How the CCP Came to Rule China

A Q&A with Frank Dikötter |  |   
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#### Q&A | February 20th, 2026  
  
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|  **Good morning.**  With his _People’s Trilogy_ books on the Chinese Communist Party’s rule since 1949, Frank Dikötter has become arguably the best known current historian of modern China. He is now back with a new volume, _Red Dawn Over China_ , his account of the early history of the CCP from the 1920s, taking in its fight alongside the nationalist government against Japan to the civil war in the 1940s that eventually brought it to power.  
  
In this Q&A with the writer Jonathan Chatwin, Dikötter explains how he researched the book and sets out his main findings, including what he discovered about key events such as the Long March that have become core to CCP mythology. And he tells Chatwin about what he believes survives in the DNA of the Party from those early years.  
  
“There is widespread paranoia and the constant fear of being surrounded by the imperialist camp. That’s true throughout the Civil War and today,” Dikötter says. “And most of all, the absolute conviction that having shed so much blood to obtain absolute power, you must maintain power at all costs.”  
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|  **Frank Dikötter on the Chinese Communist Party’s Troubled Early Years**  
  
The historian on countering long-held narratives about the CCP’s role in the war against Japan and the legacy of those years on its rule today.  
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