Moscow and the Far East
TRACER, FRANK N.
Moscow and the Far East A History of Communism in East Asia. Reviewed by Frank N. Trager By Captain Malcolm Kennedy. Director, Burma Research Project, Praeger. 556 pp. $8.50. New York...
...It will have served its purpose if it guides the general reader and if by its lacunae and sometimes inadequate documentation it arouses interest in and support for detailed studies—the indispensable first step in counteracting any further spread of Communism...
...Masani and Kautsky on India...
...Then Lenin formulated the theses on colonialism and imperialism which dominated Comintern thinking and acting at least until the Sixth Congress in 1928...
...Hanrahan, Purcell and Pye on Malaya, McVey on Indonesia, Swearingen and Langer on Japan— and several others...
...Intimate acquaintance with a country or an area problem will reveal the shortcomings of the author, who does not try to shed additional light on vexing problems and who leaves some of his interesting assertions and guesses undocumented...
...Brief and costly interludes of attention arose when Korea was divided at the 38th Parallel in 1953 and Vietnam suffered a similar fate at the 17th Parallel in 1954...
...and now the work under review...
...Specialized and valuable studies in English have appeared on the development of Communism in individual Asian countries: Isaacs, Schwartz, North, Brandt, Fairbank and Whiting on China...
...This in itself is meritorious in a situation in which one finds it difficult to get beyond Western historio-graphical self-absorption...
...Communism turned to the East mainly at and after the Second Comintern Congress of 1920...
...The book surveys approximately the first half of the 20th century...
...Until World War II, Communism failed to secure an effective base in Asia except for Yenan...
...but in one way or another it succeeded in infiltrating the nationalist movements which at the war's end were to issue into freedom for so many Asian peoples...
...Captain Kennedy, author of four books on Japan, covers everything from the Pamirs on the west to the Pacific...
...but it failed in its attempt to seize power in the rest of Asia, though it fought to do so in 1948...
...The postwar Communist bid for power succeeded in China, North Korea, North Vietnam and Tibet...
...New York University The victory of Communism in China in 1949 and the world stature of Mao Tse-tung both before and since the 20th Soviet Communist Party Congress have to a large extent overshadowed the role of Communism in other parts of Asia...
...The student of a country or of an Asian problem will readily recognize that at best it summarizes existing sources generally acknowledged...
...Fall and Hammer on IndoChina...
...There is the Thompson and Adloff Left Wing in Southeast Asia, 1950...
...Only after 1924 did China and the Kuomintang take the forefront on the Stalinist stage and retain it until the main urban Communist collapse of 1927...
...The book can be read with profit by the general reader...
...Indonesia ranked high among Comintern objectives until the aborted revolution in 1926-27...
...a slightly larger geographical coverage in a small book by Ball of Australia, Communism and Nationalism, 1952...
...Nevertheless, the book is worth having precisely because it begins to fill a gap which later students will undoubtedly repair...
...It has the virtue of being Asia-centered—that is, it escapes from the preoccupation with European and Western politics and attempts to convey developments largely in terms of Asian events, personalities and programs...
...Much of this story will be found in Kennedy's History...
...But few titles are available which attempt to convey the facts and the sense of Communism in the whole area...
...Lenin and Stalin expected that the "revolution" would occur first in India...
...It has made genuine gains elsewhere in Asia—e.g., Kerala State in India, participation in Sukarno's present cabinet in Indonesia...
Vol. 40 • September 1957 • No. 39
