Unfulfilled Dreams: China’s 'Liberal' Communist Party Intellectuals’ Struggle for Democracy from the 1930s to the 2000s
Amid the Sino-Japanese and civil wars in the 1930s and 1940s, many patriotic young intellectuals joined the Chinese Communist Party out of a fervent desire to 'save the nation'. Attracted by its promises of freedom, democracy and equality, these underground party members braved arrest, torture and prison under the Nationalist government to fight for a communist utopia. After 1949, following an initial period of euphoria, they found themselves painfully struggling between their twin goals of democracy and revolution under the Mao regime.