The People's Republic of China (PRC) was established on October 1, 1949. However, an assessment of Chinese communism cannot begin there. It must begin about 30 years earlier, because the preceding years shaped the PRC as a communist state.
Chinese communism has had a remarkable continuity of leadership. Mao Zedong (W-G: Mao tse-Tung, 1893-1976) and his colleagues were party members in the 1920s. Mao was instrumental in establishing an early form of Chinese communism in the years 1928-34. He helped to develop it and create the military and political strategy in the Yenan years of 1935-45 that won the civil war in 1949. He then went on to mold communist China and ruled it - in his last years at least in name - until his death in September 1976.
However, we should also bear in mind that while most veteran communists followed Mao from the late 1950s on, some came to oppose his more extreme policies. Here we should mention the long-time Premier and Foreign Minister Zhou Enlai (W-G: Chu En-lai, 1898-1976), and the leader of the PRC after Mao's death, Deng Xiaoping (Teng Hsiao-p'ing, b. 1904), who was to set the country on the path of economic reform in 1978. However, Deng was also determined to preserve the party's monopoly of power, and crushed the massive student democracy movement by force in June 1989.
To understand the rise of communism in China, we must see it within the context of Chinese history.