“Without ideological struggles, the Party’s life would come to an end"

The Chinese Communist Party and its internal debates between the years 1920 and 1927

Abstract

The present essay deals with the early history of the CCP (1920-1927), analyzing notably the long and not linear formation process of the party machine, from the local groups and study societies still linked to the May Fourth Movement up to the political cells, which became a more suitable organizational form for a mass party. Following Arif Dirlik and Hans van de Ven’s groundbreaking studies, this text argues that the genesis of the CCP as a fully developed Marxist-Leninist organization took years and went through countless inner debates; those lively disputes prove also the existence of a pluralist principle hidden in the seemingly monolithic structure of the party. After a hundred years, it may be worth exploring how the CCP was shaped at the beginning and how much room for open discussions and dissent there was, also in order to make a comparison with today.