Chen Hansheng: China's Last Romantic Revolutionary

Chen Hansheng was not only a pioneer of modern Chinese social science, remembered for the village
studies he organized by teams of researchers in the 1930s. He was also a political operative whose
career as an underground and aboveground Communist activist spanned the twentieth century and
the globe. This book draws on unique interviews, beginning in 1979, with Chen himself, his family and
associates, along with an exhaustive examination of documents, writings, and archives, to build a
rounded portrait of Chen, the man, and his world.
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“Stephen MacKinnon’s lifetime study of eminent social scientist and Communist Chen Hansheng
makes for an absorbing, thrilling, and illuminating read. This product of decades of researching Chen,
and of years of discussions with him, MacKinnon shows us how one enterprising and creative scholar
became dedicated to the cause, worked for it, and then ended his life sad and angry about what
became of the Chinese Communist Party in power.”
—Hans van de Ven, University of Cambridge
“In this, his latest, book, Stephen MacKinnon brings us a piece of research he has been working on
for over forty years. His biography of Chen Hansheng brings to life a man who lived to the ripe old age
of 107 and who is probably most famous as one of China’s premier social scientists. He was also, as
MacKinnon demonstrates, centrally involved in sub rosa Communist activities most notably in the spy
ring surrounding Richard Sorge and Ozaki Hotsumi.”
—Joshua Fogel, York University (Toronto)
“An utterly absorbing biography of a great scholar and activist whose life exceeded the entire
twentieth century. MacKinnon’s writing follows the brisk pace at which the lives of Chen and his cohort
moved between China, India, the Soviet Union, Europe, and the US, through wars and revolution,
charged with political passions, developmental dreams, and bitter disappointments. The book artfully
weaves Chen’s scholarship, the political and the personal to present a monumental life.”
—Prasenjit Duara, Duke University
“Chen Hansheng’s long life spanned the twentieth century and he embodied the history of those
turbulent times—scholar, underground Communist, and activist. Stephen MacKinnon’s deeplysourced
biography carries the reader along, with scholarly insight and thrilling narrative in tandem.
This is China’s twentieth century told as never before.”
—Rana Mitter, University of Oxford

Stephen R. MacKinnon is a scholar of twentieth‐century Chinese history, who has lived and worked on and
off in China since 1979. Recent books are on the history of China’s Anti‐Japanese War, including Wuhan,
1938: War, Refugees, and the Making of Modern China (2008) and Negotiating China’s Destiny in World War
II (2014). He is an Emeritus Professor of History at Arizona State University.

Preface / ix
Introduction / xv
1 Elite Roots / 1
2 Study Abroad / 15
3 Baby Professor and Peking University / 37
4 The Activist Is Born, 1925–1927 / 55
5 Chen Hansheng and the Chinese Peasant / 79
6 The Other Hat: Political Activism, 1929–1934 / 111
7 Tokyo and Moscow, 1934–1935 / 139
8 Institute of Pacific Relations, 1936–1939 / 161
9 Hong Kong and Industco, 1939–1942 / 185
10 Escape to Guilin and India, 1942–1946 / 205
11 Activism and Scholarship on Two Fronts, 1946–1950 / 235
12 Bittersweet: PRC Early Years, 1951–1966 / 259
13 Surviving the Cultural Revolution
with Hope and Despair, 1966–2004 / 293
Notes / 323
Bibliography / 403
Glossary/Index / 433