From Rebel to Ruler: One Hundred Years of the Chinese Communist Party

by Tony Saich

On the centennial of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party, the definitive history of how Mao and his successors overcame incredible odds to gain and keep power.

Mao Zedong and the twelve other young men who founded the Chinese Communist Party in 1921 could hardly have imagined that less than thirty years later they would be rulers. On its hundredth anniversary, the party remains in command, leading a nation primed for global dominance.

Tony Saich tells the authoritative, comprehensive story of the Chinese Communist Party—its rise to power against incredible odds, its struggle to consolidate rule and overcome self-inflicted disasters, and its thriving amid other communist parties’ collapse. Saich argues that the brutal Japanese invasion in the 1930s actually helped the party. As the Communists retreated into the countryside, they established themselves as the populist, grassroots alternative to the Nationalists, gaining the support they would need to triumph in the civil war. Once in power, however, the Communists faced the difficult task of learning how to rule. Saich examines the devastating economic consequences of Mao’s Great Leap Forward and the political chaos of the Cultural Revolution, as well as the party’s rebound under Deng Xiaoping’s reforms.

Leninist systems are thought to be rigid, yet the Chinese Communist Party has proved adaptable. From Rebel to Ruler shows that the party owes its endurance to its flexibility. But is it nimble enough to realize Xi Jinping’s “China Dream”? Challenges are multiplying, as the growing middle class makes new demands on the state and the ideological retreat from communism draws the party further from its revolutionary roots. The legacy of the party may be secure, but its future is anything but guaranteed.

Genres: China, History, Politics, Nonfiction, Asia, World History

560 pages, Hardcover

Published July 6, 2021

Reviews

[Hadrian · Rating 4 out of 5]

A history of the Chinese Communist Party, timed to be published near the party's 100th anniversary. The Chinese Communist Party is the world's second largest political party (behind only India's BJP), and one of the most consequential political organizations in the world today, and so the book's subject matter recommends itself.

Saich's approach, as seen in his previous work such as Governance and Politics of China, is focused on organizations and institutions, or at least the relationship between the central leadership of the organization and conditions in the provinces and local areas. Saich calls this approach "micropolitics".

In short, as China is so large and control over such a large population is so difficult, the party has proven itself to adapt to differences at the city and the province level. Additionally, Saich describes periods of reform and retrenchment in the party's history. The CCP has moved between periods of relative tolerance and further control. Additionally, Saich describes the party as still being "Leninist" in structure - not because of a return to older Marxist doctrines, but the organizational structure of the party itself - an organized hierarchy that does not tolerate competitors.

Because of the book's approach on organizations, there is a slight de-emphasis given to some of the more outsized personalities that contributed to the party's development. The final chapter, "Legacies from the Past, Challenges for the Future", is a thoughtful analysis of the changing and contentious relationship between China and the United States, and the problems of predicting future changes from present conditions.

A valuable analysis on a topic of outsize importance.

[Javier · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will start by saying that as a primer history to the CPC (and to the PRC, actually) it's a 5/5. If someone asked me for a single book to get a sense of the history of either of them this would definitely be my choice. It's short and not difficult to read (as in, it does not really assume any prerequisite knowledge, not written having specialists in mind).

On the other hand, for me it would be a 4/5 because I found it to be lacking on details. The chapters on the earliest history of the CPC (pre-Long March) and the latest (post Jiang Zemin) were very enlightening, as I knew almost nothing about that period. But it taught me nothing new for the periods I knew something about.

I was not expecting extra insights on periods where I read the nowadays considered the "core" (e.g. "Mao's Last Revolution" for elite politics the Cultural Revolution), taking into account that this book has to be more limited in scope for each specific topic. But even for affairs where I knew nothing about (e.g. Gao Gan's affair) this book was not particularly helpful in throwing more light into it.

To sum up, read it if you know nothing about the CPC, the PRC or nothing about a specific period of those. If for a certain period you have engaged with the existing literature and you are not looking for a good summary, then you could safely skip the related chapter in this book.

[andré crombie]

Notes: Strongly recommend reading a more traditional history of the period before diving into this one. It’s a very thorough accounting of the CCP but often jumps around in time, skipping over major events to focus purely on the impact those events had on the development of the party. One small example — in the early chapters the party is founded, grows, factionalizes, is purged by the GMD, militarizes, etc. All of this is very interesting! But at no point do I understand how we went from Point A to Point B (in fact, it seems as though the Red Army appears from thin air) — the timeline and sequence of events is just a bit too floaty and untethered, not just at the beginning but throughout. Not giving this one a rating because it feels like a fault of my selection, rather than the book itself. Need to do more learning!

[George Murray · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would have preferred something a little more in depth but there’s still a lot of good stuff here. The CCP is an incredibly enigmatic organization, and I think it’s still up in the air whether they succeed or fail, or more specifically what a CCP success or a CCP failure would look like. Still, this does a good job of showing how we got here, even if true demystification is kind of impossible at this point in time.

[Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pretty thorough history of the Chinese Communist Party. The book taught me a lot and was very accessible for general audiences.

[Mary Agnes Joens · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've wanted to read a comprehensive overview of CCP history for a while, since while obviously China is a massively important global player and US-China relations are all over the news all the time, I don't actually have that great an understanding of what the CCP is and how it operates. While the structure and language of this book were at times confusing and I think some more editing and occasionally more context for the specific events discussed may have been warranted, this was a solid high-level analysis of the key themes in party's expansive and complicated history. While 100 years of such a massive, influential, complex organization is hard to summarize in 500 or so pages and I'm sure we're barely scratching the surface, this was a good jumping-off point and I feel like if I go on and read more detailed histories or analyses of events and individuals in recent Chinese history, this will have provided a lot of good background information to contextualize them.

[Sean Cavanaugh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thought it would be more of a history of the PRC, but it really is a history of the CCP: most major events are described in a few sentences at best, and the real emphasis is on which meetings were called in response and which party factions came out on top.

Definitely an instructive read for me, but I probably learned more from the dozens of Wikipedia articles I read to keep up with the text than I did the book itself.

[Carina · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well presented, well researched survey of the CCP. It is no fault of the author that I simply lost interest during the chapters on the Glorious Revolution (I think mostly because I left it at home during vacation and then Christmas). My copy needs to go back to its library; hopefully one day I will revisit and finish reading everything.

[Dylan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tony Saich’s book opens with a formidable question: how has the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) gone from a ragtag militia of disaffected intellectuals to the most powerful governing institution on the planet? The answer to this question is hardly clear-cut. Like the CCP’s mythologized Long March during the Chinese Civil War, Saich illustrates how the history of the Party is filled with unexpected twists and turns between moments of immense triumph and the depths of catastrophic failure. From the outset, the challenges for Saich in presenting this history are immense. For one, he aims to present a single, concise, and authoritative account to a century of history mired in deep scholarly debate. Moreover, the expansive scope of the CCP’s interests to influence society compared to most political parties necessitates Saich examine material that goes well beyond the traditional bounds of most political historiographies. The success of From Rebel to Ruler lies in its ability to deliver on these aims in a digestible single volume without breaking too many pieces of China — or rather components of the story critical to understanding the rise to power of the CCP. Overall, Saich presents a lucid presentation of history that is grounded in restraint and thoughtful consideration. In hewing so close to scholarly consensus, however, he at times glosses over significant disagreements with the academe that somewhat undermines the credibility of his argumentation.

[Diana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Largely an economic history, and definitely an internal party history, this hefty tome is enlightening in terms of the differences between the Chinese Communist Party and other socialist parties. I also found it to be clear in showing the many times that the party has turned on its own and rewritten Chinese history. What I was surprised it didn't much cover: Forced labor, political persecution of those outside the party, human rights issues, and just what the party does provide for the people of China. (How can any socialist movement separate itself from labor? How can any socialist government fail to provide its citizens with basics like healthcare? How on earth do you talk about China's economy and trade without talking about forced labor?) (And how do you trust polls of citizen satisfaction with the party when the party controls everything, including those polls?)

[Edwin Goh Wei Qian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book at a time when Sino-US decoupling is increasingly intensive. This book provides a thorough overview of the CCP history and its influence on society and culture. Consuming all this knowledge and nuances about different CCP leaderships really makes me reflect about the idea that China is not anti-democracy but a-democracy. And when applying this understanding, perhaps it is unfair for some "geopolitical analysts' to view them through the lens of a democratic nation.

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

* Early CCP history doesn’t tell you much about modern day CCP, but it does make the story it tells itself legible
* The CCP was organized in a way where to things are rewarded:
* * Loyalty
* * Performance
* The CCPs has experimented with figuring out the peoples’ opinions in local elections and being tolerant of localized, siloed protests, but anything larger gets snuffed out

[Scott Milliken · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won’t lie, this book is written from the point of view of a very high level academic and so does not always make for enthralling reading, especially in the first hundred pages (my God, Communists are so fucking boring). But if you can get to the Japanese invasion, it only gets better and more interesting as you go. Extremely informative and down the middle account.

[Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good but basic overview of the most important political institution of modern China

[Greg Boyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

An efficient concise history of the CCP. The central argument is nothing new or creative but that doesn’t diminish its cogency

[Peyton · Rating 4 out of 5]

8/10

[Joao · Rating 4 out of 5]

nice, a little too long but i understand as its the nature of the book

[Aaron · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't know anything about the communist party in China now I do

[A · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good stuff though rather episodic, so I felt frequently dropped into historically significant situations rather than getting the where drifts and trends were coming from. Perhaps that would be more true of the frequently opaque rising and falling of the Chinese elite from 1960-1980.... still, it felt fair and i learned a lot. As usual, focused most on Cultural Revolution coming in and going out.