Even though Mao Zedong’s communist party (the CCP) had far less men than his opponents; rejected aid from the Soviet Union at the same time as his opponents received it in massive quantities from the West, he was able to take control of the country in 1949 and establish what is now a regime on the verge of superpower status. Whether this triumph is a testimony to the genius of communist methods, or whether it was rather the result of wider social, economic, political and military conditions, can be argued.
The first method used by Mao was social: to focus on building strong links with China’s peasantry. Whilst based in the peasant province of Jiangxi, he forged strong links with 3 million peasants, who responded well to Mao's focused, peasant-based revolutionary programme during the period of his “Socialist Republic”. During the Long March to Yenan, he had a large influence among the peasant communities he met during the 6000 mile trek .
It was the success of these peasant-based social programmes that Mao was rapidly able to rise to a position of political pre-eminence within the CCP. It was from Jiangxi that he persuaded the CCP to reject the policies of his …show more content…
Nevertheless, the central feature of those methods was to exploit to the full the socio-economic, political and military conditions created not only by the GMD but also by foreign powers. At root, it was an affronted sense of Chinese nationalism, symbolised by military occupation and economic colonialism, which created the conditions upon which communism was able to take hold. Mao’s method of combining the socio-economic appeal of communism with the political appeal of nationalism was a stroke of genius; but without those underlying conditions, the methods of Mao would not have succeeded and the course of Chinese history would have taken a very different
The first method used by Mao was social: to focus on building strong links with China’s peasantry. Whilst based in the peasant province of Jiangxi, he forged strong links with 3 million peasants, who responded well to Mao's focused, peasant-based revolutionary programme during the period of his “Socialist Republic”. During the Long March to Yenan, he had a large influence among the peasant communities he met during the 6000 mile trek .
It was the success of these peasant-based social programmes that Mao was rapidly able to rise to a position of political pre-eminence within the CCP. It was from Jiangxi that he persuaded the CCP to reject the policies of his …show more content…
Nevertheless, the central feature of those methods was to exploit to the full the socio-economic, political and military conditions created not only by the GMD but also by foreign powers. At root, it was an affronted sense of Chinese nationalism, symbolised by military occupation and economic colonialism, which created the conditions upon which communism was able to take hold. Mao’s method of combining the socio-economic appeal of communism with the political appeal of nationalism was a stroke of genius; but without those underlying conditions, the methods of Mao would not have succeeded and the course of Chinese history would have taken a very different