CHINA
12 November 2026
How communism conquered China
Communism was never popular in China any more so than in the United States. It was imposed on the population at the barrel of a gun.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is more a product of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin than China’s Chairman Mao Zedong, according to a new revisionist history by distinguished historian of modern China, Frank Dikötter. In "Red Dawn Over China: How Communism Conquered a Quarter of Humanity" Dikötter, who hails from the Netherlands, and is affiliated with the University of Hong Kong, elaborates his story thanks to access to recently discovered important archival material and also Russian sources.
This book acts as a corrective to “Red star over China”, a book by American journalist Edgar Snow who was invited by Mao Zedong to China in 1935 to write the CCP’s story exactly as the CCP wanted it to be projected to the world. Snow’s book is a fantastic show piece on the CCP, which tells the story of the communists who are fighting for freedom in the hills against the oppressive forces of feudalism, capitalism, and fascism, according to Dikötter. He argues that the previously little known Mao became a household name worldwide, and Snow’s image of Mao has remained influential to this very day. It even became the official party line following the formation of the People's Republic.
In reality, the CCP was not created by China, according to Dikötter. Rather it was established by Soviet agents of the Moscow-based Communist International (Comintern), which was founded by Lenin, with the explicit purpose of overthrowing by all means available, "the international bourgeoisie”. These agents came to China in 1919, started cultivating a number of individuals, and the CCP was officially founded in 1921.
Despite Moscow’s strong hand, the CCP was initially irrelevant, writes Dikötter. It was unable to attract more than about a couple of dozen until 1923. By 1936, it only had about 40,000 members out of China’s total population of half a billion. Communist parties from countries like Finland, France, Italy or Portugal had more members as a proportion of the population than did the CCP. The CCP’s main adversary was the Chinese Nationalist Party government or the Kuomintang (KMT) led by Chiang Kai-shek.
Under Soviet pressure, the KMT accepted the CCP members in its ranks, and agreed on a United Front Partnership in 1924 to unite the country in the face of warlords and foreign treaty ports. Dikötter writes that from 1925, Stalin and his envoys controlled the CCP, and repeatedly saved Chairman Mao. But the KMT and the CCP had a falling out, breaking the United Front in 1927. The Communists were then out in the wilderness, being partly sustained by Stalin. From 1934-36, the CCP undertook the fabled “Long March”, in reality a long retreat and an absolute disaster in that it began with forces of 80,000, and finished a year later with just 6,000.
In 1936 Stalin intervened again, and told the CCP to unite with the KMT government to fight the Japanese, a Soviet archenemy, which had invaded China. But the CCP was not interested in doing so, it was only interested in fighting the Nationalists. They left Chiang Kai-shek facing the full brunt of the Japanese attack down through Manchuria and along the coast.
Coming to the end of World War II and the defeat of Japan, the Soviets conquered the enormous and rich territory of Manchuria. They then turned over to the Communists this strategic gateway to the whole of China and its massive stockpiles of captured Japanese weapons. But the Soviets didn't just disappear, they stayed there until May 1946 and helped the Communists turn their ragtag army of guerrilla fighters into a formidable fighting machine.
The Americans entered the scene at the end of 1945 in the form of George Marshall who was sent to impose a truce, and forge a coalition government of the KMT and CCP. But on the very day of the signing the truce, the CCP began violating the agreement. What’s more, Marshall imposed an arms embargo for one year on the KMT to add pressure for a coalition government, even though the Soviets were arming the communists to the teeth. This greatly undermined the KMT’s ability to fight the CCP Marshall bought Stalin’s line that the CCP were not real communists, but “margarine communists” and agrarian reformers.
Although Dikötter accuses Marshall of naivete, he does not take a clear position on the old debate of “who lost China”. He wrote that President Truman may have been correct when he said that giving more help to Chiang Kai-shek "would be like pouring sand down a rat hole." Indeed, he argues that the communists fight a war that you cannot win as they send human waves of unarmed villagers to absorb the ammunition.
Dikötter concludes that communism was never popular in China any more so than in the United States. It was imposed on the population at the barrel of a gun.
This book acts as a corrective to “Red star over China”, a book by American journalist Edgar Snow who was invited by Mao Zedong to China in 1935 to write the CCP’s story exactly as the CCP wanted it to be projected to the world. Snow’s book is a fantastic show piece on the CCP, which tells the story of the communists who are fighting for freedom in the hills against the oppressive forces of feudalism, capitalism, and fascism, according to Dikötter. He argues that the previously little known Mao became a household name worldwide, and Snow’s image of Mao has remained influential to this very day. It even became the official party line following the formation of the People's Republic.
In reality, the CCP was not created by China, according to Dikötter. Rather it was established by Soviet agents of the Moscow-based Communist International (Comintern), which was founded by Lenin, with the explicit purpose of overthrowing by all means available, "the international bourgeoisie”. These agents came to China in 1919, started cultivating a number of individuals, and the CCP was officially founded in 1921.
Despite Moscow’s strong hand, the CCP was initially irrelevant, writes Dikötter. It was unable to attract more than about a couple of dozen until 1923. By 1936, it only had about 40,000 members out of China’s total population of half a billion. Communist parties from countries like Finland, France, Italy or Portugal had more members as a proportion of the population than did the CCP. The CCP’s main adversary was the Chinese Nationalist Party government or the Kuomintang (KMT) led by Chiang Kai-shek.
Under Soviet pressure, the KMT accepted the CCP members in its ranks, and agreed on a United Front Partnership in 1924 to unite the country in the face of warlords and foreign treaty ports. Dikötter writes that from 1925, Stalin and his envoys controlled the CCP, and repeatedly saved Chairman Mao. But the KMT and the CCP had a falling out, breaking the United Front in 1927. The Communists were then out in the wilderness, being partly sustained by Stalin. From 1934-36, the CCP undertook the fabled “Long March”, in reality a long retreat and an absolute disaster in that it began with forces of 80,000, and finished a year later with just 6,000.
In 1936 Stalin intervened again, and told the CCP to unite with the KMT government to fight the Japanese, a Soviet archenemy, which had invaded China. But the CCP was not interested in doing so, it was only interested in fighting the Nationalists. They left Chiang Kai-shek facing the full brunt of the Japanese attack down through Manchuria and along the coast.
Coming to the end of World War II and the defeat of Japan, the Soviets conquered the enormous and rich territory of Manchuria. They then turned over to the Communists this strategic gateway to the whole of China and its massive stockpiles of captured Japanese weapons. But the Soviets didn't just disappear, they stayed there until May 1946 and helped the Communists turn their ragtag army of guerrilla fighters into a formidable fighting machine.
The Americans entered the scene at the end of 1945 in the form of George Marshall who was sent to impose a truce, and forge a coalition government of the KMT and CCP. But on the very day of the signing the truce, the CCP began violating the agreement. What’s more, Marshall imposed an arms embargo for one year on the KMT to add pressure for a coalition government, even though the Soviets were arming the communists to the teeth. This greatly undermined the KMT’s ability to fight the CCP Marshall bought Stalin’s line that the CCP were not real communists, but “margarine communists” and agrarian reformers.
Although Dikötter accuses Marshall of naivete, he does not take a clear position on the old debate of “who lost China”. He wrote that President Truman may have been correct when he said that giving more help to Chiang Kai-shek "would be like pouring sand down a rat hole." Indeed, he argues that the communists fight a war that you cannot win as they send human waves of unarmed villagers to absorb the ammunition.
Dikötter concludes that communism was never popular in China any more so than in the United States. It was imposed on the population at the barrel of a gun.