From Friend to Comrade: The Founding of the Chinese Communist Party, 1920-1927

by Hans van de Ven

Scholars have long held that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was a centralized organization from its founding in 1921. In a departure from that view, From Friend to Comrade demonstrates how the CCP began as a group of study societies, only evolving into a mass Marxist-Leninist party by 1927.

Hans J. van de Ven's study is based on party documents of the 1920s that have only recently become available, as well as the writings of a wide range of Chinese communists. He analyzes the party's difficulty in building a cohesive organization firmly rooted in Chinese society. While past scholarship has emphasized the influence of Soviet communism on the CCP, van de Ven stresses the thinking and actions of Chinese communists themselves, placing their struggle in the context of China's political history and highly complex society.

Genres: China, History, Nonfiction

384 pages, Hardcover

First published February 26, 1992

About the author

Johan 'Hans' van de Ven is an authority on the history of 19th and 20th century China. He holds several positions at the University of Cambridge, where he is Professor of Modern Chinese History, Director in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at St Catharine's College and previously served as Chair of the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. He studied sinology at Leiden University. Then, after studying with Susan Naquin at the University of Pennsylvania for a period of time, he moved to Harvard University, where he studied modern Chinese history under Philip Kuhn and received his PhD.

Van de Ven has particularly focused on the history of the Chinese Communist Party, Chinese warfare, the Chinese Maritime Customs Service and the history of globalization in modern China.

Van de Ven is a guest professor at the History Department of Nanjing University and was an International Fellow at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center, China, in 2005–06. In 2019, he was appointed as an honorary visiting professor at the Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences at Peking University.

He was awarded the Philip Lilienthal Prize of the University of California Press for best first book in Asian Studies for his book on the founding of the Chinese Communist Party in 1991 and the Society for Military History 2012 Book Prize for non-US work for the book The Battle for China, which he edited along with Mark Peattie and Edward Drea.

Van de Ven is married to Susan Kerr. They have three sons—Johan, Derek and Willem. His wife's father was the late Malcolm H. Kerr, political scientist and President of the American University of Beirut, who was assassinated in January 1984. She wrote a book about her family's quest for truth and justice. Van de Ven is the brother-in-law of Steve Kerr, coach of the Golden State Warriors, former Arizona Wildcats and Chicago Bulls player.

Reviews

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting argument about how the CCP went from a party of individuals with some interest in Marxism-Leninism to an institutionally and ideologically Leninist party. Unfortunately, this interesting structuralist argument is somewhat swamped by a large amount of details that are not always relevant. Very good book for people who specialize in the CCP or in 20th century China, but would not recommend to non-specialists.

More fun to discuss than to read.

[Vanrik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mostly dry. But it was interesting to see how the initial Chinese communists were mostly idealists in their approach and first initial reaction to the October Revolution.

[Ting · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting points: radically different from Arif Dirlik's memoir-based study. Organisationally, it started with autonomous study groups and intellectual circles, and only became a party with national presence from a tragic incident which sparked workers' responses from various regions including Hong Kong. And from the very beginning, ideologically, Chinese communism did prefer Leninist style revolution to Marxism.

[Meihan Liu · Rating 5 out of 5]

New perspective on the continuity and discontinuity between the May Fourth and the founding of the CCP in terms of "local community".