“Smith’s book offers many new perspectives on the Chinese Communist revolution and should become essential reading for students and experts alike.” —American Historical Review, December 2001

This is a study of the activities, ideas, and internal life of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Shanghai during its formative period. It investigates the CCP’s relations to the city’s students and teachers, women, entrepreneurs, secret societies and its workers, and examines the efforts to transform the CCP into a “Leninist” party, exploring relations between intellectuals and workers, men and women, Chinese and Russians, within the party. The book culminates in a detailed analysis of the three armed uprisings that led to the CCP’s briefly taking power in March 1927, before being crushed by troops loyal to Chiang Kai-shek. The study highlights the extent to which the Soviet Union sought to manipulate China’s national revolution, yet also reveals how divisions at every level of the Comintern allowed the CCP to achieve a degree of independence and to conduct policy at considerable variance with that laid down by Moscow.

Steve Smith is lecturer in the Department of History, University of Essex.