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Historical person
1884–1951
Mikhail Borodin was a Bolshevik revolutionary and Comintern agent who became a major Soviet adviser to the Chinese Nationalist movement in the 1920s. Sent to Guangzhou, he worked closely with Sun Yat-sen’s government and helped reorganise the Kuomintang along disciplined party lines while promoting cooperation between Chinese Nationalists and Communists during the First United Front.
Borodin helped reorganise the Kuomintang along Leninist lines and supported cooperation between the Nationalists and Chinese Communists. He later advised the Wuhan government during the Northern Expedition, leaving China after the alliance collapsed in 1927.
Adam Williams’ The Emperor’s Bones places Mikhail Borodin inside the Comintern’s attempt to shape revolutionary politics in 1920s China. His work as a Soviet adviser to the Kuomintang and advocate of cooperation between Nationalists and Communists forms part of the historical background to the First United Front, the Northern Expedition and the political rupture that culminates in the Shanghai violence of 1927.
Series
The China Trilogy follows connected foreign and Chinese families across the collapse of the Qing dynasty, the revolutionary conflicts of the Republican era and the political campaigns of the People’s Republic. The Palace of Heavenly Pleasure begins amid the Boxer Rebellion in 1899–1900; The Emperor’s Bones moves into…
All books in this series
