People's History of Ideas Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Peasant Revolution?: An Exhausted Mao Rediscovers His Roots Jul 16, 2020

Show notes

Mao gets sick of all the BS in Shanghai and returns to his hometown of Shaoshan, where he discovers a militant peasantry.
Further Reading:
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”
Some names from this episode:
Li Lisan, Communist leader of the Shanghai General Labor Union
Liu Shaoqi, Communist leader just below Li Lisan in the Shanghai General Labor Union
Liu Hua, Union activist executed for leading role in May 30 Movement
Liu Bolun, Stood in for Mao at a meeting of the Committee for Common People’s Education
Wang Xianzong, Hunanese Communist murdered by a local warlord for organizing peasants
Wang Jingwei, Head of Guomindang government in Guangzhou in late 1925 when Mao arrived from Hunan
Han Suyin, early biographer of Mao for a western audience
Liu Shaoqi, Leading Communist labor organizer in the 1920s, later targeted as a capitalist roader in the Cultural Revolution
Deng Xiaoping, Chinese leader targeted as a capitalist roader in the Cultural Revolution

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Gonzalo in the Middle Kingdom: What Abimael Guzmán Tells Us in His Three Discussions of His Two Trips to China Jul 09, 2020

Show notes

A podcast version of a recently published article which discusses what the leader of Peru's Shining Path, Abimael Guzmán, has to say about the time he spent in Maoist China.
The article can be read on the podcast website.

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The May 30 Movement: The Chinese People’s Uprising Against the British and Japanese in 1925 Jul 02, 2020

Show notes

Workers, students and merchants in Shanghai take on the British authorities of the International Settlement and Japanese mill owners after protesters are massacred.
Further Reading:
Steve Smith, A Road Is Made: Communism in Shanghai, 1920-1927
Some names from this episode:
Li Lisan, Communist leader of the Shanghai General Labor Union
Zhang Xueliang, son of Zhang Zuolin, occupied Shanghai’s Chinese city
Zhang Zuolin, northern warlord
Gregory Voitinsky, Comintern representative in China in 1925
Liu Shaoqi, Communist leader just below Li Lisan in the Shanghai General Labor Union
Liu Hua, Union activist executed for leading role in May 30 Movement

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Lenin’s Ideas on Revolutionary Situations and the Situation in the United States Today Jun 25, 2020

Show notes

In response to a listener request, we consider the situation in the United States today in light of historical thinking on the question of revolutionary situations.
Further reading:
Lenin, The Collapse of the Second International (chapter two)
Lenin, Letters from Afar
Lenin, “Marxism and Insurrection”

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Back to the Labor Front!: The Japanese Mills Strike of 1925 Jun 18, 2020

Show notes

The Communist Party tries to figure out how to put the workers in the lead of the nationalist revolution, and has some initial success.
Further Reading:
Steve Smith, A Road Is Made: Communism in Shanghai, 1920-1927
Some names from this episode:
Deng Zhongxia, Leading Communist labor organizer
Li Dazhao, Co-founder of the Communist Party, often credited as China’s first Marxist
Li Lisan, Leading Communist labor organizer
Chen Duxiu, Chen Duxiu, General secretary of the Communist Party
Gregory Voitinsky, Comintern representative in China in 1925
Yang Zhihua, Communist leader in women’s movement

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The Proletarian Nation vs. The Theory of the Productive Forces Jun 11, 2020

Show notes

The thinking of Chinese Communism’s two founders, Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu, diverges as revolutionary experience is gained.
Further Reading:
Maurice Meisner, Li Ta-Chao and the Origins of Chinese Marxism
Some names from this episode:
Li Dazhao, Co-founder of the Communist Party, often credited as China’s first Marxist
Chen Duxiu, Co-founder and first general secretary of the Communist Party
Zhang Guotao, Communist leader and opponent of ‘united front from within’ with Guomindang

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Friends Close, Enemies Closer: The United Front in Action Jun 04, 2020

Show notes

As both the Guomindang and the Communist Party benefit from their collaboration, tensions build.
Further reading:
Tony Saich, The Origins of the First United Front in China
Steve Smith, A Road Is Made: Communism in Shanghai, 1920-1927
Alexander Pantsov, The Bolsheviks and the Chinese Revolution, 1919-1927
C. Martin Wilbur and Julie Lien-ying How, Missionaries of Revolution: Soviet Advisers and Nationalist China, 1920-1927
Arif Dirlik, “Mass Movements and the Left Kuomintang”
Some names from this episode:
Sun Zhongshan/Sun Yatsen, leader of the Guomindang
Mikhail Borodin, Comintern agent and head of Soviet mission to aid the Guomindang
Chen Jiongming, Southern warlord, ally and then enemy of Sun Yatsen
Chiang Kai-shek, Japan-trained military officer, close confidant of Sun Yatsen
Lev Karakhan, Soviet ambassador to China beginning in 1923
Gregory Chicherin, Soviet People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs
Chen Duxiu, General Secretary of the Communist Party

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The Road Is Tortuous: The Chinese Revolution and the End of the Global Sixties May 28, 2020

Show notes

A podcast version of a recently published article which argues that the rightward turn of Chinese politics in the 1970s was a key contributing factor in ending the revolutionary era of the long and global 1960s and ushering in the neoliberal age of reaction which followed.
The article can be read on the podcast website.

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The Loneliest United Front: The Chinese Communist Party in 1923 May 21, 2020

Show notes

The Communist Party of China tries to find a way to implement the united front with the Guomindang in 1923, but ultimately has to wait for the Soviet-Guomindang alliance to mature.
Further reading:
Tony Saich, The Origins of the First United Front in China
Stuart Schram, ed., Mao’s Road to Power, vol. 2
Some names from this episode:
Sun Zhongshan/Sun Yatsen, leader of the Guomindang
Wang Jingwei, leader of Guomindang left-wing, later president of Japanese puppet state in China
Cao Kun, northern warlord who controlled Beijing
Li Yuanhong, president of China from 1922-1923
Zhang Guotao, communist leader and opponent of ‘united front from within’ with Guomindang
Henk Sneevliet, alias Maring, Dutch Communist and Comintern leader in China from 1921-1923
Chiang Kai-shek, Japan-trained military officer, close confidant of Sun Yatsen
Mikhail Borodin, Comintern agent and head of Soviet mission to aid the Guomindang

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Communist Unionizing and the Genesis of the United Front with the Guomindang May 14, 2020

Show notes

The Communist Party begins its labor organizing drive, and the Comintern pushes for a united front with the Guomindang.
Further reading:
Elizabeth Perry, Shanghai on Strike
Tony Saich, The Origins of the First United Front in China
Steve Smith, A Road Is Made: Communism in Shanghai 1920-1927

Some names from this episode:
Henk Sneevliet, alias Maring, Dutch Communist and Comintern leader in China beginning in 1921
Zhang Guotao, emerged from founding congress as an important Communist leader
Sun Zhongshan/Sun Yatsen, leader of the Guomindang
Li Qihan, communist teacher and labor organizer who pioneered utilization of secret society contacts in labor organizing
Huang Ai, anarchist labor organizer executed in 1922
Pang Renquan, anarchist labor organizer executed in 1922
Chen Duxiu, first general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party
Gregory Voitinsky, leader of Comintern delegation to China in 1920
Chen Jiongming, progressive southern warlord, sometime opponent of Sun Yatsen
V. Lidin, Comintern agent in China, subordinate to Maring
Li Dazhao, leading Communist
Adolph Joffe, Soviet ambassador to China
Georgy Safarov, head of eastern section of the Comintern
Wu Peifu, northern warlord who crushed railroad workers’ strike in 1923

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