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In Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao, Benjamin Schwartz noted that although key elements of Mao Zedong's emerging revolutionary strategy can be found in his "Report on an Investigation of the Agrarian Movement in Hunan," "nowhere in this 'Report' do we find any discussion of the question of military power." This observation feeds a broader assumption about China's 1926 National Revolution that the Communist Party's failure was largely a result of its single-minded focus on the organization of mass organizations at the expense of any attempt to create a revolutionary military force--in effect yielding the military realm to the Nationalist Party under Chiang Kai-shek. Chiang's later use of military force to suppress mass organizations is generally seen as leading to Mao's realization that "political power comes from the barrel of a gun," with a new stress on the need for the CCP to develop its own military power. This article argues that Mao was in fact not so oblivious to the importance of military power in 1926, but--as clearly noted in his "Report"--he saw greater potential for the development of military power in mass militia than in regular army units. In the end, such mass militia were still no match for Chiang's armies, but many militia forces survived to form the foundation for later Communist military forces. This article, then, seeks to better illuminate early stress on the importance of militia as a revolutionary military force in the National Revolution and the struggles that resulted from this assumption over how militia should be organized and who should control them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Martin Sauer’s An Account of a Geographical and Astronomical Expedition to the Northern Parts of Russia (1802) has traditionally been accepted as the most authoritative account of the Northern Expedition, 1785-1793, particularly in Western Europe. However, Sauer’s subjectivism reveals a contradiction in how he narrates facts about the expedition. Firstly, Sauer uses a “subjective” technique in which he ascribes personal identity to the narrator, demonstrating that travel phenomena originate from a distinct perspective, reinforcing the account’s ostensible credibility. Simultaneously personal identity and “subjective reflections” demonstrate his ostensible unreliability because he organises facts based upon conventions particular to Robinsonades. That is, his “subjective” techniques arrange “objective” phenomena to reflect Robinsonade conventions that, for instance, advance modern republican values and make the narrator the hero of the account. As such, Sauer’s narrative underscores the significance of delimiting subjectivism in travel accounts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the problems faced by the Chinese silver-backed currencies in Manchuria during the period of Northern Expedition (1925–1928), the Chinese attempt to overcome these problems, and the reasons for its failure. Manchuria was a peculiar territory during the interwar period (1919–1939), where several currencies, backed by silver or gold, competed against one another. The Chinese silver banknote, first introduced at the turn of the twentieth century, was challenged by gold-backed Japanese yen issued by the Bank of Korea, and by the Russian ruble. This competition was set in the context of the struggle for political control over the area between China (the Qing Dynasty and its successor, the Chinese Republic), Russia (and its successor the Soviet Union), and the Japanese Empire, as well as the war between the southern Nationalists (Kuomintang) and the militarists (warlords) who controlled the Chinese central government in Beijing and Manchuria. This paper suggests that the difficult financial situation determined the course followed by the warlords, and that their failure was the result of the complex regional context, and the failures in their military strategy rather than of their fiscal policy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

During the Northern Expedition, the Communist Party of China (CPC) had close contact with certain businessmen; one of these was Yu Qiaqing of Shanghai, who played a role in the background of the Three Armed Uprisings of Shanghai Workers. Because of this contact, Yu Qiaqing was regarded as a leading figure of the leftist bourgeoisie. He was also considered an important collaborator with the provisional municipal government after these uprisings. However, his cooperation with the CPC did not jeopardize his alliance with the Nationalist Party. When Chiang Kai-shek, an old friend of his, arrived in Shanghai, Yu soon turned himself into one of Chiang's financial advisors. Although it is hard to argue that Yu Qiaqing's behavior was representative of most businessmen's party preferences, it does demonstrate that some businessmen had a profiteering attitude in politics and were open to taking advantage of the nexus between politics and business. Influenced by the political context and situation, the CPC was also able to flexibly apply its 'class analysis' theory during that time to justify the policy of cooperating with people like Yu Qiaqing. However, the failure of cooperation with the bourgeoisie by 1927 became an excuse for opposing factions within the party to criticize this policy, and even affected the CPC's subsequent policy line afterwards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]