The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution

by Harold R. Isaacs

The story of contemporary China typically dates back to Mao’s 1949 revolution. But in this classic work of Marxist scholarship, historian Harold Isaacs uncovers how workers and peasants struggled for a different kind of revolution, one built from the bottom up, in the 1920s. The defeat of their heroic efforts profoundly shaped the further course of modern Chinese history.

Harold Isaacs was an acclaimed Marxist historian who identified with Leon Trotsky’s critique of the Soviet Union’s degeneration under Stalinism during the 1920s. The Tragedy, his major work, is dedicated to the “martyrs” of the 1925-1927 revolution, who fought for a truly democratic society.

Genres: China, History, Nonfiction

412 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1938

About the author

Professor Harold R. Isaacs was an American journalist, South-East Asia scholar, author, and professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His son, Professor Arnold R. Isaacs, is also a South-East Asia scholar & has followed in his father's footsteps in many respects.

Reviews

[Nils Van Nieuwenhuyse · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very insightful book about a forgotten period in history, even though it is so important for the second superpower in this world, China. The history of the tragedy of the Chinese Revolution shows us the historical conditions that have caused the Chinese 'Communist' Party to be in the state that it is now. Having completely abandoned all socialist positions, already in 1927, and not having any base in the Chinese working class, it was indeed impossible for it to become a 'worker's party' and building a real socialist state in China. They based themselves purely on farmers, which makes the creation of worker's councils incredibly difficult (if not impossible) and shaped the need for a bureaucratic state. By now, the CCP has of course everywhere except in words given up on any pretence of still being a socialist or communist party.

[Gabrielle · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good overview of China in the first half of the 20th century, quite easy to read. The revolution of 1925-27 wich failed due to its direction had shown the perspective of the world revolution even in semi colonial countries, as a movement that would have been brought by the working class. The failure lead to the developpement of another kind of Revolution in 1949, the foundation of a bourgeois state. This all is shown vivdly in this book but i found that it need more développement of the implantation and activity of the Chinese communist party, and more importantly a more detailled view about the struggle of the Chinese working class (about the general strikes, the trade unions and strikes comitee)

[Adam Kiehl · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1926-1927 China experienced a grass roots popular revolution that most people have never heard of. It involved workers taking over city governments creating democratic bodies implementing shorter working hours, workers comp, safety regulations and advocating for greater freedom of assembly and press, the peasants setting up democratic councils and redistributing land. Much of the initial organizing work of the peasantry and Chinese workers was carried out by the Chinese Communist party but the uprising was largely spontaneous and outside their control.

This book is the story of how that revolution was betrayed by the Nationalist and Communist parties. The Nationalists under Chang Kai-Shek had managed to construct a formidable army with Soviet aid (the party had remodeled itself along Bolshevik lines in 1924). The Chinese communist party, under orders from Moscow, completely submitted itself to the nationalist party and, under the bizarre “materialist stages of history” thesis being trumpeted by Moscow, insisted China was only ready for a “bourgeois democratic revolution” which basically meant siding with the landlords and big businessmen of the nationalist party and was neither democratic or revolutionary.

When Chiang Kia-Shek launched the northern expedition to unite China under the nationalist banner with a Soviet equipped army the worker and peasant organizations launched uprisings in support making his march a crushing victory. They did this because the communist party, which many still trusted, insisted they could trust the nationalists. However the nationalist party had other plans. Chiang Kai-Shek had already consolidated power in a coup in Guangzhou where he had eliminated rivals turning the party into a personal dictatorship he had also crushed all the major workers organizations. His army consisted of an officer corps largely from the feudal landlord class and from the urban politically connected business class. As it marched north and took cities and villages, frequently already liberated by the people themselves, it rapidly turned against the workers and peasants. The union and peasant leaders were rounded up and executed, if general strikes were called the army would frequently simply fire on the demonstrators and execute and/or torture who they could find. Chiang Kai-Shek had personal connections with the Shanghai underworld which helped him raid union headquarters and beat up and murder its members and officers. He also received help, in Shanghai, from every imperial power, each of which had carved out an area of influence in the city, they joined his gunboats in bombarding areas where the workers had attempted to defend themselves.

Every time the worker and peasant organizations would attempt to strike back they were handicapped by the Communist party which insisted they had to support the Nationalist party. In some cases (well after the pattern of mass murder and terror had been established in already conquered cities) they convinced peasants and workers to hand over their arms and simply appeal to Chiang Kai-shek to address their concerns before the nationalist forces had arrived. Shortly after Chiang Kai-shek sent out orders to liquidate the Communist party members entirely with only a handful making it out alive (and going on the now well known Long March).

The rule of the nationalist party in China would be an economic and social catastrophe with a near total capitulation to Japan for years (things would change later) as Chiang Kai-shek preferred to focus on crushing peasant rebellions to ensure the loyalty of his land holding officers. They would also frequently abandon their peasant draftees, who they held in contempt, as they did in Nanking to be slaughtered by Japanese troops.

Eventually the Chinese party would make a come back as a guerrilla force that at least addressed the needs and desires of the peasantry. However this comeback came long after grass roots organizations in the countryside and city had been eradicated by the nationalists and Japanese and the communist party would construct an authoritarian Leninist form of government that we are stuck with today. While the victory of the Chinese communists was an improvement over the nationalist this is hardly condition for praise. Had it not been for the mass violence perpetrated by Chiang Kai-Shek to form a one party authoritarian state (which continued in Taiwan) and for the moronic idiocy of the communist party too busy reading propaganda from Moscow to understand what was happening the Chinese people could have constructed a far more democratic and egalitarian order than the one they are stuck with today.

The author of this book was still an admirer of Lenin and the initial Bolshevik “revolution” when he wrote the book (he takes the classic “it was the civil war and later Stalin that turned it bad” approach) it is a testament to his objectivity as a scholar that after he repudiated Leninism after completing this book he never had to seriously alter his thesis. Lenin advocated a top-down vanguard party model and one of his first actions after seizing power in Russia was to crush the kinds of democratic worker and peasant efforts at self-organizations that this author extensively documents and clearly admires in China. The author holds the honor of being banned from China twice, first by the Nationalists and later by the Communists both of whom would rather forget their role in the 1926-1927 Chinese Revolution.

[Ted Tyler · Rating 3 out of 5]

A thoughtful but very subjective analysis of the collapse of the First United Front between the Chinese Nationalists and the Chinese Communists. Harold Isaacs laments that nationalism and not Marxism became the dominant ideological framework for China during the late 1920s through the early 1940s. As a Marxist, he blasts the Soviet Union for valuing its security dilemma over the importance of spreading Marxism into China. He astutely notes that Stalin's Soviet Union had been overtaken by a strong Russian nationalism that feared both Great Britain and Japan. Isaacs views the Chinese Revolution as tragic because nationalism choked out socialism. His assessment of how Chiang Kai-shek out-maneuvered Chen Duxiu and the Communist Party members is intriguing, but he fails to acknowledge that the Communists failed to 1) generate mass appeal to the farmers, 2) develop an independent, party army, and 3) acquire solid financing. These problems would all be addressed in later iterations of the CCP. I found Isaacs's sarcasm amusing, and I appreciated his dry wit and candor. He's a tad dramatic but should be read for any student of early Modern China.

[Peter Wise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Printed first in 1951, this classic documents the failed 1927 revolution perverted by Chiang Kai Shek and his Kuomintang party. It also reveals the complete bungling and intentional betrayal of the nascent communist party of China by Stalin, not to mention the millions of peasants who would have to await 1949 for relief. Very well written and a necessary pre-1quel to understand the incredible suffering of the Chinese people at the hands of their own bourgeoisie, militarists and the the imperial European powers. Tangentially, it reveals the tragic genius of Trotsky versus the stultifying mentality of Stalin and his coterie in Moscow. It's incredible China survived and has thrived since the events of 1927 while communism rose and fell in the USSR and Europe but led China to its present commanding position in Asia, all the time politically evolving while economically advancing.

[Brad Went · Rating 4 out of 5]

In some ways, "Tragedy" suffers simply due to the time and the purpose it was written. Isaacs' released the book right when Japan invaded China for the second time and the CCP was teaming up with the KMT once again, despite the total failure of this strategy in the past. His writing mainly serves as a polemic against the CCP's popular front tactics and a document of their role in destroying the militant working class movement in China by tailing the nationalist party. As such, much of it consists of very long reproductions of quotes from various people involved in these conflicts. This works if you're trying to make a point and possibly change the direction of political movements, but not if you're reading the book today and looking for a more literary description of the upheavals in China during the 20's and 30's. Isaacs' is also a bit too broad and doesn't go into detail about how the various unions, peasant organizations, and mass movements developed. He's a bit hampered by a macro-view. For a more microscopic analysis of the same events, see Elizabeth Perry's "Shanghai on Strike". Perry goes into detail about how the various guilds, local ties, and religious rites help create various kinds of class consciousness during the same period. However, time has been kind to "Tragedy" in one respect. Reading it now, we know the history that Isaacs doesn't: that the CCP would go on to establish a Stalinist dictatorship. This adds another tragedy to the one already documented.

[Jeff McLeod · Rating 4 out of 5]

An essential account of the Chinese Revolution in the 1920s, especially 1927, from the respected Trotskyist writer. Really enjoyed it, and felt it was only held back by the relentless anti-Communist rants, sectarian polemicizing, and lofty moralizing -- especially at the end. Can't really blame him too much though -- I think he originally wrote the book during the peak of Stalinist purges in the 30s.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very important book.

[Lillian · Rating 5 out of 5]

An illuminating and densely packed read about one of the most important revolutionary periods of all time. All complimented by the fantastic (and often cynically humorous) prose of the author.

[Tony Sullivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book deserves a far higher profile, as does its topic: the vast but largely unknown revolution in China 1925-27.

Isaacs describes China's uneven development under Western control, leading into the growth of a new working class. There were one million industrial workers 1916, nearly double that in 1922. A remarkable 200,000 Chinese labourers were bundled off Europe to serve their colonial masters during WW1, and many returned radicalised. The book then gives a very detailed account of the workers' revolution that rolled across the great nation's seaboard in the 1920s.

Mao's 1949 takeover freed China from foreign control but it was based on peasant armies marching into the cities, and setting up a dictatorship. The 1925-27 revolution was based in the cities, run by highly democratic worker bodies.

Isaacs captures the cruel intertwining of events in Russia and China. Moscow led the world communist parties, but its directives to foreign parties were no longer guided towards spreading workers' revolution abroad; they forced Chinese communists into "coolie service" to bourgeois nationalists. Failure in China then became the last nail in the coffin of Russia's revolution, as a new bureaucratic order consolidated its power.

Things did not have to be like that. Isaacs describes the policies advocated by Trotsky that could have brought a world-changing victory for the revolution in China.

[Nancy Zigmund · Rating 5 out of 5]

Important prelude to WWII and Korean War and Vietnamese War....