People's History of Ideas Podcast

People's History of Ideas Podcast episode 115 focuses on Mao Zedong's April 5, 1929 letter to Zhou Enlai and the Central Committee.

This podcast segment explores the historical evidence and controversy surrounding the German communists' slogan 'after Hitler, our turn' during the early 1930s, in the context of the Comintern's third period.

The People's History of Ideas Podcast episode on "Leaving Donggu, Taking Changting" follows the Red 4th Army's eight-night stop in Donggu from February 17th to February 25th, when 300 sick and wounded were treated and clothes were boiled to kill lice.

People’s History of Ideas Podcast episode 112 asks what Mao Zedong was doing when he appealed to Chongqing merchants and intellectuals in 1929 with promises that the Communist Party would not confiscate property.

The Red Army builds on earlier gains in Jiangxi and western Fujian.

The People's History of Ideas Podcast episode on “The Line Struggle Between Mao Zedong and Zhu De (May to June 1929)” centers on a fight inside the Fourth Red Army over whether the front committee or a separate army committee should control military affairs.

The People's History of Ideas Podcast episode “The End of the Sixth Congress” contrasts the Sixth Congress’s paper resolutions with the much messier reality of the Chinese Communist Party in 1928.

People's History of Ideas Podcast episode 107 answers a listener’s question about how to talk about Mao Zedong without collapsing the discussion into “Chinese Hitler” language.

People's History of Ideas Podcast episode 125 reads the Gutian Resolution section “On the Problem of Party Organization,” focusing on Mao’s diagnosis that the Fourth Red Army party was “extremely grave,” “too easy” to join, and badly organized.

People's History of Ideas Podcast episode 134 returns to Mao Zedong after the Gutean Conference of December 28-29, 1929, and centers on his January 5, 1930 reply to Lin Biao.

People's History of Ideas Podcast episode 129 links the 1929 Sino-Soviet War to CCP propaganda in Shanghai and organizing in Manchuria.

Episode 130 follows the Comintern framework for understanding the 1929 Sino-Soviet War.

The episode returns to Mao Zedong's January 5th, 1930 letter to Lin Biao.

Episode 133 of the People's History of Ideas podcast introduces historian Aminda Smith, Associate Professor of Chinese History at Michigan State University and author of Thought Reform and China’s Dangerous Classes.

Episode 132 of People's History of Ideas examines Chen Dushu's transformation from Chinese Communist Party co-founder and general secretary (1921-1927) to Trotskyist dissident.

Episode 127 of the People's History of Ideas podcast examines the origins of the 1929 Sino-Soviet War, focusing on the appointment of Soviet military commander Vasily Blyukher to command the Special Far Eastern Army.

This episode analyzes the Gu Tian Resolution of 1929, where Mao Zedong critiqued ideological errors in the Chinese Communist Party, including ultra-democracy, absolute egalitarianism, and individualism.

The episode returns to the resolution of the Ninth Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in the Fourth Red Army as it was written in December 1929.

Episode 122 of People's History of Ideas presents two letters Mao Zedong wrote on November 28, 1929, from Chongqing, offering rare documentary evidence of his personal and political concerns during a critical revolutionary period.

The city's electric lights, meant to prevent night attacks, became a fairyland blindness—they never saw the assault coming from the north.

This episode examines Mao Zedong's 1929 resignation letter and subsequent removal from leadership of the Fourth Red Army, analyzing whether his resignation was tactical or genuine.

People’s History of Ideas Podcast episode 118 reads Mao’s June 14, 1929 letter to Lin Biao and focuses on the struggle over party control of the Red Army.

People's History of Ideas Podcast episode 114 centers on Zhou Enlai’s February 7, 1929 letter to Mao Zedong and Zhu De, written after the 4th and 5th Red Armies reunited in Royjean.

Snow fell a foot deep. Peng's army climbed sheer precipices in the dark. Hungry, nearly encircled, they punched through anyway.

Host covers Red Army conquest of Tingzhou (March 14, 1929) and rapid revolutionary governance implementation.