"A History of the Chinese Communist Party"

2021/10/20

Until the Chinese Communist Party won the civil war in 1949, it would not have been surprising if it had met a sudden end at any time. In 1927, when the first United Front collapsed and the party was driven into rural areas; in 1934, when it was forced into a grueling retreat by the Nationalist Army; and in 1941, when it faced a dual offensive from the Japanese and Nationalist armies—at any of these points, it would not have been strange for the organization to have vanished. Therefore, the party's 100-year history is a story of a political organization that somehow survived, seized national power, engaged in extreme projects such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, and eventually became the world's largest political party, exercising global influence. Why did this organization survive?

In the 1920s and 30s, the top levels of the party organization were dominated by people well-versed in the ideals and practices of world revolution. However, at the level of local organizations, people who were completely indifferent to revolutionary ideals were engaged in their own "revolutions" solely in pursuit of survival and social advancement. Due to space constraints, I could not include everything, but internal party documents record not only the fact that local organizations funded themselves primarily through kidnapping for ransom, but also numerous acts unimaginable for an organization called the Communist Party, such as profit-motivated murders by party members, numerous cases of rape, and opium production. These people, who did not act like typical Communist Party members and pursued survival by any means necessary, became the "life-support system" that allowed the party to endure.

However, the desire to make the Chinese Revolution a part of the world revolution—and even to have the former lead the latter—did not disappear. Such desires occasionally possessed leaders and significantly altered the trajectory of the revolution. When the demands from "above" resonated with the enthusiasm from "below," the revolutionary project began to "run wild" and took on an extreme character. Extremism is precisely the characteristic of the Chinese Communist Party's movement. This has not been lost even in the era of Xi Jinping. In the future, even if the party embarks on projects that surprise people again, readers will likely not be surprised. This is because it is a lesson learned from observing the growth process of this "political party" over 100 years.

I hope this book serves as a clue for considering the Chinese Communist Party from a long-term perspective.

"A History of the Chinese Communist Party"

Nobuo Takahashi

Keio University Press

384 pages, 2,970 yen (tax included)

*Affiliations and titles are as of the time of publication.