Grigori Voitinsky

G.N. Voitrngsky.维经斯基. Войтинский, Григорий Наумович

Grigori Naumovich Voitinsky aka Zarkhin (Russian: Григорий Наумович Войтинский; 1893-1953) was a Comintern official during its creation, and was sent to China in 1920 as an advisor to contact the prominent Chinese radicals such as Chen Duxiu, just before the formation of the Communist Party of China. The actual process of forming the infant Party can be mostly attributed to his influence, although his successor advisors had more influence about the official Party line itself, such as allying with the Guomindang.

In 1920, the Soviet Union established the Far Eastern Bureau in Siberia, a branch of the Third Communist International, or the Comintern. It was responsible for managing the establishment of a Communist party in China and other countries. Soon after its establishment, the bureau's deputy manager Voitinsky arrived in Beijing and contacted the Communist vanguard Li Dazhao. Li arranged for Voitinsky to meet with another Communist leader, Chen Duxiu, in Shanghai. In August 1920, Voitinsky, Chen Duxiu, Li Hanjun, Shen Xuanlu, Yu Xiusong, Shi Cuntong, and others began to established the Comintern China Branch.

The Shanghai Chronicle was set up in 1919 in Shanghai by Shemeshko and other Russians with socialist leanings, and received financial aid from the Soviet-Russian government in early 1920. In the spring of 1920, Voitinsky and his colleagues came to China on a mission to establish the Communist Party in China. They not only came to China in the guise of editors and reporters for the newspaper, but also set up the Comintern's East Asia Secretariat in the newspaper office. From then on, the Shanghai Chronicle became both a propaganda vehicle for the East Asia Secretariat and a cover for Bolshevik activity in China. Because the newspaper staff assisted Soviet Russian and Comintern personnel stationed under cover at the newspaper in activities to establish a communist organization in China, the newspaper as a whole played a special role in the early communist movement in China. Although the Shanghai Chronicle stopped publication at the end of 1922 because Russian aid came to an end, many staff members continued to work for Bolshevism.