles. Shortly after the congress, Sun Yat-sen also put forward the slogan “land to the tiller.” The political program of the First Kuomintang Congress was consistent with several basic principles of the Chinese Communist Party’s political program in the democratic revolutionary stage, and became the political foundation of the First United Front between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party.

The First Kuomintang Congress confirmed the principle of Communist Party members joining the Kuomintang as individuals. The congress elected the Central Executive Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang; Communist Party members Li Dazhao, Tan Pingshan, Mao Zedong, and seven others were elected as members or alternate members of the Central Executive Committee, accounting for approximately one-quarter of the total number of committee members. After the congress, Communist Party members who held important positions in the Kuomintang Central Party Department included: Tan Pingshan as head of the Organization Department, Lin Boqu as head of the Peasant Department, and Mao Zedong as acting head of the Propaganda Department.

The First Kuomintang Congress in effect established the three great revolutionary policies of alliance with Russia, cooperation with the Communist Party, and support for the workers and peasants, marking the formal formation of the First United Front between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party.

The Formation of a New Revolutionary Situation and the Fourth Party Congress

After the realization of Kuomintang-Communist cooperation, with Guangzhou as the center, the revolutionary forces of the whole country converged, and a new revolutionary situation of opposition to imperialism and the feudal warlords was quickly created.

The realization of Kuomintang-Communist cooperation promoted the recovery and development of the workers’ movement. In July 1924, a major political strike involving thousands of workers broke out in the Shamian Concession in Guangzhou, protesting the “new police regulations” imposed by British and French imperialists restricting the freedom of Chinese residents to enter and leave the Shamian Concession; Chinese police officers also joined the work stoppage. The struggle lasted more than a month and won a victory. At the Second National Labor Congress held in Guangzhou in May 1925, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions was established.

The peasant movement was also developing gradually. Peasants in various counties of Guangdong established peasant associations and organized self-defense armies to struggle against local tyrants, evil gentry, and corrupt officials. Beginning in July 1924, six sessions of the Peasant Movement Training Institute were held in Guangzhou, presided over successively by Communist Party members Peng Pai, Mao Zedong, and others, cultivating a group of backbone cadres for the peasant movement. The student movement and the women’s movement also developed.

In order to forge the backbone force of the revolutionary armed forces, at the suggestion of Communist Party members, the First Kuomintang Congress decided to establish a military academy—the Whampoa Military Academy. The Chinese Communist Party selected and sent large numbers of party and league members and revolutionary youth to study at the Whampoa Military Academy; among the first cohort of students, there were 56 Communist Party members and Youth League members, accounting for one-tenth of the total student body.

Through the joint efforts of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, the ideas of the national revolution spread from south to north, disseminating on an unprecedented scale throughout the country. In October 1924, Zhili clique general Feng Yuxiang launched a coup, overthrew the Beijing government controlled by Zhili warlord leaders Cao Kun and Wu Peifu, temporarily took control of the Beijing-Tianjin area, reorganized his forces as the National Army, and telegraphed Sun Yat-sen to come north to “jointly deliberate on state affairs.” In November, Sun Yat-sen left Guangzhou and traveled north, propagandizing along the way for the convening of a national assembly and the abolition of unequal treaties. Mass organizations in various places sent telegrams of support one after another, forming a broad political propaganda movement.

In order to strengthen leadership over the surging revolutionary movement, the Fourth National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party was held in Shanghai in January 1925. Twenty delegates attended the congress, representing 994 party members nationwide.

The great historical achievement of the Fourth Party Congress lay in raising the question of proletarian leadership in the democratic revolution, raising the question of the worker-peasant alliance, providing a more complete definition of the content of the democratic revolution, and pointing out that while “opposing international imperialism,” it was also necessary both to “oppose the feudal warlord political system” and to “oppose feudal economic relations.” This represented a major advance in the Chinese Communist Party’s understanding of the problems of the Chinese revolution, built on a summing-up of practical experience since the Party’s founding and especially since the first year of Kuomintang-Communist cooperation.

The Fourth Party Congress also decided to strengthen the Party’s organizational development throughout the country, expand the number of party members, consolidate party discipline, and clearly stipulated that the branch should serve as the Party’s basic organizational unit.

The Fourth Party Congress revised the party constitution, put forward specific requirements for branch development, and stipulated that a party branch could be established with as few as three party members.

The Fourth Party Congress elected a Central Executive Committee, which in turn elected a Central Bureau with Chen Duxiu as General Secretary.

On March 12, 1925, Sun Yat-sen died of illness in Beijing. After Sun Yat-sen’s death, the right wing of the Kuomintang, which had consistently maintained an anti-communist stance, became active again. The left and right factions within the Kuomintang further polarized, and the united front established through Kuomintang-Communist cooperation faced an increasingly complex situation. For the Chinese Communists, this was a severe test.

The May Thirtieth Movement and the Unification of the Guangdong Revolutionary Base Area

The arrival of the high tide of the Great Revolution on a nationwide scale began with the Shanghai workers’ strike against foreign capitalists in May 1925.

On May 15th, Japanese capitalists at the No. 7 Neiwai Cotton Mill in Shanghai shot and killed worker and Communist Party member Gu Zhenghong. On the 30th, under the leadership and mobilization of the Chinese Communist Party, Shanghai workers and students held street propaganda activities and a demonstration march. British police in the concession suddenly opened fire on Nanjing Road, killing 13 students, workers, and others, with countless wounded. This was the May Thirtieth Massacre, which shook the entire nation. In the days that followed, British, Japanese, and other foreign troops and police continued to shoot and kill Chinese civilians in Shanghai and other places.

The May Thirtieth Massacre aroused the extreme fury of the entire Chinese people. The rage against imperialism that had been buried deep in the hearts of the Chinese people for many years suddenly erupted, giving rise to a situation of workers’ strikes, student class boycotts, and merchants’ shop closures. The Party Center decided to establish the Shanghai General Union and the Shanghai Workers’, Merchants’, and Students’ Joint Committee to strengthen leadership over the movement. Approximately 17 million people across the country directly participated in the movement; from commercial metropolises to remote market towns, the angry cries of “Down with imperialism!” and “Abolish the unequal treaties!” rang out everywhere. Ignited by the May Thirtieth Massacre, the tide of the national movement against imperialism swept across the entire country with irresistible force—this was the May Thirtieth Movement.

The Guangzhou-Hong Kong General Strike, which took place in Guangzhou and Hong Kong and involved 250,000 participants, was an important component of the May Thirtieth Movement. The striking workers established the Guangzhou-Hong Kong Strike Committee, with Communist Party member Su Zhaozheng as chairman, and imposed a blockade on Hong Kong. The general strike persisted for sixteen months; the more than 100,000 organized striking workers concentrated in Guangzhou became a powerful pillar of the Guangzhou revolutionary government.

The Party developed greatly through its leadership of the May Thirtieth Movement. Party membership grew from fewer than 1,000 at the beginning of 1925 to 10,000 by year’s end, and party organizations were established in many places that had previously had none. To adapt to the new situation brought about by the arrival of the Great Revolution’s high tide, the Party Center promptly put forward the need to transition the Party “from a small group to a centralized mass party” in the shortest possible time, emphasizing the importance of educating and training party members, and established a senior party school in Beijing to cultivate cadres.

In the favorable situation of vigorous development, the Kuomintang and the Communist Party cooperated to carry out the work of unifying the Guangdong revolutionary base area. In 1925, through two Eastern Expeditions and a Southern Expedition, the warlord forces of Chen Jiongming and Deng Benyin were eliminated, the rebellion of the Yang Ximin and Liu Zhenhuan forces in Guangzhou was suppressed, and the Guangdong revolutionary base area was unified, preparing a comparatively reliable rear base for the Northern Expedition.

The Party also made attempts to build revolutionary armed forces under its direct leadership. Zhou Enlai and the CCP Guangdong Regional Committee, with the support of Sun Yat-sen and using some party and league members as the backbone, reorganized the armored train unit of the Grand Marshal’s Headquarters into a revolutionary armed force effectively under the Party’s command. In early 1926, the Independent Regiment of the Fourth Army of the National Revolutionary Army was established under the command of Communist Party member Ye Ting.

Under the arduous pioneering efforts of Li Dazhao and others, the revolutionary movement in the northern regions developed rapidly. Beginning in early 1924, the workers’ movement in the north gradually broke out of the depression that had followed the February Seventh Massacre and was restored and developed. Workers’ strike struggles in Beijing, Qingdao, Tangshan, and other places arose one after another. In October 1925, the enlarged meeting of the Central Executive Committee emphasized the importance of work in the northern regions and decided to strengthen leadership over the revolution in the north. After the meeting, the CCP Northern Regional Executive Committee was established, with Li Dazhao as secretary. By July 1926, more than ten regional committees and dozens of special branches and independent branches had been established in Beijing, Tianjin, Tangshan, Taiyuan, northern Manchuria, and other places, with more than 2,000 party members. Li Dazhao and the CCP’s northern party organizations also worked to win over Feng Yuxiang and his National Army, and carried out the movement to win tariff autonomy, among other efforts. These struggles demonstrated the awakening of revolutionary consciousness among the people of the north and struck a blow against the Duan Qirui reactionary government that controlled Beijing.

V. The Northern Expedition and the Workers’ and Peasants’ Movements

The Victorious March of the Northern Expedition

In July 1926, the National Revolutionary Army took an oath and launched the Northern Expedition. The direct targets of the Northern Expedition were the Beiyang warlords backed by imperialism, chiefly the three forces of Wu Peifu, Sun Chuanfang, and Zhang Zuolin, whose directly controlled armies numbered 700,000 men, while the National Revolutionary Army under the National Government numbered only around 100,000.

★ Some Communist Party members engaged in political work in the Northern Expedition Army, photographed together in Nanchang Faced with a situation of great disparity in forces, the National Revolutionary Army, under the guidance of Soviet advisers, formulated a strategic plan of concentrating forces and annihilating the enemy one by one. With the strong support of the people along the way, the Northern Expedition Army advanced like a hot knife through butter. In September, it occupied Hanyang and Hankou. On October 10th, it captured Wuchang and annihilated the main force of Wu Peifu’s troops. The Northern Expedition Army on the Jiangxi front annihilated the main force of Sun Chuanfang’s troops in early November and occupied Jiujiang and Nanchang. On the Fujian front, Fuzhou fell without a battle in December. The Northern Expedition Army then formulated a plan to seize Zhejiang and Shanghai and converge on Nanjing; in February 1927, it occupied Hangzhou and pacified the whole of Zhejiang. In March, it occupied Anqing, Nanjing, and other places, and entered Shanghai. By this point, the Northern Expedition Army had completely occupied the territory south of the Yangtze River.

While the Northern Expedition Army was winning great victories, Feng Yuxiang’s National Army, with the help of the Soviet Union and the Chinese Communist Party, took an oath at Wuyuan, Suiyuan, in September 1926 and marched south. By November, it had taken control of Shaanxi, Gansu, and other provinces and was preparing to march east through Tongguan Pass in response to the Northern Expedition Army.

The Northern Expedition was conducted under the slogans put forward by the Communist Party of opposing imperialism and opposing the warlords. During the Northern Expedition, Communist Party members and Communist Youth League members gave their lives without hesitation and played a vanguard and exemplary role. In particular, the Independent Regiment led by Communist Party member Ye Ting was the first to break into Wuchang and became a courageous and battle-hardened unit within the Fourth Army, which earned the title of “Iron Army.” Communist Party members made enormous contributions to political work in the army and to mobilizing the workers and peasants. The CCP Guangdong Regional Committee led the Guangzhou-Hong Kong Strike Committee in organizing a transport team, propaganda team, and medical team of 3,000 people to march north with the army. When the Northern Expedition Army advanced on Changsha, the CCP Hunan Regional Committee mobilized workers and peasants to participate in guiding the way, carrying messages, transporting supplies, and providing medical care, and also organized peasant self-defense armies to participate directly in combat. Such scenes of popular enthusiasm were rare in China’s previous wars.

The great success achieved by the Northern Expedition in a short period of time was the fruit of cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party.

The Upsurge of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Mass Movement in Hunan, Hubei, and Jiangxi

As the Northern Expedition advanced victoriously, the workers’ and peasants’ mass movement surged on an unprecedented scale. This was most pronounced in the three provinces of Hunan, Hubei, and Jiangxi.

In these provinces, the peasant movement was the first to surge. Mao Zedong became secretary of the CCP Central Peasant Movement Committee in November 1926, focusing his work on the peasant movements in Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi, and Henan. From the summer of 1926 to January 1927, membership in Hunan’s peasant associations surged from 400,000 to 2 million. With organization in hand, the peasants began to act, launching an unprecedented great rural revolution. Mao Zedong pointed out at the time: “The national revolution requires a great change in the countryside. The Revolution of 1911 did not bring about this change, hence its failure. We now have this change, and it is an important factor in completing the revolution.”

The vigorous development of the peasant movement frightened the landlords and local tyrants and the right wing of the Kuomintang,

★ The Wuhan Kuomintang Central Peasant Movement Training Institute during the Great Revolution period; Mao Zedong was the actual organizer of this institute who attacked the peasant movement one after another, denouncing it as a “riffraff movement” and saying it was “terrible.” In early 1927, Mao Zedong conducted a thirty-two-day investigation of the peasant movement in Hunan. In his “Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan,” he sharply refuted the various fallacies leveled against the peasant movement from within and outside the Party, expounded on the great significance of the rural revolution, and pointed out that all revolutionary comrades must stand at the head of the peasants and lead them, rather than standing behind them and criticizing them with a wagging finger, and still less standing opposite them and opposing them. He emphasized the need to rely on the poor peasants as the “revolutionary vanguard,” to unite the middle peasants and other forces that could be won over, to establish peasant associations and peasant armed forces, to seize all power in the countryside, and then to carry out struggles for rent and interest reduction and land redistribution.

In the cities, the workers’ movement also surged. The general trade unions of Hunan and Hubei provinces were established in succession in September and October 1926. By January 1927, trade union membership in the two provinces had grown to 700,000. The Jiangxi Provincial General Trade Union was also formally established. All three provinces emulated the experience of the Guangzhou-Hong Kong General Strike and organized armed workers’ picket teams. Workers in Changsha, Wuhan, Jiujiang, and other cities successively launched large-scale strikes, most of which won victories. The mass anti-imperialist struggle surged vigorously, driving the National Government to recover the Hankou and Jiujiang British concessions in February 1927.

Propelled by the victorious advance of the Northern Expedition and the upsurge of the workers’ and peasants’ movement, the Party Center and the Shanghai Regional Committee began in October 1926 to organize Shanghai workers to launch an armed uprising. The first and second uprisings ended in failure. The Party Center and the Shanghai Regional Committee then jointly formed the Special Committee—the supreme command organ of the uprising—with Chen Duxiu, Luo Yinong, Zhao Shiyan, Zhou Enlai, and others as members, and Zhou Enlai as commander-in-chief of the uprising. Under their direct leadership, Shanghai workers successfully launched the third armed uprising on March 21, 1927. On the 22nd, the Shanghai Special Municipality Provisional Municipal Government was established—the earliest revolutionary political power established by the people in a major city under the Party’s leadership.

The third armed uprising of Shanghai workers was a heroic feat of the Chinese workers’ movement during the Great Revolution period and the highest peak of the workers’ movement during the Northern Expedition.

VI. The Rupture of Kuomintang-Communist Cooperation and the Failure of the Great Revolution

The Emergence of the Crisis in the Great Revolution and the Fifth Party Congress

As the magnificent Great Revolution unfolded in full swing, the undercurrents concealed within the torrent and the crises hidden within the victories were also developing.

Chiang Kai-shek, whose wings had gradually grown strong, was encouraged and supported by the imperialist powers and unceasingly manufactured anti-communist incidents. In March 1927, he ordered Kuomintang troops to arrest Chen Zanxian—chairman of the Ganzhou General Union, vice-chairman of the Jiangxi Provincial General Union, and a Communist Party member. The enemy pressured him to sign an order dissolving the general union and halting the workers’ and peasants’ movement. Chen Zanxian replied with iron resolve: “You can cut off my head and spill my blood, but I will not sign to dissolve the union!” He cried out, “Long live the Chinese Communist Party!” and died a heroic martyr.

As the Northern Expedition advanced victoriously, Chiang Kai-shek’s anti-communist activities became increasingly open. At this critical juncture of the Great Revolution, the Party’s principal leaders committed the error of capitulation and retreat.

On March 24, 1927, the Northern Expedition Army occupied Nanjing. That afternoon, British and American warships cruising on the Yangtze River, using the pretext of protecting foreign nationals, bombarded Nanjing heavily, causing serious casualties among Chinese soldiers and civilians. The Nanjing Incident accelerated Chiang Kai-shek’s collusion with the imperialist forces. On the 26th, Chiang Kai-shek went to Shanghai and held a series of secret meetings with imperialist powers, Jiangsu-Zhejiang financiers, and gang bosses. In early April, Chiang Kai-shek convened a secret meeting in Shanghai and decided to use violent means to “purge the Party” and launch a sudden attack on the Chinese Communist Party.

On April 12th, Chiang Kai-shek launched a counter-revolutionary coup in Shanghai. In the early hours of that day, large numbers of Green Gang armed thugs disguised as workers burst out of the concessions and launched a sudden attack on the workers’ picket teams stationed at the Shanghai General Union and other locations. The 26th Army of the National Revolutionary Army, under the pretext of mediating, disarmed the workers’ picket teams. On the 13th, Shanghai workers and citizens held a mass rally of 100,000 people; after the rally, they marched in formation demanding the release of arrested fellow workers and the return of the confiscated weapons of the picket teams. As the procession advanced to Baoshan Road, the 26th Army suddenly charged out and opened fire on the dense crowd, killing more than 100 people on the spot, with countless wounded. By the 15th, more than 300 Shanghai workers had been killed, more than 500 arrested, and more than 5,000 had gone missing. This was the April Twelfth Counter-Revolutionary Coup, which shook China and the world.

After the reactionary Kuomintang launched the counter-revolutionary coup in Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, and other provinces successively carried out large-scale arrests and killings of Communist Party members and revolutionary masses under the name of “party purification.” In Guangdong alone, more than 2,000 people were killed, including well-known Communist Party members Xiao Chunu and Xiong Xiong. The northern Fengtian warlord Zhang Zuolin also arrested and killed large numbers of Communist Party members and revolutionary masses.

On April 6th, Li Dazhao—one of the principal founders of the Chinese Communist Party—was unfortunately arrested. He fought courageously against the enemy, strictly guarded Party secrets, and did his utmost to protect and rescue comrades who were arrested at the same time. In his Self-Account Written in Prison, he expressed his boundless loyalty to the revolutionary cause: “Since I came of age and began my studies, I have pledged myself to the cause of national liberation, putting into practice what I believe and acting on what I know, without pausing to reckon whether it be merit or crime.” Facing the enemy’s gallows, he went calmly to his death, demonstrating the tenacious commitment of a Communist Party member to the founding aspiration and mission, and boundless loyalty to the Party’s cause—setting a benchmark for steadfast ideals and faith.

After Chen Yannian, secretary of the Jiangsu Provincial Committee, was arrested, he endured the most brutal torture but refused to yield, his will as strong as iron. On the execution ground, the executioner ordered him to kneel; he replied in a loud voice: a revolutionary is open and aboveboard and faces death with equanimity—I will only die standing, I will never kneel! Chen Yannian held his head high and died a heroic martyr.

In the face of the severe white terror, Zhao Shiyan, acting secretary of the Jiangsu Provincial Committee, declared steadfastly: the Communist Party is a fighting party; as long as the Party exists for a single day, it must fight for a single day.

★ Chiang Kai-shek ordered the sealing and dissolution of revolutionary organizations and progressive groups, and carried out mass arrests and killings of Communists and revolutionary figures

Those who are unwilling to participate in the struggle—what kind of Communist Party members are they! After his arrest, he declared with passionate fervor: men of noble aspiration do not shrink from sacrifice; the Communist Party will surely achieve victory! He died a heroic martyr, dedicating his youth and blood to the great cause of national rejuvenation.

Xiao Chunu, while working at the Peasant Movement Training Institute and the Whampoa Military Academy, once told his students: a person should be like a candle—in one’s limited lifetime, give off as much heat and light as possible, bringing light and warmth to others. He died a heroic martyr amid the white terror, like an ever-burning red candle that consumed itself to illuminate the path of the revolution forward.

The April Twelfth Counter-Revolutionary Coup was the turning point at which the Great Revolution moved from its high tide toward failure.

On April 18th, Chiang Kai-shek established in Nanjing a “National Government” representing the interests of the big landlords and big bourgeoisie. Thereafter, the country entered a situation of three rival regimes: the Beijing government headed by Zhang Zuolin, the Nanjing National Government headed by Chiang Kai-shek, and the Wuhan National Government that continued to maintain Kuomintang-Communist cooperation.

At this critical juncture of the Great Revolution, the Fifth National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party was held in Wuhan from April to May 1927. Eighty-two delegates attended the congress, representing 57,967 party members nationwide.

The Fifth Party Congress elected the Party’s Central Committee. The First Plenary Session of the Fifth Central Committee, held subsequently, elected the Political Bureau of the Central Committee and the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau, with Chen Duxiu as General Secretary. It also elected the first central disciplinary inspection and supervision body in the Party’s history—the Central Supervisory Committee—which holds important significance in the history of Party development.

After the congress, a meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, in accordance with the requirements of the Fifth Party Congress, passed a resolution to revise the party constitution. It formally put forward the organizational principle of democratic centralism within the Party, for the first time explicitly writing democratic centralism into the party constitution, for the first time writing the relationship between the Party and the Communist Youth League into the party constitution, and for the first time clearly stipulating that the minimum age for party membership was 18.

The Fifth Party Congress put forward some correct principles, including winning proletarian leadership over the revolution, establishing a revolutionary democratic political power, and implementing land revolution. However, it did not put forward effective and concrete measures on how the proletariat should win revolutionary leadership, how to lead the peasants in carrying out land revolution, and especially how to build revolutionary armed forces under the Party’s leadership. It was therefore unable to shoulder the task of rescuing the revolution.

The Failure of the Great Revolution and Its Lessons

After the Fifth Party Congress, the crisis in the areas under the Wuhan National Government grew increasingly severe. Events involving the sealing of revolutionary organizations and the arrest of workers’ and peasants’ leaders occurred in Hubei, Hunan, and Jiangxi. On May 21, 1927, reactionary Kuomintang officer Xu Kexiang in Changsha confiscated the weapons of the workers’ picket teams and arrested and killed more than 100 Communist Party members and revolutionary masses—this was the May Twenty-First Incident. After the May Twenty-First Incident, Hunan was shrouded in a pall of white terror.

On July 15th, Wang Jingwei convened an enlarged meeting of the Standing Committee of the Kuomintang Central Committee and, under the name of “separating the Communists,” formally broke with the Communist Party and carried out mass arrests and killings of Communist Party members and revolutionary masses. The Kuomintang-Communist cooperation completely ruptured, the Great Revolution launched through the cooperation of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party was declared a failure, and large numbers of outstanding sons and daughters of China fell in the storm of counter-revolutionary bloodshed. According to incomplete statistics, from March 1927 to the first half of 1928, more than 310,000 Communist Party members and revolutionary masses were killed.

In the white terror, revolutionaries’ blood flowed like rivers, yet they were not frightened into submission. Xia Minghan, who had served as a standing committee member of the Hubei Provincial Committee before his arrest, remained unyielding in prison and wrote in a letter to his wife: “Persist in the revolution and carry on my will; swear to spread the truth throughout the world.” With his resounding oath—”It doesn’t matter if my head is cut off, as long as the doctrine is true”—he vividly expressed the Communist Party member’s undying light of ideals and undying light of faith.

The Great Revolution was a people’s revolutionary movement with workers and peasants as its main body, also including the national bourgeoisie and the upper petty bourgeoisie. On a scale and in a form fundamentally different from the Revolution of 1911, it set off a world-shaking storm across the land of China, dealt a heavy blow to the imperialist forces in China, basically overthrew the reactionary rule of the Beiyang warlords, spread the ideas of democratic revolution throughout the country on an unprecedented scale, promoted the awakening of China’s broad masses, and advanced China’s social progress. The Great Revolution educated and tempered all the revolutionary classes, laying a mass foundation for the land revolution war later led by the Party. During the Great Revolution, the Party’s organizations developed rapidly and the Party’s own development was strengthened. From the Party’s founding to the failure of the Great Revolution—a mere six years—party organizations or party activities were established in all of China except Xinjiang, Qinghai, Guizhou, Tibet, and Taiwan, and the Party grew from more than 50 party members to a party with nearly 58,000 party members, leading more than 2.8 million workers and more than 9.7 million peasants, with a considerable mass base.

▶ A Brief History of the Chinese Communist Party

In the early and middle periods of the Great Revolution, the Party’s line was basically correct and the enthusiasm of party members, the masses, and party cadres was very high, which is why great victories were achieved. The failure of the Great Revolution was due, from an objective standpoint, to the strength of the counter-revolutionary forces, the serious wavering of the bourgeoisie, and the successive betrayal of the revolution by the Chiang Kai-shek clique and the Wang Jingwei clique. From a subjective standpoint, the Party was still in its infancy at this time, lacked the political experience to cope with a complex environment, and was not yet adept at integrating the basic principles of Marxism with the concrete realities of the Chinese revolution.

The lessons drawn from the rise and fall of the Great Revolution demonstrated that the Party must not only build a revolutionary united front but must also at all times maintain its own independence, implement the guideline of “both unity and struggle,” and fight for proletarian leadership in the revolution. At the same time, given China’s conditions at the time, in order to win revolutionary victory, it was necessary to persist in armed struggle and build an army directly commanded and led by the Party; it was necessary to resolve the peasants’ land problem in order to fully mobilize the peasants to participate in the revolution and expand the revolutionary forces; and the Party must strengthen its own development, strengthen the Party’s democratic centralism, and not only develop the Party’s organizations and pay attention to the quantity of party members, but even more importantly consolidate the Party’s organizations and pay attention to the quality of party members. Only by correctly recognizing and resolving these problems could the Party lead the cause of the Chinese revolution to success.

Although the Great Revolution failed, its historical significance is indelible. This revolution was in effect a great dress rehearsal for the future victorious revolution. It was precisely during this period that Chinese Communists carried out a magnificent revolutionary effort, setting off a great struggle against imperialism and feudalism throughout the country and writing a stirring page in the history of the Chinese revolution. Whether at the height of the Great Revolution or when the revolution was shrouded in white terror, Chinese Communists demonstrated a dauntless spirit of self-sacrifice and a revolutionary will of indomitable resistance, willing to go through fire and water for the highest interests of the people and the nation, and winning the trust of the people.

Through the Great Revolution, the Party accumulated profound experience from both positive and negative aspects, began to explore in practice the path of the Sinicization of Marxism, initially put forward the basic ideas of the New Democratic Revolution under proletarian leadership, and began to understand the importance of carrying out land revolution and holding revolutionary armed forces. It was precisely through this Great Revolution that the level of consciousness of the Chinese people was markedly raised. All of this prepared the necessary conditions for advancing the Chinese revolution to a new stage—the period of the land revolution war.

[1] “Bolshevism” refers to Bolshevism.

[1] Bolshevism，即布尔什维主义。

[2] The “Twenty-One Demands” were a draft treaty put forward by Japan in 1915 with the aim of subjugating China, containing unreasonable demands including control over China’s Shandong, the southern part of the three northeastern provinces, and eastern Inner Mongolia.

[2] “二十一条”是1915年日本提出的旨在灭亡中国的条约草案，其中包括控制中国的山东、东北三省南部和内蒙古东部等无理要求。

[3] Cao Rulin, Zhang Zongxiang, and Lu Zongyu were three pro-Japanese bureaucrats of the Beiyang warlord government.

[3] 曹汝霖、章宗祥、陆宗舆是北洋军阀政府的三个亲日派官僚。

[4] According to later research, the exact date on which the First Party Congress opened was July 23, 1921. In June 1941, the “Central Directive on the Twentieth Anniversary of the Founding of the Chinese Communist Party and the Fourth Anniversary of the War of Resistance” designated July 1st as the anniversary of the Party’s founding. Since then, July 1st each year has been observed as the founding anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party.

[4] 据后来考证，党的一大开幕的准确日期是1921年7月23日，1941年6月《中央关于中国共产党诞生二十周年、抗战四周年纪念指示》将7月1日作为党成立纪念日。此后，每年7月1日成为中国共产党成立纪念日。

[5] Zhang Guotao defected to the Kuomintang in 1938 and was expelled from the Chinese Communist Party; Chen Gongbo and Zhou Fohai were purged from the Party shortly after the First Party Congress for serious violations of party discipline and became collaborators with the Japanese during the War of Resistance Against Japan.

[5] 张国焘，1938年投靠国民党，被中国共产党开除党籍；陈公博、周佛海，在党的一大后不久因严重违反党的纪律被清理出党，抗日战争中成为汉奸。

NextChapter Two ‖ Unleashing the Storm of the Land Revolution