Essay: Why Is It That Red Political Power Can Exist in China?

Context and purpose

Mao Tse-Tung wrote "Why Is It That Red Political Power Can Exist in China?" in 1928 to defend and explain the emergence of soviet or "red" power in rural districts amid civil war, foreign encroachment, and the collapse of united front strategies. He wrote against critics who doubted that revolutionary, soviet-type authority could survive outside the industrialized urban centers that orthodox Marxists identified as the necessary base for proletarian revolution. Mao situates his argument in China's semi-feudal countryside, where peasant masses constituted the overwhelming social majority and where the state and local elites had long been predatory.
Mao frames the question politically and practically: how can red power take root and persist when isolated from cities and when the national government and warlords are militarily powerful? His answer blends empirical observation of rural uprisings, a diagnosis of social and class structures, and a strategic argument for forms of organization and warfare appropriate to Chinese conditions.

Core argument and supporting points

Mao's central claim is that red political power can exist and endure in China because it springs from deep social grievances and organizes the masses around concrete material interests, especially land reform and protection against exploitation. He emphasizes that peasants, though not the industrial proletariat emphasized in classical Marxist theory, are capable of becoming a revolutionary force when mobilized by parties that address their immediate needs and cultivate independent organs of power. The soviet authorities win legitimacy by redistributing land, establishing local justice, protecting villages from predatory forces, and creating administrative structures that deliver basic order and services.
A strategic pillar of Mao's argument is the necessity of armed struggle and flexible military tactics adapted to the countryside. He explains how small, mobile guerrilla units linked to political work among peasants can harass larger conventional forces, avoid annihilation, and gradually expand liberated areas. Base areas function as schools of mass mobilization and governmental experimentation, allowing the reds to consolidate authority, train cadres, and demonstrate alternative governance. Mao rejects the notion that cities are the only starting point for revolution; instead, he advances a protracted strategy of encircling and eventually taking urban centers from rural bases.
Mao also discusses organizational principles: close ties between party and peasantry, democratic forms within soviets to encourage participation, and disciplined leadership that resists sectarian isolation. He stresses pragmatic adaptation over dogmatic adherence to imported formulas, arguing that revolutionary practice must reflect local material conditions and social relations. The creation of legitimacy is both material and political, by solving immediate problems, building institutions, and fostering consciousness, red power becomes sustainable.

Significance and legacy

The essay crystallizes the theoretical and practical rationale for a rural-based revolutionary strategy that would later be central to Maoist thought and the Communist Party's eventual path to power. Its insistence on mobilizing the peasantry, developing guerrilla warfare, and building alternative institutions shaped decades of revolutionary practice and debates about how Marxism should be applied in largely agrarian societies. The piece functions as both a polemic against critics and a manual for revolutionary adaptation.
Beyond its immediate historical role, the essay offers a broader lesson about how political legitimacy can be constructed through social reform and mass organization rather than merely seizing state machinery. Its arguments illuminate why insurgent movements can endure in adverse conditions when they root themselves in social needs and institutional practice, making it a key text for understanding 20th-century Chinese revolution and the development of insurgent strategy more generally.