The formation of the Chinese Communist Party / Ishikawa Yoshihiro ; translated by Joshua A. Fogel ; cover design, Martin N. Hinze.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Official Chinese narratives recounting the rise of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) tend to minimize the movement's international associations. Conducting careful readings and translations of recently released documents in Russian, Japanese, and Chinese, Ishikawa Yoshihiro builds a portrait of the party's multifaceted character, revealing the provocative influences that shaped the movement and the ideologies of its competitors.

Making use of public and private documents and research, Ishikawa begins the story in 1919 with Chinese intellectuals who wrote extensively under pen names and, in fact, plagiarized or translated many iconic texts of early Chinese Marxism. Chinese Marxists initially drew intellectual sustenance from their Japanese counterparts, until Japan clamped down on leftist activities. The Chinese then turned to American and British sources.

Ishikawa traces these networks through an exhaustive survey of journals, newspapers, and other intellectual and popular publications. He reports on numerous early meetings involving a range of groups, only some of which were later funneled into CCP membership, and he follows the developments at Soviet Russian gatherings attended by a number of Chinese representatives who claimed to speak for a nascent CCP. Concluding his narrative in 1922, one year after the party's official founding, Ishikawa clarifies a traditionally opaque period in Chinese history and sheds new light on the subsequent behavior and attitude of the party.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Acknowledgments (p. ix)
• Contributors (p. xi)
• 1. Introduction (p. 1)
• 2. Infancy and Toddlerhood (p. 7)
• 3. The Journey of Middle Childhood: Who Are "Latency"-Age Children? (p. 69)
• 4. Adolescence (p. 123)
• 5. Adulthood (p. 181)
• 6. Developmental Theories of Aging (p. 264)
• Epilogue (p. 325)
• Index (p. 329)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Ishikawa (Kyoto Univ., Japan) attempts a narrow, detailed reconstruction of the two-year lead-up to the formation of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The work, originally published in 2001 in Japanese, utilizes numerous Chinese, Japanese, and Soviet archives, publications, and memoirs, which, he admits, leave some blanks. The book's reception in China was chilly, possibly because Ishikawa sees much foreign influence in the founding of Chinese communism. Marxism, he demonstrates, first came to China via Japan, where many Chinese studied before 1919. Chinese Marxism, however, blossomed only with the anti-Japanese May 4 student movement of 1919, which introduced young Chinese nationalists to disciplined social revolution to cure China's weaknesses. With the end of Japanese influence, by 1920 China's small Marxist movement welcomed Soviet envoys, money, and advice. First was Grigori Voitinsky, sent in April 1920 by the Bolshevik's Far Eastern Bureau in Vladivostok. Then the Far Eastern Secretariat of the Comintern in Irkutsk sent Dutch Comintern agent Maring to Shanghai in June 1921 to encourage the first party congress, attended by 13 Chinese delegates, including Mao Zedong, in July. Heavy on detail and historiography, light on context and analysis. For specialists only. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate, research, and professional collections. M. G. Roskin emeritus, Lycoming College