1.) During the Taiping Rebellion, Christianity, as a foreign religion, served as a revolutionary means of large-scale mobilization. Fifty years later, radical Chinese intellectuals chose another foreign ideology, Marxism-Leninism, as their revolutionary belief. Do you think the two situations are similar? Explain why this could happen in modern Chinese history. (chapters 4, 9)
2.) In the aftermath of the “May Fourth Movement”, people proposed two ways to change China: “Political change first” and “Cultural change first.” Which do you think is more suitable for China at that time? Why? (Chapter 9)
3.) What is Mao Zedong’s guerrilla warfare strategy? How is Mao Zedong’s revolutionary path different from the Russian model provided by the Comintern? Why did Mao Zedong think that the Russian-style urban uprising was not suitable for China? What major policy errors of the CCP led to the collapse of the Jiangxi Soviet in 1934? (Chapter 12)
Sample Solution
