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The Bolsheviks and the Chinese Revolution, 1919–1927
The opening of former secret Soviet archives has broadened the documentary base for a new study of Bolshevik policy in China on the eve of and during the revolution of 1925–1927. The aim of this work is to incorporate these new documents into a scholarly study and on that basis to explore the essence of the Russian Bolsheviks’ main concepts concerning the Chinese revolution. The work was designed to determine the influence of these concepts exerted on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) through an analysis of the way various adherents of the Chinese Communist movement perceived them.
The primary sources used in this book previously unpublished archival material on the Comintern, the All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik), and the CCP, reflecting the theories and political practice of Leninism, Trotskyism, and Stalinism, and of the Russian and Chinese Left Oppositions; works by Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, and other leaders of the Executive Committee of the Communist International and the CCP published in East Asia, Europe, and the U.S.; Comintern journals and bulletins; private interviews carried out by the author with participants and eyewitnesses of the events treated in the book; and memoirs of various Chinese revolutionaries.
The primary sources used in this book previously unpublished archival material on the Comintern, the All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik), and the CCP, reflecting the theories and political practice of Leninism, Trotskyism, and Stalinism, and of the Russian and Chinese Left Oppositions; works by Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, and other leaders of the Executive Committee of the Communist International and the CCP published in East Asia, Europe, and the U.S.; Comintern journals and bulletins; private interviews carried out by the author with participants and eyewitnesses of the events treated in the book; and memoirs of various Chinese revolutionaries.
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
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About the author
Alexander V. Pantsov
6 books23 followersAlexander V. Pantsov is Professor of History and holds the Edward and Mary Catherine Gerhold Chair in the Humanities at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio. Born in Moscow, Pantsov graduated from Moscow State University Institute of Asian and African Studies in 1978. He has published more than ten books, among them The Bolsheviks and the Chinese Revolution, 1919-1927 (2000), Mao: The Real Story (2007), Deng Xiaoping: A Revolutionary Life (2015), and Victorious in Defeat: The Life and Times of Chiang Kai-shek, China, 1887-1975 (2023).
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 16, 2024
There is a great picture of Lenin and Trotsky together in an oudoor group scene Nov. 7, 1919.
Everybody is all smiles and looking like snow hippies with their fur caps and odd psychedelic background. That alone is worth the two bucks I paid.
I wanted to slap up a review after just a quick skim, since there are none on Goodreads.
It looks like there is some interesting stuff here, so it makes my cut in the grand review of books.
I am not a hoarder.
Ditto.
Ditto.
Everybody is all smiles and looking like snow hippies with their fur caps and odd psychedelic background. That alone is worth the two bucks I paid.
I wanted to slap up a review after just a quick skim, since there are none on Goodreads.
It looks like there is some interesting stuff here, so it makes my cut in the grand review of books.
I am not a hoarder.
Ditto.
Ditto.
March 14, 2026
The Bolsheviks and the Chinese Revolution, 1919-1927, by Alexander Pantsov is a rather balanced, important work on Comintern policy in the 1920s. Though the author is partial to the Left Opposition, he does not simply paint Stalin, Bukharin, and company as merely cynical traitors, nor is Trotsky presented as pristine. He illustrates the logic of Stalin, one that was flawed, alongside the flawed conceptions of the Opposition.
The Comintern majority did not diagnose the post-Sun GMD, both the Nanjing government of Chiang and the Wuhan government under the Left GMD of Wang Jingwei, as sprinting in the direction of reaction. This culminated in not one, but two purges of communists – one by Chiang and Wang, respectively – and ten years of white terror.
Therefore, it should be no surprise that China became a hub of the Left Opposition (beyond simply having been taught by Radek) and that those who did not join this opposition also came into conflict with Comintern leadership and policy as time went on.
Beyond simple policy disagreement with Khrushchev and Brezhnev and threats of invasion or nuclear war, the seeds of the Sino-Soviet Split were planted in the 1920s.
Pantsov continues with a discussion of the Chinese Left Opposition. By the start of 1930, 1 in 5 Chinese students in KUTK, a Soviet political school, were involved with the Opposition. With members of this Opposition recognizing the political atmosphere, some chose to leave for China. Some did not. Following a flurry of confessions, some voluntary, the Chinese Left Opposition in the USSR ceased to be. On July 20th, 24 of 36 were isolated or exiled, followed by three more, while three were set to work in Moscow factories, while remainder were deported.
Pantsov concludes with a more general, brief discussion of the effects of Comintern policy. He describes Lenin’s position, how it evolved in both Trotsky and especially Stalin’s views, respectively. He argues that Stalin’s line was ultimately contradictory, a mix of Lenin and Roy, coupled with his own experience in struggle against Trotskyists. The GMD could not be purged of anticommunists. The contingent of anticommunists, beyond simply being armed, were too numerous. It could not be communized without a collapse of the united front. Plain anti-imperialism was the maximum programme acceptable to the GMD and Communists’ increasingly uneasy alliance. Further, Pantsov argues Radek and Zinoviev were often equally, if not more contradictory in their positions.
Could Trotsky’s proposal have succeeded? It is impossible to say. Ultimately, Pantsov declares that Lenin’s concept survived (revived?) during the Second United Front under totally transformed conditions. The Communist Party achieved a mass base, established widespread hegemony, and thoroughly routed the GMD.
This book gets four big booms!
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
The Comintern majority did not diagnose the post-Sun GMD, both the Nanjing government of Chiang and the Wuhan government under the Left GMD of Wang Jingwei, as sprinting in the direction of reaction. This culminated in not one, but two purges of communists – one by Chiang and Wang, respectively – and ten years of white terror.
Therefore, it should be no surprise that China became a hub of the Left Opposition (beyond simply having been taught by Radek) and that those who did not join this opposition also came into conflict with Comintern leadership and policy as time went on.
Beyond simple policy disagreement with Khrushchev and Brezhnev and threats of invasion or nuclear war, the seeds of the Sino-Soviet Split were planted in the 1920s.
Pantsov continues with a discussion of the Chinese Left Opposition. By the start of 1930, 1 in 5 Chinese students in KUTK, a Soviet political school, were involved with the Opposition. With members of this Opposition recognizing the political atmosphere, some chose to leave for China. Some did not. Following a flurry of confessions, some voluntary, the Chinese Left Opposition in the USSR ceased to be. On July 20th, 24 of 36 were isolated or exiled, followed by three more, while three were set to work in Moscow factories, while remainder were deported.
Pantsov concludes with a more general, brief discussion of the effects of Comintern policy. He describes Lenin’s position, how it evolved in both Trotsky and especially Stalin’s views, respectively. He argues that Stalin’s line was ultimately contradictory, a mix of Lenin and Roy, coupled with his own experience in struggle against Trotskyists. The GMD could not be purged of anticommunists. The contingent of anticommunists, beyond simply being armed, were too numerous. It could not be communized without a collapse of the united front. Plain anti-imperialism was the maximum programme acceptable to the GMD and Communists’ increasingly uneasy alliance. Further, Pantsov argues Radek and Zinoviev were often equally, if not more contradictory in their positions.
Could Trotsky’s proposal have succeeded? It is impossible to say. Ultimately, Pantsov declares that Lenin’s concept survived (revived?) during the Second United Front under totally transformed conditions. The Communist Party achieved a mass base, established widespread hegemony, and thoroughly routed the GMD.
This book gets four big booms!
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews