The school was established as the CCP Central Committee's Marx School of Communism (simplified Chinese: 中共中央马克思共产主义学校; traditional Chinese: 中共中央馬克思共產主義學校; pinyin: Zhōnggòng Zhōngyāng Mǎkèsī Gòngchǎnzhǔyì Xuéxiào) in Ruijin, Jiangxi, in 1933. It folded when the Chinese Red Army left on the Long March and was revived once the CCP leadership had arrived and settled in Shaanxi, northwest China, in the winter of 1936. It was then renamed the Central Party School. The school was suspended in 1947 when the CCP retreated from Yan'an. It was re-opened in 1948 in a village in Pingshan County, Hebei, before being moved to Beijing after the CCP captured the city in 1949.[4]
In 1955, the school was re-organized so that it came directly under the jurisdiction of the CCP Central Committee.[5] The school was abolished in 1966 during the Cultural Revolution, before being duly restored in March 1977.[6] Since 1989, the school has been headed by the top-ranked Secretary of the Secretariat, who is concurrently a member of the Politburo Standing Committee. The day-to-day affairs of the school are in practice managed by the executive vice president, who is generally regarded to have the same ranking as a cabinet minister.[citation needed]
In November 2013, Liu Yunshan announced that the Central Party School would begin a training program on "General Secretary Xi Jinping's series of important remarks."[7]: 21–22 Within a year, 2,300 cadres had completed the program.[7]: 22 The program was part of the effort to begin formalizing Xi Jinping Thought.[7]: 21–22
The school was merged with the National Academy of Governance in March 2018.[8] Its name is retained as part of the "one institution with two names" system.[citation needed]
The Central Party School provided US$40 million to build and operate the Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Leadership School, which opened in February 2022 in Tanzania.[9][10] The school was jointly established with the support of the six ruling parties of Tanzania, South Africa, Mozambique, Angola, Namibia, and Zimbabwe.[11]