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A Comparative Historical Analysis of Empire

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A Comparative Historical Analysis of Empire 1 Two Revolutions: A Comparative Historical Analysis of Empire, Nationalism, and Communism in China & Russia Luyang Zhou © Department of Sociology, Faculty of Arts McGill University Submitted on March 28, 2018 © A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2 Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................................... 4 Contribution of Author .......................................................................................................................... 7 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 8 Two Usages of Class: Imperial Bolshevism and National Chinese Communism ............................ 15 Data and methods ............................................................................................................................... 19 Bolshevism: Communism to Preserve Non-national State ................................................................. 24 ‘Reactionary’ Nationalization ........................................................................................................ 26 Successful Russification .................................................................................................................. 34 Unsuccessful Russification ............................................................................................................. 40 CCP: Communism to Cultivate Nationalism ...................................................................................... 46 Fragmented Nationalism ................................................................................................................ 48 Floating Nationalism ...................................................................................................................... 54 Reactionary Nationalism ................................................................................................................ 60 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................................... 64 References .......................................................................................................................................... 66 Historical Origins of the Party-Army Relations in the Soviet Union and China ............................ 76 Possible Explanations ......................................................................................................................... 79 Data and Methods ............................................................................................................................... 81 Mutual Exclusion and Fusion ............................................................................................................. 82 Russia: Limited Defeats and “Reactionary Learning” ........................................................................ 86 China: Organic Crisis and Intensive Civil Wars ................................................................................. 94 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................ 101 References ........................................................................................................................................ 103 How the Bolshevik Revolution Made Itself Un-Replicable for Chinese Communists: A Comparative Historical Analysis of the Repression Regimes ............................................................. 112 Theorizing the Two Revolutions ...................................................................................................... 115 Methods and Data ............................................................................................................................. 118 Bolsheviks Before 1917 .................................................................................................................... 120 Unlethal Repression...................................................................................................................... 122 Overseas Outlets ........................................................................................................................... 128 CCPs in and after 1927 ..................................................................................................................... 131 Lethal Repression ......................................................................................................................... 133 Enclosed Political Space .............................................................................................................. 139 3 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................ 144 References ........................................................................................................................................ 146 Two Commissar Systems: Comparing the Bolshevik and Chinese Communist Armies during Civil Wars ......................................................................................................................................................... 154 Commissar System and Civil-Military Relations ............................................................................. 156 Distrust of Bureaucracy and Professionalism ................................................................................... 161 Making Revolutions in the Sea of Peasantry .................................................................................... 168 Hybrid Warfare to Defeat Strong Enemies ....................................................................................... 177 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................ 188 References ........................................................................................................................................ 190 Conclusion: Communism and Nationalism ...................................................................................... 198 Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................. 201 4 Abstract This manuscript-based thesis consists of four interrelated articles comparing the Bolshevik and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) revolutions. It explains these revolutions’ disparities by highlighting the differentiated paces of Russia’s and China’s transitions from empires to nation- states. Probing the factor of agency, including elites, institutions, and ideologies, this thesis reveals four vital differences between these two movements. First, while the Bolshevik elite used class ideology to negate the notion of nation, the CCP invoked class to cultivate and boost Chinese nationalism. Second, the Bolshevik loathed military culture, whereas the CCP embraced military culture in terms of its psychology and personnel who heavily overlapped with old army elite. Third, the CCP failed to replicate the Bolshevik’s route of seizing power at cities, but rather started its civil war from rural areas. Fourth, ideological power was far more central to the CCP army- and state-building than to the Bolshevik’s, which was manifested in the two parties’ commissar systems. This thesis argues that all of these four differences stemmed from the fact that China moved faster than Tsarist Russia in the transition to nation-states. China had an ethnically homogeneous proper, which the CCP movement used to gain momentum. In comparison to Russia, China also suffered deeper geopolitical crises. Moreover, the CCP movement arose in the post- 1919 world wherein the pursuit of nation-state had become a fashion that even the Soviet Union had to concede. Finally, in a more nationalistic environment, the CCP had to fight against the KMT, a nationalist force much stronger than the Russian Whites, which compelled the militarily weak CCP to heavily exploit ideological power. The entire thesis draws three contributions. First, it agrees with the fourth generation of revolutionary theories that agency matters, whilst adds that its 5 importance varies greatly across revolutions. Second, going beyond existing literature highlighting the general trend of empire-nation transition, it demonstrates the social outcomes of the pace of the revolution. Third, it creates a huge empirical biographical dataset covering the two communist parties and their counterrevolutionary rivals. 6 Résumé de la these Cette thèse comprend quatre articles interdépendants qui comparent la révolution bolchevique avec celui de la partie communiste chinois (PCC), et expliquent leurs disparités selon les différentes étapes entre la Russie et la Chine dans la transition d’empire vers État-nation. En examinant les élites, les institutions, et les idéologies, cette thèse révèle quatre différences importants entre ces deux mouvements. Premièrement, alors que l'élite bolchevique utilisait l'idéologie de classe pour nier la notion de nation, le PCC ont invoqué la classe pour cultiver et renforcer le nationalisme chinois. Deuxièmement, les bolcheviks détestaient la culture militaire, alors que le PCC embrassait la psychologie militaire,
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