"Without the Communist Party, There Would Be No New China" (simplified Chinese: 没有共产党就没有新中国; traditional Chinese: 沒有共產黨就沒有新中國; pinyin: Méiyǒu Gòngchǎndǎng Jiù Méiyǒu Xīn Zhōngguó) is a popular Communist propaganda song in the People's Republic of China, which originated in 1943 in response to the phrase "Without Kuomintang there would be no China".
Contents
Background
During World War II when China was fighting the Japanese invasion, Chiang Kai-shek published a book titled China's Destiny (simplified Chinese: 中国之命运; traditional Chinese: 中國之命運) on March 10, 1943, with a slogan that "Without the Kuomintang there would be no China." The Communist Party of China published an editorial entitled "Without the Communist Party there would be no China" in the Jiefang Daily (Chinese: 解放日报) on August 25, 1943 to criticize the book, concluding that "If today's China had no Communist Party of China, there would be no China." In October 1943, Cao Huoxing (zh:曹火星), a 19-year-old member of the Communist Party of China, created the lyrics for "Without the Communist Party There Would Be No China", based on this.
In 1950, shortly after the foundation of the People's Republic of China, Mao Zedong changed the title to "Without the Communist Party, There Would Be No New China," by adding the word "new."
The song is included in the 1965 musical The East is Red.
On June 26, 2006, a memorial in honour of the song "Without the Communist Party, There Would Be No New China" was opened in Fangshan District, Beijing, China with an area of 6000 m2 (65,000 sq ft).
Lyrics
Note: Cao Huoxing made the Communist Party masculine in the official lyrics by using 他 (tā) that would literally mean "he", even though it would be normally considered neutral. However, gender is indistinguishable in spoken Chinese and both "he", "she", and "it" share the same spoken form.