ABSTRACT
The Communist Party was founded in late July 1921 with about fifty members. It experienced a steady growth in the next two years, but it was not until its collaboration with the Kuomintang (KMT) in 1924 that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) saw an upsurge of growth. The Japanese invasion accompanied the Communist expansion. Many factors contribute to the ups and downs of a political party. In a certain sense, the Communists were superior by virtue of their revolutionary character to the Nationalists, just as the Nationalists had been superior by virtue of their revolutionary character to the northern warlords. Politics is operation, therefore recognition, of the existing condition, whereas revolution is transformation, therefore negation, of the status quo. Terms like 'overall operation' and 'drastic change' may also be considered to be a bit ambiguous. The founding of the People's Republic divided the entire CCP history into two clear-cut parts: the years of insurrection and the years of administartion.
