Chinese Communist Revolution participant Chinese Communist Party
The Chinese Communist Revolution was a social and political revolution that culminated in the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949. For the preceding century, China had faced escalating social, economic, and political problems as a result of Western imperialism, Japanese imperialism, and the decline of the Qing dynasty. Cyclical famines and an oppressive landlord system kept the large mass of rural peasantry poor and politically disenfranchised. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was formed in 1921 by young urban intellectuals inspired by European socialist ideas and the success of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. The CCP originally allied itself with the nationalist Kuomintang party against the warlords and foreign imperialist forces, but the Shanghai Massacre of Communists ordered by KMT leader Chiang Kai-shek in 1927 forced them into the Chinese Civil War spanning more than two decades.
Early Nationalist military dominance forced the Communists to abandon their strategy of appealing to the urban proletariat, instead basing themselves in the countryside as advocated by Mao Zedong. Mao rose to become the Chairman of CCP during the Long March while the CCP narrowly avoided complete destruction. The Communists led by Mao once again formed a United Front with the Kuomintang to fight the Japanese occupation of China beginning in 1937. The CCP made effective use of situation to rebuild their movement around the Chinese peasantry. Following the Japanese surrender in 1945, China became an early hot spot in the Cold War. The United States continued to funnel large amounts of money and weapons to Chiang Kai-shek, but corruption and low morale fatally undermined the Nationalist army. The Soviet Union's decision to let the communists take control of Japanese weapons and supplies left behind in Manchuria, on the other hand, proved decisive. The Communists were able to mobilize a massive army of peasants with their program of radical land reform and gradually began winning open battles against the KMT. In 1948 and 1949 the Communist People's Liberation Army won three major campaigns that forced the Nationalist government to retreat to Taiwan. On 1 October 1949, Mao formally proclaimed the creation of the People's Republic of China.
The Communist victory had a major impact on the global balance of power: China became the largest socialist state by population, and, after the 1956 Sino-Soviet split, a third force in the Cold War. 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 fear of similar events occurring across East Asia led the United States to intervene militarily in Korea and South East Asia (e.g. Vietnam). To this day, the Chinese Communist Party remains the governing party of mainland China and the second-largest political party in the world.