The Nanyang Revolution: The Comintern and Chinese Networks in Southeast Asia, 1890–1957. By Anna Belogurova (New York, Cambridge University Press, 2019) 276 pp. $99.99

Abstract

The Nanyang Revolution provides a fascinating analysis of the overlapping nationalist and internationalist movements of Southeast Asia, primarily during the 1920s and 1930s. Belogurova pays particular attention to the Malaya Communist Party (mcp) and its role in the revolutionary activities of the period. Yet while the mcp may have the starring role in Belogurova’s story, several other organizations make important contributions, including the Comintern, Chinese immigrant associations (huiguan), the Nationalists (Guomindang), the Chinese Communist Party (ccp), the League Against Imperialism (lai), and even global Christianity. Chronicling the fascinating interactions between all of these, Belogurova argues that “the revolutionary international organizations active in Southeast Asia connecting the various peoples living in the area to the rest of the world makes the case that local developments—whether in Singapore or Shanghai or Manila—cannot be understood without a basic understanding of global interactions. Moreover, it demonstrates how Chinese practices were intertwined with global tendencies that produced the embeddedness of nations in global discourses, which are often mistaken for national discourses” (233).To understand the relationship between global and national discourses, Belogurova investigates the multiple and, at times, conflicting meanings of the Chinese term minzu. Leaders from the Guomindang, the ccp, the Comintern, and the mcp all used the term minzu, though each used it differently in different contexts. Sometimes it meant nation or nationality; other times it meant ethnic group, race, or simply people. As Belogurova writes, “These multiple meanings resulted in a semantic slippage,” allowing two groups to use the same words to refer to seemingly divergent trends (54). “As a result of different understandings of the word minzu by the ccp and the Comintern, a communist organization that was built according to people became the basis of a countrywide communist party of a nonexistent nation…. By promoting a national (i.e., Malayan) party and a Malayan Revolution, the Comintern conformed to the nascent idea of a national Malayan identity among Chinese immigrant communists and their jurisdiction over both the Nanyang and Malaya” (56).Belogurova’s fascinating work builds upon the previous scholarship of Benton, Kuhn, Ong, Nonini, and several other notable scholars to provide a complex vision of nationalism and internationalism in Southeast Asia.1 She also borrows the ideas of Tan Liok Ee, whose research on the terms bangsa and minzu provides a critical piece of Belogurova’s interpretive framework.2 She has conducted exhaustive research for The Nanyang Revolution, and her footnotes represent a treasure trove of information.Belogurova organizes her work into eight non-narrative chapters of approximately thirty pages each. Although her title suggests an analysis of the period from 1890 to 1957, the vast majority of the text focuses on the 1920s and 1930s. In her prologue, Belogurova establishes the durian as a metaphor for the Chinese experience in Southeast Asia. Tradition held that any Chinese immigrant who developed a liking for the smelly fruit was destined to remain in the region. Others argued that the fruit was “a symbol of the stink of the Nanyang’s capitalist society” (4). Intriguing as this metaphor is, it would have been helpful if Belogurova had used the prologue to lay out an organizing rationale for the remaining seven chapters.Belogurova’s ongoing work will certainly have a meaningful impact on the field of overseas Chinese history. Research libraries and graduate students will want to acquire The Nanyang Revolution. It not only sheds important light on the mcp in Southeast Asia but also adds to our understanding of such larger themes as migration, nationalism, globalism, and revolution. Belogurova has deftly helped to untangle these complex strands within colonial Southeast Asia.