Is Chinas Communist Party Still Communist?
Chinas Communist Party turns a century old this July, a milestone that Beijing is celebrating with a crescendo of fireworks, theatrics and a fervent campaign to honor its revolutionary past. The party has often lurched between tragedy and triumph between its birth as an underground movement and its current dominance over the worlds most populous nation. It seized power in 1949, and its early decades in government were tumultuous, with Mao Zedong launching radical purges and a disastrous industrial program that led to one of the deadliest famines in history. Maos death in 1976 precipitated political and economic changes under Deng Xiaoping that would transform an impoverished nation into a global economic powerhouse. Xi Jinping, who took power in late 2012, has styled himself as a visionary statesman on par with Mao and Deng. As the party nears its Soviet counterparts record of 74 years in power, Mr. Xi is renewing pledges to ensure Chinas rejuvenation ahead of the centenary of Communist rule in 2049. Heres a brief look at the partys past and its plans for the future. Party histories trace the formation of Chinas first communist organizations to 1920, when Marxist activists across the country set up local groups in their own cities. Just over a dozen representatives from such groups gathered at a brick house in Shanghais French Concession on July 23, 1921, to convene the Chinese Communist Partys founding congress.