Ideologies and states: the socialist challenge

1. Ideologies and states: the socialist challenge The Extra-European World Term 1, week 9 Anne Gerritsen Room H0.18 a.t.gerritsen@warwick.ac.uk

2. Four leaders

3. Four leaders Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung) 1893-1976 Leader of Chinese communist party Kim Il-Sung 1912-1994 Leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Fidel Castro 1926- Cuban leader of the 1959 revolution Secretary of the CCP JyotiBasu (1913-2010) Indian Marxist Ruled West-Bengal from 1977 to 2001

4. What do they have in common? All leaders of extra-European communist parties All leaders of communist states All had exposure to the Western world All were exposed to the world of agriculture All had connections to the military

5. What do they have in common? Nationalist tendencies, perhaps originating with experiences of colonial occupation in their youth Leaders of politically isolated states Cult of personality (Basu perhaps the exception in these latter cases)

6. Links between leadership of extra-European Communist Parties and education in the West Exposure of these leaders to the largely agricultural backbone of the non-Western world Experience of military struggle The nationalist dimension Themes of the lecture

7. Why is education significant for understanding communism in the non-Western world? European communist support came from blue-collar workers Extra-European support came from intellectuals Much of the world was ruled by European colonial powers Needed loyal bureaucrats to serve the colonial administration Educated promising individuals at Oxford, the Sorbonne, Leiden Questioned the relationship between metropolitan theories and domestic realities in their homelands, and demanded rights for their own homelands. education

8. HồChíMinh (1890-1969) A Vietnamese Marxist-Leninist revolutionary leader who was prime minister (1945–1955) and president (1945–1969) of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). From 1919–1923, while living in France, he embracedcommunism.

9. How did the transition from liberal nationalists to radical Marxists come about? Students of the history of relations between the first and the third worlds realised that capitalism was impoverishing the majority on a global scale. There seemed to be a connection between imperialism and capitalism, and it wasn’t working in favour of the majority of the population in the non-European world Socialism seemed to offer an alternative for understanding the relationship between imperialism and capitalism, and offer solutions Promising young bureaucrats returned home as flaming Marxists. Liberalism to Marxism

10. Impact of the brutalities of the first World War: raised questions about how civilised Europe was and whether the Europeans were in any position to bring civilization to the rest of the world Impact of world war I Indian soldiers convalesce outside the Royal Pavilion. Over fifty thousand volunteered to fight for Britain in the First World War. Image courtesy of the Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove.

11. European administrators in the colonial world were recalled by their European governments, and replaced by native administrators. Were promised a great deal of independence and responsibility, but these promises were not kept in the interwar era. German East Africa, for example, had been under German colonial administration, but was placed under Belgian administration in 1920, known as Ruanda-Urundi. The Belgians used the indigenous power structure, so that the largely Tutsi ruling class controlled a mostly Hutu population. The anger at the oppression and misrule among the population focused on Tutsi elite rather than the distant colonial power. Impact of world war I

12. Peace Treaty Negotiations in Versaille in 1919. Woodrow Wilson offered self-determination of nations, but in practice their requests were denied. Impact of world war I Chinese protesters during the May Fourth Uprising, 1919

13. Peace Treaty Negotiations in Versaille in 1919. Woodrow Wilson offered self-determination of nations, but in practice their requests were denied. Impact of world war I Egyptian women demonstrating in the 1919 Revolution, precipitated by the British-ordered exile of nationalist leader SaadZaghlûl

14. A range of socialist and communist parties were founded after WWI. These included: Argentina, 1918 Great Britain, 1920 China, 1921 Cuba, 1921 South Africa, 1921 Japan, 1922 India, 1925 Vietnam, 1930 Socialism in Asia and Africa

15. In May 1925, strikes broke out in a number of Chinese cities, and workers protested against the Japanese and British manufacturers. The Chinese Communist Party played a central role in these anti-British, nationalist strikes. Socialism in Asia and Africa

16. Enforced the sense of weakness of the imperial powers (see what happened in France and Holland) Failed promises to colonial adminstrations led to protests and conflicts Impact of world war II

17. Enforced the sense of weakness of the imperial powers (see what happened in France and Holland) Failed promises to colonial administrations led to protests and conflicts Impact of world war II Leader of the Indonesian National Party Achmed Sukarno (1902-70) demanding independence from the Netherlands in an undated photo. Indonesian independence from Dutch colonial rule was achieved in 1949 after a bloody struggle. (-/AFP/Getty Images)

18. Enforced the sense of weakness of the imperial powers (see what happened in France and Holland) Failed promises to colonial adminstrations led to protests and conflicts On 8 May 1945, an uprising against the occupying French forces in the Algerian town of Sétifresulted in the deaths of 21 settlers, and killed perhaps as many as 40,000 Algerians. Impact of world war II

19. Fidel Castro started as a radical nationalist who wanted self-determination for Cuba Castro started out with socialist inclinations, and quite strong economic ties with the US 1959 Cuban Revolution, and turn to the SU Case studies: CUBA Che Guevara added a democratic socialist dimension

20. Communist party in conflict with Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Party (GMD) Comintern (i.e. the internationalist organ of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union) advocated collaboration with and support for bourgeois parties such as Chiang Kaishek’s Nationalist Party. CCP and Nationalist Party (GMD) formed United Front in 1931 against the invading Japanese forces. Civil War between 1945 and 1949, but led to 1949 CCP victory. Development of Mao Zedong-thought (emphasizing the revolutionary potential of the peasantry) In Marxist-Leninist-Map Zedong thought, peasantry takes on the role of the proletariat Case studies: China Location of the first Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in Shanghai, 1921

21. ¡PROLETARIOS DE TODOS LOS PAISES, UNIOS! ¡¡5 AÑOS DE GUERRA POPULAR!! PARTIDO COMUNISTA DEL PERU – 1980 MAYO 1985 Proletarians of All the World, Unite! 5 Years of People's War!! Communist Party of Peru 1980 May 1985 Case studies: peru

22. Note: War as the pathway to revolution and the communist goal Ongoing importance of Maoism Based outside Peru