Winning Over Enemy Troops: Mao’s Leninist Approach to Fomenting Mutiny in the Guomindang (January 1930)
When the enemy advances, Mao and Zhu retreat from Fujian into Jiangxi province, drawing the Guomindang’s joint suppression force deep in after them, only to later circle back around and defeat it. In ...
4 Apr 29min
A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire (January 1930) (Part Two)
We conclude our close reading of Mao’s January 5, 1930 letter to Lin Biao. In this episode, Mao discusses his method for understanding the possibilities for revolution in China, as well as the particu...
21 Mars 30min
A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire (January 1930) (Part One)
We begin our close reading of Mao’s January 5, 1930 letter to Lin Biao. Further reading: Stuart Schram, ed., Mao’s Road to Power, vol. 3: From the Jinggangshan to the Establishment of the Jiangxi Sovi...
14 Mars 22min
How Brainwashing was Good and Maoist Propaganda was True: An Interview with leading China scholar Aminda Smith
This interview with Dr. Aminda Smith of Michigan State University touches on topics including why good PRC history is left history; thought reform, reeducation through labor, and brainwashing; the ver...
7 Mars 58min
Chen Duxiu Update (or, the Devil Makes Work for Idle Hands) (1929)
The story of how the co-founder and first General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party became a Trotskyist. Further reading: Gregor Benton, China’s Urban Revolutionaries: Explorations in the Histo...
11 Dec 202531min
Did the German Communists Really Say “After Hitler, Our Turn?” Exploring the Historical Evidence
Responding to listener queries about the evidence behind this common assertion regarding the KPD’s underestimation of the fascist threat. Further reading: Jane Degras, ed., The Communist International...
21 Nov 202519min
Revolution in the ‘20s, Go For It: The ‘Third Period’ Comes to China
The 1920s that is. The Comintern lets the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee know how the objective conditions in China are ripening for revolution. Further reading: Nikolai Bukharin, “On the...
31 Okt 202526min
The Chinese Communist Party Interventions in the 1929 Sino-Soviet War
How the Chinese Communist Party tried to turn war into revolution in Manchuria in 1929. Further reading: Bruce A. Elleman and Stephen Kotkin, eds., Manchurian Railways and the Opening of China Michael...
10 Okt 202523min
