I. Birth of the CPC: Two Vanguards

On October 31, 2017, only one week after the conclusion of the 19th CPC National Congress, the Standing Committee members of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, led by General Secretary Xi Jinping, traveled from Beijing to visit the site of the First National Congress of the CPC in Shanghai, and the Red Boat – the physical birthplace of the Party – on Nanhu Lake in Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province. They reviewed the Party history and reread the Party admission oath to demonstrate the new leadership's firm political convictions.

That afternoon, immediately after arriving in Shanghai, Xi Jinping and the other Standing Committee members of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee went straight to No. 76 Xingye Road, the site of the First National Congress of the CPC.

These weathered shikumen (stone gate) houses, renovated and opened to the public in September 1952, are solemn and serene in contrast to this bustling metropolis. It was in these houses that the CPC held its first National Congress.

Shanghai used to have the largest working-class population in China. In the May 4th Movement in 1919 in particular, as many as 100,000 Shanghai workers staged a massive strike in support of the patriotic students in Beijing and unequivocally against the Northern Warlord Government. Encouraged by them, railway workers on the Shanghai-Nanjing Railway, Shanghai-Hangzhou Railway, Beijing-Hankou Railway and Beijing-Shenyang Railway followed suit, and more workers from over 100 cities in more than 20 provinces across the county joined the strike. This marked the point at which the Chinese working class, led by the Shanghai workers, stepped onto the historical stage as an independent force. They used their influence to force the Northern Warlord Government to release the patriotic students and dismiss pro-Japanese and traitorous officials from their posts.

Shanghai was also one of the places where Marxism was first disseminated in China. After the May 4th Movement, Chen Duxiu came from Beijing to Shanghai to spread Marxism among the workers. The cover-to-cover translation of the Communist Manifesto was carried out and published in Shanghai. In August 1920, Communist intellectuals such as Chen Duxiu, Yu Xiusong, Li Hanjun, Li Da and Chen Wangdao set up the first Party organization in the editorial department of the New Youth.Then, Li Dazhao, the first person to disseminate Marxism in China, set up a Party branch in Beijing. The Party organization in Shanghai contacted and guided Marxists in Wuhan and Changsha among other places in various forms like letters to help them set up Party organizations.

After a year of effort, on the evening of July 23, 1921, 13 delegates from Party organizations in Shanghai, Wuhan, Changsha, Jinan, Beijing, Guangzhou and Japan came to Shanghai to attend the First National Congress of the CPC. After the delegates reported on the status of the Party and Youth League organizations to the Congress, they had a detailed discussion on the Party's program and resolutions. On the evening of July 30, the Congress was interrupted by police from the French Concession, and the participants immediately halted the Congress. In early August, the delegates transferred to the Nanhu Lake in Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province onto a tourist boat, later called the “Red Boat”. They reconvened the Congress for the last day to pass the program of the Party.

This program has 15 articles, the first two of which concern the Party name and program:

First, the party is named the Communist Party of China.

Second, the program of the Party is as follows:

1. The revolutionary army must work with the proletariat to overthrow the bourgeoisie, and support the working class until the elimination of class distinction;

2. Admitting dictatorship of the proletariat until the end of class struggle, i.e. the elimination of class distinction;

3. Eliminating private ownership of capitalists and confiscating their means of production such as machines, lands, factories and semi-finished products to be owned by the public;

4. Uniting with the Third International.1

This Party name and program indicated that the CPC was a proletarian party belonging to the Third International and guided by Marxism-Leninism. It can be noted that the Party then, still in the fledgling stage, did not have a clear understanding of its mission. Though set up in the background of the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal May 4th Movement, the Party did not put forward this task in its program.

In June 1958, 37 years later, Mao Zedong commented on the “Manifesto of the Communist Party of China”, an important document from the establishment of the CPC in the archive of the Communist International, transferred by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to the CPC Central Committee: “It is a fantasy to talk about only socialist revolution without mentioning anti-imperialist and anti-feudal democratic revolution. The program for socialist revolution is basically correct. But land nationalization was wrong. It did not anticipate the peaceful transition of the national capitalism, still less the liberation war which was basically a peasant war led by the CPC as the major form of revolution rather than general strikes.”2

Mao Zedong's comments were justified. The Chinese Communists had actually been engaged in anti-imperialist and anti-feudal struggles since 1921 when the Party was founded, but it was not specified as part of the Party program in its official document.

This problem was soon settled at the Second National Congress of the CPC held in Shanghai from July 16 to 23 in 1922.

Prior to this meeting, from January 21 to February 2, 1922, the Communist International held in Moscow the first congress for Communists and national revolutionary groups in the Far East in line with Lenin's theories on national and colonial issues. There were 44 delegates from China, 14 of whom were Communists. Lenin, in spite of his illness, received Zhang Guotao, representative of the CPC, Zhang Qiubai, representative of the Kuomintang (KMT), and Deng Pei, representative of railway workers. This congress made it clear that the daunting mission for the oppressed nations was to oppose imperialism and feudalism in the imperialist era and that the Communist Party should cooperate with other parties for national revolution to attract peasants to participate into the national democratic revolution. This was a great help for the CPC in understanding China's national conditions and its revolutionary mission.

The Declaration of the Second National Congress of the CPC approved at this meeting pointed out, “All facts have proved that the biggest burden imposed on the Chinese people (be they bourgeoisie, workers or peasants) comes from capital-imperialism and the feudal forces of warlord bureaucrats. Therefore, the democratic revolution against the two forces is of immense significance.”3 The contribution of the Second National Congress of the CPC was to clarify the maximum program of the Party was the realization of communism and the minimum program of the Party was the ongoing democratic revolution opposing imperialism and feudalism.

That means the CPC was not only the vanguard of the Chinese proletariat but also the vanguard of the Chinese people and the Chinese nation in the national anti-imperialist and anti-feudal democratic revolution. As was stated in the “CPC's Proposals on the Current Political Situation” released on June 15, 1922: “The CPC, as the vanguard of the proletariat, is a party fighting and carrying out revolutions for the proletariat. But before it comes to power, the most pressing task of the proletariat is to unite with pro-democracy camps to start a revolution against feudal warlords to wipe them out and establish democracy in line with China's political and economic situation and process of historical evolution.”4

The “Resolution on the Prevailing Political Situation and the Tasks of the Party”, also known as the “Resolution of the Wayaobao Conference” passed by the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the CPC on December 25, 1935 made it more explicit: “The CPC is not only the vanguard of the working class, but also the vanguard of the maximum majority of the people in China and the vanguard of the whole nation.”5 “The CPC is the vanguard of the Chinese proletariat and the Chinese nation.”6