Could China still go Communist without the USSR?

WI: Russia never goes communist after WW1, preventing the USSR from ever coming into existence. Is it possible that the communists could still win the Chinese civil war?
 
Without a large regime attempting to operate in practice, Marxism is little more than blue sky ideology. Some of the closest examples in practice were faith-based communal towns in the American Midwest, all of which abandoned their experiments.
 
Without a large regime attempting to operate in practice, Marxism is little more than blue sky ideology. Some of the closest examples in practice were faith-based communal towns in the American Midwest, all of which abandoned their experiments.

But why does Russia have to be the first? Why couldn't China be?
 
WI: Russia never goes communist after WW1, preventing the USSR from ever coming into existence. Is it possible that the communists could still win the Chinese civil war?
They pretty much did without the USSR helping. And they even diverged from it's ideology to more focused on rural areas than Urban, like the USSR. To be honest, while I don't think the idea of a nation wholly guiding itself with Marx will be a thing,I don't doubt that China could be led by a party that is pretty left wing. Though it would really depend on the individuals who take power and their ideas, and if they have the power to bring those ideas to the fullest.
 
A lack of the USSR has major butterflies not just on the Chinese Communist Movement but also the Republican Chinese Movement, since Soviet aid in the 20's and 30's was a surprisingly important part of how the nationalist movement turned out and our hypothetical alternative Russia might not be so enthusiastic in supporting them or might prefer to back up some other faction. So who knows?
 
But why does Russia have to be the first? Why couldn't China be?
Russia had the problem with despotic church-state rule. If China started first, faith-based issues would scarcely be considered and the world opinion of socialism will not evoke as much fear as it did in OTL America.
 
One problem is that people today identify "communism" with Marxism or to be more precise with the left wing of the Russian Social-Democracy represented by the Bolsheviks--and its disciples in other countries. But that was not how the word "communism" was used before 1917. It mostly referred to anarchists, not Marxists. And that was true in China as well:

"The earliest thinkers in China to advocate communism by means of a revolutionary overthrow of current society were a handful of radical anarchist intellectuals. The most famous was Liu Shifu (1884-1915) who in July 1914 established an 'Anarchist Communist Comrade Society', which advocated establishing a stateless society by means of a general strike. Influenced by the rise of anarchist ideas, the May Fourth Movement of 1919, which encompassed the New Culture Movement, was broadly anarchist in its politics, and this facilitated the birth of a Chinese communist party .." https://books.google.com/books?id=ZMd7AgAAQBAJ&pg=PT264

So a Marxist China is very unlikely without the Bolshevik Revolution--but a "communist" China is not inconceivable, though in China as elsewhere I would put the odds of anarcho-communists succeeding as low.
 
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Lusitania

Donor
Without a large regime attempting to operate in practice, Marxism is little more than blue sky ideology. Some of the closest examples in practice were faith-based communal towns in the American Midwest, all of which abandoned their experiments.
Actually that is not correct the Hutterite comunal communities in northwest US and Canadian prairie provinces are not only surviving but thriving. Each colony of several dozen families works together, eats together and these farming communities are very large and profitable. Unlike state sponsored communism they are open and anyone can leave if they wish. They interact with outside world very successfully
 
Actually that is not correct the Hutterite comunal communities in northwest US and Canadian prairie provinces are not only surviving but thriving. Each colony of several dozen families works together, eats together and these farming communities are very large and profitable. Unlike state sponsored communism they are open and anyone can leave if they wish. They interact with outside world very successfully

Several dozen families are hardly "thriving". From what I have read if there are 2,000 of them that is a lot. Without state power backing them up, it would be hard for them to prevent someone from leaving. To be honest I doubt they would anyway as they sound pacifistic.
 
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Lusitania

Donor
Several dozen families are hardly "thriving". From what I have read if there are 2,000 of them that is a lot. Without state power backing them up, it would be hard for them to prevent someone from leaving. To be honest I doubt they would anyway as they sound pacifistic.
When you have hundreds of communities across the prairies of both the US and Canada and their communities are growing and they are establishing new communities yes they are thriving. This is a religious comunal community. The true meaning of communism. I posted this to counter the comment they not exist or gone.

Also the size of their communities is based on the need for people to run their farms or business. When population grows too large they break off and establish new community.

I posted about free to leave to state they not some group that forces its people to stay. They are seen shopping or in cities on business all the time and can leave if they wish.
 
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When you have hundreds of communities across the prairies of both the US and Canada and their communities are growing and they are establishing new communities yes they are thriving. This is a religious comunal community. The true meaning of communism. I posted this to counter the comment they not exist or gone.

Also the size of their communities is based on the need for people to run their farms or business. When population grows too large they break off and establish new community.

I posted about free to leave to state they not some group that forces its people to stay. They are seen shopping or in cities on business all the time and can leave if they wish.

When I looked them up on their own web site there was an average of 15 families in these colonies not "dozens". If there are 100 of these colonies you are talking around 8,000 or so. In a country of 300 million that isn't much. Not surprising as I never heard of them before.
 

Lusitania

Donor
When I looked them up on their own web site there was an average of 15 families in these colonies not "dozens". If there are 100 of these colonies you are talking around 8,000 or so. In a country of 300 million that isn't much. Not surprising as I never heard of them before.
Actually there are over 43,000 people scattered over 450 communities in northern US northern plains and Canadian prairies.

I find it hard to understand your attitude if dismissing them as true communism communities since they represent communal living which was what communism is about. That they continue to grown in size and number of communities means they are true communist communities where state sponsored communism is dying and only states surviving are those being kept together by force.

That you have not heard of them is because they are not concentrated close high density population places and are not out there recruiting new members or converting. Since they live in modern communities, use modern farming practices and so forth you would not know if their existence unless you see them for they are dressed differently than typical North American.
 
Actually there are over 43,000 people scattered over 450 communities in northern US northern plains and Canadian prairies.

I find it hard to understand your attitude if dismissing them as true communism communities since they represent communal living which was what communism is about. That they continue to grown in size and number of communities means they are true communist communities where state sponsored communism is dying and only states surviving are those being kept together by force.

That you have not heard of them is because they are not concentrated close high density population places and are not out there recruiting new members or converting. Since they live in modern communities, use modern farming practices and so forth you would not know if their existence unless you see them for they are dressed differently than typical North American.

I'm dismissing them as unimportant not that they aren't Communists. 45,000 in a two countries with over 300 million between them is hardly a mass movement.
 
They pretty much did without the USSR helping. And they even diverged from it's ideology to more focused on rural areas than Urban, like the USSR. To be honest, while I don't think the idea of a nation wholly guiding itself with Marx will be a thing,I don't doubt that China could be led by a party that is pretty left wing. Though it would really depend on the individuals who take power and their ideas, and if they have the power to bring those ideas to the fullest.

Didn't the USSR re supply the Chinese communists in Manchuria?
 
No actually they took everything that the Japanese had put there such as machinery and vehicles left the area desolate and turned it over to the nationalist government

A post of mine from a few months ago:

***

It is true that in 1945 Stalin cautioned Mao against starting a civil war prematurely (Mao had wanted to seize major cities after the Japanese surrender before Chiang's forces could get to them) but it is not true that Stalin did not aid the CCP until 1948:

"In Manchuria, the CCP immediately began the process of incorporating 75,000 former Manchukuo puppet troops into its forces as well as thousands of other fresh recruits from the mass of unemployed Manchurian youth and the 80,000 or so bandits roaming the mountains. Meanwhile, the Soviets were quickly turning over to the Chinese Communists a huge collection of liberated Japanese weapons and military supplies. The Red Army sent the more advanced weapons and machinery back to the USSR and kept older Japanese tanks and artillery in an arsenal on the Sino-Mongolian border at Manzhouli to be turned over later. They also gave the Chinese Communists a number of captured Japanese armament factories, and the CCP itself found several underground arsenal that the Soviets had missed.

"With reports probably provided by Okamura, Chiang knew how many Japanese weapons and other items the Soviets had captured. In addition to huge numbers of rifles, ammunition, grenades, and small mortars, the take included 925 fighter planes, 360 tanks, 2,600 cannon, 8,900 machine guns, 100,000 horses, and 21,000 'logistical vehicles.' Chiang of course inherited probably even larger arsenals from those Japanese south of the Great Wall. Contrary to Mao's later insistence that after V-J Day Stalin abandoned the CCP until the fall of 1947, books from the Publishing House of CCP Historical Materials, articles in official Chinese Communist journals, as well as Soviet archival material recount at length the extensive and deep Soviet-CCP cooperation that began with the Soviet Red Army invasion of Manchuria. In late August, however, Stalin kept up the charade, telling Harriman that the Red Army in its sweep through Manchuria had not encountered any Chinese Communist forces. Stalin said he expected the Chinese government would soon send troops to take over the Manchurian cities..." https://books.google.com/books?id=DUg2KGMQWHQC&pg=PA317 https://books.google.com/books?id=DUg2KGMQWHQC&pg=PA318

Stalin's goal in 1945 was to get US troops out of China as soon as possible, and for that reason he had to project the image of supporting a united China under Chiang Kai-shek's leadership. But at the same time he was giving substantial if discreet aid to the CCP. This aid continued in 1946-47. As summarized by Michael M. Sheng, Battling Western Imperialism: Mao, Stalin, and the United States, pp. 155-6:

"The other side of the coin of CCP hostility toward the United States was the intimate relationship between the CCP and Moscow, which both sides involved tried to conceal as much as possible. In the face of the GMD-CCP civil war raging throughout the nation, the United States continued to assist the GMD overtly, while the Soviet Union was covertly backing the CCP with military supplies and diplomatic coordination. This CCP-Moscow vs. GMD-Washington conflict continued throughout 1946-47, which was an important part of the hidden history of the cold war in Asia.

"According to recent CCP sources of information, Soviet material support to the CCP after the withdrawal of the Red Army was essentially delivered from the city of Dalian and North Korea, both of which were under Soviet direct control. For instance, Xiao Jingguang, the deputy commander of CCP forces in Manchuria, went to Dalian in July 1946 to arrange the Party's military production in the city. At the time, the GMD had occupied the south of the Songhua (Sungari) River, which made it impossible to keep the CCP troops in southern Manchuria supplied from the northern base. The only point in southern Manchuria which could keep producing military supplies for the CCP forces was Dalian, because it was occupied by the Soviets. Xiao went there, and was pleased to find that, from the head of the police force to the head of the financial department, all administrative posts of the municipal government were in the hands of Communist cadres. Relying upon the. cadres, CCP military production in that city was well maintained throughout the period of the civil war. There are no available statistics on the volume of Dalian's military production for the CCP's war effort during these years. According to Xiao, however, it made a great contribution to the victory in the Liberation War'.

"The other place which served as the source of the CCP's military supplies was North Korea. After his trip to Dalian, Xiao spent two months in North Korea to establish the 'Delegation of the Northeast Bureau to Korea' (Dong-beiju zhu chaoxian banshichu), known publicly as the Pyongyang Limin Company. It had four branches in Korea, whose main task was to organize the supply, storage, and transportation of military materials for the CCP forces. Zhu Lizhi, later the deputy of the Logistics Department of the CCP forces in Manchuria, was in charge of this 'Limin Company.' The number of people working in one of the branches exceeded five hundred at one time. According to incomplete statistics, in the first seven months of 1947, there were 210,000 tons of war materials transferred to the CCP through North Korea. The figure in 1948 increased to 300,900 tons. Before the 'Company' was closed in February 1949, it obtained enough military cargo from the Soviet—North Korea source to fill more than 2,000 rail cars to ship to Manchuria. It also helped the CCP Shandong logistics department to buy and ship military supplies from North Korea...."

As Sheng notes (p. 15) "In numerous occasions after Stalin's death Mao purposely discredited Stalin's contribution to the CCP cause, thereby creating a myth that Stalin was always wrong in his China policy, and Mao was always correct and he resisted Stalin and saved the CCP revolution single-handedly. The myth of Mao's own making has been influential in the western scholarship in the field..." https://books.google.com/books?id=HZJcxq1DIOYC&pg=PA15
 
They pretty much did without the USSR helping. And they even diverged from it's ideology to more focused on rural areas than Urban, like the USSR.

People here continually underestimate the importance of the ties between the CCP and Moscow. With regard to Soviet material assistance, see my post at https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...munist-without-the-ussr.473591/#post-19365108 I was speaking there of Manchuria and the postwar situation but of course Soviet (or Comintern) aid to the CCP long antedated that. For example, in 1936:

"Accordingly, Mao outlined a new plan on 8 November. He called off the hopeless Ningxia campaign, and ordered the Fourth Front Army of 21,000 men to reorganize into the Western Route Army (xilunjun) whose task was to reach Hami in one year. Mao reported his plan to Moscow the same day. Within a week, Mao cabled the ECCI [Executive Committee of the Communist International] twice, appealing for an emergency cash delivery, for the CCP troops were desperately in need of food and winter clothing. Mao cried out in his 9 November cable that more soldiers would die of starvation and hypothermia daily, should the Soviet aid fail to arrive quickly. Moscow responded immediately on 12 November, promising a cash shipment of 550,000 U.S. dollars, of which $150,000 would be delivered to Madam Song Qingling in Shanghai. This shipment reached Mao early in December.

"At the same time, the Soviets were actively piling up military aid in the Central Asian region, and Stalin promised to deliver a shipment including 90 tanks and 90 heavy artillery pieces from Xinjiang. Together, 50 Soviet-trained Chinese military experts would be sent back with these weapons. The CCP's Western Route Army, however, failed to reach Xinjiang, and it was wiped out by the Muslim forces in the northwest early in 1937. To compensate for this failed undertaking, Moscow increased its cash flow. On 2 March 1937, the ECCI informed Mao that a cash shipment of $800,000 (U.S. dollars) would be delivered, and another shipment of the same amount would follow.

"Stalin's generous assistance to Mao saved the CCP from total destruction, and Mao and his colleagues had good reasons to repeat publicly and privately that without Soviet assistance there would have been no chance for the Chinese revolution to succeed..." https://books.google.com/books?id=HZJcxq1DIOYC&pg=PA29

As for the rural strategy supposedly being a departure from the Soviet line: "The so-called 'rural strategy,' which has been attributed to Mao, had in fact originated in Moscow, and Mao only followed the Comintern's policy to organize and arm the peasantry. As early as 1924, Borodin, discouraged by Sun's conservatism, proposed that the CCP go to the countryside to disarm landlords, to organize peasants, and to confiscate large estates to redistribute land to the landless. In late 1926, Stalin urged the CCP to radicalize the peasant movement, and to discard 'the fear that the aggravation of the class struggle in the countryside will weaken the united anti-imperialist front.' Mao's 'Report on Hunan's Peasant Movement' in early 1927 became well known only because the Comintern-CCP leadership supported it..." https://books.google.com/books?id=HZJcxq1DIOYC&pg=PA17
 
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