Module 4: Communism in the 20th Century
Required Readings
“On Protracted War” (1938) 论持久战 Paragraphs 9-50
“On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People” (1957) 关于正确处理人民内部矛盾的问题 Section I. Two types of contradictions differing in nature
Recommended readings
“Oppose Book Worship” 反对本本主义 (1930)
“Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art” 在延安文艺座谈会上的讲话 (1942)
Further readings on Maoism in the Chinese Revolution:
Arif Dirlik, Marxism in the Chinese Revolution (2005)
Rebecca Karl, Mao Zedong and China in the Twentieth-Century World: A Concise History (2010)
William Hinton, Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village (1966)
Further reflections on history writing and revolutionary epistemology:
Gail Hershatter, The Gender of Memory: Rural Women and China's Collective Past (2011)
Fabio Lanza, “The Politics of (Maoist) History” (2021) & Aminda Smith, “The Maoism of PRC History” (2021)
Pang Laikwan, The Art of Cloning: Creative Production During China’s Cultural Revolution (2017)
Some primers on contemporary struggles
Chuang Journal 闯, “Sorghum and Steel: The Socialist Developmental Regime and the Forging of China” (2016) - generally a good resource
Made in China Journal, syllabus on Internationalist Activism and Solidarity (2024) - generally a good resource
Guldana Salimjan, “Green Colonialism in China: Socialist Legacy and Kazakh Dispossession” (2024)
Zoe Zhao 夕岸, “Solidarity Stalled: When Chinese Activists Meet Social Movements in Democracies” (2021)
Phil Neel, Hellworld (2025) chapters 3, 5, 7
Eli Friedman, Insurgency Trap: Labor Politics in Postsocialist China (2014)