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

People's History of Ideas Podcast

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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