The next three chapters trace the organizational development of the CCP and the KMT, linking intraparty power struggles to party-building strategies and subsequently, the development of party mobilization infrastructure. I pay close attention to contingencies during the critical junctures, showing that they shifted the balance of power among party elites and generated a ripple effect on party-building strategies and party mobilization infrastructure. Specifically, Chapter 5 documents the intense intraparty power struggle occurring in the CCP after the sudden downfall of CCP leader Chen Duxiu in 1927, following intervention by the Comintern and the Soviet Union. From 1927 to 1934, the intense elite contestation under the shadow of the Comintern led CCP elites to pursue radical urban insurgencies and a worker-centric party-building strategies despite China’s predominance as an agrarian society. Hence, this approach left the party fragile and mire in turmoil.

In the final chapter, I offer some concluding reflections. First, I show that party-building experience by the CCP and the KMT during their violent struggles cast a long shadow on political development in mainland China and Taiwan after 1949, respectively. I illustrate that CCP elites developed strong preferences for a strong leader because Mao’s domination revived the CCP. In addition, the CCP frequently employed the same tactics in of mobilized compliance to implement unpopular policies after 1949, a practice that ultimately hindered the institutionalization of China’s political system. Meanwhile, the KMT leaders recognized the superior organization of the CCP as a decisive factor in its downfall. As a result, the KMT shifted its focus toward fostering elite cohesion and grassroots party structures in Taiwan. Although this strategy initially bore fruit for the KMT’s power consolidation in Taiwan, the party still relied on elite mobilization infrastructure for societal penetration. The KMT’s clientelistic machine eventually broke down when Taiwan democratized, losing its power monopoly to the Democratic Progressive Party. Finally, I revisit the seemingly miraculous reversal of fortune of the CCP and the KMT, highlighting both leadership domination and resource mobilization as the key foundations of powerful revolutionary parties. I further underscore the significance of contingencies in comprehending the political evolution of revolutionary parties.

I document the relentless intraparty power struggle within the KMT from 1925 to 1945 following the sudden death of its founder, Sun Yat-sen, and investigate the profound impact of elite conflicts on party- building efforts. Although Chiang Kai-shek at first ascended the KMT ranks by exploiting ideological conflicts between the KMT-Left and KMT-Right factions, he constantly faced challenges from his intraparty rivals, who coalesced around regional military strongmen. Similar to the rise of Mao, Chiang benefited from contingent events and finally eliminated threats from Hu Han-min and Wang Ching-wei. Chiang, however, was only a quasi-dominant party leader because regional strongmen remained defiant in the face of his reform efforts. Importantly, the KMT remained a party deeply entrenched in an elite mobilization infrastructure, heavily reliant on the cooperation of regional strongmen and local elites for policy implementation. The lack of infrastructure for mass mobilization capacity became an impediment later when the power of those elites was weakened during the Japanese invasion, as shown in its ineffectiveness in grain mobilization detailed in Chapter 4.

This chapter, together with the succeeding one, highlights the essential role that resource mobilization played in the rise and fall of the CCP and KMT from 1921 to 1945. Using a wide range of party and government archives during the Republican Era, I trace the scale and sources of financial revenues mobilized by these two parties. These novel data provide new insights on the financial undertakings of both parties throughout this era. I reveal that the KMT benefited from its elite mobilization infrastructure in urban and coastal China and consistently maintained a more robust fiscal foundation than the CCP prior to the Sino-Japanese War, hence establishing its dominance in China’s political landscape. On the contrary, the CCP relied on meagre financial support from the Comintern and ad hoc expropriation of rural elites, struggling to mobilize a consistent flow of financial resources.

This chapter lays out the central puzzle – the reversal of the fortunes of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Kuomintang (KMT) during the Republican Era. I contend that the emergence of a dominant leader aided the CCP’s ascension, whereas the contested leadership undermined the KMT. I first position the puzzling political development of the CCP and KMT within the framework of prevailing arguments in studies of authoritarian parties and Chinese politics, revealing that they are inadequate to explain the rise of the CCP and the demise of the KMT. I then succinctly recapitulate the key arguments of Domination and Mobilization, underscoring its unique contributions to three strands of scholarly discourse: the genesis of authoritarian parties, party-building by political organizations aims to seize power through nonelectoral means, and the rise of Communist movement in China. I conclude the chapter by outlining the plan for the book.

I present a theoretical framework underscoring the way the emergence of a dominant party leader shapes strategic interactions among party elites, which in turn lead to distinct party-building strategies and capacities for resource mobilization. The key insights of the theoretical framework are threefold. First, party ideology serves as a constraining device influencing the types of party mobilization infrastructure – elite-centric vis-à-vis mass-centric – that embody distinct comparative advantages. Second, domination by a party leader mitigates the collective action problem faced by party elites, leading to coherent party-building strategies that serve as the foundation for effective resource mobilization. In contrast, when party elites engage in contentious power struggles, the quality of mobilization infrastructure suffers because of conflicting party-building strategies. Finally, I integrate the concept of contingencies into the theoretical framework, positing that the balance of intraparty elite power and the state of mobilization infrastructure act as mediators through which these events influence party strength.

Mao Zedong’s return to the CCP leadership circle after the Zunyi Conference in January 1935 was indeed a pivotal event, after which the CCP changed its course on party-building strategies. Mao would not have been able to rise in CCP leadership rank without the help of contingent events undermining his main political rivals, Zhang Guotao and Wang Ming, who were weakened by a military debacle and the shift in Stalin’s support, respectively. By tracing CCP party-building strategies, I illustrate the CCP’s move away from previous conflictual and discriminatory party-building strategies after Mao consolidated his power and embrace the return of intellectuals and peasants into its mobilization infrastructure. By late 1938 the CCP had completely abandoned its previous discriminatory practice of emphasizing social origins as the primary criteria for the party-building strategies, resulting in a party mobilization infrastructure ripe for intensified fiscal extraction in rural areas starting in 1941.