Following its successful struggle with the forces of Chinese Nationalists under Chaing Kai-Shek, the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) including Chairman Mao Zedong deviated from the traditional Bolshevik-Leninist model of organization, largely because unlike Russia, China was still in a preindustrial stage of development (Sodaro, 609 -610). Rather than a traditional working class proletariat, China was populated with a vast number of agrarian peasants. This required modification of the Bolshevik plan of organizing around industrial production centers or units. Mao's Long March and, later, Cultural Revolution affirmed the primacy of the CCP and its influence over all aspects of domestic life.
Sodaro (587) stated that under the Mao-led CCP, the mass line was developed to allow suggestions for change to be generated while decisions regarding policy were made not by Russian-style "soviets" but by the centralized party leadership. Mao recognized that it was necessary to restructure Chinese society to achieve a radical transformation and to further industrialization, which he sought in the Great Leap Forward (Sodaro 590). The consequences of many of Mao's policies included widespread famine and the deaths of millions of peasants as well as continued conflict within the Party itself as various factions jockeyed for power.
Sodaro, Michael J. Comparative Politics. New York: McGraw-Hill,
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