Communist International And The Chinese Peasant Movement (1921-1927)

Founded with the help of Communist International (CI), Chinese Communist Party (CCP) tied a closer relationship with CI when it joined in the international organization in 1922. In the different phases of the New Democratic Revolution, especially during the founding of CCP and the Great Revolution, her revolutionary theories and strategies were greatly influenced by CI. For the semi-colony and semi-feudal country with a major population of peasants, CI was facing several serious problems, such as how to guide the fledgling CCP to have a better understanding of its social nature, how to deal with the land issue of peasants, how to arouse the peasants to support CCP to finish the task of New Democratic Revolution.From the 1980s to 1990s, researches on the relationship between CI and CCP came to a climax with quite a few findings. However, few of them has ever made a comprehensive and systematic investigation into the CI' s influence on the Chinese peasants and land revolution in the courses of the founding of CCP and the Great Revolution. The thesis is mainly about CI' s theory and policies on Chinese peasants problems from 1921 to the failure of the Great Revolution in 1927. Based on the development of CI' s theory and policies on the peasant movement led by CCP, and inspired by the latest historical archives involved the SOVIET UNION COMMUNIST PARTY and CI about problems of the Chinese revolution, the author tires to sum up a few instructive and positive conclusions.The thesis falls into six parts. Firstly, it reviews the necessity and importance of CI' s guidance to the Chinese peasant movement led by CCP. Secondly, the thesis states the influence of CI on CCP' s theory and practice about the Chinese peasant movement. On the one hand, CI help the CCP get an appropriate cognition of peasant issue; on the otherhand, CCP combined itself with peasant movement in practice. The third part is about the reasons for vigorously springing up of the Chinese peasant movement at the beginning of the co-operation between CCP and Kuomintang. The fourth part deals with the relationship between CI and peasant movement before the Northern Expedition. The consecutive victories of the Northern Expedition dramatically promoted the peasant movement. However, CI' s policy of concession to the KMT played a negative role, resulting in a lowest tide of the Chinese peasant movement and Chinese revolution. The fifth part focuses on the CI' s radical, Left Adventurism policies and the harms to the peasant movement. The sixth part serves as a conclusion of the whole thesis. In brief, the thesis is based on a historical thread of the development of Chinese peasant movement, from considering the foundation of CCP and its original efforts to call on and organize peasant movement according to Marxism under the guidance from CI, to inspecting the reasons for the vigorously springing up of the peasant movement after the Northern Expedition, to finding out the cause of failure of the Great Revolution. I think, the thesis' constructive findings may be conducive to help us re-consider and realize the significance of the current situation of the rural and peasant issues.