The Otto Braun Memoirs and Mao's Rise to Power

1971 ◽  
Vol 46 ◽  
pp. 274-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dieter Heinzig

One of the crucial problems in the history of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) which must still be considered as unsolved is the question of how Mao Tse-tung managed to seize the leadership of the Party. Mao's rise to power has for a long time been linked with the mysterious Enlarged Session of the Politburo which took place in January 1935, and has come to be known as the Tsunyi Conference. Despite the fact that it is shrouded in an aura of secrecy, the Conference is assumed to have been the turning point in Mao's Party career.

1968 ◽  
Vol 36 ◽  
pp. 45-60
Author(s):  
William F. Dorrill

In January 1935 the harassed, decimated main forces of the Chinese Communist movement paused in the course of their epic Long March from Kiangsi to rest and regroup at Tsunyi in the hills of northern Kweichow. During their brief occupation of this remote, provincial town the top political and military leaders present held a conference which has come to be regarded as the major turning point in the history of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). At the time, however, no such significance was attached to the stop-over in Tsunyi and, indeed, the very fact that an important political meeting was convened there was not revealed for some years after.


1986 ◽  
Vol 108 ◽  
pp. 680-703
Author(s):  
Bradley Kent Geisert

Historians have long recognized that Chiang Kai-shek's (Jiang Jieshi) anti-communist purge in April 1927 marked a crucial turning-point in the history of the Kuomintang. It answered with finality some very basic questions about the fate of the party. Most importantly, the purge ensured that the Chinese Communist Party would not be able to take control of the Kuomintang, something which had not been a foregone conclusion before the purge. In addition, the conflagration drove many young activists from the Kuomintang and dampened the enthusiasm of many who remained in its ranks.


1955 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 592-605 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allen S. Whiting

A Major obstacle to analysis of Communist movements is the, absence of firsthand evidence on attitudes and motivations affecting tension and cohesion. The refusal of four thousand members of the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese Communist Youth Corps to return to the mainland after the Korean War offered an unusually large and representative cross-section of these two organizations for systematic interrogation. The results of such an interrogation conducted by the author in April 1954, while in no way conclusive, provide suggestive statistical and analytical information concerning the composition and motivations of the post-Yenan Chinese Communist.According to official Communist figures, the Chinese Communist Party numbered approximately three million in December 1948 and more than five million in June 1950. This increase of two million members in eighteen months represents the most rapid expansion of Party rolls in the history of the Chinese Communist movement. It occurred after victory was in sight, but before rigorous measures to consolidate control erupted in the “Three Anti” and “Five Anti” movements of 1951. Those who joined the Party during this period form a group strikingly different from the elite of the Chinese Communist movement, which is composed of devoted revolutionaries trained in the rigorous experiences of the Long March and the wartime days of Yenan.


1981 ◽  
Vol 87 ◽  
pp. 407-439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart R. Schram

On 1 July 1981 the Chinese Communist Party celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of its foundation. To mark this occasion, the Party itself issued a statement summing up the experience of recent decades. It seems an appropriate time for outsiders as well to look back over the history of the past 60 years, in the hope of grasping long-term tendencies which may continue to influence events in the future.


2001 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 217-244
Author(s):  
XIXIAO GUO

Late 1946 was a time of anticlimax in the history of Sino-American relations. For four years since the outbreak of the Pacific War, thousands of American servicemen had been in China rubbing shoulders with the Chinese. When victory finally came, more United States troops (mainly the marines of the Third Amphibious Corps) poured in, and the Chinese hailed them as heroes. In less than a year, however, as hostilities between the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) closed in, the Americans were caught in the crossfire. Along the communication lines in North China, armed clashes between US and CCP forces escalated; in the cities, anti-American rallies became daily occurrences. The Chinese now became hostile to its erstwhile allies; wherever US servicemen went, they received boos from the locals. The rupture seemed to be irreversible: US forces started to evacuated, George Marshall, the presidential envoy to China, also ended his yearlong mediation, thus bringing the extraordinary intercourse between the two nations to an anticlimactic conclusion.


1962 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 161-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Guillermaz

August 1, 1927, is one of the big days in the history of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It marked the opening of a military phase which was to last more than twenty years and was to leave a deep mark on the Party and the present régime both in their outlook and their structure. Symbolically, it is the birthday of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), the Chinese Red Army, and it is as such that it is celebrated every year. It would perhaps be worthwhile after thirty-five years to make an accurate assessment of this event and first to place it in the political context of the time.


1964 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 55-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart R. Schram

The second half of 1927 is one of the most obscure periods in the history of the Chinese Communist Party. From a large and well-organised force openly playing a major role in the political and military affairs of the country, the Chinese Communist Party rapidly found itself reduced to a few small remnants fighting for their existence. As a result, the printed sources available for future historians were drastically reduced. The Communists cut their output of publications both for lack of the means to produce them, and because it was no longer prudent to reveal even as much about their plans as they had done before. The Nationalist authorities further decimated this scanty output by confiscation and repression. So much of what has been written about this period is based on verbal testimony or secondary sources, and cannot be regarded as altogether reliable.


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