People's History of Ideas Podcast

Gregory Voitinsky comes to China and helps get the ball rolling to found the Communist Party. Also, a few words on commodity fetishism as the keystone of Marx's Capital and how this leads to Lenin's innovations in conceptualizing communist party formations.
Some names from this episode:
Gregory Voitinsky, Comintern organizer who arrived in China in March 1920
Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu, two of the key figures in founding the Chinese Communist Party (their background is discussed in past episodes)

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The episode wraps up the events of the Taiping Revolution (1850-1864) and also deals with the events and outcome of the Second Opium War (1856-1860). The Qing Dynasty is weakened and the British, French, American and Russian powers extract new unequal treaties. Then the British help the Qing to put down a peasant-based revolution.

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Mao's political activity and intellectual development during the first nine months of 1926.
Further Reading:
Gerald Berkley, “The Canton Peasant Movement Training Institute”
Stuart Schram, ed., Mao’s Road to Power, vol. 2: National Revolution and Social Revolution, December 1920-June 1927Yokoyama Suguru, “The Peasant Movement in Hunan”
Philip C. C. Huang, “Mao Tse-Tung and the Middle Peasants, 1925-1928”
Angus McDonald, “The Hunan Peasant Movement Its Urban Origins”
Some names from this episode:
Shen Yanbing (Mao Dun), Communist writer and later Culture Minister, in 1926 worked with Mao Zedong in Guomindang propaganda department
Zhao Hengti, Dominant warlord in Hunan
Tang Shengzhi, Subordinate of Zhao who allied with the Guomindang and displaced Zhao
Wu Peifu, Northern warlord
Nikolay Kuibyshev, Soviet general and head of military mission in Guangdong in late 1925 and early 1926
Andrei Bubnov, Headed Soviet military inspection mission to China in early 1926
Mikhail Borodin, Comintern agent and head of Soviet mission to aid the Guomindang
Peng Pai, Communist peasant organizer

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The question of what sort of revolution the Nationalist revolution will be creates a fundamental division within the Guomindang.
Further reading:
C. Martin Wilbur and Julie Lien-ying How, Missionaries of Revolution: Soviet Advisers and Nationalist China, 1920-1927C. Martin Wilbur, The Nationalist Revolution in China, 1923-1928Stuart Schram, ed., Mao’s Road to Power, vol. 2: National Revolution and Social Revolution, December 1920-June 1927Alexander Pantsov, The Bolsheviks and the Chinese Revolution, 1919-1927Jack Gray, Rebellions and Revolutions: China from the 1800s to 2000Some names from this episode:
Mikhail Borodin, Comintern agent and head of Soviet mission to aid the Guomindang
Tang Shengzhi, Hunan warlord who sided with the National Revolutionary Army and contested leadership with Chiang Kai-shek
Peng Pai, Communist peasant organizer
Karl Radek, provost of Sun Yatsen University in Moscow

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Some basic military history of the beginning of the war.

Further reading:
Bruce A. Elleman and Stephen Kotkin, eds., Manchurian Railways and the Opening of ChinaMichael M. Walker, The 1929 Sino-Soviet WarJohn Erickson, The Soviet High Command: A Military-Political History, 1918-1941

Some names from this episode:
Vasily Blyukher (née Gurov, aka Galen), commander of the Special Far Eastern Army
Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, Prussian general in Napoleonic wars
Aleksandr Cherepanov, commander of the 39th Rifle Division in the Soviet Far East
Andrei Bubnov, head of the political administration of the Soviet Red Army
Feng Yuxiang, warlord close to both the USA and the Soviet Union
A. I. Traynin, captain of the Soviet warship Sverdlov
Mok Yiuming, captain of the Chinese gunboat Lishui
Fedor Vulahov, lead petty officer of the Sverdlov
R. I. Yuanzem, commander of the Soviet warship Red East
I. I. Nikitin, captain of the Soviet warship Sun Yatsen
I. A. Onufriev, the commander of the 2nd “Amur” Rifle Division

Episode artwork:
Photo of Soviet soldiers with captured Guomindang banners

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