The Rise of the CCP

Dear Readers,

I have been asked to investigate why many Chinese people have come to believe that the Chinese Communist Party may offer solutions to the myriad problems that China is currently facing. I have found through my work that the multifaceted ideologies of the CCP appeal to many of the downtrodden members of Chinese society, whether they are oppressed socially, economically, politically, or all of the above. They believe that the CCP has the potential to liberate them as individuals, and grow the Chinese economy, all at once. I was able to get out and talk to a few new CCP supporters, including a young woman, a factory worker, a friend from my college, and my brother-in-law’s parents, who are agrarian peasants like most of our country’s people, to gain an understanding of their varied motivations.

First of all, while there are certainly many women, especially older women, who consider themselves content with the status quo, there are also a lot of younger women and especially intellectual women who are entranced by the changes that CCP ideology promises to them. I spoke with a young, single woman named Xie Pie-lan who explained that she was interested in joining the Communist Revolution because she did not want to submit to an arranged marriage to a much older man that she didn’t know: “People told me if I joined the revolution, I would have my freedom. That I could choose who I wanted to marry. Well, if I didn’t join, I’d have to marry this man who was over 30. So I thought if revolution could save me from this, I would join” [China: A Century of Revolution, China in Revolution, 28:45]. One of Mao Zedong’s earliest published writings is about the tragic death of a young woman from his hometown, named Miss Chao, who committed suicide rather than submitting to an arranged marriage, and he blames the “iron net” cast around Miss Chao and other young women like her by traditional Confucian society for her death [Johnson, 29]. The Party advocates that women and men should get to choose who they get married to, and that women should no longer be subjected to long held traditional practices that limit them, like foot binding. Of course, this is appealing to individual young women vying for their freedoms, but my college friend also told me that it would be good for China as a whole. He read me a quote from Mao’s Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan that said, “With the increasing bankruptcy of the rural economy in recent years, the basis for men’s domination over women has already been undermined [44-46].” What this means is that with China’s economy so poor, and so in need of growth, many people feel it is necessary that half of China’s population no longer be subjugated, because their work is needed to support the new China.

In addition to my conversation with Xie Pie-lan, I also managed to talk with a factory worker named Qui Hui-ying. While factory workers may make up only a small portion of China’s vast population, some Chinese people believe that they will play an integral role in shaping a new China. Qui Hui-ying told me, “I came to Shanghai when I was 12. We were so miserable; we had to work 17 hours a day. Later, a progressive worker in the factory told us that people were not born to be poor. One was poor because of the exploitation by others. There is exploitation by the capitalist on one hand and exploitation by the labor contractor on the other. You do the work and he takes the money” [China: A Century of Revolution, China in Revolution, 24:39]. I found out that this man worked in a factory that produces goods for people in other countries, especially England. He and many others feel as though China is not destined to be poor, but it is exploitation by other nations like England, the United States, and Japan which has rendered it poor. As Marx and Engels write in the Communist Manifesto, “the need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere” [476]. The CCP offers downtrodden people a concrete explanation as to why they have been plagued by economic troubles – foreign aggressors – instead of simply blaming economic conditions on “fate” as Confucian thought would do. The CCP plans to work towards shaking off foreign capitalist influence, which many citizens believe will restore dignity and vitality to the wonderful people of China.

As I have mentioned before, my brother-in-law’s parents are impoverished peasant farmers. European Marxism centers the power of the factory workers, who make up the primary labor source of many European countries, to spark revolution. As Mao argues in his Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan, however, peasant farmers are the key to revolution in China, because they are the nation’s primary laborers and producers [42]. I talked to my brother-in-laws parents to learn more about their lives and experiences. They told me that they had no choice but to pawn their property in order to afford a bride tax and other wedding expenses for the marriage of their oldest son [Deitrich, 13-14]. As their financial difficulties continued, they decided that they needed to have my brother-in-law, the youngest son in his family, enter into a matrilocal marriage, despite the shame they felt it brought upon themselves and their son. They say that they have “scratched out a living” ever since, through “day labor” and “handicrafts” [Deitrich, 14]. My brother-in-law’s parents would like to see a change in their material conditions, and the Chinese Communist Party promises that to them.

By emphasizing the economic growth of the nation of China, many Chinese people feel as though the Chinese Communist Party will be able to offer them freedom from all sorts of exploitation. The ropes of patriarchy, imperialism, and patriarchy have bound the people of China too tightly for far too long – and the CCP pledges to cut all of these ties free.

Thank you for reading!