Click on title to link to the Leon Trotsky Internet Archive's "Collected Writings Of Leon Trotsky On China".
Honor The Anniversary Of The Chinese Revolution, October 1, 1949
Honor The Anniversary Of The Chinese Revolution, October 1, 1949
Showing posts with label Chu Teh. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chu Teh. Show all posts
Sunday, October 01, 2017
Saturday, October 01, 2016
*On The Anniversary Of The Chinese Revolution- The Heroic Age of The Chinese Communist Party- 1921-1949- A Review
Click on title to link to Mao's "THE TASKS OF THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY IN THE PERIOD OF RESISTANCE TO JAPAN", May 3, 1937. Mao Tse-tung delivered this report at the National Conference of the Communist Party of China, held in Yenan in May 1937.
BOOK REVIEW
A History Of The Chinese Communist Party 1921-1949, Jacques Guillermaz, Random House, New York, 1972
I am using the then current spelling of names and places as they are used in this edition of the book.
For militant leftists the defense of October 1917 Russian Revolution was the touchstone issue of international politics for most of the 20th century. In the end the demise of the Soviet Union and the other non-capitalists states of East Europe in the early 1990’s formally, at least, put an end to that question in those areas. However, the issue of the fate of China in the first half of the 21st century is in an important sense the touchstone Russian question of international politics today. The question, forward to socialism or back to some neo-capitalist formation like those in Russia and East Europe to this reviewer is an open question today. With that perspective in mind, and not unmindful of the publicity given China recently as the host of the 2008 Olympics, it is high time that this reviewer spent more time on this issue than he has thus far in this space. As preparation, it is always best to get some historical background, especially so for that new generation of militants who are unfamiliar with the last hundred years of leftist history.
As I have recently mentioned in another China review in this space, that of Edgar Snow’s Red Star Over China, the Communist International and Russian Communist Party fights over strategy for the Chinese revolution between the Stalinists and the Trotsky-led Left Opposition in the mid-1920’s are must reading. As is the history of the defeat of the Second Chinese Revolution in the cities in 1927 and a little later. And I would add here, as well, an overview of the creation and evolution of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) before the seizure of power is also necessary, especially for those who were neither pro-Maoists in the 1960’s and 1970’s nor Soviet Stalinists in any period. To that end Jacques Guillermaz’s well-researched and reasonably balanced academic efforts is a solid way to get the basics of the Chinese Communist political perspective in this period down in the same way that Edgar Snow chronicled the organized soviets under the tutelage of the CCP in the late 1930’s.
I do not believe that it is incorrect to label the Chinese Revolution of 1949 and thus the CCP as extensions of the Soviet Russian and Bolshevik experiences. With this caveat, however, that after 1927 (if not before) these two experiences were reflected through a Stalinist prism. Thus, with the defeat of the Second Chinese Revolution and the exodus from the cities to the countryside the CCP’s strategy, tactics, organizational structure and political prospective changed in the same manner (if not to the same degree) that the Russian party’s changed. A very strong argument can be made, and is made in this book although tangentially, that the CCP was in essence the Eastern border guards for the Soviets rather than a though-going Bolshevik revolutionary organization fighting for political power in its own right-except when backed up against the wall by the Nationalist forces under Chiang kai-shek. That in turn created the distortions of politics and organization that were endemic to the early consolidation of CCP after 1949 and continue in diluted form today.
Needless to say that an academic (although quite readable) book that has detailed, in over four hundred pages, the history of early Chinese communism is not going to get its proper fully worked out review in this small space. However, I would point out the highlights that readers should think through as they read. A nice job has been done by Guillermaz in setting the framework of Chinese communism in the context of the first Chinese revolution of 1912, the various nationalist, anti-imperialist and left-wing tendencies that existed prior to the formation of the CCP in 1921 and the thorny question of the relationship between the CCP and the nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) that was to, in the end, lead to a massive quarter century battle between these two forces. To emphasize how very important the correct analysis (or in the actual case, incorrect) of that relationship were I would note here that Leon Trotsky changed and extended his Theory of Permanent Revolution (basically that worldwide, not just in the advanced capitalist countries, the proletariat would have to led the national liberation struggle and the fight for the first steps into socialism) based on the Chinese experiences. That, in the end, is how important those political fights were.
After a full exposition of the role of the CCP in the cities in the Second Chinese Revolution the key areas that this book is helpful in evaluating are the rather murky periods from the defeat in the cities until Mao’s accession of leadership in the mid1930’s. That period entailed the establishment of rural soviets in Kiangsi, the on again, off again Nationalist (KMT) campaigns to destroy the CCP-led peasant armies that culminated in the famous Long March to Yenan; the fight against the Japanese and then after the defeat of the Japanese in World War II the renewed fight for political power that culminated in victory in 1949.
Along the way we get a glimpse at the internal power struggle between the various factions, the role of the Soviet Union in those fights and the various factions in the post-World War II power struggle. Well done. I might also add, in conclusion, that this book was written at the tail end of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and just before the breakout pact with American imperialism under the Nixon-Kissinger worldwide anti-Soviet front doctrine so that we find out the fates of many of the early leaders of the CCP and other state and party functionaries as well as KMT personalities. There is more than enough information to bolster the case of those of us who still see the Chinese experience as a socialist one, if a rather wobbly one at this time.
BOOK REVIEW
A History Of The Chinese Communist Party 1921-1949, Jacques Guillermaz, Random House, New York, 1972
I am using the then current spelling of names and places as they are used in this edition of the book.
For militant leftists the defense of October 1917 Russian Revolution was the touchstone issue of international politics for most of the 20th century. In the end the demise of the Soviet Union and the other non-capitalists states of East Europe in the early 1990’s formally, at least, put an end to that question in those areas. However, the issue of the fate of China in the first half of the 21st century is in an important sense the touchstone Russian question of international politics today. The question, forward to socialism or back to some neo-capitalist formation like those in Russia and East Europe to this reviewer is an open question today. With that perspective in mind, and not unmindful of the publicity given China recently as the host of the 2008 Olympics, it is high time that this reviewer spent more time on this issue than he has thus far in this space. As preparation, it is always best to get some historical background, especially so for that new generation of militants who are unfamiliar with the last hundred years of leftist history.
As I have recently mentioned in another China review in this space, that of Edgar Snow’s Red Star Over China, the Communist International and Russian Communist Party fights over strategy for the Chinese revolution between the Stalinists and the Trotsky-led Left Opposition in the mid-1920’s are must reading. As is the history of the defeat of the Second Chinese Revolution in the cities in 1927 and a little later. And I would add here, as well, an overview of the creation and evolution of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) before the seizure of power is also necessary, especially for those who were neither pro-Maoists in the 1960’s and 1970’s nor Soviet Stalinists in any period. To that end Jacques Guillermaz’s well-researched and reasonably balanced academic efforts is a solid way to get the basics of the Chinese Communist political perspective in this period down in the same way that Edgar Snow chronicled the organized soviets under the tutelage of the CCP in the late 1930’s.
I do not believe that it is incorrect to label the Chinese Revolution of 1949 and thus the CCP as extensions of the Soviet Russian and Bolshevik experiences. With this caveat, however, that after 1927 (if not before) these two experiences were reflected through a Stalinist prism. Thus, with the defeat of the Second Chinese Revolution and the exodus from the cities to the countryside the CCP’s strategy, tactics, organizational structure and political prospective changed in the same manner (if not to the same degree) that the Russian party’s changed. A very strong argument can be made, and is made in this book although tangentially, that the CCP was in essence the Eastern border guards for the Soviets rather than a though-going Bolshevik revolutionary organization fighting for political power in its own right-except when backed up against the wall by the Nationalist forces under Chiang kai-shek. That in turn created the distortions of politics and organization that were endemic to the early consolidation of CCP after 1949 and continue in diluted form today.
Needless to say that an academic (although quite readable) book that has detailed, in over four hundred pages, the history of early Chinese communism is not going to get its proper fully worked out review in this small space. However, I would point out the highlights that readers should think through as they read. A nice job has been done by Guillermaz in setting the framework of Chinese communism in the context of the first Chinese revolution of 1912, the various nationalist, anti-imperialist and left-wing tendencies that existed prior to the formation of the CCP in 1921 and the thorny question of the relationship between the CCP and the nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) that was to, in the end, lead to a massive quarter century battle between these two forces. To emphasize how very important the correct analysis (or in the actual case, incorrect) of that relationship were I would note here that Leon Trotsky changed and extended his Theory of Permanent Revolution (basically that worldwide, not just in the advanced capitalist countries, the proletariat would have to led the national liberation struggle and the fight for the first steps into socialism) based on the Chinese experiences. That, in the end, is how important those political fights were.
After a full exposition of the role of the CCP in the cities in the Second Chinese Revolution the key areas that this book is helpful in evaluating are the rather murky periods from the defeat in the cities until Mao’s accession of leadership in the mid1930’s. That period entailed the establishment of rural soviets in Kiangsi, the on again, off again Nationalist (KMT) campaigns to destroy the CCP-led peasant armies that culminated in the famous Long March to Yenan; the fight against the Japanese and then after the defeat of the Japanese in World War II the renewed fight for political power that culminated in victory in 1949.
Along the way we get a glimpse at the internal power struggle between the various factions, the role of the Soviet Union in those fights and the various factions in the post-World War II power struggle. Well done. I might also add, in conclusion, that this book was written at the tail end of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and just before the breakout pact with American imperialism under the Nixon-Kissinger worldwide anti-Soviet front doctrine so that we find out the fates of many of the early leaders of the CCP and other state and party functionaries as well as KMT personalities. There is more than enough information to bolster the case of those of us who still see the Chinese experience as a socialist one, if a rather wobbly one at this time.
*In Honor Of The Chinese Revolution Of 1949- From The Archives- The Collected Writings Of Leon Trotsky On China
Click on title to link to the Leon Trotsky Internet Archive's "Collected Writings Of Leon Trotsky On China".
Honor The Anniversary Of The Chinese Revolution, October 1, 1949
Honor The Anniversary Of The Chinese Revolution, October 1, 1949
*In Honor Of The Chinese Revolution Of 1949- From The Archives- The Collected Writings Of Leon Trotsky On China
Click on title to link to the Leon Trotsky Internet Archive's "Collected Writings Of Leon Trotsky On China".
Honor The Anniversary Of The Chinese Revolution, October 1, 1949
Honor The Anniversary Of The Chinese Revolution, October 1, 1949
*In Honor Of The Chinese Revolution Of 1949- From The Archives- The Collected Writings Of Leon Trotsky On China
Click on title to link to the Leon Trotsky Internet Archive's "Collected Writings Of Leon Trotsky On China".
Honor The Anniversary Of The Chinese Revolution, October 1, 1949
Honor The Anniversary Of The Chinese Revolution, October 1, 1949
Saturday, October 01, 2011
In Honor Of The Chinese Revolution Of 1949- From The Archives- The Collected Writings Of Leon Trotsky On China
Click on title to link to the Leon Trotsky Internet Archive for online copies of his Collected Writings Of Leon Trotsky On China.
Honor The Anniversary Of The Chinese Revolution, October 1, 1949
Honor The Anniversary Of The Chinese Revolution, October 1, 1949
Friday, October 01, 2010
*In Honor Of The Chinese Revolution Of 1949- From The Archives- The Collected Writings Of Leon Trotsky On China
Click on title to link to the Leon Trotsky Internet Archive's "Collected Writings Of Leon Trotsky On China".
Honor The Anniversary Of The Chinese Revolution, October 1, 1949
Honor The Anniversary Of The Chinese Revolution, October 1, 1949
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