Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party in the context of "Monument to the People's Heroes"

The Communist Party of China (CPC), commonly known as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is the founding and ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Founded in 1921, the CCP won the Chinese Civil War against the Kuomintang and proclaimed the establishment of the PRC under the chairmanship of Mao Zedong in October 1949. The CCP has since governed China and has had sole control over the country's armed forces and law enforcement. As of 2024, the CCP has more than 100 million members, making it the second largest political party by membership in the world.

In 1921, Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao founded the CCP with the help of the Far Eastern Bureau of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and Far Eastern Bureau of the Communist International. Although the CCP aligned with the Kuomintang (KMT) during its initial years, the rise of the KMT's right-wing under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek and subsequent massacres of tens of thousands of CCP members resulted in a split and a prolonged civil war between the CCP and KMT. During the next ten years of guerrilla warfare, Mao Zedong rose to become the most influential figure in the CCP and the party established a strong base among the rural peasantry with its land reform policies. Support for the CCP continued to grow throughout the Second Sino-Japanese War. After the Japanese surrender in 1945, the CCP emerged triumphant in the communist revolution against the Nationalist government. The CCP established the People's Republic of China on 1 October 1949 and the remnants of the Nationalist government retreated to Taiwan shortly after.

The general secretary of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (Chinese: 中国共产党中央委员会总书记; pinyin: Zhōngguó Gòngchǎndǎng Zhōngyāng Wěiyuánhuì Zǒngshūjì) is the leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The general secretary leads the CCP Central Committee. Since 1989, the CCP general secretary has been the paramount leader of the PRC.

The position of the general secretary of the Central Committee was established at the 4th Party National Congress in 1925, when Chen Duxiu, one of the founders of the CCP, was elected as the first General Secretary. After the 7th National Congress, the position was replaced by the Chairman of the Central Committee, which was held by Mao Zedong until his death in 1976. The post was re-established at the 12th National Congress in 1982 and replaced the Party Chairman as the highest leadership position of the CCP; Hu Yaobang was the first General Secretary. Since Jiang Zemin's leadership in the 1990s, the holder of the post has been, except for transitional periods, the president of China, making the holder the state representative, and the chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), the supreme commander of the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

Mao Zedong (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976) was a Chinese politician, communist revolutionary, and political theorist who founded the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949 and led the country from its establishment until his death in 1976. Mao served as chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1943 until his death, and as the party's de facto leader from 1935. His theories, which he advocated as a Chinese adaptation of Marxism–Leninism, are known as Maoism.

Born to a peasant family in Shaoshan, Hunan, Mao studied in Changsha and was influenced by the 1911 Revolution and ideas of Chinese nationalism and anti-imperialism. He was introduced to Marxism while working as a librarian at Peking University, and later participated in the May Fourth Movement of 1919. In 1921, Mao became a founding member of the CCP. After the start of the Chinese Civil War between the Kuomintang (KMT) and CCP, Mao led the failed Autumn Harvest Uprising in Hunan in 1927, and in 1931 founded the Jiangxi Soviet. He helped build the Chinese Red Army, and developed a strategy of guerilla warfare. In 1935, Mao became leader of the CCP during the Long March, a military retreat to the Yan'an Soviet in Shaanxi, where the party began rebuilding its forces. The CCP allied with the KMT in the Second United Front at the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, but the civil war resumed after Japan's surrender in 1945. In 1949, Mao's forces defeated the Nationalist government, which withdrew to Taiwan.

The Cambodian genocide was the systematic persecution and killing of Cambodian citizens by the Khmer Rouge under the general secretaryship of Pol Pot. It resulted in the deaths of 1.5 to 2 million people from 1975 to 1979, nearly 25% of Cambodia's population in 1975 (c. 7.8 million).

Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were supported for many years by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), led by Chairman Mao Zedong; it is estimated that at least 90% of the foreign aid which the Khmer Rouge received came from China, including at least US$1 billion in interest-free economic and military aid in 1975 alone. After it seized power in April 1975, the Khmer Rouge wanted to turn the country into an agrarian socialist republic, founded on the policies of ultra-Maoism and influenced by the Cultural Revolution. Pol Pot and other Khmer Rouge officials met with Mao in Beijing in June 1975, receiving approval and advice, while high-ranking CCP officials such as Politburo Standing Committee member Zhang Chunqiao later visited Cambodia to offer help. To fulfill its goals, the Khmer Rouge emptied the cities and marched Cambodians to labor camps in the countryside, where mass executions, forced labor, physical abuse, torture, malnutrition, and disease were rampant. In 1976, the Khmer Rouge renamed the country Democratic Kampuchea.

The proclamation of the People's Republic of China was made by Mao Zedong, the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), on October 1, 1949, in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The government of a new state under the CCP, formally called the Central People's Government, was proclaimed by Mao at the ceremony, which marked the foundation of the People's Republic of China.

Previously, the CCP had proclaimed the establishment of the Chinese Soviet Republic (CSR) within the discontinuous territories of China they controlled, on November 7, 1931, in Ruijin. The CSR had lasted seven years until it was abolished in 1937.

The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC). It was launched by CCP chairman Mao Zedong in 1966 and lasted until his death in 1976. Its stated goal was to preserve Chinese communism by purging remnants of capitalist and traditional elements from Chinese society.

In May 1966, with the help of the Cultural Revolution Group, Mao launched the Revolution and said that bourgeois elements had infiltrated the government and society with the aim of restoring capitalism. Mao called on young people to bombard the headquarters, and proclaimed that "to rebel is justified". Mass upheaval began in Beijing with Red August in 1966. Many young people, mainly students, responded by forming cadres of Red Guards throughout the country. Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung became revered within his cult of personality. In 1967, emboldened radicals began seizing power from local governments and party branches, establishing new revolutionary committees in their place while smashing public security, procuratorate and judicial systems. These committees often split into rival factions, precipitating armed clashes among the radicals. After the fall of Lin Biao in 1971, the Gang of Four became influential in 1972, and the Revolution continued until Mao's death in 1976, soon followed by the arrest of the Gang of Four.

The People's Republic of China emerged as a great power and one of the three big players in the tri-polar geopolitics (PRC-US-USSR) during the Cold War, after the Korean War in 1950–1953 and the Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s, with its status as a recognized nuclear weapons state. Currently, China has one of the world's largest populations, second largest GDP (nominal) and the largest economy in the world by PPP.

In 1950–1953 it fought an undeclared war in Korea against the United States. Until the late 1950s it was allied with the Soviet Union but by 1960 they began a bitter contest for control over the local communist movement in many countries. It reached détente with the United States in 1972. After Chinese Communist Party chairman Mao Zedong died in 1976, Deng Xiaoping led a massive process of industrialization and emphasized trade relations with the world, while maintaining a low key, less ideological foreign policy, widely described by the phrase Taoguang Yanghui, or "hide one's talent and bide one's time". The Chinese economy grew very rapidly giving it steadily increasing power and ambition.