Mao Zedong’s forces walked 6,000 gruelling miles to escape encirclement. Two decades later, that same movement ruled all of mainland China.
This article covers the Chinese Communist Party’s rise under Mao Zedong, and China’s turbulent path from the Great Leap Forward to Deng Xiaoping’s market reforms.
🏛️ Must Know
Mao’s Peasant-Based Revolution
- CCP Founded, 1921 The Chinese Communist Party was founded in 1921, soon after the Russian Revolution’s global influence spread.(NCERT 11)
- A Different Path Unlike Soviet Marxist theory, Mao Zedong based his revolution on the peasantry, not the urban working class.(NCERT 11)
- Land Redistribution In Jiangxi from 1928 to 1934, Mao organised a peasants’ council through the confiscation and redistribution of land.(NCERT 11)
- New Marriage Laws Mao supported women’s associations and a new marriage law banning arranged marriages and simplifying divorce.(NCERT 11)
📘 Good to Know
The Long March
- 6,000 Gruelling Miles A Guomindang blockade forced the Communists onto the Long March of 1934-35, covering 6,000 difficult miles to Shanxi.(NCERT 11)
- A New Base At their new base in Yanan, the Communists developed programmes for land reform and fighting foreign imperialism.(NCERT 11)
- Victory in 1949 After wartime cooperation with the Guomindang broke down, the Communists defeated them and established the People’s Republic in 1949.(NCERT 11)
✅ Test Yourself
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🌟 Great to Know
Establishing the “New Democracy”
- Not a Dictatorship The People’s Republic was built on “New Democracy,” an alliance of social classes, unlike the Soviet “dictatorship of the proletariat.”(NCERT 11)
- The Great Leap Forward Launched in 1958, this policy pushed rapid industrialisation, including backyard steel furnaces that produced unusable metal.(NCERT 11)
- People’s Communes By 1958, China had 26,000 communes, covering 98% of the farm population, holding land collectively.(NCERT 11)
The Cultural Revolution
- Launched in 1965 Mao launched the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution to counter critics who favoured expertise over ideology.(NCERT 11)
- The Red Guards Mainly students and army members, the Red Guards campaigned against old culture, customs, and habits.(NCERT 11)
- Real Damage The Cultural Revolution weakened the Party and severely disrupted China’s economy and education system for years.(NCERT 11)
Deng Xiaoping’s Reforms From 1978
- Four Modernisations In 1978, the Party declared the Four Modernisations: developing science, industry, agriculture, and defence.(NCERT 11)
- Market Reforms, Tight Control Deng Xiaoping introduced a socialist market economy while keeping the Communist Party’s political control firmly intact.(NCERT 11)
- The Fifth Modernisation A 1978 wall-poster argued that without democracy, the other modernisations would ultimately come to nothing.(NCERT 11)
Exam Point of View
Tiananmen Square, 1989
- A Suppressed Anniversary On the seventieth anniversary of the May Fourth movement, students at Tiananmen Square demanded openness and reform.(NCERT 11)
- Brutally Repressed The 1989 Tiananmen demonstrations were violently suppressed, drawing strong international condemnation.(NCERT 11)
The Trap Examiners Set on the Chinese Communist Revolution
- Why Exam options often confuse the Long March (1934-35) with the founding of the People’s Republic (1949). Fifteen years separate the two events.
- Instead The Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution are easy to conflate. The Leap (1958) targeted rapid industrialisation; the Cultural Revolution (1965) targeted ideological purity.
- Takeaway “New Democracy” is often mistaken for Western-style democracy. It actually meant a multi-class alliance under Communist Party leadership, not competitive elections.
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