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The existing scholarship has developed six main explanations to account for the success of the Chinese Revolution, which has been anomalous for major paradigms derived from cross-national comparisons. Methodologically, we use a social geographical approach to test these existing explanations systematically by constructing and analyzing a unique dataset of Communist growth in 93 counties in the three most contested provinces during its most pivotal period of ascendence. Theoretically, we advance and test an alternative perspective, based on the groundwork of Tocqueville and Fei Xiaotong, that integrates the state-centric theory, elite theory, and cultural analysis. Our perspective emphasizes the interplay between state centralization and local elite structure, which leads to intensified state extraction and local elite fracturing, thus creating favorable conditions for revolution. The quantitative analysis strongly supports the importance of the Japanese invasion but provides limited support for many other conventional explanations. The analysis largely confirms the Tocqueville-Fei perspective on state centralization, elite fracturing, cultural change, and revolution. The findings are buttressed by a detailed case study of Lianshui County. The study unveils a common structural challenge that a modernizing state faces in an agrarian status society, to recreate its political legitimacy while disrupting local elite structure. It also sheds historical light on the evolution of state-society relationship through the Chinese Revolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is a correction notice for an article titled "The misruling elites: the state, local elites, and the social geography of the Chinese Revolution." The authors of the article have decided to make it an Open Access publication under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The copyright of the article has been changed to ©The Authors 2024. The document also includes information about obtaining permission for the use of third-party material. Springer Nature, the publisher, remains neutral in terms of jurisdictional claims and institutional affiliations. [Extracted from the article]