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New
Democratic Revolution
Period (1919-1949)
Under
the influence of the October Revolution in Russia, China’s May 4th
Movement arose. During this great anti-imperialist, anti-feudal
revolutionary movement led by patriotic students, the Chinese proletariat
for the first time mounted the political stage. The May 4th Movement
marked the change of the old democratic revolution
to the new democratic revolution. It enabled Marxism-Leninism
to further spread and link up with the Chinese people’s revolutionary
practice, and prepared the ideology as well as the cadres necessary
for the founding of the Communist Party of China. In 1921, Mao Zedong,
Dong Biwu, Chen Tanqiu, He Shuheng, Wang Jinmei, Deng Enming and
Li Da, representing the communist groups in different places throughout
the nation, held the First National Congress in Shanghai, founding
the Communist Party of China (CPC). In 1924, Sun Yat-sen, pioneer
of China’s democratic revolution and the founder of the Kuomintang
(KMT), worked together with the Communist Party of China to organize
workers and peasants for the Northern Expedition (historically known
as the Great Revolution). After Sun Yat-sen passed away, the right-wing
clique of the KMT headed by Chiang Kai-shek staged a counter-revolutionary
coup d’etat in 1927, murdering Communists and revolutionary people,
and founded the Kuomintang regime in Nanjing. Thus the Great Revolution
ended in failure. After that,
the CPC led the Chinese people to wage the 10-year Agrarian
Revolution War against the reactionary rule of the Kuomintang, which
is also known as the “10-Year Civil War.”
In
July 1937, Japan launched all-out aggression against China. The
Kuomintang armies started a series of battles, which gave relentless
blows at the Japanese invaders. In the enemy’s rear area, the Eighth
Route Army and the New Fourth Army, under the leadership of the
CPC, fought against most of the Japanese forces, and almost all
the puppet armies under extremely difficult conditions, thus playing
a decisive role in the victory of the War of Resistance Against
Japan.
From
June 1946, the Kuomintang armies launched an all-round attack on
the Liberated Areas led by the CPC, and an unprecedented large-scale
civil war started. To thoroughly emancipate the Chinese people,
the CPC led the army and people
in the Liberated Areas to start the nationwide War of Liberation.
Through
the Liaoxi-Shenyang, Huai-Hai and Beiping-Tianjin campaigns, the
CPC overthrew the rule of the Kuomintang and won a great victory
in the new democratic revolution in 1949.
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