The Chinese Communist Party Turns 100

Its victims number in the tens of millions.

The People’s Republic of China is celebrating. The Chinese Communist Party officially turned 100. Seventy-two of those years have been in power. The other 28 years were spent attempting to seize power. The CCP appears to have been quite successful. But that has been only through the help, intended or not, of others. On its own the movement almost certainly would have been crushed by the Nationalist Party’s Chiang Kai-shek. He, not Mao Zedong, would have led a united China forward, likely allied with the United States. Mao probably would have been dead or in exile. Across such a vast nation some communist activists would have survived, but without the civil war, Taiwan exodus, Korean War, and multiple self-inflicted slaughters, China’s economy likely would have taken off much sooner. Beijing’s future would not have been without challenges, but it likely would have been brighter earlier. The CCP’s first outside beneficiary was the Soviet Union. Working with Joseph Stalin was not easy, and his government also maintained ties with Chiang’s Nationalists, creating a complicated geopolitical triangle. Over the years, however, Moscow’s assistance was important for the PRC’s success and helped give the communists a decisive advantage as World War II ended. Much more important for Mao’s success, however, was Japan. Contrary to communist propaganda, Chiang’s forces did most of the fighting against the Japanese, and Chiang sacrificed his best troops in the process. In turn, Tokyo targeted the Nationalists. The CCP held itself mostly aloof from combat. Had Chiang been able to concentrate on Mao & Co., he likely would have been able to kill or disperse his communist opponents. North Korea also gave an inadvertent boost to the CCP with the Korean War. North Korea’s Kim Il-sung wrongly assumed that the U.S. would not intervene to stop his invasion. When Washington’s counterattack looked to overrun the North, Mao insisted that the PRC intervene. War with America kept China on a ...