Beijing issued a communique on Nov. 11, during the conclusion of the sixth plenum of the 19th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The plenum praised the Party’s “major achievements and historical experience” over its 100-year history. However, upon close inspection, the communique is just a propaganda campaign.
The communique claims that socialism (with Chinese characteristics) is the only system that can save China. However, the CCP’s history shows that communism and socialism have brought violence, deaths, and disasters to the Chinese people. Socialism doesn’t save China; on the contrary, it has destroyed China.
Before 1949
Communism started in Europe, and the Soviet Union adopted it to plot violent revolutions in Russia and it took hold of the country. Three years after the Soviet communist party ruled Russia, it turned to China for expansion.
The CCP started with violence: Since its establishment, the CCP launched armed riots in cities and rural areas across the country, causing many deaths and destruction.
According to the book “Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party,” the Soviet Union’s Third Communist International, or the Comintern, helped Chen Duxiu and other revolutionary socialists establish the CCP on July 23, 1921. Chen served as the CCP’s General Secretary from 1921 to 1927.
A quote from the book reads: “Marxism initially attracted the Chinese radicals with its declaration that violent revolution is necessary to destroy the old state apparatus and establish a dictatorship of the proletariat. This is precisely the root of evil in Marxism and Leninism.”
This is the root of evil in the CCP as well.
Red Terror: Under Peng Pai, one of the early CCP leaders who was based in Haifeng and Lufeng counties (the two counties are referred as Hailufeng) in China’s southern Guangdong Province, around 10,000 people were killed during the “Red Terror.” Tens of thousands of houses were burnt, and over 40,000 people fled to Hong Kong. The CCP committed heinous acts such as killing, looting, raping, and cannibalism, according to historical accounts.
‘People’s Courts’ were held in which peasants were encouraged to accuse the landlords; sometimes, this resulted in immediate executions. (Public Domain)
According to one case study report from the University of Washington, the author described the Hailufeng areas as “a living hell” during that period, and claimed that Peng invited people to have “human meat soup” at a banquet.
Peng introduced the ideology of “class struggle” to mobilize peasants to participate in the killing and violence. The slogan “legitimize[d] and expand[ed] massacre in the name of ‘eliminating counter-revolutionaries’” has been put into practice by the CCP throughout its history.
Banditry and killing of American missionaries: Fang Zhimin, a local CCP leader in China’s coastal Jiangsu Province, kidnapped American missionaries John Stam and his wife, Elizabeth Alden or “Betty,” including their three-month-old baby, Helen. Fang demanded the church to pay a ransom of 20,000 silver coins, which it was unable to pay. Consequently, Fang beheaded the couple. A brave Chinese sacrificed his own life to save the baby, who was eventually returned to her grandparents.
This period marked the beginning of the red terror that swept across the country under the CCP’s rule.
The sixth plenum communique claims that the CCP has liberated the Chinese people through socialism. Did the killing and violence liberate the people?
Treason: The CCP’s communique claims that it “completely abolished the unequal treaties imposed on China by the western powers and all the privileges of imperialism in China.”
The truth is the CCP does not care about the country nor the people. It uses all opportunities to strengthen its power.
In 1929, the Chinese Nationalist government fought with the Soviet Union to take back the administration of the Chinese Eastern Railway (known as the “China Eastern Railway Incident”). Then Soviet Union leader Joseph Stalin ordered the Chinese communists to “safeguard the Soviet Union” in a statement issued to the CCP.
The CCP’s Central Committee obeyed Stalin’s orders and issued a series of notices, requiring Party members to launch armed riots in different regions and to send volunteer armies to support the Soviet Union’s Red Army against the Chinese Nationalist troops. At the time, the CCP’s slogans were: to “safeguard the Soviet Union” and to “defeat the Chiang Kai-shek’s counterrevolutionary government.”
On top of the China Eastern Railway, the Soviet Union occupied a large area of China’s territory.
In 1999, then CCP leader Jiang Zemin signed an agreement with Russia, acknowledging all the treaties signed between the Qing government and Russia, giving away more than 1 million square kilometers of land—which is equal to the size of several dozen Taiwans. Then, in 2004, Hu Jintao, Jiang’s successor, signed a “Supplemental Agreement for the Eastern Section of the Sino-Russian border,” giving half of Heixiazi Island to Russia.
These actions should be regarded as treason.
The CCP colluded with Japan during World War II: The CCP had sought to take down the ruling Nationalist government.
The Nationalist Kuomintang government was the force that resisted the Japanese invasion during World War II. The CCP took advantage of the Japanese invasion in order to weaken the Nationalists and the Kuomintang army through war.
The CCP sent spies to provide military intelligence about the Nationalist army to the invading Japanese troops, and CCP leader Mao Zedong wanted to “drag the Sino-Japanese War out as long as possible,” according to Endo Homare, director of Center of International Relations, Tokyo University of Social Welfare.
Mao’s plan to replace Chiang Kai-shek, head of the Nationalist government and its military, was intercepted by the Soviets. In 1936, the CCP manipulated the warlord of Manchuria, Zhang Xueliang, to arrest Chiang in an attempt to force him to give up his power and to join the communists. But Stalin, fearing the CCP was not able to stop the Japanese, needed Chiang and his troops to resist the Japanese forces and prevent them from attacking Moscow. Thus, the CCP had to release Chiang.
Mao’s plan was to let the Japanese destroy the Nationalists. Millions of Kuomintang soldiers lost their lives in the war, while the CCP’s military forces grew significantly under the guise of defending China.
Zhu Enlai (right), one of the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and Prime Minister of China from its inception in 1949 until his death, and Chairman Mao Zedong (left) pose for the picture in Yunnan during the war between China and Japan in 1945. (AFP/Getty Images)
Mao’s personal physician revealed that Mao “credited Japan with the communist victory in the civil war.”
While the CCP deceived the Chinese people with its political slogan, “building heaven on earth,” it actually brought violence, war, and deaths—turning the country into a “red terror” and “a living hell.”
1949 to 1978
The communique boasts that the period between 1949 and 1978 is one of “socialist revolution and construction.” However, during this time, the CCP carried out multiple political campaigns and “class struggles” that caused 60 million to 80 million deaths.
Under Mao, major political campaigns included the land reform, and the commercial and industrial reform in the early 1950s, which eliminated the whole class of landlords and capitalists. The Hundred Flower Movement and the Cultural Revolution eradicated the intellectual class.
A 2016 Washington Post article, headlined “Remembering the biggest mass murder in the history of the world,” claimed that Mao caused the deaths of 45 million people from 1958 to 1962, via his “Great Leap Forward,” which is “the biggest episode of mass murder ever recorded.”
The deaths, poverty, and chaos caused by the Cultural Revolution made the CCP fear it would lose control of the people. Mao’s successor, Deng Xiaoping, wanted to turn things around by opening up the Chinese market to the West.
After 1978
Deng witnessed Mao’s failed economic policies, and he saw capitalism as the only option to lift China out of poverty.
The communique says that Deng “established the basic lines of the primary stage of socialism … and successfully pioneered socialism with Chinese characteristics,” and that the CCP “shifted the focus of work to economic construction.”
Hundreds of thousands of protesters gather around a 33-feet statue called the Goddess of Democracy on Tiananmen Square demanding democracy in Beijing on June 2, 1989. (Catherine Henriette/AFP/Getty Images)
However, Deng did not get rid of socialism nor reject all of Mao’s policies, otherwise, the CCP would lose the basis of its existence. Deng used capitalism to “let some people get rich first.”
Those who got rich first were the CCP elites, second or third generations of the founding members of the Party, and business owners who bribed powerful CCP-linked families for personal benefits.
The CCP, which claims to be the representative of the proletariat, has become the biggest capitalist in China, which shows the total failure of socialism and Marxism-Leninism.
China has become the “world’s factory,” with hundreds of millions of workers toiling on the production lines. Under the banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics, the top echelon of the CCP has taken away most of the country’s wealth.
Corruption has gotten worse since the reform and opening up. The pro-democracy student protest at Tiananmen Square in 1989 was suppressed ruthlessly by the CCP’s tanks and military. It’s a pity that the international community did not take any action to sanction the CCP at the time.
China is still enjoying the benefits of globalization, but the huge trade imbalance with other countries is unsustainable. The CCP has repeatedly broken the rules of fair trade and has inevitably faced backlash. This time, the free world, including the United States and the European Union, has imposed sanctions on the CCP.
China also faces a poverty crisis, and a major wealth gap problem, as the elite class refuses to give up privileges. This is one of the factors that led Xi Jinping to roll out an anti-corruption campaign (aimed at taking down corrupt officials) and “common prosperity” policy (for example, in the form of a wealth redistribution plan).
Moreover, the pandemic further weakened China’s economy. Now the CCP faces pressure at home and abroad.
History has proven that the CCP’s rule has been a failure and will soon meet its demise.
Zhong Yuan is a researcher focused on China’s political system, the country’s democratization process, human rights situation, and Chinese citizens’ livelihood. He began writing commentaries for the Chinese-language edition of The Epoch Times in 2020.
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