II. The CPC's Mission – Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation

The CPC has not been designated arbitrarily as the vanguard of the Chinese working class and of the Chinese people and the Chinese nation. Its role is a fundamental requirement of China's historical development and its tasks in the modern times.

Xi Jinping has stated in the report delivered at the 19th National Congress of the CPC: “With a history dating back more than 5,000 years, our nation created a splendid civilization, made remarkable contributions to mankind, and became one of the world's great nations. But with the Opium War of 1840, China was plunged into the darkness of domestic turmoil and foreign aggression; its people, ravaged by war, saw their homeland torn apart and lived in poverty and despair. With tenacity and heroism, countless dedicated patriots fought, pressed ahead against the odds, and tried every possible means to seek the nation's salvation. But despite their efforts, they were powerless to change the nature of society in old China and the plight of the Chinese people.”7 Against this background, the Chinese nation was faced with two historic tasks: first, seeking national independence and liberation, and second, building a stronger and more prosperous country, and bringing people happiness. The goal is to realize national rejuvenation, the greatest dream of the Chinese nation in modern times.

The CPC was thus born against the backdrop of saving the Chinese nation from subjugation. “At its founding, the Communist Party of China made realizing Communism its highest ideal and its ultimate goal, and shouldered the historic mission of national rejuvenation. In pursuing this goal, the Party has united the Chinese people and led them through arduous struggles to epic accomplishments.”8

With a history of more than 5,000 years, the Chinese nation was plunged into the darkness of domestic turmoil and foreign aggression after the Opium Wars, forcing itself to put forth the historic task of national rejuvenation. This was because the Chinese nation lagged far behind other countries since modern times.

In human history, the industrial civilization replaced agricultural civilization in Europe in the 16th century, and modernization and the emergence of economic globalization represent huge historic progress. Marx and Engels gave a penetrating statement: “Subjection of Nature's forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalisation of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground – what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labor?”9 But amidst this historic transformation, the Chinese nation missed out on the opportunities of modernization and economic globalization and dropped behind.

In the mid-17th century, while a bourgeois revolution was taking place in Britain, a unified and multi-ethnic feudal empire was emerging in China with the establishment of the Qing Dynasty. A booming golden age was seen during the reign of Emperor Kangxi and Emperor Qianlong: China's agriculture, handicrafts, trade, urban development, science and technology and cultural development were all at their peak, with its economic aggregate and population ranking top in the world. This period of history has been widely acclaimed and admired by Western historians, who called it the “High Qing Era”.

But the gains of that period did not last long, and turned out to be a“grand finale” of the last feudal dynasty. At that time, “Europe was taking new measures to apply science and technologies to its development at an unprecedented scale after the industrial and democratic revolutions, and engage in global expansion.”10 With the rise of capitalism in the Western countries, a series of reforms were rolled out in all sectors. The evolution of human civilization was steering from a traditional to a modern society which is economically globalized, politically democratic and technology-based.

One who is falling behind is vulnerable to attack. China was defeated in the Opium War waged by Britain in 1840. An independent, isolated and feudal empire lost its old glory and dignity and was plunged into a semi-feudal and semi-colonial abyss, subject to occupation, plunder, and servitude. The Western powers marked off spheres of influence and seized “leased” territories in China, fragmenting the big country and causing chaos, and leaving its people poor and miserable.

Around the time of the Opium Wars, some sober-minded patriotic intellectuals and enlightened and informed officials such as Gong Zizhen, Wei Yuan and Lin Zexu came to realize that the corruption and self-seclusion of the Qing government would inevitably lead to its decline and demise. They proposed the ideas of “reform” and “learning from foreigners to compete with them”. But these measures could no longer change the Qing Dynasty's decline.

Britain exploited China politically and economically through the Treaty of Nanjing, Guangzhou Peace Treaty and other unequal treaties. The Qing government had to extort excessive taxes and levies, raising them over twice or three times to pay an indemnity of 27 million silver dollars to offset the budget deficit caused by trading large amounts of opium. Besides, the dumping of industrial goods of foreign countries in China devastated its urban and rural craft industries, leaving peasants and handicraftsmen destitute. The landlord class took the opportunity to annex their land and increase exploitation, intensifying the domestic class contradictions. The deprived peasants were forced to rise in revolt, on more than 100 occasions during the 10 years after the Opium Wars.

The Taiping Rebellion in 1851 was the largest peasant rebellion in Chinese history. Lasting 14 years and expanding to 17 provinces, it dealt a heavy blow to the rule of Qing Dynasty and foreign invasion, quickened the collapse of feudal society, and halted the process of China's colonialization, leaving an important mark in the Chinese history. Taking place in the early period of China's transition to modern society, this rebellion was a peasant uprising that resembled a democratic revolution of old bourgeois. It was the prologue to the old democratic revolution in the modern history of China. The “Land System of the Heavenly Kingdom” it promulgated carried egalitarianism to extremes. This rebellion even drew the close attention of Karl Marx. He pointed out in “Revolution in China and in Europe”: [All these dissolving agencies acting together on the finances, the morals, the industry, and political structure of China, came to full development] under the English cannon in 1840, which broke down the authority of the Emperor, and forced the Celestial Empire into contact with the terrestrial world. Complete isolation was the prime condition of the preservation of Old China. That isolation having come to a violent end by the medium of England, dissolution must follow as surely as that of any mummy carefully preserved in a hermetically sealed coffin, whenever it is brought into contact with the open air.”11 It is true. The Taiping Rebellion failed because of the limitations of the peasant class. The decline of the ruling Qing Dynasty accelerated because of this uprising.

After this and the Second Opium War, some court ministers and local officials of the Qing government such as Zeng Guofan, Zhang Zhidong, Li Hongzhang, Zuo Zongtang and Yi Xin initiated a massive Westernization (Self-strengthening) Movement. It aimed to reverse China's slide into decline by “consolidating its rule with feudal ethics and learning advanced technologies from the West at the same time”.12 In 1963, Zhang Zhidong, a member of the Westernization Movement, proposed to take“traditional (Chinese) learning as substance, new (Western) learning for application” in his essay “Exhortation to Learning”. It aimed to study Western technology in order to establish a modern military system, civil industry and higher education while retaining the orthodox Confucian basis of society in the feudal monarchy.

Its defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War in 1895 forced the Qing government to sign the Treaty of Shimonoseki, which required China to pay Japan huge war indemnities and cede Taiwan to Japan, aggravating the national crisis. It marked the failure of the Westernization Movement because of the feudal mindset and decadence of its founders. This failure also indicated that it was impossible for the feudal ruling class to strengthen itself only through technological innovation.

Persuaded by bourgeois reformists represented by Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao and supported by others including Yang Rui, Liu Guangdi, Tan Sitong and Lin Xu, Emperor Guangxu issued imperial edicts for a massive number of reform measures to modernize the feudal autocracy and education system. Kang Youwei drew on the successful experience of the Meiji Restoration, recommending that Emperor Guang Xu “draft and adopt a constitution, create national parliament, and practice separation and balance of three powers”13. But the Hundred Days Reform was soon thwarted by Conservative Empress Dowager Cixi and her supporters, signaling the end of this reform.

The Hundred Days Reform did not halt the decline of the Qing Dynasty, rather its failure aggravated the conflict between the Chinese people and imperialism, which was manifested by the spread of the Boxer Rebellion. Its failure resulted in China falling under the total control of external powers. In 1900, the Eight Power Allied Forces formed by Britain, the United States, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, Austria and Italy captured Beijing. On September 7, 1901, Yi Kuang and Li Hongzhang, representatives of the Qing court, signed a treaty with the delegates of these eight countries and the Netherlands, Spain and Belgium. The Treaty of 1901 specified 450 million taels of fine silver (around 18,000 tonnes, worth approx. US$333 million or £67 million at the exchange rates of the time) were to be paid as indemnity over a course of 39 years with a 4% interest charge which was 982 million taels in total to the eight nations involved, guaranteed by custom duties, transit duties and salt tax. The Treaty also stipulated that Dongjiao Minxiang was designated as the legation quarter under the exclusive control of foreign powers, in which Chinese should not have the right to reside, and which was entitled to taking measures for its own defense. The Chinese Government promised to prohibit forever, under pain of death, membership in any anti-foreign society; provincial and local officials would personally be held accountable for any new anti-foreign incidents, otherwise, they would be dismissed once and for all. This was a sign that China had been completely subordinated as a semi-feudal and semi-colonial country.

In response to the ruling crisis caused by the invasion of the Eight Powers, the Qing Court was forced to roll out a package of reforms from 1901 to 1911, leading to a surge in those studying abroad, the establishment of schools for modern education, growth in the publishing of books and newspapers, and the emergence of a new group of intelligentsia. The number of Chinese students studying abroad increased progressively year by year: 1,300 in 1903, 2,400 in 1904, 8,500 in 1905,13,000 in 1906. The number of students in domestic schools for modern education rose too: 1.01 million in 1907, 1.28 million in 1908, 1.63 million in 1909. To the surprise of the ruling class, these reform measures launched by the Qing court strengthened the forces subverting the feudal dynasty. For example, among these intellectuals, Sun Yat-sen, one of the national bourgeois revolutionaries in favor of democracy and against feudal autocracy, put forward the three principles of the people – nationalism, democracy and the people's welfare in 1905, which evolved into the guiding philosophy for national bourgeois revolutionaries.

The worsening national crisis and social conflict triggered revolutions. A revolt in the city of Wuchang on October 10, 1911 started the Chinese Revolution of 1911. It was a national democratic revolution in every sense in modern China. It brought the Chinese people political and ideological liberation, which cannot be underestimated. It should be noted that it overthrew the autocratic monarchy that had endured in China for several thousand years and built a republic. In the meantime, it spread the concept of democracy and republicanism, and its huge influence promoted social change and the ideological emancipation of the Chinese nation. But this revolution was not thorough, failing to change the nature of China as a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society and even relinquished the presidency of the Republic of China (ROC) founded after the revolution to Yuan Shikai, representative of the Northern Warlords. The Revolution of 1911 failed due to the weakness of the national bourgeoisie.

The failure of the Revolution of 1911 helped the intellectuals in China to realize that there would be no future for China without changes in the old ideas and culture. Sun Yat-sen also wrote in his letter to his overseas KMT comrades: “Change of ideas is a prerequisite for our revolution to succeed. That is why attempts to demoralize the enemy are important. Therefore, the New Culture Movement aiming to achieve this end is most valuable.”14 In 1915, the first issue of the Youth magazine (changed into New Youth the next year) marked the emergence of the New Culture Movement, the significance of which was that Chinese intellectuals recognized for the first time that it was a must to reflect on and reform China's traditional culture and abandon that which was outdated.

During this period, multiple schools of thoughts were tried. After Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao's roads came to a dead end, reformism, liberalism, social Darwinism, anarchism, pragmatism, populism and syndicalism were introduced one after another but none of them offered a feasible solution to China's problems. The outbreak of the October Revolution in Russia in 1917 led to the founding of the first socialist country under the dictatorship of the proletariat, the creation of a socialist system never before seen in human history, and the formation of a new spirit of the time. “The salvoes of the October Revolution brought us Marxism-Leninism.”15 Intellectuals represented by Li Dazhao began to disseminate Marxism in China. Marxism emerged from various schools of thought as the ideological weapon to transform China.

Right at that time, a more profound national crisis broke out. In January 1919, China took part in the Paris Peace Conference as a victorious country after World War I and demanded the abolition of the spheres of influence by foreign powers in China and the withdrawal of foreign troops from China. The Western powers refused China's claims; instead they decided to transfer the German concessions to Japan. This sparked anger among the Chinese people. Students, businessmen, the education community, and many patriotic groups all urged the government to uphold national sovereignty. But the Northern Warlord government, succumbing to the pressure of imperialism, still intended to sign the Treaty of Versailles, a peace document signed between Imperial Germany and the Allied Powers. On May 4, 1919, a massive protest broke out in Beijing, namely, the May 4th Movement. Under the intense pressure of the public, the Chinese delegation did not sign the treaty at the ceremony.

In contrast to previous movements, the May 4th Movement was an anti-imperialist movement driven mostly by patriotic students and supported by strikes of the working class and mass movements, which spread to over 100 cities across more than 20 provinces. It also happened in the midst of a dramatic ideological transformation in China. Along with the spread of Marxism and the growing role of the working class in the May 4th Movement, the New Culture Movement advanced further and the New Culture camp of intellectuals divided. A series of controversies broke out including debates on issues and doctrines, on whether socialism fitted with China's national conditions, and on anarchism and dictatorship of the proletariat etc., laying a solid ideological foundation for the founding of the CPC. In this sense, the May 4th Movement was the watershed of old democracy and new democracy in China's modern history.

In 1921, two years after the May 4th Movement, the CPC was founded amidst a worsening social crisis triggered by domestic strife and foreign aggression, and a workers’ movement guided by Marxism-Leninism.

History is the best teacher. The CPC was born in a tide of belief in saving the nation from subjugation, making itself the leader of this undertaking. It put forward the ideal of realizing communism and undertook the mission of rejuvenating the Chinese nation. The Chinese people, struggling to save the nation since the Opium Wars, saw hope of national rejuvenation in the founding of the CPC. As President Xi Jinping pointed out, “The founding of the CPC is epoch-making. It has since profoundly changed the direction and course of the Chinese nation in modern times, changed the future of the Chinese people and Chinese nation, and altered the trends and landscape of world development.”16