Party building

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The Communist Party Monthly: The first theoretical publication under the leadership of the Party

Release date:

2021-03-23

"The Communist Party" is a semi-public theoretical publication founded by the Shanghai Initiating Group of the Communist Party of China in November 1920. It ceased publication in 1921 and published a total of 7 issues (only 1 to 6 issues have been seen so far). The 16-edition edition, with about 50 pages per issue, does not indicate the address of editing, printing and distribution, but each issue publishes advertisements and essentials in New Youth, falsely claiming to be sold in Guangzhou. In fact, the editorial department is located at No. 625, Fudeli, French Concession, Shanghai, that is, the residence of editor-in-chief Li Da. At its peak, the monthly circulation of the Communist Party reached more than 5,000 copies.

Most of the authors of the monthly Communist Party are members of the Shanghai initiation group, such as Chen Duxiu (TS), Shen Yanbing (P. Y), Li Da (Jiang Chun, Hu Yan), etc., all written under pseudonyms. The short words written by Chen Duxiu, published in the first issue, express the central idea of the Manifesto of the Communist Party of China drawn up by the Shanghai initiating group. He pointed out that Chinese workers, whether abroad or at home, are slaves of capitalists. "If we want to completely rescue our compatriots from the slave situation, we must combine all the production workers and use revolutionary means to overthrow all the capital in our country and foreign countries. Class, it is not necessary to experiment new production methods with the Russian Communist Party"; this new method is to "use the system of labor dictatorship to support the labor regime, building a nation of workers so that there is no nation".

The content of the monthly "Communist Party" mainly has three aspects: one is to publicize the knowledge about the construction of the Communist Party, introduce the situation of the Third International and the international communist movement, literature and materials, especially the experience of the Russian Communist Party and Lenin's works. The second is to discuss the road of the Chinese revolution and the party's program strategy, demonstrate that only socialism and communism can save China, advocate the unity of the proletariat, establish the Russian Bolshevik-style Communist Party of China, and use revolutionary means to seize power as the foundation for social transformation. Means to refute anti-Marxist thoughts such as bourgeois reformism and anarchism. The third is to publicize Marxism to the masses of workers, peasants and soldiers and report on the development of the domestic workers' movement.

In the era of the reactionary rule of the warlord government, the monthly "Communist Party" clearly played the banner of the Communist Party, and played a role in propagating, organizing and promoting the preparation of the Communist Party of China. Because the journal was a product of meeting the needs of party building, it was warmly welcomed by the early communists as soon as it was published. At that time, it was listed as a must-read material by the early party organizations in various places and was widely circulated among a large number of revolutionaries. The "Marxist Theory Research Association" led by Li Dazhao recommend this publication to members and progressive students in a "notice. While Mao Zedong organized communists to study the "Communist Party" in Changsha, he also recommend articles such as "The History of the Russian Communist Party" and "The History of Lenin" to Changsha's "Ta Kung Pao" for publication. In 1921, when Mao Zedong wrote to Cai Hesen, who was a work-study program in France, about the issue of party building, he enthusiastically praised "Shanghai's" Communist Party "magazine, which is quite worthy of the four words" clear-cut ".

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