Arduous Journey.docVIP

Arduous Journey 　　The Communist Party of China （CPC） was founded in Shanghai in 1921. Its first congress， held in July that year， lasted for nine days. Thirteen people attended， of whom one was a Russian advisor， and another was a Dutch international Communist movement activist. After seven days， the meeting was disrupted by French Concession police. It had to be reconvened in a barge in neighboring Zhejiang Province. 　　The Party at that time had only a few dozen members. Ninety-five years on， it has almost 90 million. It is the ruling party in a country which has the world’s second largest economy. This is one of the most remarkable histories of any major political movement of the modern era. And yet， even in the second decade of the 21st century， the precise nature， role and function of the CPC often confuse outside observers. 　　Part of that confusion is simply from the word “party.” In Western multi-party democracies， political parties occupy parts of the spectrum from the left （broadly， more government involvement in economic and social affairs） to the right （less state involvement）. The CPC within itself occupies all of this territory. It offers a home for a huge diversity of opinion. In that sense， conceptualizing it for Western political theorists， commentators， politicians and analysts is challenging. It sometimes looks more like a social movement， or a knowledge community， or a cultural movement. In some ways， it is all of these things. The ways in which it functions， the principles on which it operates， and how it relates to other parts of Chinese society have particularities that are often hard to convey in an easy to understand way for outsiders because of our lack of an adequate language by which to capture what precisely the CPC is. 　　What is more easily understood are the ways in which the CPC has presided over one of the greatest phases of wealth creation the world has ever known. This is the achievement it is most recognized for internationa