Thursday, February 19

There is Homework for Friday.

Assignment:  Reading #12: "Communism and Communism in China"

This is review sheet is going to be short because the substance of Thursday's class is going to be very close to your readings.  We're going to discuss what Communism is: its basic theories, and how those were modified when applied to revolutionary situations in Russia (leading up to 1917) and China (leading up to 1949).  From the standpoint of the 21st century's first year, it seems likely that ultimately the history of the 20th century will be viewed principally in terms of communism's rise and fall worldwide, and understanding communism, and how China adapted it, is essential to understanding China in the 20th century world.

As in the readings, the focus of what I talk about during the first part of class Wednesday will be on the theories of Marx, Lenin, and Mao, and why Marxism was attractive to some Chinese intellectuals in the early 1920s.

       
Marx, Lenin, and Mao

We then move ahead in our China story, by considering how the man who ultimately emerged as the leader of communism in China, Mao Zedong, further adapted Marxism-Leninism to the Chinese case.

Founders of the Chinese Communist Party (1921)

Beijing University's Professor Chen Duxiu, Librarian Li Dazhao, and Library Assistant Mao Zedong

Mao's adaptation of communism was part of a complex political struggle that emerged in China in response to the excesses of the Warlord government of the 1910s and early 1920s.  That struggle initially united Sun Yat-sen's political party, the Nationalists, with the small, fledgling Chinese Communist Party (the CCP), in a war against the Warlords.  That war was won in 1927, but not before Sun Yat-sen's successor (Sun died in 1925) Chiang Kai-shek, had broken with the communists and attempted to wipe them out.  From 1927 on, the main political contest in China was between the Nationalists and the CCP, with the Nationalists initially controlling almost all of China, but ultimately, after the destabilizing blow of Japan's World War II invasion of China, losing control to the CCP in 1949.

Chiang Kai-shek in 1942; Mao proclaims the Communist victory, October 1, 1949