Mao Zedong’s return to the CCP leadership circle after the Zunyi Conference in January 1935 was indeed a pivotal event, after which the CCP changed its course on party-building strategies. Mao would not have been able to rise in CCP leadership rank without the help of contingent events undermining his main political rivals, Zhang Guotao and Wang Ming, who were weakened by a military debacle and the shift in Stalin’s support, respectively. By tracing CCP party-building strategies, I illustrate the CCP’s move away from previous conflictual and discriminatory party-building strategies after Mao consolidated his power and embrace the return of intellectuals and peasants into its mobilization infrastructure. By late 1938 the CCP had completely abandoned its previous discriminatory practice of emphasizing social origins as the primary criteria for the party-building strategies, resulting in a party mobilization infrastructure ripe for intensified fiscal extraction in rural areas starting in 1941.