Moscow Sun Yat-sen University
Encyclopedia
Moscow Sun Yat-sen University, officially the Sun Yat-sen Communist University of the Toilers of China, was a Comintern
school, which operated from 1925-1930. It was a training camp
for Chinese revolution
aries from both the Kuomintang
(KMT) and the Communist Party of China
(CPC).
, the founder of the KMT, made political overtures to the CPC and the Soviet Union
. Dr. Sun had realized that the KMT needed to train more Chinese revolutionaries; it was impossible to build a republic in China
by relying on secret societies
and warlord
s, as the KMT had attempted to do.
Sun Yat-sen University officially began its classes on November 7, 1925, the eighth anniversary of the October Revolution
. The University was set up by splitting the Chinese department from the Communist University of the Toilers of the East
, which had about 100 Chinese students enrolled. The university was named after Dr. Sun out of respect for his contribution to the Chinese Revolution.
Located at No. 16 Volkhona Street, in an old and beautiful part of Moscow
, about a thirty minute walk from the Kremlin
. In Tsarist Russia the main university building, built in the early nineteenth century, had been Moscow First Provincial High School (gubernskii gimmnaziia).
Mikhail Borodin
, the consultant sent by the Soviet Union, directed the first enrollment of students. These students were elites chosen from the membership of both the CPC and KMT. The main missions of this university were to educate students in Marxism
and Leninism
, as well as training cadres for mass movement as qualified Bolshevik
s.
s such as Karl Radek
, who was the first president of the university. The students came from different classes and backgrounds: some were famous communism revolutionaries or scholars, while others had little education but much experience in communist movements. The university grouped these students into different classes according to their education and experience.
The courses given at the university focused on the basic theories of Marxism and Leninism. Students also learned methods of mobilization and propaganda, as well as theoretical and practical military instruction.
In addition to courses, there were regular presentations on the international communist movements and the Chinese revolution by prominent members from Comintern
, the Soviet Union and the CPC. Those included Joseph Stalin
, Leon Trotsky
, Zhang Guotao
and Xiang Zhongfa
.
Although courses of study only lasted 2 years, the university had a great influences on those trained there. Graduates of note, many of whom were to go on and play leadership roles in China, included the 28 Bolsheviks
, Zuo Quan
, He Zhonghan, Deng Wenyi and both Deng Xiaoping
, future leader of the People's Republic of China
and Chiang Ching-kuo
, future president of the Republic of China
exiled on Taiwan.
, who was too ambitious to be limited to a university campus. Mif himself became the vice director of Far East
Department of Comintern and played an important role in the major decisions of the CPC. With his 28 Bolsheviks holding senior positions in the CPC, Mif and the university played a major role China's modern history.
The university was closed in the mid-1930s due to the failure of the alliance with the KMT.
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
school, which operated from 1925-1930. It was a training camp
Training camp
A training camp is a place, usually with an army-camp-type environment, where people go to learn skills, usually skills involving physical action rather than book subjects, usually for an armed force or an action sport...
for Chinese revolution
Revolution
A revolution is a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time.Aristotle described two types of political revolution:...
aries from both the Kuomintang
Kuomintang
The Kuomintang of China , sometimes romanized as Guomindang via the Pinyin transcription system or GMD for short, and translated as the Chinese Nationalist Party is a founding and ruling political party of the Republic of China . Its guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, espoused...
(KMT) and the Communist Party of China
Communist Party of China
The Communist Party of China , also known as the Chinese Communist Party , is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China...
(CPC).
Origins
In 1923, Dr. Sun Yat-senSun Yat-sen
Sun Yat-sen was a Chinese doctor, revolutionary and political leader. As the foremost pioneer of Nationalist China, Sun is frequently referred to as the "Father of the Nation" , a view agreed upon by both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China...
, the founder of the KMT, made political overtures to the CPC and the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. Dr. Sun had realized that the KMT needed to train more Chinese revolutionaries; it was impossible to build a republic in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
by relying on secret societies
Secret society
A secret society is a club or organization whose activities and inner functioning are concealed from non-members. The society may or may not attempt to conceal its existence. The term usually excludes covert groups, such as intelligence agencies or guerrilla insurgencies, which hide their...
and warlord
Warlord
A warlord is a person with power who has both military and civil control over a subnational area due to armed forces loyal to the warlord and not to a central authority. The term can also mean one who espouses the ideal that war is necessary, and has the means and authority to engage in war...
s, as the KMT had attempted to do.
Sun Yat-sen University officially began its classes on November 7, 1925, the eighth anniversary of the October Revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
. The University was set up by splitting the Chinese department from the Communist University of the Toilers of the East
Communist University of the Toilers of the East
The Communist University of the Toilers of the East or KUTV was established April 21, 1921, in Moscow by the Communist International as a training college for communist cadres in the colonial world. The school officially opened on October 21, 1921...
, which had about 100 Chinese students enrolled. The university was named after Dr. Sun out of respect for his contribution to the Chinese Revolution.
Located at No. 16 Volkhona Street, in an old and beautiful part of Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, about a thirty minute walk from the Kremlin
Kremlin
A kremlin , same root as in kremen is a major fortified central complex found in historic Russian cities. This word is often used to refer to the best-known one, the Moscow Kremlin, or metonymically to the government that is based there...
. In Tsarist Russia the main university building, built in the early nineteenth century, had been Moscow First Provincial High School (gubernskii gimmnaziia).
Mikhail Borodin
Mikhail Borodin
Mikhail Markovich Borodin was the alias of Mikhail Gruzenberg, a Comintern agent and Soviet arms dealer....
, the consultant sent by the Soviet Union, directed the first enrollment of students. These students were elites chosen from the membership of both the CPC and KMT. The main missions of this university were to educate students in Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
and Leninism
Leninism
In Marxist philosophy, Leninism is the body of political theory for the democratic organisation of a revolutionary vanguard party, and the achievement of a direct-democracy dictatorship of the proletariat, as political prelude to the establishment of socialism...
, as well as training cadres for mass movement as qualified Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
s.
Coursework
Most of the instructors came from the Soviet Union. Among them were old BolshevikOld Bolshevik
Old Bolshevik , also Old Bolshevik Guard or Old Party Guard, was an unofficial designation for those who were members of the Bolshevik party before the Russian Revolution of 1917, many of whom were either tried and executed by the NKVD during Stalin era purges or died under suspicious...
s such as Karl Radek
Karl Radek
Karl Bernhardovic Radek was a socialist active in the Polish and German movements before World War I and an international Communist leader after the Russian Revolution....
, who was the first president of the university. The students came from different classes and backgrounds: some were famous communism revolutionaries or scholars, while others had little education but much experience in communist movements. The university grouped these students into different classes according to their education and experience.
The courses given at the university focused on the basic theories of Marxism and Leninism. Students also learned methods of mobilization and propaganda, as well as theoretical and practical military instruction.
In addition to courses, there were regular presentations on the international communist movements and the Chinese revolution by prominent members from Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
, the Soviet Union and the CPC. Those included Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
, Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
, Zhang Guotao
Zhang Guotao
Zhang Guotao was a founding member and important leader of the Chinese Communist Party and bitter rival to Mao Zedong. During the 1920s he studied in the Soviet Union and became a key contact with the Comintern and organized the CCP labor movement in the United Front with the Guomindang...
and Xiang Zhongfa
Xiang Zhongfa
Xiang Zhongfa was one of the early senior leaders of the Communist Party of China .-Early life:Xiang was born in 1880 to a poor family living in Shanghai. He dropped out of elementary school to move with his parents to their ancestral home in Hubei...
.
Although courses of study only lasted 2 years, the university had a great influences on those trained there. Graduates of note, many of whom were to go on and play leadership roles in China, included the 28 Bolsheviks
28 Bolsheviks
The 28 Bolsheviks were a group of Chinese students who studied at the Moscow Sun Yat-sen University from the late 1920s until early 1935, also known as the "Returned Students". The university was founded in 1925 as a result of Kuomintang's founder Sun Yat-Sen's policy of alliance with the Soviet...
, Zuo Quan
Zuo Quan
Zuo Quian, also named Zuo Shuren , born in Liling, Hunan, a general of Chinese Communist Party, Lieutenant General of Republic of China. He is the highest general of Eighth Route Army...
, He Zhonghan, Deng Wenyi and both Deng Xiaoping
Deng Xiaoping
Deng Xiaoping was a Chinese politician, statesman, and diplomat. As leader of the Communist Party of China, Deng was a reformer who led China towards a market economy...
, future leader of the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
and Chiang Ching-kuo
Chiang Ching-kuo
Chiang Ching-kuo , Kuomintang politician and leader, was the son of President Chiang Kai-shek and held numerous posts in the government of the Republic of China...
, future president of the Republic of China
Republic of China
The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
exiled on Taiwan.
Political change and closure
In 1927, as the CPC-KMT alliance broke up, the students from the KMT were sent back to China. As the power struggle between Stalin and Trotsky reached its peak, Radek was sacked and replaced by his deputy, Pavel MifPavel Mif
Pavel Mif was the pseudonym of Mikhail Alexandrovich Fortus , Russian Bolshevik Party member from May 1917, historian with a Doctor's degree in economics , participant of Russian civil war , a student at Yakov Sverdlov Communist University , did communist party work in Ukraine...
, who was too ambitious to be limited to a university campus. Mif himself became the vice director of Far East
Far East
The Far East is an English term mostly describing East Asia and Southeast Asia, with South Asia sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons.The term came into use in European geopolitical discourse in the 19th century,...
Department of Comintern and played an important role in the major decisions of the CPC. With his 28 Bolsheviks holding senior positions in the CPC, Mif and the university played a major role China's modern history.
The university was closed in the mid-1930s due to the failure of the alliance with the KMT.
See also
- Sun Yat-sen UniversitySun Yat-sen UniversitySun Yat-sen University, also unofficially referred to as Zhongshan University , is a prominent university located mainly in Guangzhou, China. The University is named after Dr...
in GuangzhouGuangzhouGuangzhou , known historically as Canton or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of the Guangdong province in the People's Republic of China. Located in southern China on the Pearl River, about north-northwest of Hong Kong, Guangzhou is a key national transportation hub and trading port...
, People's Republic of ChinaPeople's Republic of ChinaChina , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres... - National Sun Yat-sen UniversityNational Sun Yat-sen UniversityThe National Sun Yat-sen University is a public university located in Kaohsiung, Republic of China . The university is known as NSYSU ....
in KaohsiungKaohsiungKaohsiung is a city located in southwestern Taiwan, facing the Taiwan Strait on the west. Kaohsiung, officially named Kaohsiung City, is divided into thirty-eight districts. The city is one of five special municipalities of the Republic of China...
, Republic of ChinaRepublic of ChinaThe Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...