一、夺取新民主主义革命伟大胜利
I. A Great Victory in the New-Democratic Revolution
新民主主义革命时期，党面临的主要任务是，反对帝国主义、封建主义、官僚资本主义，争取民族独立、人民解放，为实现中华民族伟大复兴创造根本社会条件。
In the period of the new-democratic revolution, the main tasks of the Party were to oppose imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat-capitalism, seek national independence and the people’s liberation, and create the fundamental social conditions necessary for realizing national rejuvenation.
中华民族是世界上古老而伟大的民族，创造了绵延五千多年的灿烂文明，为人类文明进步作出了不可磨灭的贡献。一八四〇年鸦片战争以后，由于西方列强入侵和封建统治腐败，中国逐步成为半殖民地半封建社会，国家蒙辱、人民蒙难、文明蒙尘，中华民族遭受了前所未有的劫难。为了拯救民族危亡，中国人民奋起反抗，仁人志士奔走呐喊，进行了可歌可泣的斗争。太平天国运动、洋务运动、戊戌变法、义和团运动接连而起，各种救国方案轮番出台，但都以失败告终。孙中山先生领导的辛亥革命推翻了统治中国几千年的君主专制制度，但未能改变中国半殖民地半封建的社会性质和中国人民的悲惨命运。中国迫切需要新的思想引领救亡运动，迫切需要新的组织凝聚革命力量。
With a history stretching back more than 5,000 years, the Chinese nation is a great and ancient nation that has fostered a splendid civilization and made indelible contributions to the progress of human civilization. After the Opium War of 1840, however, China was gradually reduced to a semi-colonial, semi-feudal society due to the aggression of Western powers and the corruption of feudal rulers. The country endured intense humiliation, the people were subjected to untold misery, and the Chinese civilization was plunged into darkness. The Chinese nation suffered greater ravages than ever before.
To save the nation from peril, the Chinese people rose to fight back, and patriots of high ideals sought to pull the nation together, putting up a heroic and moving struggle. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, the Westernization Movement, the Reform Movement of 1898, and the Yihetuan Movement rose one after the other, and a variety of plans were devised to ensure national survival, but all of these ended in failure. The Revolution of 1911 led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen brought down the absolute monarchy that had reigned over China for thousands of years, but it failed to change the semi-colonial and semi-feudal nature of Chinese society and to alter the bitter fate of the Chinese people. China was in urgent need of new ideas to lead the movement to save the nation and a new organization to rally forces of revolution.
十月革命一声炮响，给中国送来了马克思列宁主义。五四运动促进了马克思主义在中国的传播。在中国人民和中华民族的伟大觉醒中，在马克思列宁主义同中国工人运动的紧密结合中，一九二一年七月中国共产党应运而生。中国产生了共产党，这是开天辟地的大事变，中国革命的面貌从此焕然一新。
With the salvoes of Russia’s October Revolution in 1917, Marxism-Leninism was brought to China. The May 4th Movement of 1919 spurred the spread of Marxism throughout the country. Then in July 1921, as the Chinese people and the Chinese nation were undergoing a great awakening and Marxism-Leninism was becoming closely integrated with the Chinese workers’ movement, the Communist Party of China was born. The founding of a communist party in China was an epoch-making event, and from then on the Chinese revolution took on an entirely new look.
党深刻认识到，近代中国社会主要矛盾是帝国主义和中华民族的矛盾、封建主义和人民大众的矛盾。实现中华民族伟大复兴，必须进行反帝反封建斗争。
The Party was keenly aware that the conflicts between imperialism and the Chinese nation, and those between feudalism and the people constituted the principal contradiction in modern Chinese society. To realize national rejuvenation, it would be essential to initiate an anti-imperialist and anti-feudal struggle.
建党之初和大革命时期，党制定民主革命纲领，发动工人运动、青年运动、农民运动、妇女运动，推进并帮助国民党改组和国民革命军建立，领导全国反帝反封建伟大斗争，掀起大革命高潮。一九二七年国民党内反动集团叛变革命，残酷屠杀共产党人和革命人民，由于党内以陈独秀为代表的右倾思想发展为右倾机会主义错误并在党的领导机关中占了统治地位，党和人民不能组织有效抵抗，致使大革命在强大的敌人突然袭击下遭到惨重失败。
In the early days of the Party and during the Great Revolution, the Party formulated the program of the democratic revolution, launched movements of workers, youths, peasants, and women, promoted and supported the reorganization of the Chinese Kuomintang (KMT) and the founding of the National Revolutionary Army, and led the great anti-imperialist and anti-feudal struggle across the country, bringing about a surge in the Great Revolution.
In 1927, the reactionary clique within the KMT betrayed the revolution, brutally massacring communists and other revolutionaries. Meanwhile, the Right deviationist ideas within the Party represented by Chen Duxiu grew into Right opportunist errors and came to dominate the Party’s leadership. The Party and the people were unable to mount an effective resistance, resulting in a disastrous defeat for the Great Revolution under the surprise attack of a powerful enemy.
土地革命战争时期，党从残酷的现实中认识到，没有革命的武装就无法战胜武装的反革命，就无法夺取中国革命胜利，就无法改变中国人民和中华民族的命运，必须以武装的革命反对武装的反革命。南昌起义打响武装反抗国民党反动派的第一枪，标志着中国共产党独立领导革命战争、创建人民军队和武装夺取政权的开端。八七会议确定实行土地革命和武装起义的方针。党领导举行秋收起义、广州起义和其他许多地区起义，但由于敌我力量悬殊，这些起义大多数失败了。事实证明，在当时的客观条件下，中国共产党人不可能像俄国十月革命那样通过首先占领中心城市来取得革命在全国的胜利，党迫切需要找到适合中国国情的革命道路。
During the Agrarian Revolutionary War, the Party realized in light of harsh realities that without revolutionary armed forces, it would be impossible to defeat armed counter-revolutionaries, win the Chinese revolution, and thus change the fate of the Chinese people and the Chinese nation. The Party would need to fight armed counter-revolution with armed revolution.
The Nanchang Uprising of 1927 fired the opening shot of armed resistance against KMT reactionaries. this marked the start of the Communist Party of China’s journey to lead the revolutionary struggle independently, build the people’s armed forces, and seize state power by force. Soon afterwards, the policy of carrying out agrarian revolution and organizing armed uprisings was established at the August 7th Meeting. The Party led the Autumn Harvest Uprising, the Guangzhou Uprising, and uprisings in many other areas. Due to the great disparity in strength between the enemy forces and our own, most of these uprisings ended in failure. The fact of the matter was that in view of objective conditions at the time, the Chinese communists could not follow the example of Russia’s October Revolution and win nationwide revolutionary victory by taking key cities first. The Party urgently needed to find a revolutionary path compatible with China’s actual conditions.
从进攻大城市转为向农村进军，是中国革命具有决定意义的新起点。毛泽东同志领导军民在井冈山建立第一个农村革命根据地，党领导人民打土豪、分田地。古田会议确立思想建党、政治建军原则。随着斗争发展，党创建了中央革命根据地和湘鄂西、海陆丰、鄂豫皖、琼崖、闽浙赣、湘鄂赣、湘赣、左右江、川陕、陕甘、湘鄂川黔等根据地。党在国民党统治下的白区也发展了党和其他革命组织，开展了群众革命斗争。然而，由于王明“左”倾教条主义在党内的错误领导，中央革命根据地第五次反“围剿”失败，红军不得不进行战略转移，经过艰苦卓绝的长征转战到陕北。“左”倾路线的错误给革命根据地和白区革命力量造成极大损失。
The shift from attacking big cities to advancing into rural areas was a new starting point of decisive importance in the Chinese revolution. Led by Comrade Mao Zedong, soldiers and civilians established the first rural revolutionary base in the Jinggang Mountains, where the Party led the people in overthrowing local despots and redistributing the land. The Gutian Meeting of 1929 established the principles of strengthening the Party ideologically and the military politically. As progress was made in the struggle, the Party established the Central Revolutionary base as well as the Western Hunan-Hubei, Haifeng-Lufeng, Hubei-Henan-Anhui, Qiongya, Fujian-Zhejiang-Jiangxi, Hunan-Hubei-Jiangxi, Hunan-Jiangxi, Zuojiang-Youjiang, Sichuan-Shaanxi, Shaanxi-Gansu, and Hunan-Hubei-Sichuan-Guizhou bases. In addition, the Party also set up Party organizations and other revolutionary organizations in KMT-controlled areas and launched revolutionary mass struggles.
However, the fifth counter-encirclement and suppression campaign in the Central Revolutionary base ended in failure as a result of the misguided leadership of Wang Ming’s “Left” dogmatism within the Party. The Red Army was forced to make a strategic shift, and arrived in northern Shaanxi Province after enduring the extraordinarily bitter and arduous journey of the Long March. The errors of the “Left” line caused enormous losses to revolutionary bases as well as revolutionary forces in KMT-controlled areas.
一九三五年一月，中央政治局在长征途中举行遵义会议，事实上确立了毛泽东同志在党中央和红军的领导地位，开始确立以毛泽东同志为主要代表的马克思主义正确路线在党中央的领导地位，开始形成以毛泽东同志为核心的党的第一代中央领导集体，开启了党独立自主解决中国革命实际问题新阶段，在最危急关头挽救了党、挽救了红军、挽救了中国革命，并且在这以后使党能够战胜张国焘的分裂主义，胜利完成长征，打开中国革命新局面。这在党的历史上是一个生死攸关的转折点。
In January 1935, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee convened a meeting in Zunyi on the Long March, at which Comrade Mao Zedong was confirmed as the de facto leader of the Central Committee and the Red Army. The meeting laid the groundwork for establishing the leading position within the Central Committee of the correct Marxist line chiefly represented by Comrade Mao Zedong, as well as for the formation of the first generation of the central collective leadership with Comrade Mao Zedong at its core. The meeting opened a new stage in which the Party would act on its own initiative to address practical problems concerning the Chinese revolution, and saved the Party, the Red Army, and the Chinese revolution at a moment of greatest peril. It also subsequently enabled the Party to defeat Zhang Guotao’s separatism, bring the Long March to a triumphant conclusion, and open up new horizons for the Chinese revolution. The Zunyi Meeting is therefore considered a pivotal turning point in the Party’s history.
抗日战争时期，九一八事变后，中日民族矛盾逐渐超越国内阶级矛盾上升为主要矛盾。在日本帝国主义加紧侵略我国、民族危机空前严重的关头，党率先高举武装抗日旗帜，广泛开展抗日救亡运动，促成西安事变和平解决，对推动国共再次合作、团结抗日起了重大历史作用。七七事变后，党实行正确的抗日民族统一战线政策，坚持全面抗战路线，提出和实施持久战的战略总方针和一整套人民战争的战略战术，开辟广大敌后战场和抗日根据地，领导八路军、新四军、东北抗日联军和其他人民抗日武装英勇作战，成为全民族抗战的中流砥柱，直到取得中国人民抗日战争最后胜利。这是近代以来中国人民反抗外敌入侵第一次取得完全胜利的民族解放斗争，也是世界反法西斯战争胜利的重要组成部分。
After the September 18th Incident in 1931 during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, the conflict between China and Japan gradually overtook domestic class conflict as the issue of primary importance. As Japanese imperialists intensified their aggression against China, the country was plunged into an unprecedented national crisis. The Party was the first to propose that China should fight Japanese aggression with armed resistance, and launched extensive resistance movements. It also facilitated a peaceful settlement of the Xi’an Incident, thus playing a historic role in promoting a second period of cooperation between the KMT and the CPC and the united resistance against Japanese aggression.
Following the July 7th Incident in 1937, the Party implemented the right policy on the Chinese united front against Japanese aggression, and adhered to the line of all-out resistance. It devised and executed the strategic guidelines for a protracted war as well as a whole set of strategies and tactics for a people’s war, opened up vast battlefronts behind enemy lines, and developed bases for the resistance. The Party led the Eighth Route Army, the New Fourth Army, the Northeast United Resistance Army, and other forces of the people’s armed resistance in brave fighting, and they were the pillar of the entire nation’s resistance until the Chinese people finally prevailed. This marked the first time in modern history that the Chinese people had won a complete victory against foreign aggressors in the war of national liberation, and was an important part of the global war against fascism.
解放战争时期，面对国民党反动派悍然发动的全面内战，党领导广大军民逐步由积极防御转向战略进攻，打赢辽沈、淮海、平津三大战役和渡江战役，向中南、西北、西南胜利进军，消灭国民党反动派八百万军队，推翻国民党反动政府，推翻帝国主义、封建主义、官僚资本主义三座大山。党领导的人民军队在人民支持下，以一往无前的英雄气概同穷凶极恶的敌人进行殊死斗争，为夺取新民主主义革命胜利建立了历史功勋。
During the War of Liberation, as the KMT reactionaries flagrantly launched an all-out civil war, the Party led soldiers and civilians in gradually shifting from active defense to strategic offensive. It secured victories in the Liaoxi-Shenyang, Huai-Hai, and Beiping-Tianjin campaigns as well as the Crossing-the-Yangtze Campaign, advanced triumphantly into the central-south, northwest, and southwest, and wiped out eight million KMT troops, thus overthrowing the reactionary KMT government and the three mountains of imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat-capitalism. With the support of the people, the Party-led people’s army demonstrated heroic mettle and unyielding resolve as they fought to the last against these fierce enemies, making a historic contribution to the victory of the new-democratic revolution.
在革命斗争中，以毛泽东同志为主要代表的中国共产党人，把马克思列宁主义基本原理同中国具体实际相结合，对经过艰苦探索、付出巨大牺牲积累的一系列独创性经验作了理论概括，开辟了农村包围城市、武装夺取政权的正确革命道路，创立了毛泽东思想，为夺取新民主主义革命胜利指明了正确方向。
In the course of the revolutionary struggle, Chinese communists, with Comrade Mao Zedong as their chief representative, adapted the basic tenets of Marxism-Leninism to China’s specific realities and developed a theoretical synthesis of China’s unique experience which came from painstaking trials and great sacrifices. They blazed the right revolutionary path of encircling cities from the countryside and seizing state power with military force. They established Mao Zedong Thought, which charted the correct course for securing victory in the new-democratic revolution.
在革命斗争中，党弘扬坚持真理、坚守理想，践行初心、担当使命，不怕牺牲、英勇斗争，对党忠诚、不负人民的伟大建党精神，实施和推进党的建设伟大工程，提出着重从思想上建党的原则，坚持民主集中制，坚持理论联系实际、密切联系群众、批评和自我批评三大优良作风，形成统一战线、武装斗争、党的建设三大法宝，努力建设全国范围的、广大群众性的、思想上政治上组织上完全巩固的马克思主义政党。党从一九四二年开始在全党进行整风，这场马克思主义思想教育运动收到巨大成效。党制定《关于若干历史问题的决议》，使全党对中国革命基本问题的认识达到一致。党的七大为建立新民主主义的新中国制定了正确路线方针政策，使全党在思想上政治上组织上达到空前统一和团结。
In the course of the revolutionary struggle, the Party carried forward its great founding spirit comprised of the following principles: upholding truth and ideals, staying true to its original aspiration and founding mission, fighting bravely without fear of sacrifice, and remaining loyal to the Party and faithful to the people. The Party initiated and advanced the great project of Party building, introduced the principle of focusing on strengthening the Party in ideological terms, and upheld democratic centralism. It stuck to the three fine styles of conduct, namely combining theory with practice, maintaining close ties with the people, and conducting criticism and self-criticism; it developed the three important tools of the united front, armed struggle, and Party building, as it strived to build a national Marxist party of the people, which was fully consolidated in ideological, political, and organizational terms. The rectification movement—a Party-wide Marxist ideological education movement—was launched in 1942 and yielded tremendous results. The Party formulated the Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party, which helped the entire Party reach a common understanding of the basic questions regarding the Chinese revolution. At the Seventh National Congress, the correct line, principles, and policies were formulated for building a new-democratic China, and as a result the Party became united as never before in ideological, political, and organizational terms.
经过二十八年浴血奋斗，党领导人民，在各民主党派和无党派民主人士积极合作下，于一九四九年十月一日宣告成立中华人民共和国，实现民族独立、人民解放，彻底结束了旧中国半殖民地半封建社会的历史，彻底结束了极少数剥削者统治广大劳动人民的历史，彻底结束了旧中国一盘散沙的局面，彻底废除了列强强加给中国的不平等条约和帝国主义在中国的一切特权，实现了中国从几千年封建专制政治向人民民主的伟大飞跃，也极大改变了世界政治格局，鼓舞了全世界被压迫民族和被压迫人民争取解放的斗争。
On October 1, 1949, the founding of the People’s Republic of China was proclaimed after 28 years of bitter and courageous struggle carried out by the people under the leadership of the Party and with the active support of other political parties and democrats without party affiliation, thus realizing the independence of the Chinese nation and the liberation of the Chinese people. This put an end to China’s history as a semi-colonial, semi-feudal society, to the rule of a handful of exploiters over the working people, to the state of total disunity that plagued the old China, and to all the unequal treaties imposed on our country by foreign powers and all the privileges that imperialist powers enjoyed on our land, marking the country’s great transformation from a millennia-old feudal autocracy to a people’s democracy. This also reshaped the world political landscape and offered enormous inspiration for oppressed nations and peoples struggling for liberation around the world.
实践充分说明，历史和人民选择了中国共产党，没有中国共产党领导，民族独立、人民解放是不可能实现的。中国共产党和中国人民以英勇顽强的奋斗向世界庄严宣告，中国人民从此站起来了，中华民族任人宰割、饱受欺凌的时代一去不复返了，中国发展从此开启了新纪元。
It has been proven through practice that history and the people have chosen the Communist Party of China, and that without its leadership, it would not have been possible to realize national independence and the people’s liberation. Through tenacious struggle, the Party and the people showed the world that the Chinese people had stood up and the time in which the Chinese nation could be bullied and abused was gone and would never return. This marked the beginning of a new epoch in China’s development.
