(This is the beginning of a triptych on the uneasy “friendly” relationship between the two nationalist giants, the USSR and China. The triptych covers the early years of that relationship, ending with Mao Tse-tung’s self-establishment as the uncontested leader of mainland China, contrary to Moscow’s strategic preferences, and causing a seemingly irreparable rift underneath the glossy façade of the much-acclaimed “Sino-Soviet bloc.” Since those problem-ridden times, however, certain radically new developments, brought about by the realities of the new post-Soviet world order, have occurred in the evolving relationship between Mr. Putin’s Russia and modern-day China, bringing the two colossi as close to each other as they ever have been. This latest stage in the Sino-Russian relationship, particularly relevant for the geopolitical future of the world, is featured in my prognosticating section Beyond Wishful Thinking, and to it I am referring my reader for more.
Meantime, the present entry is a story of the two Chinese generalissimos, Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek, and their intriguing relationship with the Russians. It is Part I of my Chinese miniseries here, followed by Part II, The Long Marcher, focusing on the person and times of Chairman Mao, and by Part III, intriguingly titled Stalin’s Korean Charade, about the most unanticipated origin of the Korean War of 1950-1953 which has something to do with the North Korean dictator Kim Il-sung, but a lot more to do with Stalin’s plans for Mao’s China.)
The story of Stalin’s close relationship with the newly emerged nationalist Kuomintang Party of China, in the 1920’s, at the expense of the “brotherly” Chinese Communist Party, unmistakably rings the German bell (as sounded in my earlier entry Lenin And Rosa). The Chinese Communists had wanted a full partnership with Soviet Russia, and stubbornly resisted Moscow’s control, for which they were unsurprisingly punished, and essentially sold out to the Kuomintang, although most historians of those events have unsurprisingly shown their surprise. What also resonates with the “German bell” is a similar reversal of great expectations: in the post-WWII cold war years, the previously pleasantly sounding word Kuomintang had soured into an obscenity, in Soviet usage, just as the Nazi Party of Germany had suffered a similar linguistic shock.
The two famous leaders of Kuomintang, Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek, were both friends of Russia, at one time or another, but, unlike Dr. Sun, whose image in Russia had remained fairly positive, on account of his life and death during the good-relations years, the name of Chiang would become a dirty word in Soviet usage, although he himself would always be remembered, inside the Kremlin, with a great nostalgia.
But let us start with Dr. Sun Yat-sen. (He was a medical doctor, to be sure, and kept this reminder steadily in his title.) Born in 1866, to a family of poor Chinese farmers, he gradually rose through China’s years of political turbulence, to become known as the father of modern China. In between his abject obscurity and international fame, he lived in Honolulu (then the capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii) and in the rebellious British colony of Hong Kong, and on his path to becoming a revolutionary, he was converted to Christianity by an American missionary in Hong Kong. This event, coupled with his other “Western” experiences, must not, however, be interpreted as an expression of his pro-Western sympathies. (By the same token as the fact that Yamamoto studied in the United States must not be seen as his own pro-American orientation.) Dr. Sun was a Chinese nationalist, using the West merely to advance his personal clout and his nationalist agenda. In his years of revolutionary exile, he lived in England, the United States, and elsewhere for sixteen years, but in this he can be compared to a fellow revolutionary Lenin, who lived in the West much of the time between 1900 and 1917 without ever becoming a friend of the Western values either.
In 1912 he co-founded, and became head of, the political organization known as the Kuomintang; took part in the overthrow of the last Chinese Imperial Dynasty Manchu; and became the first Provisional President of the Republic of China. In 1923 he installed himself as Generalissimo Sun, and ruled China in good style, although for a very short stretch, dying of cancer in 1925. His remarkably warm relationship with the Soviet government was influenced by his personal friendship with Stalin’s emissary Mikhail Markovich Borodin (Gruzenberg) who became an important adviser to Sun, and officially to the Kuomintang Party. After Sun’s death, the staunch Soviet Communist Borodin managed to manipulate the Chinese Communist Party in its strongest bastion at Hankow into supporting the Kuomintang, but, in the process, he quarreled with Sun’s successor Chiang Kai-shek, and was promptly recalled to Moscow in 1927, his big mission accomplished anyway.
As for Chiang (1887-1975), for a long time he had been a friend of Russia, and he even visited Moscow in 1923, on a visit of friendship and cooperation, as an emissary of Sun Yat-sen. Briefly supported by China’s erratic Communist Party, swayed by Borodin, Chiang “suddenly” turned against them in a bloody lightning coup, having received a wink and a nod from Moscow. (Overtly, Soviet historiography condemned the massacre of 1927, where thousands of Chinese communists were brutally slaughtered, but there is a lingering fascinating ambiguity in the overall Soviet/Russian assessment of his action, followed by Chiang’s temporary retirement from public life, after which he returned, and his good relationship with Moscow was eventually and conveniently for both sides resumed.)
By the end of 1936, Chiang “suddenly” changed his previous policy of appeasement toward Japan to direct confrontation, resulting in China starting (sic!) a full-fledged war against the mighty Japanese Empire, on August 13, 1937 (effectively lasting until the end of World War II), for which event, he, once again, allied himself with his old enemies the Communists! This insane “yo-yo” relationship between Kuomintang and CPC cannot be (and has not been) properly explained, except by taking into the account the Machiavellian hand of Moscow (see my revealing entries on Stalin’s Eastern policy in the anticipation of a war with Nazi Germany), but there has always been and continues to be a great reluctance to touch this political-historical hot potato, by the operators of the history business, and thus the most natural and exhaustive explanation has been left out of the picture, and is still unaccounted for…
(The rest of the Chiang Kai-shek/Kuomintang story belongs to the next two entries, where it will be further pursued.)
Meantime, the present entry is a story of the two Chinese generalissimos, Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek, and their intriguing relationship with the Russians. It is Part I of my Chinese miniseries here, followed by Part II, The Long Marcher, focusing on the person and times of Chairman Mao, and by Part III, intriguingly titled Stalin’s Korean Charade, about the most unanticipated origin of the Korean War of 1950-1953 which has something to do with the North Korean dictator Kim Il-sung, but a lot more to do with Stalin’s plans for Mao’s China.)
The story of Stalin’s close relationship with the newly emerged nationalist Kuomintang Party of China, in the 1920’s, at the expense of the “brotherly” Chinese Communist Party, unmistakably rings the German bell (as sounded in my earlier entry Lenin And Rosa). The Chinese Communists had wanted a full partnership with Soviet Russia, and stubbornly resisted Moscow’s control, for which they were unsurprisingly punished, and essentially sold out to the Kuomintang, although most historians of those events have unsurprisingly shown their surprise. What also resonates with the “German bell” is a similar reversal of great expectations: in the post-WWII cold war years, the previously pleasantly sounding word Kuomintang had soured into an obscenity, in Soviet usage, just as the Nazi Party of Germany had suffered a similar linguistic shock.
The two famous leaders of Kuomintang, Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek, were both friends of Russia, at one time or another, but, unlike Dr. Sun, whose image in Russia had remained fairly positive, on account of his life and death during the good-relations years, the name of Chiang would become a dirty word in Soviet usage, although he himself would always be remembered, inside the Kremlin, with a great nostalgia.
But let us start with Dr. Sun Yat-sen. (He was a medical doctor, to be sure, and kept this reminder steadily in his title.) Born in 1866, to a family of poor Chinese farmers, he gradually rose through China’s years of political turbulence, to become known as the father of modern China. In between his abject obscurity and international fame, he lived in Honolulu (then the capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii) and in the rebellious British colony of Hong Kong, and on his path to becoming a revolutionary, he was converted to Christianity by an American missionary in Hong Kong. This event, coupled with his other “Western” experiences, must not, however, be interpreted as an expression of his pro-Western sympathies. (By the same token as the fact that Yamamoto studied in the United States must not be seen as his own pro-American orientation.) Dr. Sun was a Chinese nationalist, using the West merely to advance his personal clout and his nationalist agenda. In his years of revolutionary exile, he lived in England, the United States, and elsewhere for sixteen years, but in this he can be compared to a fellow revolutionary Lenin, who lived in the West much of the time between 1900 and 1917 without ever becoming a friend of the Western values either.
In 1912 he co-founded, and became head of, the political organization known as the Kuomintang; took part in the overthrow of the last Chinese Imperial Dynasty Manchu; and became the first Provisional President of the Republic of China. In 1923 he installed himself as Generalissimo Sun, and ruled China in good style, although for a very short stretch, dying of cancer in 1925. His remarkably warm relationship with the Soviet government was influenced by his personal friendship with Stalin’s emissary Mikhail Markovich Borodin (Gruzenberg) who became an important adviser to Sun, and officially to the Kuomintang Party. After Sun’s death, the staunch Soviet Communist Borodin managed to manipulate the Chinese Communist Party in its strongest bastion at Hankow into supporting the Kuomintang, but, in the process, he quarreled with Sun’s successor Chiang Kai-shek, and was promptly recalled to Moscow in 1927, his big mission accomplished anyway.
As for Chiang (1887-1975), for a long time he had been a friend of Russia, and he even visited Moscow in 1923, on a visit of friendship and cooperation, as an emissary of Sun Yat-sen. Briefly supported by China’s erratic Communist Party, swayed by Borodin, Chiang “suddenly” turned against them in a bloody lightning coup, having received a wink and a nod from Moscow. (Overtly, Soviet historiography condemned the massacre of 1927, where thousands of Chinese communists were brutally slaughtered, but there is a lingering fascinating ambiguity in the overall Soviet/Russian assessment of his action, followed by Chiang’s temporary retirement from public life, after which he returned, and his good relationship with Moscow was eventually and conveniently for both sides resumed.)
By the end of 1936, Chiang “suddenly” changed his previous policy of appeasement toward Japan to direct confrontation, resulting in China starting (sic!) a full-fledged war against the mighty Japanese Empire, on August 13, 1937 (effectively lasting until the end of World War II), for which event, he, once again, allied himself with his old enemies the Communists! This insane “yo-yo” relationship between Kuomintang and CPC cannot be (and has not been) properly explained, except by taking into the account the Machiavellian hand of Moscow (see my revealing entries on Stalin’s Eastern policy in the anticipation of a war with Nazi Germany), but there has always been and continues to be a great reluctance to touch this political-historical hot potato, by the operators of the history business, and thus the most natural and exhaustive explanation has been left out of the picture, and is still unaccounted for…
(The rest of the Chiang Kai-shek/Kuomintang story belongs to the next two entries, where it will be further pursued.)
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