Humanities & Social Sciences
Description
Most scholars believe that China's nationality policy, like that of other socialist states, imitated the Soviet nationality model, a system which has been termed an "affirmative action empire." This book offers two contributions to the literature which run counter to this convention. First, it argues that the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Soviet Union (USSR) were different; while the PRC was aimed to build an ideal-typical nation-state, the USSR was an open union of nation-states that was only temporarily confined to a physical territory. Second, while scholars who have noted this difference attribute it to contextual factors, such as ethnic structure, geopolitical status, and Russia's intervention into the Chinese Revolution, this book contends that context shaped the Sino-Soviet difference, yet it did not determine it. Rather, there was significant leeway between the implications of the contextual factors, and what the policy-designers ultimately established. This book probes who held agency, and how these individuals bridged this gap.
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Endorsements
The twentieth century witnessed the end of traditional empire.The impact of nationalism brought down many empires to disintegration. Yet, there were variations. Some empires retained their domains longer by changing their cloaks. This book compares how Russia and China survived. They both maneuvered nationalism through communist revolutions. In form, the Bolsheviks transformed the Tsarist domain into a union of multiple nation-states, while the Chinese revolutionaries re-integrated the Qing territories into one nation-state with autonomous units for ethnic minorities. To understand such divergence underneath convergence, this book compares the leading elites of the two revolutions. In comparison with the USSR-founding Bolsheviks, the Chinese communists were ethnically more homogeneous but less international. Their outlook was to establish an enclosed polity rather than a union institutionally open to incorporate new member-states. Through a protracted war the Chinese communists developed skills of reconciling the traditional "China" with revolutionary values. This rendered the Bolshevik way of entirely dissolving "Russia" in "Soviet" unnecessary. Moreover, the Chinese communists were weaker at borderlands vis-a-vis their rivalries. They were thus more cautious, rejecting the Bolshevik strategy of weaponizing "national self-determination". This book highlights the crucial features of the Chinese communist revolution and shows how they affected China's transition to nation-state: geographical isolation buffering external interference, bottom-up mass mobilization in a protracted course, and the longtime position of being the weak side of confrontation. The book will be useful to scholar interested in revolution, empire, nationalism, comparative historical sociology, and the biographies of communist leaders in Russia and China.
Reviews
The twentieth century witnessed the end of traditional empire.The impact of nationalism brought down many empires to disintegration. Yet, there were variations. Some empires retained their domains longer by changing their cloaks. This book compares how Russia and China survived. They both maneuvered nationalism through communist revolutions. In form, the Bolsheviks transformed the Tsarist domain into a union of multiple nation-states, while the Chinese revolutionaries re-integrated the Qing territories into one nation-state with autonomous units for ethnic minorities. To understand such divergence underneath convergence, this book compares the leading elites of the two revolutions. In comparison with the USSR-founding Bolsheviks, the Chinese communists were ethnically more homogeneous but less international. Their outlook was to establish an enclosed polity rather than a union institutionally open to incorporate new member-states. Through a protracted war the Chinese communists developed skills of reconciling the traditional "China" with revolutionary values. This rendered the Bolshevik way of entirely dissolving "Russia" in "Soviet" unnecessary. Moreover, the Chinese communists were weaker at borderlands vis-a-vis their rivalries. They were thus more cautious, rejecting the Bolshevik strategy of weaponizing "national self-determination". This book highlights the crucial features of the Chinese communist revolution and shows how they affected China's transition to nation-state: geographical isolation buffering external interference, bottom-up mass mobilization in a protracted course, and the longtime position of being the weak side of confrontation. The book will be useful to scholar interested in revolution, empire, nationalism, comparative historical sociology, and the biographies of communist leaders in Russia and China.
Author Biography
Luyang Zhou is an assistant professor of sociology at Zhejiang University.
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Manchester University Press
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View all titlesBibliographic Information
- Publisher Manchester University Press
- Publication Date June 2025
- Orginal LanguageEnglish
- ISBN/Identifier 9781526182753 / 1526182750
- Publication Country or regionUnited Kingdom
- FormatPrint PDF
- Pages280
- ReadershipGeneral/trade; College/higher education; Professional and scholarly
- Publish StatusPublished
- Dimensions234 X 156 mm
- Biblio NotesDerived from Proprietary 6321
- SeriesAlternative Sinology
- Reference Code16831
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