Just a little more on that

Online here, How to Be a Good Communist, for your convenience. This was written in 1939 (Laird: the 70th anniversary!), by Liu Shaoqi, a Chinese Communist Party leader and a pretty hot ticket until he got on the wrong side of the Cultural Revolution.

I think this section, from "Examples of Wrong Ideology in the Party" gives a good sense of the Communist message to the rest of China at that time:

[S]ome comrades of peasant background used to think that communism meant "expropriation of local tyrants and distribution of the land". When they first joined, they had no understanding of the real meaning of communism. Today, quite a number of people join the Party chiefly because it is resolute in resisting Japan and advocates the Anti-Japanese National United Front. Others join our ranks because they admire the communist Party for its good reputation or because they realize in a vague way that it can save China...

Nevertheless, there is no terrible problem here. After all, it is not a bad thing that people turn to the Communist Party, enter it seeking a way out of their predicament and approve of its policy. They are not mistaken in coming to us. We welcome them - everyone except for enemy agents, traitors, careerists and ambitious climbers.