The communist victory in 1949 brought to power a peasant party that had learned its techniques in the countryside but had adopted Marxist ideology and believed in class strug… See more

During this initial period, the CCP made great strides toward bringing the country through three critical transitions: from economic prostration to economic growth, from politic… See more

The period 1953–57, corresponding to the First Five-Year Plan, was the beginning of China’s rapid industrialization, and it is still regarded as having been enormously successful. … See more

The pressures behind the dramatic inauguration in 1958 of “Three Red Banners”—i.e., the general line of socialist construction, the Great Leap Forward, and the rural pe… See more