ABSTRACT
During the Sino-Japanese War, the Chinese Communist Party constructed an extensive educational complex for Party and non-Party members throughout its border regions. This chapter shows how the Chinese Communists tackled their nation-building problems in their policies for leadership education and how they built the leadership core for victory in 1949. Well before the Sino-Japanese War the Chinese Communist Party had paid close attention to the preparation of its leaders. From infancy the Party had relied on an array of institutions to train the men and women who guided its military and mobilization work. In number of graduates and impact on Chinese Communist educational policy and philosophy, the most influential institution for leadership education during the Sino-Japanese War was "K'ang-ta," the Anti-Japanese Military and Political University. The survival and eventual success of Communism in China depended on its ability to apply Marxism-Leninism to a backward agrarian society.
