Nationalism and the Duration of Revolution: Comparing the Bolshevik and the Chinese Communist Cultural Elites

Luyang Zhou, Zhejiang University

This article argues that the longer a revolutionary movement sustains, the more likely it infuses with nationalism. Existing literature notices that the Bolshevik and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) revolutions had different relationships with nationalism. Whereas the Bolshevik remained alien and resistant to Russian nationalism over its power seizure of 1917-22, the CCP achieved infusion with Chinese nationalism during the protracted civil war from 1926 to 1949. This article explains this difference by highlighting duration. It argues that the long duration of revolution allowed the CCP to gradually develop a notion of progressive nationalism, whereas the rashness of power seizure prevented the Bolshevik from transforming the old Russian nationalism to a socialist one. This article draws a biographical analysis of the two communist parties’ cultural elites. Within each case it explores three groups: Marxist internationalists, red cultural workers, and revolutionary literati. Cosmopolitans-internationalists possessed the cultural expertise to invent nationalism, but these people, by their educational backgrounds, were anti-traditionalist. Transforming them was time-consuming. Red cultural workers came from the rank-and-file. These people needed to be taught with political knowledge and literacy, which took time too. Revolutionary literati possessed both political ideas and cultural expertise. However, the making of this group, because of the technical requirements for training and research, was a long process. The CCP revolution was long enough to train red cultural workers and cultivate revolutionary literati. This process eventually enabled the Party to displace cosmopolitans and internationalists. On the contrary, the Bolshevik did not get the opportunity to shape red workers and revolutionary literati until the turn of the 1930s. People who dominated the cultural production of the revolution of 1917-22 were internationalists.

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