Abstract
Studies of communism in China reveal a strong element of nationalism in the acceptance and interpretation of communism from Li Ta-chao to Mao Tse-tung. The concern of Chinese Communists with the plight of the Chinese nation has led to two significant revisions of communism in its Marxist-Leninist form: the elevation of national over class struggle and the consequent eclipsing of the proletariat by the “people.” Maurice Meisner says of Li Ta-chao, whom he regards as the forerunner of Mao, “Li no doubt attached considerable importance to the organization of the proletariat, but he was predisposed from the beginning to look to the potential revolutionary forces of the whole ‘proletarian’ nation rather than of a single social class forming only a tiny portion of the nation.”

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