Commentary 1: On What the Communist Party Is
The Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party were first published in November of 2004, followed quickly by an English translation. In 15 years, the series has led over 300 million Chinese to renounce the communist party and its affiliated organizations, fostering an unprecedented peaceful movement for transformation and change in China. People continue to renounce the party every day. Here we republish the newly re-edited Nine Commentaries, linked to video versions produced by our partner media NTD Television. For the other Commentaries, please see the Table of Contents. Foreword For over 5,000 years, the Chinese people created a splendid civilization on the land nurtured by the Yellow River and the Yangtze River. During this long period of time, dynasties came and went, and the Chinese culture waxed and waned. Grand and moving stories have played out on the historical stage of China. The year 1840, the year commonly considered by historians as the beginning of China’s contemporary era, marked the start of China’s journey from tradition to modernization. Chinese civilization experienced four major episodes of challenge and response. The first three episodes included the invasion of Beijing by the Anglo-French Allied Force in the early 1860s, the Sino-Japanese War in 1894 (also called the “Jiawu War”), and the Russo-Japanese War in China’s northeast in 1906. To these three episodes of challenge, China responded first with the Westernization Movement, which was marked by the importation of modern goods and weapons. China next responded with the institutional reforms in 1898 known as the Hundred Days’ Reform and the attempt at the end of the late Qing Dynasty (1644–1911) to establish constitutional rule. China’s third response, in 1911, was the Xinhai Revolution (or Hsinhai Revolution).[1] At the end of the First World War, China, though it emerged victorious, was not listed among the stronger powers at that time. Many Chinese believed that the first three episodes of response had failed. The number of deaths caused by the CCP’s violence since 1949 surpasses that of the wars waged between 1921 and 1949. The May Fourth Movement[2] would lead to the fourth attempt at responding to the previous challenges and culminate in the complete westernization of Chinese culture through the communist movement and its extreme revolution. This article concerns the outcome of the last episode, which is the communist movement and the Communist Party. Let’s take a close look at the result of what China chose, or perhaps one can say, what was imposed on China after over 160 years, nearly 100 million unnatural deaths, and the destruction of nearly all Chinese traditional culture and civilization. I. Relying on Violence and Terror “The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.”[3] This quote is taken from the concluding paragraph of the “Communist Manifesto,” the Communist Party’s principal document. Violence is the single, main means by which the Communist Party gained power. This character trait has been passed on to all subsequent forms of the Party that have arisen since its birth. In fact, the world’s first Communist Party was established many years after Karl Marx’s death. The next year after the October Revolution in 1917, the “All Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik),” later to be known as the “Communist Party of the Soviet Union,” was born. This party grew out of the use of violence against “class enemies” and was maintained through violence against party members and ordinary citizens. During Stalin’s purges in the 1930s, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union slaughtered over 20 million so-called spies and traitors and those thought to have unorthodox opinions. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) first started as a branch of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the Third Communist International. Therefore, it naturally inherited the willingness to kill. During China’s first Communist-Kuomintang[4] civil war between 1927 and 1936, the population in Jiangxi Province dropped from over 20 million to about 10 million. The damage wrought by the CCP’s use of violence can be seen from these figures alone. Using violence may be unavoidable when attempting to gain political power, but there has never been a regime as eager to kill as the CCP, especially during otherwise peaceful periods. The number of deaths caused by the CCP’s violence since 1949, when the CCP had won the civil war against the Kuomintang and unified China, has surpassed the total deaths during the wars waged between 1921 and 1949. The Communist Party applies Darwin’s inter-species competition to human relationships and human history. An excellent example of the Communist Party’s use of violence is its support of the Cambodian Khmer Rouge. Under the Khmer Rouge, a quarter of Cambodia’s population, including a maj
The Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party were first published in November of 2004, followed quickly by an English translation. In 15 years, the series has led over 300 million Chinese to renounce the communist party and its affiliated organizations, fostering an unprecedented peaceful movement for transformation and change in China. People continue to renounce the party every day. Here we republish the newly re-edited Nine Commentaries, linked to video versions produced by our partner media NTD Television. For the other Commentaries, please see the Table of Contents.
Foreword
For over 5,000 years, the Chinese people created a splendid civilization on the land nurtured by the Yellow River and the Yangtze River. During this long period of time, dynasties came and went, and the Chinese culture waxed and waned. Grand and moving stories have played out on the historical stage of China.
The year 1840, the year commonly considered by historians as the beginning of China’s contemporary era, marked the start of China’s journey from tradition to modernization. Chinese civilization experienced four major episodes of challenge and response. The first three episodes included the invasion of Beijing by the Anglo-French Allied Force in the early 1860s, the Sino-Japanese War in 1894 (also called the “Jiawu War”), and the Russo-Japanese War in China’s northeast in 1906.
To these three episodes of challenge, China responded first with the Westernization Movement, which was marked by the importation of modern goods and weapons.
China next responded with the institutional reforms in 1898 known as the Hundred Days’ Reform and the attempt at the end of the late Qing Dynasty (1644–1911) to establish constitutional rule. China’s third response, in 1911, was the Xinhai Revolution (or Hsinhai Revolution).[1]
At the end of the First World War, China, though it emerged victorious, was not listed among the stronger powers at that time. Many Chinese believed that the first three episodes of response had failed.
The May Fourth Movement[2] would lead to the fourth attempt at responding to the previous challenges and culminate in the complete westernization of Chinese culture through the communist movement and its extreme revolution.
This article concerns the outcome of the last episode, which is the communist movement and the Communist Party. Let’s take a close look at the result of what China chose, or perhaps one can say, what was imposed on China after over 160 years, nearly 100 million unnatural deaths, and the destruction of nearly all Chinese traditional culture and civilization.
I. Relying on Violence and Terror
“The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.”[3] This quote is taken from the concluding paragraph of the “Communist Manifesto,” the Communist Party’s principal document. Violence is the single, main means by which the Communist Party gained power. This character trait has been passed on to all subsequent forms of the Party that have arisen since its birth.
In fact, the world’s first Communist Party was established many years after Karl Marx’s death. The next year after the October Revolution in 1917, the “All Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik),” later to be known as the “Communist Party of the Soviet Union,” was born.
This party grew out of the use of violence against “class enemies” and was maintained through violence against party members and ordinary citizens. During Stalin’s purges in the 1930s, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union slaughtered over 20 million so-called spies and traitors and those thought to have unorthodox opinions.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) first started as a branch of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the Third Communist International. Therefore, it naturally inherited the willingness to kill.
During China’s first Communist-Kuomintang[4] civil war between 1927 and 1936, the population in Jiangxi Province dropped from over 20 million to about 10 million. The damage wrought by the CCP’s use of violence can be seen from these figures alone.
Using violence may be unavoidable when attempting to gain political power, but there has never been a regime as eager to kill as the CCP, especially during otherwise peaceful periods. The number of deaths caused by the CCP’s violence since 1949, when the CCP had won the civil war against the Kuomintang and unified China, has surpassed the total deaths during the wars waged between 1921 and 1949.
The Communist Party applies Darwin’s inter-species competition to human relationships and human history.
An excellent example of the Communist Party’s use of violence is its support of the Cambodian Khmer Rouge. Under the Khmer Rouge, a quarter of Cambodia’s population, including a majority of Chinese immigrants and their descendants, were murdered. China still blocks the international community from putting the Khmer Rouge on trial, so as to cover up the CCP’s notorious role in the genocide.
The CCP has had close connections with the world’s most brutal, revolutionary armed forces and despotic regimes. In addition to the Khmer Rouge, these have included the communist parties in Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Burma, Laos, and Nepal—all of which were established with the support of the CCP. Many leaders in these communist parties are Chinese; some of them are still hiding in China to this day.
Other Maoist-based communist parties include South America’s Shining Path and the Japanese Red Army, whose atrocities have been condemned by the world community.
One of the theories the communists employ is social Darwinism. The Communist Party applies Darwin’s inter-species competition to human relationships and human history, maintaining that class struggle is the only driving force for societal development.
Struggle, therefore, became the primary “belief” of the Communist Party, a tool in gaining and maintaining political control. For instance, a famous quote from Mao—”With 800 million people, how can it work without struggle?”— reveals the logic of “survival of the fittest.”
According to another similarly famous quote from Mao, the Cultural Revolution should be conducted “every seven or eight years.”[5] Repetitive use of force is an important means for the CCP to maintain its rule in China.
The goal of using force is to create terror. Every struggle and movement has served as an exercise in terror, so that the Chinese people tremble in their hearts, submit to the terror, and gradually become enslaved under the CCP’s control.
Today, terrorism has become the main enemy of the civilized and free world. The CCP’s exercise of violent terror, thanks to the apparatus of the state, has been larger in scale, much longer lasting, and its results more devastating. Today, in the 21st century, we should not forget this inherited character of the Communist Party, since it will definitely play a crucial role in the destiny of the CCP for some time into the future.
II. Using Lies to Justify Violence
The level of a regime’s civilization can be measured by the degree to which it uses violence. By resorting to the use of violence, the communist regimes clearly represent a huge step backward in the level of civilization. Unfortunately, the Communist Party has been seen as progressive by those who believe that violence is an essential and inevitable means to societal advancement.
This acceptance of violence has to be viewed as one result of an unrivaled and skillful employment of deception and lies by the Communist Party, which is another inherited trait of the CCP.
“Since a young age, we have thought of the U.S. as a lovable country. We believe this is partly due to the fact that the U.S. has never occupied China, nor has it launched any attacks on China. More fundamentally, the Chinese people hold good impressions of the U.S. based on the democratic and open-minded character of its people.”
This excerpt came from an editorial published on July 4, 1947, in the CCP’s official newspaper Xinhua Daily. A mere three years later, the CCP sent soldiers to fight American troops in North Korea and painted the Americans as the most evil imperialists in the world.
Every Chinese from mainland China would be astonished to read this editorial written over 50 years ago. The CCP has banned all publications quoting similar early passages and published rewritten versions.
[1] Xinhai Revolution (or Hsinhai Revolution), named for the Chinese year of Xinhai (1911), was the overthrow (Oct. 10, 1911–Feb. 12, 1912) of China’s ruling Qing Dynasty and the establishment of the Republic of China.
[2] The May Fourth Movement was the first mass movement in modern Chinese history, beginning on May 4, 1919.
[3] From Eserver.org.
[4] The Kuomintang (KMT) or Chinese Nationalist Party originated in 1912 and ruled much of China from 1928 until its defeat by the CCP in 1949.
[5] Mao Zedong’s letter to his wife Jiang Qing (1966).