Mikhail Borodin

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Mikhail Borodin
Portrait of Mikhail Borodin.png
1920s portrait of Borodin
Born Mikhail Markovich Gruzenberg
(1884-07-09)9 July 1884
Yanovichi, Russian Empire
Died 29 May 1951(1951-05-29) (aged 66)
near Yakutsk, Siberia, USSR
Other names Michael Gruzenberg
Michael Borodin
Occupation Comintern agent

Mikhail Markovich Gruzenberg[a], better known by the alias Borodin[b] (9 July 1884 – 29 May 1951), was Bolshevik revolutionary and Comintern agent. He is most well known for his role as advisor to Sun Yat-sen and the Kuomintang in China during the 1920s.

Background[edit]

Borodin was born Mikhail Markovich Gruzenberg (Russian: Михаи́л Ма́ркович Грузенберг) to a Jewish family in Yanovichi, Russian Empire, now part of Vitebsk Region, Belarus, on 9 July 1884. He later moved to Riga, now the capital of Latvia, where he attended Russian schools.[1] He joined the General Jewish Labour Bund at age sixteen, switching allegiance to Vladimir Lenin's Bolsheviks in 1903.[2] He became a close associate of Lenin, using his knowledge of the Yiddish, German, and Latvian languages in their underground work in the northwest region of the empire. In 1905, he participated in revolutionary activity in Latvia and attended the Bolshevik conference at Tampere, where he met Joseph Stalin.[3]

In 1906, he was picked up by the Tsarist police in Saint Petersburg, and given the choice of either being sent to Siberia or exile in Europe. By October of that year, he had arrived in London, where police took notice of his activities and promptly ordered him out of the country. In 1907, he arrived in America, first to Boston, and then on to Chicago.[4] While there, he attended classes at Valparaiso University in Indiana, taught English to immigrant children at Jane Addams' Hull House, and then opened his own school for Russian Jewish immigrants, which later grew into a successful business venture.[5]

Following the October Revolution of 1917, he returned to Russia in July 1918, and began working in the foreign relations department. From 1919 to 1922, he worked in America, Mexico, and Britain as a Comintern agent.[6] In Mexico, he met Indian revolutionary M.N. Roy, and they together founded the Mexican Communist Party. Borodin sent reports of Roy's exploits to Lenin, who subsequently invited Roy to attend the 2nd World Congress of the Comintern in Moscow, after which he became a major figure in that organisation.[7] Borodin later returned to Britain, where he was tasked with ascertaining the cause of the revolution's failure there, and reorganising the British Communist Party. After several months of covert activities, he was jailed for six months on 29 August 1922 in Glasgow, ostensibly for breaking immigration regulations, though his political mission was known.[8] He was then deported to Russia. Upon his arrival in Moscow, he was informed that he had been chosen as the leader of a Comintern mission to China. He reached Beijing in the latter part of 1923, and arrived in Guangzhou, the seat of Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary government, on 6 October.[9][10]

China[edit]

Following Sun Yat-sen's request for help from the Comintern, Borodin was ordered to lead a contingent of Soviet advisors to Guangzhou, where Sun had established a revolutionary government following the Constitutional Protection Movement. Borodin spoke no Chinese; English was the medium of discussion between the two. He negotiated the First United Front between the Sun's Kuomintang (KMT) and the nascent Communist Party of China (CPC). Under his tutelage, both parties were reorganised on Leninist principles of democratic centralism, and training institutes for mass organisation were established, such as the Peasant Training Institute, where the young Mao Zedong served, and the Whampoa Military Academy, which trained officers for the National Revolutionary Army under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek. He arranged shipments of Soviet arms and shrewdly kept a balance between the middle-class elements of the KMT and the more radical CPC.[11]

Borodin in Nanchang, 1926

When the forces of rebel general Chen Jiongming threatened Sun's base in Guangzhou in November 1923, Borodin proposed a mobilisation of the masses in defence of the city.[12] To accomplish this, he suggested a promise of redistribution of landlord property to the local peasantry, an eight-hour working day for urban labourers, and a minimum wage. Sun rejected land reform because of strong opposition from some of his allies, though agreed to the proposals in principle, and offered a 25% rent reduction instead.[13][12] In the event, Sun's military forces were able to drive the rebels away, and the rent reduction proposal was never implemented.[12]

In 1924, KMT leaders gradually grew weary of the influence of the Communist Party. When Borodin was confronted on this subject, he stated that continued Soviet aid was linked to co-operation with the communists. Leading figures in the CPC, including Mao Zedong, however, came to advocate an end to co-operation. Borodin made clear to them that their continued participation in the United Front was both necessary and expected.[14] After Sun's death in 1925, the growth of a radical peasant movement continued to be encouraged by the CPC, but opposed by many in the KMT.[15] In November of that year, a faction of anti-communist KMT members called the "Western Hills Group" met near Beijing, where it issued a declaration terminating Borodin's relationship with the KMT, and expelling all communists from the party. This pronouncement had no effect, and Chiang Kai-shek wrote an open letter defending Borodin, the communists, and the KMT's relationship with the Soviet Union.[16]

Borodin making a speech in Wuhan, 1927

The following year, however, Borodin gradually came into conflict with Chiang, who was vying for the position of Sun's successor. Borodin opposed Chiang's planned Northern Expedition to reunify China, and grew concerned about Chiang's growing standing in the NRA. These concerns came to a head in March 1926, when Chiang launched the "Canton Coup" purge of hardline leftists who opposed the launch of the expedition.[17] Following the purge, Borodin negotiated with Chiang, and reached a narrow compromise to hold the First United Front together. On Joseph Stalin's suggestion, Borodin agreed to continue Soviet aid to the KMT, and to support the Northern Expedition, which began in July 1926.[18] In a startling turn of events, Borodin's wife Fanya was captured by White Russian mercenaries employed by warlord Zhang Zongchang whilst travelling onboard the ship Pamyat Lenina between Shanghai and Wuhan on 28 February 1927, after which she was held hostage in Jinan, Shandong.[19][20] Borodin's anxieties heightened even further in April 1927, when Chiang initiated a new purge of KMT leftists and communists, known as the "Shanghai Massacre". Borodin and the communists then sided with the left-wing KMT government in Wuhan led by Wang Jingwei and Eugene Chen. However, the next month saw further armed KMT attacks on communists and peasant leaders, including in the Wuhan area.[21]

On 1 June 1927, Stalin sent a secret telegram to Borodin and M. N. Roy, who was also in Wuhan, ordering the mobilisation of an army of workers and peasants.[22][23] The telegram was discussed at a meeting of the CPC politburo, where it was decried by both Borodin and CPC leaders as an impractical "fairy tale from overseas". Borodin, who was more familiar with Stalin's inner workings, interpreted the instructions as a ploy to relinquish blame for their inevitable failure, whilst Roy thought they signalled a long-awaited quickening of the Chinese revolution. Without consulting anyone, Roy decided to show the telegram to Wang, who was alarmed by its contents.[23][24]

Instead of reassuring Wang, the revelation of the telegram's message drove him to the right, upon which he decided to purge the communists from his administration and reconcile with Chiang Kai-shek. Borodin, along with all other Soviet representatives, was ordered to leave China in July 1927.[25] He refused to leave, however, until his wife, still imprisoned in Jinan, was freed. The Japanese, who considered Shandong within their sphere of influence, bribed a judge to release Fanya on 12 July, after which Mikhail fled north by train, accompanied by Sun Yat-sen's widow Soong Ching-ling and other Russian and Chinese revolutionary figures.[26][25] "The revolution extends to the Yangtze River", Borodin told a reporter as they began their journey, "if a diver were sent down to the bottom of this yellow stream he would rise again with an armful of shattered hopes".[27] He went on to say "When the next Chinese general comes to Moscow and shouts 'Hail to the world revolution', better send at once for the GPU. All that any of them want is rifles".[28] Whilst Fanya made her own way out of country, Borodin, with a bounty on his head, travelled first to Zhengzhou, where he was received by Feng Yuxiang, and then continued through Gansu and across Mongolia to Russia. Though they took different routes, both Mikhail and Fanya arrived in Moscow around the same time in October 1927.[26]

Later life[edit]

Borodin and Roy were blamed for the failure of Stalin's China strategy. Upon their arrival in Moscow, Roy was refused an audience with Stalin, and later fled the USSR with Borodin's help. Borodin, on the other hand was protected by him, and worked a variety of jobs, including deputy director of the Soviet paper and lumber trust, factory inspector, and as a specialist dealing with immigrants from America at the People's Commissariat of Labour.[29][30] In 1931, he reconnected with Anna Louise Strong, with whom he had grown close whilst in China. Strong had earlier expressed the desire to start an English-language Soviet newspaper. With Borodin's help, she founded the Moscow News in 1930.[30] In 1932, Borodin became editor-in-chief of the newspaper.[31] From 1941, he concurrently served as editor-in-chief of the Soviet Information Bureau.[32]

In early 1949, following Strong's attempts to publish a manuscript about the success of Maoism in China, and amidst an antisemitic fervour that had gripped the country following Israel's turn away from the Soviet Union, Borodin and Strong were arrested and the paper shut down. Borodin died two years later on 29 May 1951 at a prison camp near Yakutsk. He was posthumously rehabilitated in 1964.[33][34]

Family[edit]

Borodin married Fanya Orluk, known as "Fanny", and originally from Vilnius, in Chicago in 1908.[35] He had two sons, Fred Borodin (Russian: Фёдор Михайлович Бородин) and Norman Borodin (ru), both of whom were American-born. Fred, who rose to the rank of colonel in the Red Army, died during the Second World War, whilst Norman went on to be a Soviet journalist.[36][37]

Influence[edit]

Borodin is one of the main characters in André Malraux's 1928 novel Les Conquérants.[38] He also appears in Kenneth Rexroth's poem Another Early Morning Exercise.[39]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Russian: Михаи́л Ма́ркович Грузенберг
  2. ^ Russian: Бороди́н, Chinese: 鮑羅廷

References[edit]

Citations[edit]

  1. ^ Jacobs 2013, p. 3.
  2. ^ Jacobs 2013, pp. 2–6.
  3. ^ Jacobs 2013, p. 14.
  4. ^ Jacobs 2013, pp. 21–22.
  5. ^ Jacobs 2013, pp. 28–29, 37.
  6. ^ Spence 1990, p. 306.
  7. ^ Hopkirk 2001, pp. 103–104.
  8. ^ The Times 1922, p. 8.
  9. ^ Hopkirk 2001, pp. 180–181.
  10. ^ Lew & Leung 2013, p. 22.
  11. ^ Spence 1990, p. 307.
  12. ^ a b c Wilbur 1983, p. 8.
  13. ^ Harrison 1972, p. 73.
  14. ^ Wilbur 1983, pp. 18–19.
  15. ^ Harrison 1972, pp. 72–74.
  16. ^ Wilbur 1983, p. 557.
  17. ^ Lew & Leung 2013, p. 23.
  18. ^ Jordan 1976, p. 45.
  19. ^ Wilbur & How 1989, p. 392.
  20. ^ Vishni͡akova-Akimova 1971, pp. 291–292.
  21. ^ Harrison 1972, pp. 108–110.
  22. ^ Harrison 1972, p. 111.
  23. ^ a b Jacobs 2013, p. 270.
  24. ^ Haithcox 1965, pp. 463–464.
  25. ^ a b Harrison 1972, p. 115.
  26. ^ a b Wilbur & How 1989, pp. 422–423.
  27. ^ Spence 1990, pp. 312, 316–317, 324.
  28. ^ Brandt 1958, p. 152.
  29. ^ Hopkirk 2001, p. 204.
  30. ^ a b Mickenberg 2017, pp. 168–169.
  31. ^ Kirschenbaum 2015, pp. 55–56.
  32. ^ Draitser 2010, pp. 327–328.
  33. ^ Jacobs 2013, pp. 325–326.
  34. ^ Shabad 1964.
  35. ^ Jacobs 2013, p. 24.
  36. ^ Wilbur & How 1989, p. 427.
  37. ^ Jacobs 2013, p. 322.
  38. ^ Harris 1995, p. 31.
  39. ^ Rexroth 1966, pp. 92–93.

Bibliography[edit]

Further reading[edit]

  • Holubnychy, Lydia. Michael Borodin and the Chinese revolution, 1923-1925. 1979;
  • Хейфец Л.С. Латинская Америка в орбите Коминтерна. Опыт биографического словаря. М.: ИЛА РАН, 2001;
  • Taibo P.I. II. "Los Bolcheviques. Mexico": J.Mortiz, 1986; Martínez Verdugo A. (ed.) Historia del comunismo mexicano. Mexico: Grijalbo, 1985;
  • Jeifets L., Jeifets V., Huber P. La Internacional Comunista y América Latina, 1919-1943. Diccionario biográfico. Ginebra: Instituto de Latinoamérica-Institut pour l'histoire du communisme, 2004;
  • Kheyfetz L. and V. Michael Borodin. The First Comintern-emissary to Latin America, The International Newsletter of Historical Studies on Comintern, Communism and Stalinism. Vol.II, 1994/95. №5/6. P.145-149. Vol.III (1996). №7/8. P.184-188.
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