The team at video-streaming platform Gan Jing World has collated 37 films and documentaries for its viewers, tracing communism's rise from a 19th-century idea to a system that once governed a third of the world's population, at what they describes as a cost of 100 million lives.
Launched on Independence Day in 2022, CEO James Qiu said that Gan Jing World wants to make wholesome content accessible while standing as a countering force in the face of suppression. He previously told The Epoch Times that communist China’s censorship of the internet is something Gan Jing World does not support, not any of their propaganda promoting communism. [delete delete]
Gan Jing World’s “History of Communism” watchlist arrives as three U.S. states prepare to add the history of communism to public-school curricula: Texas beginning in fourth grade and Florida in sixth grade, both starting in the 2026–27 school year, with Arkansas adopting similar requirements.
Firsthand Accounts Anchor the Collection
Six films in the library are built entirely around survivor testimony rather than secondhand narration, a format the platform notes aligns with Texas's new curriculum requirement that students hear directly from victims. Among them is "Letter From Masanjia" (2018), which follows a labor-camp survivor as he secretly films his own life in China under continued state surveillance and harassment. His imprisonment drew international attention years later when his letter, pleading for help from prison, was discovered inside a box of Halloween decorations purchased by an Oregon shopper.
"Eternal Spring" (2022), Canada's submission for the 95th Academy Awards, uses animation by a comic artist who tells the story of the fallout of a 2002 hijacking of a state television broadcast in Changchun, China. Also featured is "She Escaped North Korea 3 Times" (2026), centered on Grace Jo, who was six years old when her mother carried her across the Tumen River; her grandmother had already starved to death, and her father died after crossing the border to obtain rice. The family was forced back into North Korea three separate times before reaching the United States in 2008.
Rounding out the set is the documentary "UNBROKEN: The Untold Story of Shen Yun" (2026), featuring stories from classical artists and their families in the United States who face escalating threats of violence from individuals linked to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP); "China's Stealth Invasion" (2026), an investigative film examining the CCP’s long-term influence operations inside the United States, including the pressure and harassment that follow dissidents even after they flee abroad; and “Ask No Questions” (2020), featuring a former Chinese state-television insider who describes how a controversial state broadcast demonizing the Falun Gong self-improvement practice was produced.
The insider believes the broadcast was part of an intensive propaganda campaign to shape public sentiment regarding the official estimate of 70–100 million Falun Gong meditators in China, who since 1999 have faced persecution for their faith, which teaches truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance.
Four of the films feature the topic of Falun Gong, which continues to be targeted today by the CCP in one of the largest and longest-running campaigns of lethal force and intimidation in contemporary China. They represent many of the countless people who continue to suffer under the communist party’s attacks against other ideologies in China today.
Tracing Communism’s Origins and Spread
The library catalogues the communist ideology’s broader history chronologically, starting with its European roots between 1789 and 1917—from the French Revolution's Reign of Terror through Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels's 1848 Communist Manifesto to the 1871 Paris Commune. It then follows the 1917 Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia, which established the first communist state and introduced mechanisms—the Cheka secret police, the Ukrainian Holodomor famine of the early 1930s, and the Gulag labor-camp network—that the platform says later regimes would replicate. In total, the Soviet Union faced over 2o million deaths, according to historical accounts.
China's communist era, beginning with Mao Zedong's 1949 declaration of the People's Republic, is similarly detailed, including the Great Leap Forward famine and the Cultural Revolution. The Black Book of Communism, a 1997 collection of historical essays—edited by French scholar Stéphane Courtois—documenting the crimes of communist regimes, attributes 65 million peace-time deaths to China's communist rule—a figure the collection says exceeds the combined death toll of both world wars.
Additional chapters cover the conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, as well as Cambodia, where the Khmer Rouge's 1975–79 rule is estimated to have killed 1.4 million to 2.2 million people—up to a third of Cambodia's population.
The Cold War's ideological battles in the West, revolutions in Latin American beginning with Fidel Castro's 1959 takeover of Cuba, and ongoing developments in China and North Korea are also documented, with a Latin American death toll of 150,000, according to the Black Book of Communism, concentrated mainly in Cuba.
The series emphasizes that communism's destructive story has not ended, noting that governments in China, North Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, and Laos still govern roughly one-fifth of humanity.
Free Access to Three In-Depth Series on Communism
For viewers seeking a comprehensive overview, Gan Jing World is offering three complete series free of charge, totaling roughly 42 hours with English narration and captions throughout. They include "How the Specter of Communism Is Ruling Our World," a five-part, four-hour documentary paired with an audiobook read in 28 parts; "Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party," the influential 2004 editorial series credited with sparking a movement encouraging members to renounce the Communist Party; and "The Ultimate Goal of Communism," a six-chapter work described as the most explicitly religious framing of the three.
Gan Jing World describes itself as a streaming platform operating under the mission "Technology for Humanity," stating it does not rely on data monetization and uses non-addictive algorithms. Its premium tier, GJW+, offers more than 10,000 movies, documentaries, TV shows, and children's programs.