The Origins of the CCP

China – The Rise of the Chinese Communist Party, 1921-49

In this course, Professor Michael Dillon (Durham University) explores the rise of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) between 1921 (when it was founded) to 1949 (when it became the governing party of the newly-established People’s Republic of China). In the first module, we think about the conditions that prompted the creation of the CCP in July 1921. After that, we turn of the Chinese Nationalists, the Kuomintang (KMT), who formed the main antagonists the CCP in the years 1929-49, and remain a force even today. In the third module, we think about how and why the CCP cooperated with the KMT in the Northern Expedition, before turning in the fourth module to the severing of relations following the Shanghai Massacre on 12 April 1927. In the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth modules, we continue the story through the Long March (1934-5), the Yan’an Period (1936-43), the Sino-Japanese War (1937-45) and the second phase of the Chinese Civil War (1945-9), before turning in the ninth and final module to consider the creation of the People’s Republic of China (1949) and the ways in which the CCP established themselves as the legitimate government of China.

The Origins of the CCP

In this module, we think about the conditions that prompted the creation of the Chinese Communist Party in July 1921, focusing in particular on: (i) the slow decline of the Qing dynasty in the 19th century, and its final collapse in 1911; (ii) the attempts by various parties to form a central government in its place; (iii) the fragmentation of the country into spheres of influence controlled by regional potentates known as ‘warlords’; (iv) Article 156 of the Treaty of Versailles, which transferred control of a concession on the Shandong Peninsula from Germany to Japan, and the growth of the May Fourth Movement in response; (v) the atmosphere of political experimentation in 1920s China, and the exposure of figures such as Deng Xiaoping and Zhou Enlai to Communist ideas; and (vi) the foundation of the Chinese Communist Party in July 1921.