Battling Western Imperialism: Mao, Stalin, and the United States

by Michael Sheng

Overview

One of the central issues in the study of the Chinese Communist Party and its foreign policy is its relations with Moscow. Was the CCP a Chinese nationalist party antagonistic to an intrusive Soviet Union or was it rather an internationalist party with ideological-political and strategic-military ties to Moscow, faithfully adhering to Marxist-Leninist principles as well as to Stalin's policy advice? For the past two decades a number of historians have argued that the CCP was a nationalist movement and that the United States missed its opportunity to establish friendly relations because U.S. leaders were blinded by fears of an international Communist threat. In his provocative book, Michael Sheng strongly challenges this position.


On the basis of extensive new information obtained from recently available Chinese sources, Sheng demonstrates that the foreign policy of the CCP under Mao Zedong did, in fact, follow the directions recommended by Joseph Stalin. Sheng reveals that Mao and Stalin were in frequent and direct contact by radio and by correspondence, beginning in 1936, and that Mao consistently acted on Stalin's advice. Battling Western Imperialism analyzes the CCP's relations with both the Soviet Union and the United States and provides conclusive evidence that there was no "lost opportunity" for the U.S. in China. He shows that the CCP viewed the United States as a hostile capitalist power that opposed its revolutionary aims. The author has drawn on an unprecedented collection of Chinese-language materials to make a powerful new argument.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691223292
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	01/12/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	267
File size:	564 KB

About the Author

Michael M. Sheng is Associate Professor of History at Southwest Missouri State University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction 3

Ch. I The Roots of Mao's Pro-Soviet Policy before 1937 15

Ch. II CCP-Moscow Relations during the Anti-Japanese War, 1937-1945 31

Ch. III From Enemies to Friends: CCP Policy toward the United States before Pearl Harbor 57

Ch. IV Courting the Americans: The CCP's United Front Policy toward the U.S., 1942-1945 74

Ch. V Postwar Alignment: CCP-Moscow versus GMD-Washington in Manchuria, August-December 1945 98

Ch. VI Mao Deals with George Marshall, November 1945-December 1946 119

Ch. VII The CCP and the Cold War in Asia: Mao's "Intermediate-Zone" Theory and the Anti-American United Front, 1946-1947 145

Ch. VIII Mao's Revolutionary Diplomacy and the Cold War in Asia, 1948-1949 161

Conclusion 187

Notes 197

Select Bibliography 229

Index 245

Editorial Reviews

This is an ambitious and in some respects valuable book...The strength of this work is that it presents in a clear and intelligently argued manner a considerable amount of information from the Chinese side about critical junctures in the development of the communist movement.
— Political Science Quarterly

Steven M. Goldstein