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Making Revolution: The Communist Movement in Eastern and Central China, 1937–1945 offers an in-depth analysis of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) dramatic transformation from a marginalized political force to a dominant revolutionary power. Centered on the CCP's activities in central and eastern China—regions pivotal to their wartime strategies—the book examines how the Party mobilized peasants, navigated shifting alliances, and built grassroots organizations to challenge entrenched power structures. Drawing from newly available internal Party documents and prior scholarship, this work bridges significant gaps in the understanding of the CCP’s revolutionary strategies and their nuanced interactions with both rural elites and local peasant populations.

The book explores the CCP's tactical ingenuity in adapting its policies to local contexts while navigating the complex dynamics of the Sino-Japanese War and its rivalry with the Kuomintang (KMT). It delves into the processes of grassroots mobilization, the construction of rural administrations, and the development of a peasant-centric governance model, revealing how the Party carefully balanced class struggle with the need for broader coalitions. Through detailed case studies, the book uncovers the methods by which the CCP secured peasant loyalty, reshaped rural power structures, and managed internal challenges such as factionalism and the discipline of revolutionary cadres. Ultimately, Making Revolution provides a richly textured account of how the CCP turned ideological commitment into practical governance, forging a path that would ultimately lead to its triumph in the Chinese Civil War.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1986.