How did communism conquer China?

How did a tiny band of guerrillas come to rule a quarter of humanity? And was the outcome of the Chinese Civil War really the heroic popular uprising that the People's Republic portrays? In this episode of the History Extra podcast, Danny Bird speaks to Frank Dakota about the surprising reality Behind the rise of the Communist Party of China, from its marginal beginnings in the 1920s and the myth of the Long March, to the decisive role of Stalin and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria in 1945. Together they explore how violence, propaganda and military conquest, rather than mass popular support, culminated in the raising of the red flag over the Forbidden City in 1949.

A lot of people may have grown up with the impression that the Chinese Communist Party's rise was almost heroic and the expression of widespread popular will. When you first started this project, what made you suspect that this story didn't quite add up? Well, I always suspected that the story didn't add up, and it started very much as an undergraduate student. We're talking 1980s, when I read a book called Red Star Over China by Edgar Snow.

He was a naive journalist from Missouri, United States. He was invited by Mao Zetong and the communist to join them and interview them. And of course, the book was enormously popular. translate into many languages and really put Mao and the Communists on the map. Now you've got to remember one thing.

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