Sun Yat-sen University (Moscow)

The Sun Yat-sen University Moscow ( Chinese 莫斯科中山大学 , Pinyin Mòsīkē Zhōngshān Dàxué ) was a university for Chinese revolutionaries who belonged partly to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and partly to the Kuomintang (KMT).

origin

In 1923, the founder of the KMT, Sun Yat-sen , began a cautious rapprochement with the CP and the Soviet Union . Sun had recognized that the KMT could not build the Chinese republic with secret societies and warlords alone , but needed more staunch revolutionaries. The Soviet leadership and the Communist Party accepted the offer of cooperation and in 1925 decided to establish the university, which was to bear his name in honor of Sun Yat-sen's services to the Chinese revolution.

Adam Lindner (1902–58; alias Xia Dalin ) and Michail Borodin , the advisors sent by the Comintern, decided on the admission of the first students who came from the KP and KMT, which were still cooperating until 1927. The main task of the university was to instruct the students in Marxism and Leninism and to train future cadres for mass organizations in the Bolshevik sense. The university opened in October 1925.

classes

Most of the instructors came from the Soviet Union, including old Bolsheviks like Karl Radek , the university's first rector. The students came from different social and family backgrounds: some were recognized academics, while others had little education but a lot of experience in the communist underground. The division into classes was based on both technical and "social" criteria.

Primarily the basics of Marxism and Leninism were taught. The students also learned methods of mobilization and propaganda and received theoretical and practical military training.

In addition to the normal events, there were regular lectures by prominent members of the Comintern , the Soviet leadership and the Chinese Communist Party on topics relating to the international communist movement and the Chinese revolution. The speakers included Josef Stalin , Leon Trotsky , Zhang Guotao and Xiang Zhongfa .

Although the curriculum was only two years long, the university had a great impact on its graduates, including the group of 28 Bolsheviks : Yang Shangkun , Zuo Quan , Deng Xiaoping , He Zhonghan and Deng Wenyi, among others . Many of them came to influential positions in post-war China. Likewise, Chiang Ching-kuo , the son and successor of Chiang Kai-shek as President of the Republic of China , was a graduate of the university.

August Thalheimer held a series of lectures at the university in the spring of 1927 under the title “The modern world view”.

Political change and closure

With the break of the alliance between the KP and KMT in 1927, the students of Sun Yat-sen University were sent back to China. At the height of the power struggle between Stalin and Trotsky, Radek was deposed and replaced by his deputy Pavel Mif , who was too ambitious to take care of the university's affairs only. Mif later became deputy director of the Comintern's Far East Department and played an important role in the decisions of the CCP. The influence of Mif and the university continued through the 28 Bolsheviks long after the communists came to power in 1949.

After the failure of the alliance with the KMT, the university was closed in the mid-1930s.

swell

^ Lohner, Henry; Prip-Moller, Johanne; Buddhist temples in China; Norderstedt 2017, Volume II, p. 578; ISBN 978-3-7448-7273-7 .
^ August Thalheimer: Introduction to Dialectical Materialism: Lectures at the Sun Yat Sen University, Moscow . Publishing house for literature and politics, Vienna / Berlin 1928.

literature

Sheng Zhongliang, Moscow Sun Yat-sen University and Chinese Revolution
Yueh Sheng, Sun Yat-sen University in Moscow and the Chinese Revolution. A Personal Account, University of Kansas 1971.
Jane L. Price; Cadres, Commanders, and Commissars. The Training of the Chinese Communist Leadership, 1920-45 Boulder, Col. 1976.
Klaus-Georg Riegel; Transplanting the Political Religion of Marxism-Leninism to China: The Case of the Sun Yat-sen University in Moscow (1925-1930); in: K.-H. Pohl, ed .; Chinese Thought in a Global Context; Leiden 1999, pp. 327-358.
Yu Miin-ling, Sun Yat-sen University in Moscow: 1925-1930; New York University (Department of History), Unpublished Ph. Diss. 1995.

[1] Lohner, Henry; Prip-Moller, Johanne; Buddhist temples in China; Norderstedt 2017, Volume II, p. 578; ISBN 978-3-7448-7273-7 .

[2] August Thalheimer: Introduction to Dialectical Materialism: Lectures at the Sun Yat Sen University, Moscow . Publishing house for literature and politics, Vienna / Berlin 1928.