The Nanyang Revolution
The Comintern and Chinese Networks in Southeast Asia, 1890–1957

A ground-breaking analysis of how the Malayan Communist Party helped forge a Malayan national identity, while promoting Chinese nationalism.

Anna Belogurova (Author)

9781108458184, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 27 October 2022

277 pages, 8 b/w illus. 2 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.377 kg

'… this volume makes a valuable contribution to the fields of the modern histories of China and Southeast Asia, the history of world communism, of state building and modernization, and studies of anti-colonialism and nationalism. It will be a useful source for scholars and students of Chinese history, social and political history, the Chinese diaspora, and of studies of the Comintern, internationalism, migration, and the communist revolution in Southeast Asia.' Qian Zhu, China and Asia

In this innovative reading, the development of the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) is explored in the context of an emerging nationalism in Southeast Asia, the interplay of overseas Chinese networks and the Comintern. Based on extensive new archival material, Anna Belogurova shows how the MCP was shaped by the historical contingencies of anti-imperialism in Southeast Asia, long-term Chinese migration trends, networks, identity, and the organizational practices of the Comintern. This is the story of how a group of left-leaning Chinese migrant intellectuals engaged with global forces to create a relevant and lasting Malayan national identity, providing fresh international perspectives on the history of Malaysia, Chinese communism, the Cold War, and decolonization.

Part I. Revolution in the Nanyang: 1. Prologue: a Durian for Sun Yatsen
2. The global world of Chinese networks in the 1920s: The Chinese Revolution and the liberation of the oppressed Minzu
3. The Nanyang Revolution and the Malayan nation, 1929–1930: nations, migrants, words
Part II. The Comintern, the MCP, and Chinese Networks, 1930–1935: 4. The MCP as a hybrid communist party: structure, discourse, and activity, 1930–1934
5. The Comintern, Malaya, and Chinese networks, 1930–1936
Part III. The GMD, the MCP, and the Nation: Minzu Cultivated, Minzu Lost: 6. Minzu cultivated, 1928–1940
7. Language, power, and the MCP's lost nation, 1939–1940
8. Epilogue.

Subject Areas: Marxism & Communism [JPFC], Revolutions, uprisings, rebellions [HBTV], Asian history [HBJF]