1921: The first meeting
Anyone visiting First Meeting Hall in Shanghai, the museum recreating the site of the first conclave of the Chinese Communist party (CCP) in 1921, will also find themselves in one of the city’s fanciest districts.
The precise time of the meeting is murky, and 1 July was chosen by Mao Zedong years later for commemoration when he couldn’t remember the exact date on which the dozen or so comrades had held their conclave.
In addition to the Chinese at the meeting in the city’s French Concession, including Mao, there was one representative of the Comintern, or the Communist International. For a period, some attendees were airbrushed out of official accounts, as they were later accused of collaborating with the Imperial army in the treacherous civil war and Japanese occupation in the 1930s.