People's History of Ideas Podcast

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The Third Armed Uprising in Shanghai Dec 17, 2020

Show notes

On March 21-22, 1927, Shanghai fell to a combination of general strike, armed uprising, and the advance of the National Revolutionary Army.
Further reading:
Steve Smith, A Road Is Made: Communism in Shanghai, 1920-1927
Some names from this episode:
Chen Duxiu, General Secretary of the Communist Party
Li Qiushi, Delegate to the Fifth Communist Party Congress known for being very handsome
Mikhail Borodin, Comintern agent and head of Soviet mission to aid the Guomindang
Henk Sneevliet, alias Maring, Dutch Communist and Comintern leader in China from 1921-1923
Zhou Enlai, Head of the military commission of the Communist Central Committee
Bai Chongxi, NRA commander whose forces occupied Shanghai

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The Split in the Guomindang: The Left Government in Wuhan and the Military Headquarters in Nanchang Develop Irreconcilable Differences (January to March 1927) Dec 03, 2020

Show notes

The question of what sort of revolution the Nationalist revolution will be creates a fundamental division within the Guomindang.
Further reading:
C. Martin Wilbur and Julie Lien-ying How, Missionaries of Revolution: Soviet Advisers and Nationalist China, 1920-1927
C. Martin Wilbur, The Nationalist Revolution in China, 1923-1928
Stuart Schram, ed., Mao’s Road to Power, vol. 2: National Revolution and Social Revolution, December 1920-June 1927
Alexander Pantsov, The Bolsheviks and the Chinese Revolution, 1919-1927
Jack Gray, Rebellions and Revolutions: China from the 1800s to 2000
Some names from this episode:
Mikhail Borodin, Comintern agent and head of Soviet mission to aid the Guomindang
Tang Shengzhi, Hunan warlord who sided with the National Revolutionary Army and contested leadership with Chiang Kai-shek
Peng Pai, Communist peasant organizer
Karl Radek, provost of Sun Yatsen University in Moscow

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Summation, Red Terror, and Frustration: The Aftermath of the Second Armed Uprising in Shanghai (February and March 1927) Nov 12, 2020

Show notes

Summations of the Second Uprising on several different levels; the continuing inability of the Shanghai Regional Committee of the Communist Party to control the ‘dog-beating’ squads; and some thoughts on the problem of the inevitability of errors being made in revolutionary armed struggle and Mao’s thinking on that problem.
Further reading:
Steve Smith, A Road Is Made: Communism in Shanghai, 1920-1927
C. Martin Wilbur and Julie Lien-ying How, Missionaries of Revolution: Soviet Advisers and Nationalist China, 1920-1927
Stuart Schram, ed., Mao’s Road to Power, vol. 2: National Revolution and Social Revolution, December 1920-June 1927
Allyn and Adele Rickett, Prisoners of Liberation
Some names from this episode:
Qu Qiubai, Communist Central Committee member and head of propaganda
Zhou Enlai, Head of the military commission of the Communist Central Committee
Li Baozhang, the commander of the garrison of warlord troops in Shanghai

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The Second Armed Uprising in Shanghai (February 1927) Nov 05, 2020

Show notes

Where we continue to follow the insurrectionary journey of the Shanghai Communists.
Further reading:
Steve Smith, A Road Is Made: Communism in Shanghai, 1920-1927
C. Martin Wilbur and Julie Lien-ying How, Missionaries of Revolution: Soviet Advisers and Nationalist China, 1920-1927
Some names from this episode:
Chen Duxiu, General Secretary of the Communist Party
Sun Chuanfang, Leader of warlord coalition in China’s southeast
Zhang Zongchang, Shandong warlord
Li Baozhang, the commander of the garrison of warlord troops in Shanghai
Zhou Enlai, Communist commissar who left Whampoa to aid the Shanghai military commission
Niu Yongjian, Veteran Nationalist operative who came to Shanghai in 1926

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From Dog-Beating Squads to the First Armed Uprising: The Shanghai Communists’ Steep Learning Curve in Developing Armed Struggle (1922 to 1926) Oct 29, 2020

Show notes

The bumpy road that the Communist Party took in Shanghai as it developed its capacity to deploy organized violence as a political tactic.
Further reading:
Steve Smith, A Road Is Made: Communism in Shanghai, 1920-1927
Some names from this episode:
Wang Shouhua, Leading Communist labor organizer in Shanghai
Yu Xiaqing, Leader of a nationalist faction of Shanghai’s merchant class
Niu Yongjian, Veteran Nationalist operative who came to Shanghai in 1926
Sun Chuanfang, Leader of warlord coalition in China’s southeast
Tao Jingxuan, Communist union organizer executed after First Armed Uprising
Chen Duxiu, General Secretary of the Communist Party

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When Peasant Revolution Meets the Theory of the Productive Forces: The Communist Debate on Unity with the Nationalist Left Oct 22, 2020

Show notes

The tension between maintaining the united front and mobilizing the peasants for revolution finds expression in a crucial debate over strategy at the end of 1926.
Further reading:
C. Martin Wilbur and Julie Lien-ying How, Missionaries of Revolution: Soviet Advisers and Nationalist China, 1920-1927
Tony Saich, The Rise to Power of the Chinese Communist Party
Stuart Schram, ed., Mao’s Road to Power, vol. 2: National Revolution and Social Revolution, December 1920-June 1927
Some names from this episode:
Mikhail Borodin, Comintern agent and head of Soviet mission to aid the Guomindang
Gregory Voitinsky, Chairman of the Far Eastern Bureau of the Comintern
Chen Duxiu, General Secretary of the Communist Party
Wang Jingwei, Main leader of the Guomindang left

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More Mass Movements, More Problems: The Aggressive Line of the Guangdong Comrades Oct 15, 2020

Show notes

Debate breaks out within the Communist Party and the Comintern over how to assess the balance of forces and relate to the developing revolutionary situation engendered by the mass movements in Hunan and Hubei in late 1926.
Further reading:
C. Martin Wilbur and Julie Lien-ying How, Missionaries of Revolution: Soviet Advisers and Nationalist China, 1920-1927
Tony Saich, The Rise to Power of the Chinese Communist Party
Arif Dirlik, “Mass Movements and the Left Kuomintang”
Steve Smith, A Road Is Made: Communism in Shanghai, 1920-1927
Daniel Kwan, Marxist Intellectuals and the Chinese Labor Movement: A Study of Deng Zhongxia, 1894-1933
Some names from this episode:
Mikhail Borodin, Comintern agent and head of Soviet mission to aid the Guomindang
Wang Jingwei, Main leader of the Guomindang left
Chen Gongbo, Close follower of Wang Jingwei
Sun Chuanfang, leader of warlord coalition which held east China before being defeated during the Northern Expedition
Vasily Blyukher, Soviet general purported to be de facto commander-in-chief of Northern Expedition
Tang Shengzhi, Hunan warlord who sided with the National Revolutionary Army and contested leadership with Chiang Kai-shek
Gregory Voitinsky, Chairman of the Far Eastern Bureau of the Comintern

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Revolution in the Countryside: The Peasant Movement in Hunan in the Wake of the Northern Expedition Oct 08, 2020

Show notes

Mass upheaval in Hunan and elsewhere after people are liberated from warlord rule.
Further reading:
C. Martin Wilbur and Julie Lien-ying How, Missionaries of Revolution: Soviet Advisers and Nationalist China, 1920-1927
Yokoyama Suguru, “The Peasant Movement in Hunan”
Stuart Schram, ed., Mao’s Road to Power, vol. 2: National Revolution and Social Revolution, December 1920-June 1927
A name from this episode:
Wu Peifu, Northern warlord

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The Northern Expedition Begins: Attempts at Merging the Mass Movement with Regular Warfare Oct 01, 2020

Show notes

Examining the role of both organized and unorganized mass support for the Northern Expedition in its first phase, the offensive from Guangdong to Wuhan from May to October 1926.

Further reading:
Donald Jordan, The Northern Expedition: China's National Revolution of 1926-1928
C. Martin Wilbur and Julie Lien-ying How, Missionaries of Revolution: Soviet Advisers and Nationalist China, 1920-1927
Some names from this episode:
Mikhail Borodin, Comintern agent and head of Soviet mission to aid the Guomindang
Chen Duxiu, General Secretary of the Communist Party
Sun Zhongshan/Sun Yatsen, Founding leader of the Guomindang
Wu Peifu, Northern warlord
Gregory Voitinsky, Comintern representative in China at various points

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Mao in 1926: War in Hunan, Coup in Guangzhou, Polemicizing for the Peasant Movement Sep 24, 2020

Show notes

Mao's political activity and intellectual development during the first nine months of 1926.
Further Reading:
Gerald Berkley, “The Canton Peasant Movement Training Institute”
Stuart Schram, ed., Mao’s Road to Power, vol. 2: National Revolution and Social Revolution, December 1920-June 1927
Yokoyama Suguru, “The Peasant Movement in Hunan”
Philip C. C. Huang, “Mao Tse-Tung and the Middle Peasants, 1925-1928”
Angus McDonald, “The Hunan Peasant Movement Its Urban Origins”
Some names from this episode:
Shen Yanbing (Mao Dun), Communist writer and later Culture Minister, in 1926 worked with Mao Zedong in Guomindang propaganda department
Zhao Hengti, Dominant warlord in Hunan
Tang Shengzhi, Subordinate of Zhao who allied with the Guomindang and displaced Zhao
Wu Peifu, Northern warlord
Nikolay Kuibyshev, Soviet general and head of military mission in Guangdong in late 1925 and early 1926
Andrei Bubnov, Headed Soviet military inspection mission to China in early 1926
Mikhail Borodin, Comintern agent and head of Soviet mission to aid the Guomindang
Peng Pai, Communist peasant organizer

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