Rural mobilization in the Chinese Communist Revolution: From the Anti-Japanese War to the Chinese Civil War

Abstract

The key to the success of the Chinese Communist Revolution lies mainly in the Chinese Communist Party’s ability to mobilize the people effectively. During the Anti-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, the CCP adopted different mobilization strategies in different contexts. During the Anti-Japanese War, the main strategies included arousing nationalist emotions among the peasants with slogans of anti-Japanese patriotism; satisfying the demands of the peasants by reducing rents, interest, and other burdens; and promoting the peasants’ political participation through the mass line. In the Civil War, mobilization was based on class categorization and identity formation, interest-oriented land reform, and emotion-oriented speaking-bitterness campaigns. Yet throughout the entire revolutionary era, the CCP approach reflected continuities that surpassed the differences visible during the successive stages in the Chinese Communist Revolution. In each war, CCP rural mobilization took the winning of the peasants’ participatory, psychological–emotional, and material support as the main goal. To achieve this goal, the CCP usually used key mobilization approaches such as satisfying peasants’ demands, reconstructing peasants’ identities, and stimulating peasants’ emotions.