Ep 2 Part 1 - 1919-1949: National Liberation through Class Struggle Part 1

This second class covers the 30 years from 1919 to 1949, during which the revolution grew from a collection of Marxist reading groups to the establishment of the People’s Republic. We examine the founding of the Chinese Communist Party in 1921, the quest for a revolutionary strategy suited to the actual conditions of China’s economy and society, and the emergence of the CCP and the Red Army as the leading force in the struggle for a New China. We look at the Jiangxi Soviet–which began to experiment with innovative social policies like land reform and the modernization of gender and family relations–and the Long March, an epic venture to relocate the Party’s base area to northwestern China in the face of Nationalist attacks. The Red Army waged prolonged war against the Japanese invaders from 1937-1945. And in the final clashes of the Civil War from 1945 to 1949 the CCP united the Chinese people and triumphed over the reactionary Nationalists of the Guomindang, who fled to Taiwan in 1949. Chairman Mao proclaimed the founding of the People’s Republic from the rostrum at Tiananmen on October 1, 1949. This class was originally held and recorded on May 24, 2020. Class page: https://liberationschool.org/china-class-2/