Communist China: history, ideology and power of the CCP from 1921 to today

What we call "communist China" refers to one of the most fascinating and complex stories in contemporary history. Communist China: how did a party founded by a handful of activists in 1921 become the ruling force of a state of 1.4 billion inhabitants? Since the proclamation of the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has ruled the most populous state on the planet without interruption. A century of struggles, revolutions, famines, radical reforms and rising global power: the Chinese communist model is unlike any other. This is the history that you will explore here, from the clandestine founding of the CCP in 1921 to Xi Jinping and his 98 million members in 2024.

The birth of the Chinese Communist Party (1921-1949)

The origins of the communist movement in China

To understand why China became communist, we have to go back to China at the beginning of the 20th century. The Qing Empire, weakened by decades of humiliations inflicted by foreign powers (Opium Wars, unequal treaties, Boxer Rebellion), collapsed in 1911. Sun Yat-sen's Republican Revolution ended 2,000 years of empire, but the country remained torn by regional warlords, peasant poverty and foreign interference.

It is in this context of national disarray that Marxism arrives in China. The May 4 Movement of 1919 saw thousands of students take to the streets of Beijing to protest the conditions imposed on China at the Paris Peace Conference (German territories were ceded to Japan, not China). This intellectual and nationalist movement opened the door to revolutionary ideas from Russia. The Bolshevik revolution of 1917 deeply impressed some Chinese intellectuals, who saw in Marxism-Leninism a path to national and social liberation.

The Communist International (Comintern), founded by Lenin in Moscow, sent agents to China to structure a local communist party. The result: on July 23, 1921, a dozen delegates met clandestinely in the French concession in Shanghai (then on a boat on Lake Jiaxing to avoid the police). Among them, a 27-year-old teacher from Hunan: Mao Zedong. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was born with only 57 members. No one can imagine what this party will become in less than 30 years.

In the 1920s, the CCP was still marginal. He collaborated with the Kuomintang (KMT), the nationalist party of Sun Yat-sen, as part of the first united front against the warlords. But this alliance is fragile. When Sun Yat-sen died in 1925, Chiang Kai-shek took control of the KMT and became suspicious of the communists.

Mao Zedong and the Long March

The break between communists and nationalists broke out suddenly in April 1927. Chiang Kai-shek, wanting to purge the revolution of his left wing, organized the Shanghai massacre: thousands of communist and trade union activists were assassinated in a few days. This is the end of the first united front. The CCP, decimated, must completely rethink its strategy.

Mao Zedong draws a fundamental lesson from this failure: the Chinese revolution will not come from urban workers (as in Russia), but from peasants who constitute 80% of the population. He developed a strategy of rural guerrilla warfare, creating peasant “soviets” in the mountainous areas of Jiangxi. This vision clashes with Soviet Marxist orthodoxy, but it corresponds to Chinese reality.

From 1927 to 1934, the CCP developed its "Chinese Soviet Republic" in Jiangxi. But Chiang Kai-shek launched five successive encirclement campaigns. The fifth, in 1934, was devastating. Facing imminent destruction, Jiangxi's 100,000 Communists made the desperate decision to break through the Nationalist lines and march northwest.

What followed became part of revolutionary legend: the Long March. From October 16, 1934 to October 22, 1935, the Communists marched approximately 12,000 kilometers through some of the most inhospitable regions of China, crossing 18 mountain ranges and 24 rivers. Of the 100,000 people who leave, only about 8,000 arrive at their destination, in the Yan'an region of Shaanxi. The others died of cold, hunger, disease or in combat.

This catastrophic retirement turns into a founding myth. It was during the Long March, during the Zunyi conference in January 1935, that Mao Zedong established himself as the undisputed leader of the CCP. In Yan'an, he developed his theory of "protracted people's war" and trained the cadres who would rule China for decades. The Long March becomes for the CCP what crossing the desert is in the Bible: a founding ordeal that legitimizes all future sacrifices.

The civil war and the victory of 1949

The war against Japan (1937-1945) paradoxically gave new life to the CCP. While Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist army suffered heavy losses against Japanese forces while fighting in open terrain, Mao's Red Army waged guerrilla warfare in the countryside, extending its territorial control and recruiting heavily among peasants. At the end of World War II, the CCP controlled liberated areas with 90 million people.

As soon as the Japanese capitulated in August 1945, civil war resumed between communists and nationalists. It lasts four years. Despite American aid to Chiang Kai-shek (more than $2 billion in military equipment), the nationalists collapsed. The reasons are multiple: widespread corruption of the KMT regime, catastrophic hyperinflation, inability to meet the expectations of peasants on agrarian reform, morale of the nationalist troops in free fall. The communists, for their part, offer iron discipline, real agrarian reform in the liberated areas, and unified leadership.

In 1948-1949, decisive battles followed one another. The nationalist army, although numerically superior, disintegrated. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers deserted or surrendered with their weapons. On October 1, 1949, from the podium of the Tian'anmen Gate in Beijing, Mao Zedong uttered the phrase that would go down in history: "The Chinese people have risen!" The People's Republic of China is proclaimed. Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalist government retreated to the island of Taiwan, with two million people, where they established a separate Republic of China that survives to this day.

Communist China under Mao Zedong (1949-1976)

The People's Republic of China: founding and first reforms

The young Chinese communist state inherits a bloodless country: decades of civil war and Japanese occupation have ravaged the economy. Reconstruction is urgent. Mao Zedong and the CCP drew inspiration from the Soviet model while adapting it to Chinese realities.

The first reforms were radical. The agrarian reform (1950-1952) redistributed land from large landowners to poor farmers: 700 million mu (around 46 million hectares) changed hands. Millions of landowners were tried in popular "people's courts", and several hundred thousand were executed. The nationalization of industries, banks and foreign trade quickly transformed the economy. Illiteracy is declining thanks to massive education campaigns.

Internationally, China aligned itself with the USSR in the context of the Cold War. In 1950, Mao Zedong signed a friendship treaty with Stalin in Moscow. The same year, China intervened in the Korean War (1950-1953) by sending hundreds of thousands of "popular volunteers" to repel the American and UN advance. This conflict costs China between 100,000 and 500,000 deaths depending on the sources, but strengthens the legitimacy of the regime as defender of national sovereignty.

The first five-year plan (1953-1957), designed with the help of Soviet technicians, focused on the development of heavy industry (steel, coal, machinery). Around 156 Soviet industrial projects were launched. The results are real: industrial production doubles. But ideological tensions with Moscow are starting to rise. In 1956, Khrushchev's secret report denouncing Stalin's crimes shocked Mao, who feared a similar challenge to his authority.

The Great Leap Forward (1958-1962): assessment of a catastrophe

In 1958, Mao Zedong announced the "Great Leap Forward": a program of total mobilization aimed at transforming China into a great industrial and agricultural power in a few years. The stated ambition is to overtake Great Britain in 15 years in steel production and other industrial indicators.

The 740,000 agricultural cooperatives are merged into 26,000 giant popular communes, bringing together an average of 5,000 households each. Private life is collectivized: meals are taken together in canteens, children are raised collectively, peasants are mobilized into work brigades according to military rules. To “produce steel” in the countryside, millions of farmers abandon their harvest to fuel artisanal blast furnaces built in courtyards and villages. The steel thus produced is, in the vast majority of cases, unusable.

The consequences are catastrophic. The disorganization of agriculture, combined with absurdly inflated production quotas by local executives eager to please their superiors, is causing famine on a scale unprecedented in human history. Grain is exported while farmers starve. Peasant families, undernourished and exhausted by "intensive production" campaigns, no longer have the strength to cultivate the fields.

Between 1959 and 1961, a mass famine killed tens of millions of people. Historians differ on the exact figures: Frank Dikötter, in his work "Mao's Great Famine" (2010), estimates between 45 and 55 million deaths; Jasper Becker speaks of 30 to 40 million; other academicians put forward figures between 15 and 30 million. No definitive consensus exists, in particular because Chinese archives from this period remain partially inaccessible. What is certain: it is the greatest famine in human history, entirely caused by political decisions.

Faced with the scale of the disaster, leaders like Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping took pragmatic measures to restart agricultural production in 1961. Mao was removed from certain operational responsibilities, while retaining the honorary title and symbolic authority. He does not accept this sidelining.

The Cultural Revolution (1966-1976)

Weakened politically after the failure of the Great Leap Forward, Mao Zedong decided in 1966 to regain total control of the Party and the State by launching what he called the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution". Its declared objective: to purge the Party of “capitalist revisionists” and renew the revolutionary flame. His real objective: to eliminate the internal adversaries who had dared to criticize him.

The driving force of the Cultural Revolution is the youth. Mao calls on students to rise up against “bourgeois authority.” Millions of young people form the “Red Guards” and sow chaos throughout the country. Universities are closing. Intellectuals, teachers, doctors, artists and Party officials are publicly humiliated during "struggle sessions", forced to confess to imaginary crimes, sent to re-education through labor camps (the "laogai"), or lynched by raging crowds.

The Little Red Book (the “Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong”) became the central object of worship. Waving this book during parades is mandatory. Studying it is daily. Discovering a damaged or poorly preserved copy can lead to arrest. Between 1966 and 1976, between 5 and 6 billion copies of the Little Red Book were printed, making it the 2nd most printed book in history after the Bible. If today you come across a Little Red Book in a collection or on a poster, remember this historical context.

Liu Shaoqi, President of the Republic, was arrested, tortured and died in prison in 1969 without medical care, in conditions of total isolation. Deng Xiaoping is sent to "re-education" in a factory and can only communicate with his family to a very limited extent. Peng Dehuai, the general who had the audacity to criticize the Great Leap Forward in a letter to Mao in 1959, was imprisoned and also died in prison in 1974.

The human toll is difficult to establish precisely. Estimates vary between 500,000 and 2 million direct deaths, to which must be added tens of millions of people persecuted, imprisoned or sent to camps. An entire generation of Chinese lost their formative years: universities only gradually reopened from 1970. Art collections, Buddhist temples, libraries were vandalized or destroyed in the name of the fight against the "four old things" (old customs, old culture, old habits, old ideas).

The death of Mao Zedong on September 9, 1976 put an end to the Cultural Revolution. A few weeks later, the "Gang of Four" (including Mao's widow, Jiang Qing) was arrested. They will be tried in 1980-1981 for their crimes. The Maoist period (1949-1976) left China with a contradictory legacy: national unity rediscovered and basic infrastructure built, but at the cost of tens of millions of deaths and considerable economic lag behind other Asian countries.

Deng Xiaoping and the socialist market economy (1978-1989)

Economic reforms and opening to the world

After a brief period of transition under Hua Guofeng, Deng Xiaoping gradually established himself as the dominant leader of China from 1978. Twice the victim of political purges under Mao, twice rehabilitated, he embodies a radically different vision: pragmatic, technocratic, obsessed with economic development rather than ideological purity. His most famous phrase sums up his philosophy: "It doesn't matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice."

In December 1978, the 3rd Plenum of the CPC Central Committee endorsed the “turn of reform and opening up” (gaige kaifang). It is one of the most important turning points in the economic history of the 20th century. Deng introduced four fundamental reforms:

Agricultural de-collectivization is the first and most decisive. The household responsibility system replaces the popular communes: each peasant family receives the use of a plot of land and can sell its surplus on the market after having paid its contribution to the State. Agricultural production immediately jumped.

Special Economic Zones (SEZs) represent the second major reform. In 1980, four SEZs were created on the east coast (Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Shantou and Xiamen), designed as laboratories of capitalism within a communist state. Foreign companies can set up there, benefit from tax advantages and recruit freely. Shenzhen, a fishing village in 1980, became a megacity of 13 million inhabitants in less than 40 years, a symbol of the power of this model.

The reform of state enterprises (decentralization of management, introduction of performance indicators) and the encouragement of private entrepreneurship complete the picture. Gradually, a mixed economy is emerging: the private sector coexists with large state-owned enterprises in strategic industries.

The results are spectacular. From 1978 to 2010, China maintained annual growth of around 9.5% of GDP, lifting 800 million people out of absolute poverty. This is the fastest and largest reduction in poverty in human history. But Deng categorically refused to associate political liberalization with these economic reforms. Political stability is the absolute prerequisite for economic development, according to him. And the event of 1989 illustrates this conviction in a tragic way.

Tian'anmen 1989: the political turning point

In the spring of 1989, a protest movement developed in Tian'anmen Square in Beijing. It begins with the funeral of Hu Yaobang, a reform-minded general secretary who died on April 15, and quickly explodes. Students are demanding more press freedom, dialogue with leaders on corruption and greater government transparency. The movement is spreading to other cities. At its peak, in mid-May 1989, a million people demonstrated in Beijing, including workers, civil servants and journalists.

The CCP leadership is divided. Zhao Ziyang, secretary general, leans towards dialogue. Deng Xiaoping decides in favor of repression. Martial law is declared on May 20. On the night of June 3 to 4, the army and tanks entered Beijing to clear Tian'anmen Square and its surroundings.

The results of that night remain one of the most sensitive subjects in contemporary history. The Chinese government has never published an official figure. Estimates differ considerably depending on the source: the Red Cross initially predicted 2,600 deaths before retracting, Chinese government sources spoke of 200 to 300 deaths (including soldiers), other estimates go up to several thousand. British archives declassified in 2017 mention a report from their embassy citing 10,000 deaths. The definitive truth remains impossible to establish without access to Chinese archives.

What is factual: Zhao Ziyang was dismissed from his position and placed under house arrest until his death in 2005, without ever being officially rehabilitated. Deng Xiaoping confirms with this act that China will not follow the path of the USSR towards political liberalization. The market economy, yes. Political plurality, never. This so-called “development authoritarianism” model became the Chinese model for the following decades.

China between 1989 and 2012 (Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao)

The two decades following Tian'anmen are often less studied than the Maoist period or the Xi Jinping era, but they are decisive for understanding today's China.

Jiang Zemin, chosen by Deng Xiaoping as general secretary of the CCP in June 1989 precisely for his firmness in the face of the Tian'anmen movement, ruled China until 2002. His major political mark was the theory of the "Three Representatives" (2000), which officially opened the CCP to private entrepreneurs and the middle classes. For an officially Marxist-Leninist party defending workers and peasants, it is a silent ideological revolution. In practice, businessmen who have become billionaires join the Communist Party. The paradox is assumed. Internationally, China regained Hong Kong (1997) and Macau (1999) under the formula "one country, two systems", and entered the World Trade Organization in December 2001.

Hu Jintao, general secretary from 2002 to 2012 and president from 2003 to 2013, embodies a more collegial and technocratic leadership style. Its concept of “harmonious society” aims to reduce the growing inequalities generated by 25 years of unbridled growth. In 2008, China organized the Beijing Olympic Games, a showcase of its rediscovered power. In 2010, Chinese GDP exceeded that of Japan: China became the 2nd largest economy in the world, behind only the United States. This rise is dizzying: in 1980, Chinese GDP represented less than 2% of world GDP; in 2012, it represented 12%.

It was also under Hu Jintao that social networks and the internet experienced meteoric expansion in China. At the same time, the Party is developing an increasingly sophisticated censorship system ("the Great Firewall"), blocking Western social networks (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google) and developing national equivalents under control (Weibo, WeChat, Baidu). This sovereign internet model is becoming a global subject of study.

Hu Jintao's collegial leadership produces remarkable economic results but also creates a major political problem: corruption proliferates at all levels of the administration and the Party, fueling growing popular resentment. This breeding ground will prepare the ground for a leader who promises to “smite the flies and the tigers”.

Xi Jinping and 21st century China (since 2012)

The consolidation of power and the new mandate

Xi Jinping became general secretary of the CCP in November 2012 and became president of the People's Republic in March 2013. His profile is atypical: son of an early communist cadre (Xi Zhongxun), he himself was sent to a village in the Shaanxi countryside during the Cultural Revolution, at the age of 15, for seven years of forced labor in the fields. This experience will allow him to be perceived as a man of the people, forged by adversity.

From his first months in power, Xi Jinping launched an anti-corruption campaign of unprecedented scale. Led by Wang Qishan, head of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the campaign targets both "flies" (corrupt local officials) and "tigers" (senior Party leaders). In ten years (2012-2022), more than a million executives and civil servants were sanctioned, including former members of the Politburo such as Bo Xilai and Zhou Yongkang. This operation strengthens Xi's popularity with a public opinion fed up with corruption, while allowing him to eliminate potential political rivals.

The centralization of power is accelerating rapidly. In 2017, at the 19th CPC Congress, the "Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for the New Era" was enshrined in the Party's statutes, symbolically placing it on the same level as the Thoughts of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping (an honor that neither Jiang Zemin nor Hu Jintao achieved during their lifetime). In 2018, the National People's Congress removed the constitutional two-term limit for the presidency of the Republic, theoretically paving the way for Xi Jinping to remain in power indefinitely. In October 2022, during the 20th Congress, he begins an unprecedented third term since Mao.

Xi Jinping breaks with the model of collegial leadership and quiet retirement of previous leaders. He openly assumes a nationalist and civilizational vision of China: the “rebirth of the Chinese nation” (zhonghua minzu de weida fuxing), often summarized under the term “Chinese dream”. This rhetoric combines communism, nationalism and Confucianism in an original ideological synthesis.

Foreign policy and the rise of global power

Under Xi Jinping, China is moving away from the "low profile" posture recommended by Deng Xiaoping ("hiding its strength and biding its time") to adopt a much more assertive diplomacy.

The most spectacular initiative is the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), launched in 2013. This massive infrastructure project covers more than 140 countries to date, financing roads, ports, railways, power plants and digital networks in Asia, Africa and Europe. The amounts committed are in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Its critics see it as an instrument of debt diplomacy and geopolitical influence; its defenders see it as an accelerator of the development of the countries of the Global South.

In the South China Sea, China is increasing the construction of artificial islands on disputed reefs (Spratly Islands, Paracels) and installing military infrastructure there, claiming a zone of influence described by the "nine-dash line". These claims are contested by Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan, and were declared contrary to international law by an arbitration tribunal in The Hague in 2016 (a decision which Beijing refuses to recognize).

On the Taiwan question, Xi Jinping adopts an increasingly firm stance. Taiwan is officially considered a rebel province of the People's Republic. Xi has repeatedly said that reunification is an unavoidable goal and that he does not rule out the use of force if necessary.

The relationship with the United States is the structuring axis of Chinese geopolitics in the 21st century. Under the Trump administration (2017-2021), a trade war broke out: mutual customs duties in the hundreds of billions of dollars were imposed. Under Biden (2021-2025), technological restrictions are widening (semiconductors, artificial intelligence). Competition between the two superpowers now structures the world order.

Beijing's reaction to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 illustrates the ambiguity of the Chinese position: neither condemnation nor explicit support, but a "limitless" partnership with Moscow announced a few weeks before the start of the conflict. China positions itself as neutral while benefiting economically from Western sanctions against Russia (massive purchases of Russian hydrocarbons at reduced prices).

Chinese communism today: ideology or pragmatism?

The question many are asking is straightforward: Is China really communist? The answer depends on how you define "communism".

If you define communism by its ideal principles (classless society, collective ownership of the means of production, withering state), then no, China is not communist. The private sector today represents around 60% of GDP and 80% of urban jobs. Alibaba, Tencent, Bytedance (TikTok), Huawei are private companies that are among the largest capitalizations in the world. China will have more dollar billionaires in 2024 than any other country except the United States. Considerable income inequality exists.

If you define communism by the political structure (single party, absence of political pluralism, state controlling strategic sectors and the media), then yes, China is indeed communist in its form of governance. The CCP has an absolute monopoly on power. There is no legal opposition. The press is under state control. The Constitution states that "China is a socialist state of people's democratic dictatorship, led by the working class and founded on the alliance of workers and peasants."

The CCP itself describes its model as "socialism with Chinese characteristics", implicitly recognizing that its economy is not socialist in the classical sense of the term, but claiming "socialism adapted to Chinese realities". This pragmatic formula makes it possible to maintain the ideological legitimacy of the Party while justifying the market economy.

One figure gives the measure of the Party's influence: in 2024, the CCP will have 98 million members, representing 7% of the Chinese population. It is one of the largest political parties in the world in absolute terms. Joining the PCC is not a trivial process: it is often a prerequisite for careers in the administration, the army, large state-owned companies, and increasingly in private companies of significant size. The Party is present everywhere, in all sectors of society, including within foreign companies operating in China.

The Chinese model disrupts traditional categories. This is neither Western liberal capitalism nor classic Soviet communism. This is something new: one-party state capitalism, where economic growth is used to legitimize political control, and where nationalism increasingly replaces Marxism as the ideological glue.

Chinese communist iconography, from Mao to today

Beyond political history, Chinese communism produced a visual iconography of remarkable power and coherence, which is today collected and exhibited around the world.

The portrait of Mao Zedong dominates Chinese revolutionary iconography. During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), his portrait was present in every home, every office, every school. The giant portrait of Mao on the Tian'anmen Gate in Beijing has been there since 1949 and remains a state symbol. Millions of badges bearing the image of Mao were produced between 1966 and 1971: estimating their number is difficult, but some historians estimate more than 4 billion copies. If you are looking for a Mao Zedong t-shirt or a communist poster to affirm your interest in this visual history, you participate in a collecting tradition that crosses ideological borders.

The Little Red Book is probably the most symbolic object of the Maoist revolution. Compiled by Lin Biao (chief of the army and Mao's designated heir apparent until his mysterious death in 1971), this collection of quotes from Chairman Mao Zedong was printed in astronomical quantities: between 5 and 6.5 billion copies between 1964 and 1976. During the Cultural Revolution, owning it was obligatory, losing it was dangerous. Today, it has become a collector's item and a symbol of global counterculture. Find it in our collection Red Book collection.

Chinese socialist realism propaganda posters constitute a visual heritage in their own right. Inspired by Soviet style but adapted to Chinese aesthetics and subjects, these posters from the 1950s-1970s depict heroic workers, soldiers and peasants, often in colorful compositions dominated by red, yellow and gold. The artists worked under the strict guidance of the CCP Propaganda Department, with prescribed topics and frequent ideological corrections. Some of these posters are now displayed in museums around the world as historic works of art.

The five-star red flag (national flag of the People's Republic of China) was designed in 1949. Its symbolism is precise: the large golden star represents the Chinese Communist Party, the four small stars represent the four social classes united under its leadership (the working class, the peasantry, the urban petty bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie). This symbol is today present on the clothing and accessories of an entire culture of revolutionary iconography. If you want to show your passion for communist history, a chinese communist flag or a communist t-shirt are the essential pieces.

Chinese communist iconography continues to fascinate and inspire, well beyond China's borders. It has influenced pop art (Andy Warhol produced a series of screen prints of Mao in 1972), fashion, graphic design, and a multitude of subcultures which reinterpret its powerful visual codes without necessarily adhering to its original ideology.

A century of Chinese communism: from 57 underground activists in Shanghai to 98 million members, from the Long March to the New Silk Roads, from socialist realist iconography to badges bearing the image of Mao collected around the world. The story of Communist China is that of a country that endured terrible hardships, produced leaders of exceptional historical stature, and reinvented communism into something unprecedented. To understand this story is to understand one of the most decisive actors of the 21st century.