Communist Party of China

"CPC" redirects here. For other uses, see CPC (disambiguation).

Communist Party of China 中国共产党
Abbreviation	CPC
General Secretary	Xi Jinping
Founders	Chen Duxiu Li Dazhao 1st National Congress
Founded	23 July 1921
Newspaper	People's Daily
Think tank	Central Policy Research Office
Youth wing	Communist Youth League of China Young Pioneers of China
Membership (2022)	96,710,000
Political orientation	Marxism–Leninism Mao Zedong Thought Deng Xiaoping Theory Three Represents Scientific Outlook on Development Xi Jinping Thought
Website
http://cpc.people.com.cn/

The Communist Party of China (Chinese: 中国共产党; pinyin: Zhōngguó Gòngchǎndǎng) was founded on July 23, 1921. After the establishment of the Communist Party of China in 1921, it established the correct path of the new democratic revolution, and liberated the Chinese people. The party has explored the correct revolutionary path of encircling the cities from the countryside and seizing political power with armed forces, "awakening millions of workers and peasants" and "taking the whip to beat the enemy", overcoming the "three mountains" of imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucratic capitalism, and established the People's Republic of China in which the people are the masters of the country.

The Communist Party of China is the vanguard of the Chinese working class, the Chinese people and the Chinese nation, and the core of leadership for the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics. It represents the development requirements of China's advanced productive forces, the direction of China's advanced culture, and the most fundamental interests of the general public. The party's highest ideal and ultimate goal is to realize communism.

The Communist Party of China takes Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the important thought of "Three Represents", the Scientific Outlook on Development, and Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era as its own guide to action. The leadership of the Communist Party of China is the most essential feature of socialism with Chinese characteristics. The central task of the Communist Party of China is to unite and lead the people of all ethnic groups in the country to build a great modern socialist country in an all-round way, realize the second centenary goal, and comprehensively promote the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation through Chinese-style modernization.

History

Founding

The Communist Party of China was founded on July 23, 1921, heavily influenced by the events of the May Fourth Movement and the October Revolution. At its first congress, the party only had about 50 members. Although the party was founded on July 23, its anniversary is officially celebrated on July 1. Owing to the shortage of archival materials available at the time, which indicated that the party was founded in July 1921 but did not provide an exact date, in June 1941 the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China declared July 1 to be the anniversary of the party's birth. Although historians were later able to determine the exact date to be July 23, the anniversary is still celebrated on July 1.

Civil war and War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression

In 1934, the Chinese Red Army began the Long March and retreated from Jiangxi to Shaanxi to avoid persecution from the Kuomintang and established a revolutionary base in Yan'an.

After fascist Japan invaded China, the Chinese Red Army became part of the Eighth Route Army.

After many years of civil war in which the CPC achieved total victory in mainland China and most of the coastal islands, led the People's Liberation Army to defeat the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China, and forced the Republic of China into a military coup.

First Generation

The government of the Republic of China retreated to Taiwan. Mao Zedong established the People's Republic of China in Beijing in 1949, the only ruling party in the PRC leading the Workers' and Peasants' Alliance and the United Front on behalf of the working class and exercising the People's Democratic Dictatorship in mainland China since October 1949.

Second Generation

In 1978, the third plenary session of the CPC Central Committee approved Deng Xiaoping's reform and opening up policy and established several special economic zones.

Fifth Generation

By 2021, the CPC had reached over 90 million members.

Demographics

In 2020, the Communist Party of China had 91,914,000 members, about 6.57% of the population of China. In 2017, about 26.7% of members were women. In 2015, roughly 30% were farmers, herdsmen or fishermen, 25% were white collar workers, 18% were retirees, and 8% were government employees.

On July 2, 2001, Jiang Zemin allowed the possibility of membership to be extended to billionaires. Despite this, the politburo and central committee are barred to these billionaires. The National People's Congress and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference also includes parties that aren't the CPC. 2,980 seats are available in the National People's Congress, only 45 are held by the capitalist class. The Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference includes the regions of Hong Kong and Macau, religious bodies and non-CPC members. Only 59 out of 2,200 available seats are held by the capitalist class.

In 2019, the breakdown is at least 66.14% working class/peasantry, 28.37% undefined class status, and 5.5% entrepenurs (the extra 0.01% comes from rounding the two halves of White Collar Management up by 0.005% each). Even if we put all of those from an undefined class status, still about two-thirds of the party are workers/peasants. The proportion is probably higher, though. If we put them as aligned with the working class the percentage would be 94.51%. But even if we were the least generous as possible then we’d still end up with over half the party members being of a working-class/peasant background, so no matter how you cut it, the CPC is primarily made up of workers and peasants.

Controversies

Disputed English nomenclature

The CPC is incorrectly referred to as "Chinese Communist Party" (CCP) in Western media, despite the CPC declaring "Communist Party of China" to be the official English translation of its native name.

Structure

CPC members are recursively grouped into party branches; higher-level party branches regulates lower-level branches. When a branch exceeds a manageable size; it gets managed by a higher-level branch of the parent branch.

For example, party (or grassroots) branches with between 50 and 100 members are grouped into General Party Branches. General Party Branches regulate grassroots branches.

See Also

• Socialism with Chinese Characteristics
• Reform and Opening Up