People's History of Ideas Podcast

Latest Episodes:

The Localist Opposition within the Communist Party in Jiangxi (January to February 1930) Oct 21, 2026

Show notes

Mao moves to eliminate opposition to land reform among Jiangxi Communists.

Further reading and listening:
Stuart Schram, ed., Mao’s Road to Power, vol. 3: From the Jinggangshan to the Establishment of the Jiangxi Soviets, July 1927-December 1930
Pang Xianzhi and Jin Chongji, Mao Zedong: A Biography, vol. 1: 1893-1949
Mao Zedong nianpu, 1893-1937 (毛泽东年谱)
Li Qingzhao, “Like a Dream”
Philip Huang, et al., Chinese Communists and Rural Society, 1927-1934
Joseph Fewsmith, Forging Leninism in China: Mao and the Remaking of the Chinese Communist Party, 1927–1934
Stephen Averill, “The Origins of the Futian Incident”
Stephen Averill, “Party, Society, and Local Elite in the Jiangxi Communist Movement”
Michael Dutton, Policing Chinese Politics
Textum Dergi special issue on China

Some names from this episode:
Li Qingzhao, Song Dynasty poet (1084-1155)
Guo Huaruo, Communist military theoretician
Xiao Ke, Red Army commander
Peng Pai, Communist peasant organizer
Chen Duxiu, Communist leader during the period of the first united front with the Guomindang
Mikhail Borodin, Comintern agent and political head of Soviet mission to aid the Guomindang
Peng Dehuai, commander of the 5th Red Army
Huang Gonglüe, commander of the 6th Red Army
Zeng Shan, party secretary of Yanfu district, close ally of Mao

Episode artwork:
The room where the February 7 Meeting was held

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Urban Revolution in Beijing during the Great Leap Forward: An Interview with leading China scholar Fabio Lanza Aug 07, 2026

Show notes

This interview with Dr. Fabio Lanza of the University of Arizona touches on topics related to his new book, Urban Revolution: People’s Communes in Beijing. Topics include the transformation of cities under socialism, women’s liberation, the political economy of socialist society, the Great Leap Forward, and the role of barbers and hairdressers under socialism.
Further reading:
Fabio Lanza, Urban Revolution: People’s Communes in Beijing
Fabio Lanza, The End of Concern: Maoist China, Activism, and Asian Studies
Joel Andreas, Disenfranchised: The Rise and Fall of Industrial Citizenship in China
Mariarosa Dalla Costa, “Women and the Subversion of the Community”
Sigrid Schmalzer, “China's Great Leap Famine: Malthus, Marx, Mao, and Material Scarcity”
Sigrid Schmalzer, Red Revolution, Green Revolution: Scientific Farming in Socialist China
Gail Hershatter, The Gender of Memory: Rural Women and China's Collective Past
Jeremy Brown, City Versus Countryside in Mao's China. Negotiating the Divide
Kimberly Ens Manning, “Making a Great Leap Forward? The Politics of Women’s Liberation in Maoist China”
H-PRC Website (Besides articles and reviews by anglophone scholars, H-PRC also has a section (Revisiting the Revolution) with translations of essays by Chinese scholars on the history of the People’s Republic of China.)

Episode artwork: The cover of Fabio Lanza's new book, Urban Revolution

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Winning Over Enemy Troops: Mao’s Leninist Approach to Fomenting Mutiny in the Guomindang (January 1930) Apr 04, 2026

Show notes

When the enemy advances, Mao and Zhu retreat from Fujian into Jiangxi province, drawing the Guomindang’s joint suppression force deep in after them, only to later circle back around and defeat it. In this episode we discuss how Mao conducted propaganda directed at enemy troops in order to win them over to join the Red Army.

Further reading:
Stuart Schram, ed., Mao’s Road to Power, vol. 3: From the Jinggangshan to the Establishment of the Jiangxi Soviets, July 1927-December 1930
Pang Xianzhi and Jin Chongji, Mao Zedong: A Biography, vol. 1: 1893-1949
Bixin Huang, “A Movement Without Vitality: Communist Revolution in Fujian, 1924-1934”
Mao Zedong nianpu, 1893-1937 (毛泽东年谱)
Agnes Smedley, The Great Road: The Life and Times of Chu Teh [Zhu De]

Some names from this episode:
Lin Biao, commander of the first column of the Fourth Red Army
Jin Handing, commander of the joint-suppression force launched against the western Fujian base area
Lo Pinghui, Yunnanese colonel who switched from the Guomindang to the Communists

Episode artwork: photo of Jin Handing

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A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire (January 1930) (Part Two) Mar 21, 2026

Show notes

We conclude our close reading of Mao’s January 5, 1930 letter to Lin Biao. In this episode, Mao discusses his method for understanding the possibilities for revolution in China, as well as the particular tactics to be employed by the Red Army. He also conducts a minor self-criticism.

Further reading:
Stuart Schram, ed., Mao’s Road to Power, vol. 3: From the Jinggangshan to the Establishment of the Jiangxi Soviets, July 1927-December 1930
Pang Xianzhi and Jin Chongji, Mao Zedong: A Biography, vol. 1: 1893-1949
Mao Zedong, “A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire”

Some names from this episode:
Lin Biao, commander of the first column of the Fourth Red Army
Lu Diping, general who ruled Hunan from 1928–29 and Jiangxi from 1929-31

Episode artwork:
Envelope from a different letter that Mao wrote to Lin Biao

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A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire (January 1930) (Part One) Mar 14, 2026

Show notes

We begin our close reading of Mao’s January 5, 1930 letter to Lin Biao.

Further reading:
Stuart Schram, ed., Mao’s Road to Power, vol. 3: From the Jinggangshan to the Establishment of the Jiangxi Soviets, July 1927-December 1930
Pang Xianzhi and Jin Chongji, Mao Zedong: A Biography, vol. 1: 1893-1949
David Apter and Tony Saich, Revolutionary Discourse in Mao’s Republic
Mao Zedong, “A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire”

Some names from this episode:
Lin Biao, commander of the first column of the Fourth Red Army
Li Lisan, leading Communist
He Long, leader of a soviet in the Hunan-Hubei border region
Li Wenlin, leader of Donggu base area
Fang Zhimin, leader of Northeastern Jiangxi soviet

Episode artwork:
Picture of a prairie fire (in Illinois)

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How Brainwashing was Good and Maoist Propaganda was True: An Interview with leading China scholar Aminda Smith Mar 07, 2026

Show notes

This interview with Dr. Aminda Smith of Michigan State University touches on topics including why good PRC history is left history; thought reform, reeducation through labor, and brainwashing; the veracity of the propaganda produced for a global audience during the Mao years; and the Maoist legacy in China today.

Further reading and watching:
Aminda Smith, Thought Reform and China’s Dangerous Classes
Aminda Smith, “The Maoism of PRC History”
Aminda Smith, “Brainwashing and World Revolution”
Aminda Smith, “The Legacies of 'Brainwashing': Cold War Ideology and Modern Chinese History” (the content of this talk is similar to the paywalled book chapter on brainwashing)
Stephen Andors, China’s Industrial Revolution
Positions Politics website
H-PRC website
Brian DeMare, Land Wars: The Story of China's Agrarian Revolution
Richard Wolin, The Wind From the East: French Intellectuals, the Cultural Revolution, and the Legacy of the 1960s
Philosophy is no Mystery
Mao Zedong, “On Contradiction”
Jonathan Spence, The Search for Modern China
Zheng Yangwen, Ten Lessons in Modern Chinese History
Maurice Meisner, Mao's China and After
Jonathan Spence, The Gate of Heavenly Peace: The Chinese and Their Revolution
Rebecca Karl, Mao Zedong and China in the Twentieth-Century World: A Concise History
Yueran Zhang, “Leninists in a Chinese Factory: Reflections on the Jasic Labour Organising Strategy”
“Seeing through Muddied Waters, Part 1: Jasic, Strikes & Unions”
“New Alliance of Students-Workers in Struggle of Union Formation: The Case of Jasic Conflict”
“Longing for the Cultural Revolution in China Today”
Rae Yang, Spider Eaters: A Memoir

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Chen Duxiu Update (or, the Devil Makes Work for Idle Hands) (1929) Dec 11, 2025

Show notes

The story of how the co-founder and first General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party became a Trotskyist.

Further reading:
Gregor Benton, China’s Urban Revolutionaries: Explorations in the History of Chinese Trotskyism, 1921-1952
Gregor Benton, Prophets Unarmed: Chinese Trotskyists in Revolution, War, Jail, and the Return from Limbo
Lee Feigon, Chen Duxiu: Founder of the Chinese Communist Party
Chang Kuo-t’ao [Zhang Guotao], The Rise of the Chinese Communist Party (2 volumes)
Tony Saich, The Rise to Power of the Chinese Communist Party
Jane Price, Cadres, Commanders, and Commissars: The Training of the Chinese Communist Leadership, 1920-1945

Some names from this episode:
Chen Duxiu, co-founder of the Communist Party of China
Li Dazhao, co-founder of the Communist Party of China
Zheng Chaolin, Chinese Trotskyist
Li Lisan, leading Communist
Yin Kuan, resigned as Provincial Secretary in Anhui
Peng Shuzhi, resigned as Provincial Secretary in Zhili
Wang Zekai, Chinese Trotskyist
Liu Bojian, former Provincial Secretary in Hubei
Ren Xu, Chinese Trotskyist
Xiang Ying, Jiangsu Provincial Secretary following the 6th Party Congress
Cai Zhende, member of Jiangsu Provincial Committee
Zhou Enlai, head of the Organization Department of the Central Committee
Wang Ruofei, sent to work in a factory in Moscow as punishment for Trotskyism before recanting
Qu Qiubai, top leader of Communist Party from the summer of 1927 until the Sixth Congress
Zhang Guotao, leading Communist

Episode artwork:
Chen Duxiu with Peng Shuzi in 1932

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Did the German Communists Really Say “After Hitler, Our Turn?” Exploring the Historical Evidence Nov 21, 2025

Show notes

Responding to listener queries about the evidence behind this common assertion regarding the KPD’s underestimation of the fascist threat.

Further reading:
Jane Degras, ed., The Communist International, 1919-1943: Documents, vol. 3: 1929-1943
International Press Correspondence
Communist International journal (1933)
Documents from the 13th Plenum of the ECCI

Some names from this episode:
Chen Duxiu, co-founder of the Communist Party of China
Hermann Remmele, leading KPD Reichstag member
Heinrich Brüning, German Chancellor from 1930-1932
Osip Piatnitsky, leading Comintern figure
Wilhelm Pieck, leader of KPD from 1934

Episode artwork:
Autonome Antifa (M) poster from 1991

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Revolution in the ‘20s, Go For It: The ‘Third Period’ Comes to China Oct 31, 2025

Show notes

The 1920s that is. The Comintern lets the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee know how the objective conditions in China are ripening for revolution.

Further reading:
Nikolai Bukharin, “On the International Situation and the Tasks of the Chinese Communist Party”
Nicholas Kozlov and Eric Weitz, “Reflections on the Origins of the ‘Third Period’: Bukharin, the Comintern, and the Political Economy of Weimar Germany”
Robin Kelley, Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists during the Great Depression
Theodore Rosengarten, All God’s Dangers: The Life of Nate Shaw
Sebastian Haffner, Failure of a Revolution: Germany 1918-1919
Chen Jian, Zhou Enlai: A Life
Jane Degras, ed., The Communist International, 1919-1943: Documents, vol. 3: 1929-1943
So Wai-chor, The Kuomintang Left in the National Revolution, 1924–1931

Some names from this episode:
Nikolai Bukharin, general secretary of the executive committee of the Comintern (1926-1929)
Rosa Luxemburg, German communist leader murdered in 1919
Karl Liebknecht, German communist leader murdered in 1919
Li Lisan, leading Communist
Stalin, Stalin
Feng Yuxiang, northwestern warlord who turned on Chiang Kai-shek during Sino-Soviet war
Wang Jingwei, the overall leader of the Guomindang Left
Chen Gongbo, main ideologue of the Reorganization Comrades Association
Chen Duxiu, co-founder of the Communist Party
He Long, leader of a soviet in the Hunan-Hubei border region

Episode artwork:
Li Lisan with family

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The Chinese Communist Party Interventions in the 1929 Sino-Soviet War Oct 10, 2025

Show notes

How the Chinese Communist Party tried to turn war into revolution in Manchuria in 1929.

Further reading:
Bruce A. Elleman and Stephen Kotkin, eds., Manchurian Railways and the Opening of China
Michael M. Walker, The 1929 Sino-Soviet War
Chong-Sik Lee, Revolutionary Struggle in Manchuria: Chinese Communism and Soviet Interest, 1922-1945
“Japan Moves Town to Reach Coal Vein”

Some names from this episode:
Miles Lampson, British minister to China
Yang Jingyu, Fushun special branch secretary of the CCP
Liu Shaoqi, Communist labor organizer and secretary of the CCP’s Manchurian Committee from June 1929 to March 1930
Ting Chün-yang, veteran communist sent to Manchuria
Meng Yongqian, veteran communist sent to Manchuria

Episode artwork:
Postcard of a Fushun coal mine from the early 1940s

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