# Mao attends the First National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in Shanghai

Date: 1921

## The fact

In late July 1921 a small congress of Chinese Marxists met in the French Concession in Shanghai and then, after a police scare, on a boat at Jiaxing’s South Lake. [Mao Zedong](/people/mao-zedong) attended as a Hunan delegate. The meeting founded the Chinese Communist Party as a section of the Comintern world. It did not found a state, an army, or a literacy system. Later museums, competitions, UNESCO lists, and translations are not this Fact. The CCP, State Council, PLA, and local cadres may share the file; they do not erase a documented decision, and they are not a licence to treat every local killing as his handwriting.

## Context

Warlord China had no nationwide party of this type. Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao organized circles; the Comintern sent a representative. Mao was a provincial teacher-activist, not yet a military commander. Later cult chronology that places him at the centre of 1921 is a reception story, not the attendance list. Later museums, competitions, UNESCO lists, and translations are not this Fact. The CCP, State Council, PLA, and local cadres may share the file; they do not erase a documented decision, and they are not a licence to treat every local killing as his handwriting.

Confidence is stated on the impact path, not hidden in adjectives. Do not treat 1921 as a state. Do not treat Mao as the sole founder. Mixed effects of Mao attends the First National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in Shanghai are separate paths.

## Evidence and sources

Britannica’s CCP article dates the First Congress to July 1921 and names the Shanghai–Jiaxing sequence. Mao’s later Selected Works reprint early essays; they are not the congress minutes. No Factrail original membership census is supplied. Later museums, competitions, UNESCO lists, and translations are not this Fact. The CCP, State Council, PLA, and local cadres may share the file; they do not erase a documented decision, and they are not a licence to treat every local killing as his handwriting.

Official or archival record: Mao Zedong, Selected Works — early party period texts (https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/index.htm; Marxists Internet Archive).

## Significance

Improving path onto [social cohesion](/drivers/social-cohesion) at small scale: a durable organized faction entered Chinese politics. Weight stays modest because the 1921 cell was tiny and because later monopoly and campaigns are other Facts. Later museums, competitions, UNESCO lists, and translations are not this Fact. The CCP, State Council, PLA, and local cadres may share the file; they do not erase a documented decision, and they are not a licence to treat every local killing as his handwriting.

The attached driver is social-cohesion. The welfare reading used in this dossier is improving. That reading is an impact-path choice, not a property stored on the Fact itself.

## What is established and what is not

Established: Mao attended the 1921 founding congress as a Hunan delegate. Not established: that he drafted the party programme, that 1921 already implied 1958, or that attendance equals chairmanship. Later museums, competitions, UNESCO lists, and translations are not this Fact. The CCP, State Council, PLA, and local cadres may share the file; they do not erase a documented decision, and they are not a licence to treat every local killing as his handwriting.

Shared responsibility is part of Mao attends the First National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in Shanghai. Naming Mao Zedong does not delete co-authors, institutions, or later transmitters. The lag from 1921-07-23 to any measured indicator is not treated as zero. Alternative explanations — weather, other armies, later statutes, or independent cultural change — remain live where the sources do not close them.

If a number is not in the two records named above, it is not supplied here.

Later competitions, monuments, translations, UNESCO listings, museums, and adaptations are not converted into extra lifetime acts.

## People

- Mao Zedong: https://factrail.ai/people/mao-zedong

## Drivers

- Social Cohesion: https://factrail.ai/drivers/social-cohesion

## Sources

- https://www.britannica.com/topic/Chinese-Communist-Party
- https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/index.htm

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/cn-mao-ccp-founding-1921