| At the beginning of the 20th century,under the guidance of Lenin’s theory of world revolution,the Soviet government shifted the center of revolutionary gravity to the East and regarded China as the main object of Eastern diplomacy.In the contacts,negotiations and gaming with the Beijing government and the local powerful warlords,the Soviet Union finally established co-operation with the southern government led by Dr Sun Yat-sen.From September 1923 to August 1927,at the successive invitations of Sun Yat-sen,Hu Jingyi and Feng Yuxiang,Moscow dispatched a group of Soviet advisers with profound political and military knowledge to Guangzhou,Zhangjiakou,and Kaifeng,with the aim of assisting the cause of national liberation in China.This was the first time that the Soviet Union sent a group of advisers to China.Based on the collection and organization of declassified archival materials from the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History,The Foreign Policy Archive of the Russian Federation,and The second historical archives of China,as well as the memoirs of Soviet advisers in China and the diaries of members of Communist Party of China(CPC)and Kuomintang(KMT),this paper provides an empirical study of the background and distribution of Soviet advisers in China during the period 1923—1927,the working and living conditions of Soviet advisers in China,the political,military,and economic activities in which they were involved,and the process of their departure from China and resettlement upon their return to the Soviet Union,objectively reflecting the historical situation of the time.The study shows that the Soviet advisers were the facilitators of the First Kuomintang-Communist cooperation,had a positive guiding significance in the development of the Chinese revolutionary path.The Soviet advisers were volunteers of proletarian internationalism and witnessed the deep friendship between the peoples of China and the Soviet Union.The Soviet advisers were defenders of the country’s image and participated in cultural exchanges between China and the Soviet Union.The Soviet advisers were also propagandists and introducers of the Soviet model,and a direct implementers of Soviet and Comintern policies.They took the defense of Soviet national interests as their fundamental starting point and had a profound influence on the direction of the Chinese Revolution. |
