The CCP

Question 1

What is the CCP?

Answer 1

The Chinese communist party?

Question 2

When and where was the CCP founded?

Answer 2

Shanghai, 1921

Question 3

What was Cominterm?

Answer 3

An international communist organisation, founded by the new USSR after Lenin’s revolution, with the aim of spreading communist ideology abroad.

Question 4

How did Cominterm benefit the CCP?

Answer 4

An international communist organisation, founded by the new USSR after Lenin’s revolution, with the aim of spreading communist ideology abroad.

Question 5

What role did the USSR play in the creation of the first united front?

Answer 5

An international communist organisation, founded by the new USSR after Lenin’s revolution, with the aim of spreading communist ideology abroad.

Question 6

Why did the USSR regard the GMD higher than the CCP?

Answer 6

According to Marxism, societies develop through different stages, and in the 1920s, China was still emerging from the feudal stage. The USSR saw no possibility of a communist revolution in the short-term. They believed that the GMD would lead China into the stage of a bourgeoisie capitalist society, whereby a communist revolution would then be possible.

Question 7

What was the long march 1934-35?

Answer 7

By 1927, the CCP had grown significantly, concerning Jiang Jieshi. The GMD attack on the CCP in Shanghai, known as the Shanghai Massacre triggered a series of military campaigns against the CCP. The remaining 80,000 members who embarked on the Long March to escape the GMD attacks embarked from Jiangxi in 1934. Trekking over 6000 miles and evading GMD assaults, the remaining 5000 CCP members reached Yan’an in 1935

Question 8

Who were the twenty-eight bolsheviks?

Answer 8

Chinese communists who had been educated in the Sun Yat-Sen University in Moscow for training by the Russian Communist Party in Marxist ideology.

Question 9

What was the politburo?

Answer 9

The ruling council of the CCP

Question 10

Who led the long march?

Answer 10

Mao Zedong

Question 11

How significant was Mao for the CCP prior to the long march? (4)

Answer 11

1) Founding member of the CCP in 1921.
2) Became the head of the Peasants Training Institute in 1924, improving basic literacy amongst peasants and organising Peasants Associations against landlords. This work with the peasants developed his own version of Marxism - Maoism.
3) Mao led the Autumn Harvest Uprising in Changsha after the Shanghai Massacre in 1927, which was a complete failure and he was arrested.
4) After escaping, Mao led the CCP to Jiangxi where they established the Chinese Soviet Republic, and was elected Chairman of the Politburo of the Chinese Soviet Republic

Question 12

Who was Zhou Enlai?

Answer 12

1) Enlai studied in China, Japan and France, where he joined a CCP branch.
2) Returning to China, he worked for the political department of the Whampoa Military Academy.
3) He became the Political Commissioner of the Red Army when the CCP fled to Jiangxi, and became the Vice-Chairman of the CCP in Yan’an in 1935.
4) He then served as the Prime Minister of the People’s Republic of China from 1949 until his death in 1976.

Question 13

Who was Kang Sheng?

Answer 13

Trained by the Soviet secret police in Moscow in the 1930s, supporting the 21 Bolsheviks. Returning to China in 1937, he transferred his allegiance to Mao, serving as the secret police chief.

Question 14

What were the power struggles in the CCP in 1936? (2)

Answer 14

1) A political struggle for control over the CCP between those wanting to follow the Cominterm and those who wanted a more independent CCP.
2) An ideological struggle between those who wanted to follow orthodox Marxism (led by the 28 Bolsheviks) and those who wanted to adapt it to Chinese circumstances (Mao).

Question 15

What positions did Mao hold in 1936? (2)

Answer 15

1) chairman of the CCP’s Military council
2) chairman of the politburo

Question 16

How was Mao’s position strengthened by 1938? (4)

Answer 16

1) His leadership of the Long March.
2) One of his main rivals, Zhang Guotao defected to the GMD.
3) Another rival, Wang Ming, was outvoted in an important Politburo meeting.
4) Established alliances with important CCP members, e.g. Zhou Enlai.

Question 17

What was the Yan’an rectification campaign 1942-43? (3)

Answer 17

1) A purge of all remaining critics and doubters of Mao within the party.
2) Party members were forced to read prescribed texts, and attend ‘struggle meetings’ where humiliating self-criticisms would be made.
3) This was enforced by the CCP secret police, led by Kang Sheng, who would utilise torture

Question 18

What was the main consequence of the Yan’an rectification campaign?

Answer 18

Mao Zedong thought was the official ideology of the CCP by 1943, and was reinforced in 1945 upon the publication of a new party constitution

Question 19

How did Mao create a cult of personality during the Yan’an years? (5)

Answer 19

1) Rewriting of Party history and his role to portray him as a great visionary.
2) Propaganda myths about the Long March, emphasising his heroism.
3) Portraits illustrating Mao in the sun’s rays.
4) The referral to him as ‘Chairman Mao’ or ‘The Great Helmsman’.
5) The publication of the song ‘The East is Red‘

Question 20

What were the seven tenants of Mao Zedong thought?

Answer 20

1) The role of peasants as a revolutionary class.
2) National self-reliance.
3) Continuing revolution.
4) Class struggle.
5) Learning from the people.
6) Mass mobilisation.
7) National revolution.

Question 21

Why did Mao see peasants as the revolutionary class?

Answer 21

Unlike in Russia, industrial workers were only a tiny subsection of the Chinese population, too small to serve as a revolutionary basis. Furthermore, the CCP had been driven out of the cities. Mao saw the peasants, who were the large majority of the population, and were poor and exploited, as the potential revolutionary force, if provided with leadership

Question 22

What is a cadre?

Answer 22

Someone who had been fully indoctrinated in party ideology and methods, and were given leading roles at local level administration and political education

Question 23

Who were the national bourgeoisie?

Answer 23

Members of the bourgeoisie who Mao saw as potential supporters of the CCP against the GMD and who were prepared to support the national struggle against imperialism.

Question 24

What were the main policies of the CCP in 1936?

Answer 24

1) land reform
2) social reform
3) a united front with the GMD

Question 25

What was the policy of land reform? (1930s)

Answer 25

In the long-term, the CCP wanted to confiscate land from landlords, and redistribute to the peasants. Whilst in Jiangxi, the CCP would execute landlords and confiscate their land. Not wanting to alienate potential supporters in the fight against the Japanese, and in accordance with the Second United Front, the CCP only secured rent reductions and improved farming methods for poorer peasants. After 1946, they continued with their more radical approach.

Question 26

What was the policy of social reform?

Answer 26

Under CCP controlled areas, social changes were implemented, such as the ending of arranged marriage, in order to set the groundwork for the introduction of these changes when they controlled all of China