Zheng Bijian

Reinvigorating the gan kao spirit is a best way of celebrating the 95th birthday of the CPC

Ninety-five years ago today the Communist Party of China was founded. We are celebrating this monumental moment of its 95th birthday! As we review the arduous journey the party has traversed over those years and examine the historic challenges it is faced with at present, we reach the conclusion that its entire history is one of taking one big test after another (or gan kao, which literally means high imperial exam).     

As many of us know, it was Mao Zedong who had first used the word gan kao as a metaphor to describe the challenges the CPC was meeting with. It was on March 23, 1949, on the eve of the founding of New China, when Mao Zedong and the CPC Central Committee departed their “last rural base” in Xibaipo and headed into Beijing (known as Peking then). Contrasting the CPC with Li Zicheng (1606-1645), who indulged in extravagant and dissolute lifestyles after taking Beijing, he exhorted the party, “Under no circumstances can we be anything like Li Zicheng. We are going to Beijing for gan kao. All of us have to make the grade.” Those words of admonition inspired the use of gan kao as a catchword by CPC members ever since then to refer to the party’s tackling of severe challenges.        

Shortly after the conclusion of the 18th National Congress of the CPC, Xi Jinping, the newly elected General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee made an inspection tour to Xibaipo. “When Comrade Mao and the CPC Central Committee were leaving Xibaipo for Beijing, he said they were doing so for gan kao there,” he remarked during a meeting with local party cadres and residents. “We have made tremendous progress over the past 60 years and more. The Chinese people have stood up and are living better lives. Nevertheless, the challenges and problems in front of us remain complex and daunting. This means that the party’s gan kao is far from over.” How sober and yet earnest and inspirational these words are!   

As we review the 95-year history of the CPC, those words of Chairman Mao and President Xi point to the truth that the party has been continuously taking big tests. Passing one test with honors is no guarantee that we will pass the future ones. In other words, gan kao never ceases.

Reviewing the history of gan kao of the CPC and reinvigorating the spirit of gan kao, which defines the party as being modest, prudent, hard-working, and undeterred by difficulties, are a best way of celebrating its 95th birthday.    

Soon after its birth, the CPC embarked on the road of gan kao throughout the great revolution of the people. These gan kao resulted in a unique strategy of encircling cities from rural areas, Mao Zedong Thought which integrated Marxism with Chinese realities, and the founding of Socialist New China with the people being its masters.   

After the Opium War in 1840, China was relegated to semi-colonial and semi-feudal status. Bullied and humiliated by imperialist powers, the whole nation was plunged into abysmal misery, with widespread social unrest. Feudalism no longer worked, and the constitutional monarchy, multi-party system, and parliamentary democracy from the Western world were tried and failed. The Chinese revolution broke new ground only when a group of advanced intellectuals embraced Marxism and the Communist Party of China came into being. The CPC itself was a result of continuous gan kao by the Chinese people.  

Thereafter, the CPC experienced a series of major gan kao to rejuvenate the Chinese nation, turning the tide in critical situations and overcoming all obstacles in its way. 

Through the first major gan kao of the CPC, which comprised the Northern Expedition (1926-1927) and the Agrarian Revolutionary War (1927-1937), the CPC blazed a unique path for the Chinese revolution, which is encircling the cities from rural areas. Fighting imperialism and feudalism constituted the program of democratic revolution adopted at the Second National Congress of the CPC. However, how would this work, especially amid the “White Terror” masterminded by Chiang Kai-shek? Should the party remain in cities or move down to the countryside? Not many inside the party had a clear-cut stance on the issue, and even some of the officers of the Red Army already stationed in the countryside wavered, saying, “How long can the red flag last?” Based on an incisive analysis of the current domestic and international situations, Mao Zedong pointed out, “The long-term survival of one or more small areas under Red political power completely encircled by a White regime is a phenomenon that has never occurred anywhere else in the world.” In those days China was “semi-colonial and was under indirect imperialist rule”, and the ruling classes engaged in “prolonged and tangled warfare”. Based on a clear, sober appraisal of Chinese realities and the international situation, these profound statements were truly manifestations of Marxism with Chinese characteristics and marked the formation of the strategy for the Chinese revolution, which is encircling cities from the rural areas. 

The second major gan kao of the CPC occurred during the War of Resistance Against Japan (1937-1945) and consisted of resisting the prolonged suppression of the Communists by the KMT while upholding the United National Front Against Japanese Aggression. The CPC won the first complete victory in resisting foreign aggressors in modern Chinese history. Soon after the Red Army forces reached Northern Shaanxi, a number of questions confronted the CPC. At a time when the national contradiction between China and Japan was prevailing, should they seek a second CPC-KMT cooperation while the latter was conceiving more bloodshed? Should they maintain independence in the United National Front Against Japanese Aggression? After the outbreak of the Wannan Incident of 1941 (also known as New Fourth Army Incident), should they fight against Chiang Kai-shek? If so, what about the War of Resistance Against Japan? Ultimately the party put forward a dual strategy that synthesized “alliance” and “struggle” as the answer to this array of most difficult questions. It was neither “all struggle and no alliance” nor “all alliance and no struggle”; rather, it was a strategy of “uniting with all social strata opposed to Japanese imperialism, of forming a united front with and yet of waging struggles against them, struggles that differ in form according to the different degrees in which their vacillating or reactionary side manifests itself in capitulation to the enemy and opposition to the Communist Party and the people.” The dual nature of the strategy also manifested itself in the labor and land policies adopted. It consolidated and further developed the United National Front Against Japanese Aggression, which laid the broadest mass foundation for winning the War of Resistance Against Japan. Conceived and formalized in the war years, the strategy is now a most valuable asset of the CPC.         

The third major gan kao of the CPC was that of carrying out the War of Liberation (1945-1949) amid all difficulties and challenges and thus putting an end to the revolution. After the War of Resistance Against Japan was concluded, Chiang Kai-shek, in gross defiance of the wishes of the Chinese people, smashed the peace agreement reached at the Chongqing Negotiations. The CPC was put in a critical situation. On the one hand, the imperialist powers led by the United States were supportive of Chiang Kai-shek launching a full-blown civil war.

On the other hand, the Soviet Union coerced the CPC into compromising to Chiang Kai-shek because its relations with the United States, the United Kingdom, and France ameliorated. The party had to choose between compromising to Chiang Kai-shek and carrying the revolution to the end. At the critical moment Mao Zedong made the historical statement, “Such compromise (between the United States and the Soviet Union) … does not require the people in the countries of the capitalist world to follow suit and make compromises at home. The people in those countries will continue to wage different struggles in accordance with their different conditions.” Hence, based on a systematic analysis of the domestic and international situations, the party made the historic decision of carrying the revolution to the end by toppling the reactionary rule of the KMT and ultimately founding New China with the people as its masters.

The fourth major gan kao of the CPC occurred after the victory of the New Democratic Revolution (1919-1949) and was that of transforming China from a semi-colonial and semi-feudal agrarian country into an advanced industrialized country. The party made the strategic decision of combining the transformation with the change from New Democracy to Socialism. The general line for the transitional period included the following: concentrating on the construction of large and medium-sized industrial projects as the primary foundation for industrialization; and supporting industrialization by transforming agriculture and handicraft industries on the one hand and private industry and commerce on the other. By 1956 the party had established the basic socialist system in China, as a big country in the East, an achievement that was unprecedented in the history of human events.   

In summary, China experienced the New Democratic Revolution and Socialist Revolution over the span of 35 years from 1921 to 1949 and then to 1956. As aforementioned, the CPC had four major gan kao during this period, each occurring in a critical moment in her history. What did these gan kao accomplish? These are summarized as follows: the decisively distinctive revolutionary path of encircling cities from the rural areas; Mao Zedong Thought both as an achievement of the first collective central leadership of the CPC with Mao Zedong at the core and as the result of the first historic transformation of Marxism in China; and the establishment of socialist New China with the people as its masters. In other words, the CPC emerged from these gan kao as the vanguard of both the Chinese working class and the Chinese people and nation.     

Since the initiation of reform and opening up, the CPC has been on the road of new gan kao for the overriding mission of “catching up with the times”. These have led to a truly vibrant China, the theory of building socialism with Chinese characteristics as a result of the second historic transformation of Marxism within China, and ultimately China as the world’s second largest economy.  

The Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the CPC convened in 1978 ushered in a new era in Chinese history, that is an era of reform and opening up. Henceforth, the CPC set forth on a new gan kao with the mission of “catching up with the times”.

The party has been on the road of new gan kao for 34 years, from the establishment of socialism with Chinese characteristics under the helm of Deng Xiaoping to the new phase of socialist modernization and to the convening of the 18th National Congress of the CPC. It has gone a long way during this period of time.

The first major gan kao of the CPC was that of putting the Cultural Revolution to an end and bringing emancipation of the mind on track. The Cultural Revolution caused prolonged, systemic turmoil, with catastrophic consequences for the economy and ideology. Reversing social stagnation and ridding the people of ossified ideology, including “taking class struggle as the key link” and the “Two-whatever” doctrine proved to be an uphill battle for the party. It was under Deng Xiaoping that the floodgate of emancipation of the mind was resolutely released, with the focus on understanding what socialism was and how socialism should be built. Ultimately, the nation embarked on the path of building socialism with Chinese characteristics—a path of liberating productive forces and restoring and strengthening social vitality. Thus, from the great national debate on the criterion for truth to the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the CPC, China came out of stagnation and headed toward true dynamism, releasing the great potentials and vitality of the people and society. This represents the most profound change in the history of modern China.     

The second major gan kao of the CPC was that of addressing the political disturbances at home and abroad. By wringing order out of chaos and implementing reform in an all-round manner in the wake of the Cultural Revolution, the party adopted the right policies and brought the nation on a correct path of development. The people were adequately fed and clothed by and large. However, many social contradictions accumulated and came to the fore in the process. These and the comple