ABSTRACT
This chapter traces how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) gained power during the Republican period. It argues that the CCP’s formative years as revolutionary political party launched by Lenin’s Communist International hold the key to our understanding of the CCP’s illiberal party ideology. The chapter shows how during the civil war with the Kuomintang (KMT) Mao Zedong managed to firmly weave his world-view into the fabric of the CCP. It outlines how the CCP, following the defeat of the KMT and the founding of the people’s republic of China in 1949, has attempted to mould China’s economy and society in its Marxist-Leninst-Maoist image. The chapter discusses the post-Tiananmen development of the CCP from a communist revolutionary party to a crony-capitalist regime. While the CCP has signed but not ratified a number of international human rights covenants, in the absence of an independent media and judiciary, human rights abuses in mainland China remain endemic and systemic.
