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 History of Chinese Trotskyism, 1921-1952
Gregor Benton, Prophets Unarmed: Chinese Trotskyists in Revolution, War, Jail, and the Return from Limbo
Lee Feigon, Chen Duxiu: Founder of the Chinese Communist Party
Chang Kuo-t’ao [Zhang Guotao], The Rise of the Chinese Communist Party (2 volumes)
Tony Saich, The Rise to Power of the Chinese Communist Party
Jane Price, Cadres, Commanders, and Commissars: The Training of the Chinese Communist Leadership, 1920-1945

Some names from this episode:
Chen Duxiu, co-founder of the Communist Party of China
Li Dazhao, co-founder of the Communist Party of China
Zheng Chaolin, Chinese Trotskyist
Li Lisan, leading Communist
Yin Kuan, resigned as Provincial Secretary in Anhui
Peng Shuzhi, resigned as Provincial Secretary in Zhili
Wang Zekai, Chinese Trotskyist
Liu Bojian, former Provincial Secretary in Hubei
Ren Xu, Chinese Trotskyist
Xiang Ying, Jiangsu Provincial Secretary following the 6th Party Congress
Cai Zhende, member of Jiangsu Provincial Committee
Zhou Enlai, head of the Organization Department of the Central Committee
Wang Ruofei, sent to work in a factory in Moscow as punishment for Trotskyism before recanting
Qu Qiubai, top leader of Communist Party from the summer of 1927 until the Sixth Congress
Zhang Guotao, leading Communist

Episode artwork:
Chen Duxiu with Peng Shuzi in 1932

Support the show

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, 1919-1943: Documents, vol. 3: 1929-1943
International Press Correspondence
Communist International journal (1933)
Documents from the 13th Plenum of the ECCI

Some names from this episode:
Chen Duxiu, co-founder of the Communist Party of China
Hermann Remmele, leading KPD Reichstag member
Heinrich Brüning, German Chancellor from 1930-1932
Osip Piatnitsky, leading Comintern figure
Wilhelm Pieck, leader of KPD from 1934

Episode artwork:
Autonome Antifa (M) poster from 1991

Support the show

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 International Situation and the Tasks of the Chinese Communist Party”
Nicholas Kozlov and Eric Weitz, “Reflections on the Origins of the ‘Third Period’: Bukharin, the Comintern, and the Political Economy of Weimar Germany”
Robin Kelley, Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists during the Great Depression
Theodore Rosengarten, All God’s Dangers: The Life of Nate Shaw
Sebastian Haffner, Failure of a Revolution: Germany 1918-1919
Chen Jian, Zhou Enlai: A Life
Jane Degras, ed., The Communist International, 1919-1943: Documents, vol. 3: 1929-1943
So Wai-chor, The Kuomintang Left in the National Revolution, 1924–1931

Some names from this episode:
Nikolai Bukharin, general secretary of the executive committee of the Comintern (1926-1929)
Rosa Luxemburg, German communist leader murdered in 1919
Karl Liebknecht, German communist leader murdered in 1919
Li Lisan, leading Communist
Stalin, Stalin
Feng Yuxiang, northwestern warlord who turned on Chiang Kai-shek during Sino-Soviet war
Wang Jingwei, the overall leader of the Guomindang Left
Chen Gongbo, main ideologue of the Reorganization Comrades Association
Chen Duxiu, co-founder of the Communist Party
He Long, leader of a soviet in the Hunan-Hubei border region

Episode artwork:
Li Lisan with family

Support the show