Savior of the Orient: China’s Imagination of the Soviet Union during Its National Revolution, 1925-27

• In Event: Futures in the Making: Writing, Reading, and Filmmaking in China, 1925-Present

Abstract

China’s national revolution of 1925-27 was not only a period when widespread anti-imperialist sentiment, student and worker activism, and the military forces of Chiang Kai-shek propelled the Guomindang into power; it was also when a burgeoning mediasphere helped the Chinese Communist Party become a mass party. Although the political movements of the 1920s have been well documented, no study has looked at how Chinese writings about the Soviet Union published in print media gave critical impetus to the development of both the CCP and the national revolution. Drawing on previously neglected sources by non-elite writers and activists in political, commercial, and student journals from the era, I argue that the appeal of the Soviet Union was not chiefly based on “Marxism” per se, but on its perceived role as “savior of the Orient,” offering to China a promising path for national development, as well as the chance to enter into the world on its own terms. While activists took heed from articles about the Soviet Union, left-leaning writers interpreted the development of China’s national revolution from a Leninist perspective. Together, they articulated a form of “internationalist nationalism,” which stressed Chinese sovereignty and cosmopolitanism. The promotion of the Soviet Union in China’s mediasphere increased the legitimacy of the CCP and helped to steer China’s national revolution into an internationalist direction. Chinese writers and activists creatively employed their imagination of the Soviet Union to form conceptual links across national and racial borders and envision a future nation free from “backwardness” and exclusion.

Author

• John M. Knight, The Ohio State University