China - VCE History. Revolutions - units 3 & 4 - Research Guides at State Library of Victoria

Ebooks & databases & print resources

Our Library has a number of ebooks considering issues around the communist revolution in China. We also subscribe to a wide range of scholarly journals. Both ebooks and online journals that can be accessed using your State Library Victoria membership..

Ebooks

Search ebooks using keywords. You can also search for similar books by clicking on the subject heading under the Details tab for any book.

Some suggested subject headings and keyword phrases:

Broader catalogue searches

Use the dropdown options to search different types of publications Books etc. will include print as well as ebooks. Articles will find full text articles.

Databases

JSTOR
Search full-text scholarly journals on all subjects published from 1700 up until 1–5 years ago. Articles published before 1923 in United States journals, or before 1870 elsewhere, are freely accessible.
ProQuest
Access a huge range of international and Australian content on business, education, humanities, medicine, social sciences, science and technology topics.
The Times Digital Archive, 1785-2019
Access the complete content of the London Times, fully searchable and viewable as images.
Gale NewsVault
Cross-search several British newspaper archives, including 19th Century British Newspapers, The Times Digital Archive, The Sunday Times, The Times Literary Supplement and The Illustrated London News.
South China Morning Post (1903-2001)
Discover an archive of nearly a century of one of the most popular Hong Kong English-language newspapers. Articles are full-text, fully searchable and viewable as images.
Chinese Newspapers Collection (1832-1953)
Discover an archive of over 120 years of Chinese newspapers including The North - China Herald (1850-1941), The Chinese Recorder (1868-1941) and The China Weekly Review (1923-1950). Articles are full-text, fully searchable and viewable as images.
China: Trade, Politics and Culture 1793-1980
Encounter documents encompassing events from the earliest English embassy to the birth and early years of the People’s Republic. This resource collects sources from nine archives, including the School of Oriental and African Studies and the British Library, London, to give an incredible insight into the changes in China during this period.
Socialism on Film: The Cold War and International Propaganda
View films from the communist world revealing war, history, current affairs, culture and society as seen through the socialist lens. Spanning most of the 20th century, the archive covers the USSR, Vietnam, China, Korea, much of Eastern Europe, the GDR, Britain and Cuba.
Note that the Library's subscription now includes content from Modules I, II and III.

Primary Sources

Many of the Databases above will include digitised primary sources.

Another great source of primary sources relating to Communist China is the National Archives of Australia, who have digitised many of official records of the Australian Government. These are interesting documents, but quite extensive. The content varies, ranging from brief memos to lengthy reports.

National Archives of Australia
Records received or created by the Commonwealth government of Australia, including reports from the External Affairs Department about China in the late 1940s and 1950s.

Search the NAA records using the search term Communist China, and then use the "Refine Search" option to check the "Digitial copies only" box at the bottom of the form. This will narrow your search to digitised records that you can view online.

Examples of documents from the NAA collection:

China Political Parties. Organisation of Communist Party. 1949 - 1954.
This includes translation of Chinese government documents and briefing notes for diplomats.
Some items of interest:
- People's Daily editorial 1 October 1952 [pp 68-71]: Our great motherland is marching forward to peace construction
  - the tone of this item indicates perhaps an underlying sense of insecurity and threat from the West. The real inherent issues of bureaucratic corruption are highlighted.
- Party structure with brief biographies of members of the Central Committee p.241-250
- Party Reform Education pp. 148-166
  - translations of several internal Chinese Communist Party documents outlining the need for party reform education
China - Political parties - Communist Party - Political theory 1946 - 1952
Includes background papers from the American Consulate in Hong Kong, and translations of Chinese articles.
Some items of interest:
- Mao's theory of the Chinese revolution by Ch'en Po-ta pp 7-41
  - also known as Chen Boda, prominent member of Chinese Communist Party, a secretary to Mao
- How to be a good communist by Liu Shao-ch'i pp 43-93
  - Liu Shao-ch'i was Vice Chairman of the Central People's Government in 1949, key figure in the CCP includes supplement pp.94-98 by Michael Shapiro (an Englishman and committed communist who went to China in 1950 and remained there for the rest of his life) and biography of Liu Shao-ch'i p.99
- People's Daily editorial: October Revolution and Asia pp 106-7
  - very patriotic and belligerent editorial reflecting a stark gulf between USSR/ China and the west and highligting the battle for hearts and minds in Asia.
- Report on present situation delivered by Mao to the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party 25 December 1947 pp.324-335
- President Chiang's New Year message to the nation 1 January 1948 pp. 336-340
  - by October of 1949 Mao's Communists had overwhelmed Chiang's nationalists and he and the remnants of his army had fled to Taiwan. These documents, written at the same time, provide great contrast.

Articles

Here are examples of some articles that can be found on specific issues of the communist revolution in China, the causes and the aftermath.

These articles can be contradictory as different historians interpret the evidence of events in different ways. The articles will also have footnotes and bibliographies that can lead to further articles.

These are just a few examples of articles you can find using our databases and Article search through our Library catalogue.

Nolan, John M. The Long March: fact and fancy. Military Affairs, vol. 30, no. 2, 1966, pp. 77–90
Young, H. P. From soldier to doctor: A Chinese woman's story of the Long March. Science & Society, 59(4),1995 p.531.

Rosedale, Rachael. The first Chinese Soviet Republic (Jiangxi Soviet) 1928-34 Agora, Vol. 51, No. 1, Mar 2016: 54-62.
Dillon, Michael. Fang Zhimin, Jingdezhen and the Northeast Jiangxi Soviet: tradition, revolution and civil war in a pottery town. Modern Asian Studies, vol. 26, no. 3, 1992, pp. 569–589.

Kataoka, Tetsuya. Political theory of the Great Leap Forward. Social Research, vol. 36, no. 1, 1969, pp. 93–122. .
Manning, Kimberley Ens. Marxist maternalism, memory, and the mobilization of women in the Great Leap Forward. China Review, vol. 5, no. 1, 2005, pp. 83–110.
Li, Wei, and Dennis Tao Yang. The Great Leap Forward: anatomy of a central planning disaster. Journal of Political Economy, vol. 113, no. 4, 2005, pp. 840–877.

Bian, Morris L. Building state structure: Guomindang institutional rationalization during the Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1945. Modern China, vol. 31, no. 1, 2005, pp. 35–71.

Historical perspectives on the Chinese revolution

The subject of history is the study of past events. A historian is someone who researches these events and interprets them. Different historians may judge the causes and effects of historical events differently and may place greater emphasis on certain documents or evidence to form their conclusions.

Historians may also approach and interpret evidence through their own personal perspectives, influenced by their background and political, ideological or social beliefs. For example historians may view historical events through a left wing or conservative lens. Historians may be identified as ‘revisionist’ if they reinterpret events in a way that contradict traditional historical conclusions.

Choose from the tabs above for suggestions of texts written from a specific perspective. We don't, though, want to classify historians too narrowly and so the categories should be interpreted broadly.

Alpha history

This site has been developed to support VCE students and includes excellent overviews of each of the VCE Revolutions topics. The site also has pages on historical perspectives, highlighting some of the leading historians.

Historiography

Szonyi, Michael (editor) A companion to Chinese history
- this collection of essays outlines developments in the approach of historians to Chinese history. It is an ebook that can be read online. Up to 60 pages can be downloaded and kept.
Print books on the historiography of China.

Maoist historians tend to present a positive view of the revolution and Maoist China. Often these histories were written soon after events and have a political and ideological motive.

Mao's theory of the Chinese revolution by Ch'en Po-ta pp 7-41 (page 9 of pdf)
- also known as Chen Boda, prominent member of Chinese Communist Party, a secretary to Mao. This is very much an uncritical piece from Mao's administration, part of the collection from the National Archives of Australia mentioned above.

These books consider different perspectives on Chinese history, and the interpretation of historical events to fit political or ideological motives.

Unger, Jonathan (editor) Using the past to serve the present : Historiography and politics in contemporary China
Feuerwerker, Albert (editor) History in communist China

Western liberalism is characterised by belief in the freedom of the individual and civil liberty in a modern democracy. As historians they may interpret events from a belief that all societies are or should aspire to this model.

The historians listed come from the Western liberal tradition. Despite their critical approach, there is a recognition of the massive changes and challenges in China, that within a century have taken this massive, enormously populous country from a semi-feudal society to an emerging superpower.

Fairbank, John The Great Chinese Revolution 1800–1985
Lynch, Michael Mao
- this ebook can be read online or downloaded. Up to 60 pages can be saved.
Lynch, Michael The People's Republic of China 1949-76
- this ebook can be read online or downloaded. Up to 60 pages can be saved.

Over the last 40 years, since the death of Mao, there has been a reassessment of the revolution, and some of the more venerated and mythic interpretations of aspects of the revolution have been challenged.