Communist Revolution Research Articles

중국공산당의 대국민당전략과 실천(1945-1946)

This article sought to reveal whether the Chinese Communist Party at the time truly intended to achieve the communist revolution it hoped for through peace and negotiation through a review of the political negotiation process within China after the victory in the Anti-Japanese War and the Chinese Communist Party’s preparations for civil war. Mao Zedong’s theory of coalition government was to build a new China by establishing a formal government that included representatives of all parties and factions, as well as independent and non-party factions. The coalition government theory was supported by various political parties and organizations because it went far beyond national-public cooperation in terms of government composition. While Mao Zedong was holding talks in Chongqing at Chiang Kai-shek’s request, the Communist Party leadership in Yan'an was accelerating preparations for civil war. The Chinese Communist Party Army established the strategic policy of “Northward Development and Southern Defense”(向北發展 向南防禦) to disrupt the monopoly of the Nationalist Government Army in the Manchuria region and prevent the Chinese Communist Party Army's individual defeat in the southern Huazhong region. In addition, the units were expanded through the creation of field corps and field forces, and from an operational perspective, an attempt was made to transition from guerrilla warfare to mobile warfare. In particular, the reinforcement of 300,000 troops in Manchuria, who were acquired from the Soviet Army and equipped with new Japanese weapons and heavy equipment, immediately raised the military power of the Chinese Communist Party to the next level. In this way, the Chinese Communist Party demonstrated its willingness to negotiate externally by promoting the theory of a coalition government, while internally it was gradually narrowing the gap in military power with the Nationalist government army by strengthening its military power.

From a grand hotel to an urban symbol: the Astor Hotel in old and new Tianjin

This article examines the enduring iconicity, multifaceted functions, and changing meanings of the Astor Hotel in Tianjin—one of the first international hotels in modern China—from the mid-19th century to the 21st century. Originally built more than 150 years ago, the Astor Hotel still stands exactly where it did in the former British Concession in Tianjin. This hotel was not only a venue boasting Tianjin’s most expensive accommodations but also a crucial site where politics, technology, economics, social, and cultural changes intersected and developed in its treaty port incarnation. Moreover, the expansion of the Astor Hotel evolved along with the development of Tianjin from a hypercolonial city to a Chinese-run metropolis. Shortly after the Communist Revolution in China, its ownership was overtaken by the Tianjin Municipal Government. Following a sequence of major renovations and commercial relaunches in the 1990s, the Astor Hotel was restored and reconstructed as an emblem of Tianjin’s historical status as an international and cosmopolitan city in China. Both continuity and changes will be emphasised in the discussion of the Astor Hotel’s history, as well as its multiple functions and shifting symbolic significance.

Surviving Communist Revolutions: Entrepreneurial Culture Across Generations

Surviving Communist Revolutions: Entrepreneurial Culture Across Generations

Beyond Words

Beyond Words

중일전쟁시기 중국공산당의 세력 확장과 군사력 증강(1937-1945)

During the eight-year Sino-Japanese War, China mobilized 14 million people, but more than 3.21 million casualties alone. The casualties and property losses of the general public were incalculable. In particular, the National Government Army, which was the first target of attack during the fighting, faced a situation where it was impossible to respond to new challenges in the postwar era due to enormous material and mental losses. On the other hand, Japan's invasion of China in 1937 provided the CCP with another opportunity to complete the revolution, apart from the suffering the Chinese. This war provided Mao Zedong and the CCP an invaluable time that was difficult to obtain, and enabled them to expand their power and prepare for a true communist revolution. The CCP stimulated the patriotism of numerous Chinese people through anti-Japanese propaganda activities, attracting them to its side and at the same time successfully militarized them. The number of Red Army forces that were only 40,000 at the time of the Second United Front in 1937 increased to more than 1 million by the end of the war in 1945. The CCP army was equipped with the ability as a real frontier of the CCP revolution in terms of scale and combat power through the Sino-Japanese War.

数字时代下无产阶级何以生存与联合

Entering the digital age, capitalism further realizes the externalization and transfer of its internal contradictions through the deep combination of digital technologies such as big data and intelligent algorithms. With more powerful and flexible means of exploitation, it leads to the alienation of human labor and the loss of proletarian revolutionary consciousness, and makes human civilization face a huge crisis. But the essence of “capitalist crisis” or “capitalism in crisis” is not beyond Marx’s critical vision of alienated labor. Therefore, under today’s digital capitalism, it is particularly urgent and important to re-examine and analyze the living state of the proletariat under digital capitalism from Marx’s perspective of alienated labor, and propose solutions to promote the historical process of the communist revolution. In this sense, China, as an important revolutionary force that promotes the historical transformation of the world situation, leads the new practice of the proletarian revolution with the new form of digital civilization, assumes the historical responsibility of promoting human happiness and liberation, and provides a Chinese solution for implementing the Marxist internationalist position and promoting the construction of a community with a shared future for mankind.

Revolution as a transition from empire to nation-state(s): Comparing the Soviet and Chinese paths

How did revolutions facilitate empires’ transition to nation-states? This article compares the Bolshevik and the Chinese Communist Revolutions. It conceptualizes this Soviet–Sino comparison through three dimensions of nation-building: separating from a universal community, building a national cultural core and overcoming internal ethnopolitics. Both socialist regimes accommodated the nation-state model by fusing centralized control with limited autonomy for ethnic minorities. Yet, whereas the Soviet Union claimed to be a universal union of nation-states, which was supposed to keep accepting new members until it covered the entire globe, the People’s Republic of China resembled a typical nation-state that preserved multiethnicity and enclosed borders under the title of the ‘Chinese Nation’. In analyzing the influence of revolutions, this article probes three relations: inter-revolution, revolution–society and revolution–counterrevolution. Arising after the Bolsheviks as a follower-revolution, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was confined to a national component of the USSR’s global communism project. This shaped the CCP’s enclosed geographical activity space, Han-dominated ethnic composition and the consciousness of national liberation. The CCP’s mobilization covered far wider social strata than the Bolsheviks’ had, which engendered stronger manpower and motivation to transform the traditional culture into a national culture. Being weak at its borderlands, the CCP was cautious about the doctrine of ‘national self-determination’, not daring to make it a geopolitical weapon for revolution export as the Bolsheviks had done in founding the Soviet Union. Owing to each of these differences in revolutionary trajectories, the CCP was more receptive to ‘China’ than the Bolsheviks were to ‘Russia’, and this led to two distinctive ways of reorganizing empires into nation-states.

Feeding Refugees, Saving Souls, and Planting Churches: Lutheran Ministry in 1950s Hong Kong

Abstract The recent interest in the social history of the Cold War has given rise to many narratives of expulsions and migrations in world Christianity. This article focuses on the transformation of several Lutheran missions from sojourning in the wilderness of China’s maritime frontiers into becoming vital pastoral and welfare service providers in British Hong Kong. While licking their wounds after their reluctant exodus to Hong Kong following the Chinese Communist Revolution (1949), the Lutherans employed the triple mission of feeding refugees, saving souls, and planting churches, clinics, and schools to help the distressed population. They mobilized their global and local church networks to secure financial, medical and human resources for crisis management—resources that the British colonial government lacked. Its multilayered operation of relief programs exhibited the organizational capacity of Lutherans to assist stricken communities in Cold War Hong Kong.

What’s so Marxist about Marxist Educational Theory?

The antagonism between “class” and “race” have plagued educational theory for decades. As a communist organizer seeking to move Marxist educational theory out of the stagnant waters of theoretical debates, I turn to recent CRT scholarship, which I find much more in line with the communist project. Yet, this literature omits world-historic and ongoing transformations inaugurated particularly since the beginning of the 20th century by erasing, discounting or, denouncing them. I argue the primary factors inhibiting educational researchers: Anticommunism. The global revolutionary era led largely by revolutionary communists contains the most fruitful explanations of those conditions and connections (and the historical legacies accounting for mass movements in the U.S. today, like the historic 2020 uprising against the War on Black America). This rich and dynamic legacy is what can get educational scholarship beyond the cages of academia. After outlining the interconnection between anticommunism and anti-Black racism as the contours of master narratives, I demonstrate how anticommunism continues to hold education’s potential contributions to the struggle back while accounting for the material conditions responsible for the absence of revolutionary theory and practice and the overwhelming surplus of theories critical of revolution in the university today. I demonstrate how anti-Black racism in the U.S. is tethered to anticommunism and how Leninism provides the theoretical and practical link uniting the global struggle of the oppressed and creating the Black and indigenous-led communist movement, contending struggles against white supremacy, capitalism, and imperialism depend on a rejection of anticommunism by turning to Black communist Claudia Jones.

Harmony and Hegemony: A Comparative Analysis of Chinese Civilizations through the Ages

This paper embarks on a comprehensive journey through the epochs of Chinese civilizations, unraveling the intricate threads that weave together the tapestry of its rich history. The paper seeks to explore the dynamic evolution of Chinese societies from ancient times to the modern era, employing a comparative lens to illuminate distinctive features, contributions, and challenges across different epochs. Beginning with the cradle of civilization in ancient China, the analysis traverses the early dynasties, scrutinizing their cultural, philosophical, and technological advancements. The imperial era witnesses the flourishing of governance, arts, and innovation under the Han, Tang, and Song Dynasties. Ming and Qing Dynasties, characterized by peaks and declines, unravel tales of maritime exploration, cultural integration, and foreign invasions. The narrative then unfolds into modern China, tracing the transformative phases of the late Qing and Republican era, the seismic shifts brought about by the Communist Revolution, and the subsequent economic reforms leading to China's resurgence on the global stage. A pivotal aspect of this exploration lies in drawing connections between Chinese civilizations and other contemporaneous societies. The course paper delves into parallel developments, interactions, and exchanges with neighboring civilizations, offering a nuanced understanding of China's place in the larger tapestry of human history. As the analysis navigates the continuities and transformations within Chinese culture, it addresses challenges and controversies, including historical disputes, preservation dilemmas, and contemporary debates surrounding the trajectory of Chinese civilizations. In conclusion, this course paper not only serves as a historical retrospective but also offers insights into the intricate interplay of harmony and hegemony within Chinese civilizations. By employing a comparative approach, it aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of the unique features, enduring contributions, and global significance of China's multifaceted cultural journey.

India- USA-China Axis and Co-Existence -A Policy Decision Analysis

In the contemporary dynamic global order, shrinking sovereign nation-states prioritize the economical concerns than any other sphere. The hegemonic phenomenon still persists since from the origin of organized governance hitherto in the present century at various levels in differed forms. The Multi-polar system in the aftermath of the 9/11 catastrophe and its eventual action-oriented drastic policy decisions ended with both successive trials and as well as fiasco concerned with the existing state system. Deterrence and diplomacy function together in attaining the targeted decisions. The exhaustion and exploitation of natural resources around the nations of the world made think-tanks and great minds to explore and delve deep into the unexcavated sectors of human capacity. It is startling observation here to mention that most of the human inventions in the science and technology in the modern era serves as an element of curse in the annihilation of entire human community.In global sphere China’s supremacy over south china sea and as well as its progressive actions related with Maritime silk road irks America which unleashed radical policy decisions for protecting its interests at mega level. That said, the initiative of Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and its founding members from European countries adds fuel to the fire. String of Pearl theory related with India also creates a stir upon the minds of policy makers of India and as well as USA.Albeit of odd government in China, its progressive performance in economic sector is always the cause of concern for neighbors and countries at distant. It took seven decades in the erstwhile USSR for completing the experimentation with Communist revolution. Although China is nearing the same tenure we may not imagine the similar fate for the dragon nation. Nonetheless the deterrence effect of China’s can never be under estimated. In this junction this piece of work is an endeavor is to focus upon the dynamic policy of USA in the Asian continent and as well as to caution about the Indian security to be strengthened by aligning with USA and other similar partners.

Pravoslavna crkva u raljama aktuelnih globalnih geopolitičkih promena - kanonska i socio-politička analiza

This paper points to processes that have been going on for a century and aim to change the modern image of the Orthodox Church. One patriarchy, the first in honour, is trying to impose itself as the supreme interpreter of traditions and theological narratives, as well as to change the canonical structure and ecclesial identity of all other autocephalous Orthodox Churches. The prehistory of the devastating processes starts with the restoration of national and church self-consciousness in the 19th century in the Balkans, which led to the emergence of the brainchild of restoring the autocephalous status of church communities in the liberated territories. The procedures for church independence were not initially approved by the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The leading patriarchate in honour, faced with the actual church situation on the Balkan Peninsula, confirmed the independence of the Athens Archdiocese and the Metropolitanate of Belgrade in the second half of the 19th century. However, the 20th century brought massive changes. The Balkan Wars, the Great War, the communist revolution in Russia, the disappearance of the Ottoman and Austrian empires, and the great tragedy of the Orthodox Greeks in Constantinople and Asia Minor led to changes in theological paradigms in the Patriarchate of Constantinople, which also initiated a change in its church position from Primus inter pares (The first among equals) to Primus sine paribus (The first without equals). This fact leads to the pretensions of this patriarchate to the entire Orthodox diaspora, as well as to the exclusive right to form criteria for granting autocephalous status to church communities that request it. However, the representatives of the Patriarchate of Constantinople very consistently continue to develop the theological assumptions of the new ecclesiological matrix, especially in the decades after the Second World War. Quite consciously and with the expected outcome, they are approaching the levers of power of the US political elite with the desire to strengthen their position in front of the repressive regime in Turkey. Soon, they began to use the established connections and increased political potential to impose their ecclesiological and canonical views on other Orthodox churches, especially since the fall of the Iron Curtain and the demolition of the Berlin Wall. The resistance of the new ecclesiological narratives of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, which give it a priority place in relation to all other churches and in the processes of accomplishing canonical and spiritual authority, not just honour, to all reasoned theological and historical criticism from Orthodox theologians, canonists, and archbishops, points to the fact that the theological turnover of this Patriarchate is well and studiously prepared. It is apparent that this church expects essential benefits from it, but also that the shaped narratives have a reflective effect on anticipated political situations that have been preparing for decades under the guise of the pseudo-ideological supremacy of the West. Since it is under massive transformative pressure from the Western power centres, it's evident that the Orthodox Church is in great turmoil, with painful uncertainty about its resolution. The processes that are mentioned are part of global geopolitical change. Rational interpretation of reality suggests they are synchronized from the same centre of power and political decision-making, as well as mutually compatible and complementary. This fact tells us that the mutual relations of the Orthodox churches are in a crisis that seems to be designed and managed for the purpose of more comprehensive intervention in the self-consciousness of the Orthodox peoples and their ecclesial, national, ethical, and political identity.

ІДЕОЛОГІЧНА ОСНОВА ВИКОРИСТАННЯ ПРЕСИ ЯК СКЛАДОВОЇ КОМУНІСТИЧНОЇ ПРОПАГАНДИ В СРСР

The article analyzes the ideological basis of the use of the press as a component of communist Soviet propaganda. In the communist ideology that was founded by Karl Marx, the press played a significant role as a guide of Marxist ideas. Vladimir Lenin developed the ideas of Marx, and created the theoretical basis for the use of the centralized press system by the Soviet state apparatus for effective dissemination of communist propaganda. The aim of the article is to determine the main ideological aspects of Marxism and Leninism regarding the use of the press as a tool of communist propaganda during the existence of the USSR in order to spread the ideas and goals of communist ideology. The scientific novelty is that the main ideological foundations of the use of the press in the system of Soviet propaganda were determined based on the analysis and comparison of the ideas of Marx and Lenin. Conclusions. As a result of the conducted analysis, it was established that in his views, Marx paid considerable attention to the issue of the press. He saw the press as an important element in the development of the labor movement, which, as a result, was to lead to the communist revolution. Due to the fact that he considered the revolution inevitable, and propaganda, in such a case, superfluous, he considered the press precisely as a platform for the spread of communist ideas, and not as an element of the propaganda system. Lenin developed Marx's ideas about the press, but he was convinced of the need to conduct the revolution first. And, only after that, he saw it necessary to develop communist attitudes among workers. He considered it possible only with the help of propaganda. That is why he described the press as a centralized, state-subordinated system that works exclusively in the interests of the party and communist ideology.

Folklore Goes to War: Folksongs, Yangge and Storytelling in Communist Bases during the Second Sino-Japanese War

All across the world, folklore studies are often closely tied to the emergence of modern nation states and were used to (re)build national identities. In post-WWI China, a growing community of academics and enthusiastic amateurs began working on folklore projects as part of a larger cultural effort to stoke nationalist sentiment and, by consequence, encourage resistance to foreign encroachment. After Japan’s invasion in the 1930s threw the whole country into crisis, this campaign transformed from the abstract into a strategic component of the Chinese war effort. During China’s War of Resistance against Japan, folklore activities played a valuable role in boosting the national spirit and promoting the idea of China as home to a rich cultural legacy. In communist bases of the North China Plain in particular, a New Literature and Art Movement began with the collection and organization of folk literature and art, which was in turn remoulded into effective and highly politicized anti-Japanese and social reform messages to promote mass mobilization. This article examines folksongs, yangge and storytelling to reveal how folklore, reshaped by communist intellectuals, was designed to serve political aims and address peasants and soldiers in order to unite the masses against its enemies both foreign and demestic. The Chinese Communist Party used traditional forms of folklore with revised content to launch a mass movement that served its primary political needs: winning support of the masses and spreading revolutionary communist ideology to a broader audience. This wartime revolutionary folklore approach continued into peacetime and greatly affected the People’s Republic of China.

How to speak to the masses, part I: Hồ Chí Minh's instructions to cadres and the dynamics of register formation in 20th century Vietnam

AbstractThe question of how to understand the relation between language and action lies at the heart of both philosophical pragmatics and linguistic anthropology. This same question, although framed in a very different way, also emerged as a basic concern for communist revolutionaries in Vietnam in the mid 1940s and, I contend, continues to exercise the imagination of party members and others up until the present day. Drawing inspiration from Asif Agha's definition of a (semiotic) register as a “cultural model of action,” in this essay, I consider the ways in which Hồ Chí Minh along with other high‐ranking party members sought to reform Vietnamese through a project of register formation, and thereby to transform the language into an effective instrument of mass mobilization. I suggest that this project centrally involved reconceptualizing the relationship between language and action and was pursued by, on the one hand, identifying and proscribing ways of speaking in which the connection with action was seen to be broken such that speech amounted to “mere words” and, on the other, by promoting a way of speaking in which, as the frequently used Vietnamese expression has it, “speaking goes hand‐in‐hand with doing” (nói đi đôi với làm).

Reawakening Ali Sardar Jafri’s Asia Jaag Utha

The epic poem "Asia Jaag Utha,"" written in 1950 by Ali Sardar Jafri of the Indian Progressive Writers Association, was a battle hymn of its time, a celebration of Asia’s history and geography, with a vision for Asian liberation and communist revolution at the dawn of the Cold War in the aspirational Third World. Are its messages still applicable today, or is it strictly a period piece? This essay analyzes what Jafri was trying to do in his own context and explores whether it has anything to say to ours. In order to do this, the author enters into dialogue with Jafri’s poetry, and proposes some updates to its political agenda that might be needed to carry its energy into the present. While the mid-twentieth century vehicles of progress and liberation (such as industrial development and the postcolonial nation-state) require critique, Jafri’s emancipatory impulses and ideals of solidarity ring true.

Africa in the Global Church?

John McGreevy's Catholicism: A Global History from the French Revolution to Pope Francis hinges on seismic events that shook the foundations of the Catholic Church: the French Revolution, its aftershocks in many European nations, and the devastating effects of the Napoleonic Wars that followed. The episcopalism of Catholicism that arose from the ashes of the revolution seemed to reject the pillar of its globalism, namely the papacy. Pius IX paid for this with his life. Eternal Rome suddenly became mortal, overtaken by the revolutionaries. Catholic schools were nationalized. The Civil Constitution of the Clergy enacted an agenda for the secularization of society, the church itself, and its institutions. Notre Dame became a “Temple of Reason,” and the chalices and ciboria of Saint-Sulpice were melted down to make cash. The damage done to the church by this revolution was paralleled only by the communist revolutions of the twentieth century.

Psy wojny kontra kundle pokoju: siła hybrydowości w powieści Vieta Thanha Nguyena „Sympatyk"

The protagonist-narrator of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s novel, as he often repeats, is a person of two minds. As the child of a Vietnamese woman and a French Catholic priest, he becomes a „hybrid” on the genetic level and later also in the cultural sphere. His upbringing has not only been influenced by the Catholic religion, communist indoctrination but also by the American literary canon, as he has graduated from a literary studies program in the US. He is a communist spy in the South Vietnamese Army during the war, and after the fall of South Vietnam he escapes to the United States as one of the few refugees. Loyal to the communist revolution in the US, he continues his intelligence activities going to any lengths and using any means considered necessary. The nameless narrator is not only a character that reminds a hero from a Hollywood action movie, but also a hybrid – a man who, through diversity or perhaps the merging of mutually exclusive identities, inhabits the sphere in between. This phenomenon, called nepantlerismo by Gloria Anzaldúa, means consciously navigating the gaps between the binary oppositions of those who belong to neither of the two sides. In the article, I look at the phenomenon of hybridity and consider to what measure it can be seen as an antidote to national chauvinism, imperialism and violence. I also examine what Viet Thanh Nguyen in his scholarly work calls the „industrialization of memory,” viewing Hollywood as a tool for producing memories of the Vietnam War operating within the US military-industrial complex.

Tragedy does not die: Creativity, emotions, and metaphor of revolution in the context of Chinese Revolutionary Drama

The decline of tragedy is one of the greatest tragedies of modernity. While many scholars exclaim that tragedy has been dead, Raymond Williams points out that it is not an eternal metaphysical event, but is plural and dynamic, a series of experiences, a tradition. Williams’ rethinking of tragedy provides a historical perspective on the cultural meanings. What matters are the traditions, emotions, and experiences of the time in which the tragedy is set, and the superimposed series of accidents and imbalances that create this type of tragic experience. That is, tragedy is not a static narrative of grief, but a textual creativity. This article will examine this argument in the context of Chinese Revolutionary Drama. The White-Haired Girl (Bai Mao Nv) is a famous tragedy born a hundred years ago in China that depicts the tragic fate of the poor. During the Communist Revolution, it was adapted by the propaganda department of the Communist Party as a tragedy of class oppression and extended to the whole country as a symbol of emotional mobilization. After 1978, the tragedy was forgotten as an outdated revolutionary legacy. However, the experience and texts of the The White-Haired Girl are still active in Chinese social networks today. This complex process is not only historical but also emotional. The aims of this article are the following: (1) to reveal the constructive relationship between creativity, revolution, and emotion; (2) to present the process of interconstruction between tragedy as context and tragedy as metaphor for revolution; and (3) to place creativity in the context of specific cultural and historical changes and observe its dynamic significance.

Surviving Communist Revolutions: Entrepreneurship Across Generations

Surviving Communist Revolutions: Entrepreneurship Across Generations