Abstract: Much has been written about the Soviet influence on China in the early 1950s. While some of the consequences of this influence were short lived, others have continued to shape China today. China’s current Soviet-style party and government structures are probably the most enduring legacy of the Soviet Union for China and the CCP. In this paper, I focus on how the Soviet experience inspired the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) during its transition from a revolutionary party to a ruling party in the early 1950s and on the central role Stalin played in the transfer of these structures to China.