Page 321 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

1622 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

whereas in China prolonged conflict between the Com- Fowkes, B. (1993). The rise and fall of Communism in eastern Europe.
munist Party and the Guomindang (Chinese Nationalist New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Goldstone, J. (2002). Revolutions:Theoretical, comparative and historical
Party), led by Chiang Kai-shek, took place before the studies. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Communists seized power. Furthermore, Russia’s Com- Grass, J., Corrin, J., & Kort, M. (1997). Modernization and revolution in
China. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.
munists based themselves in the cities and drew their
Hinton,W. (1966). Fashen:A documentary of revolution in a Chinese vil-
most devoted followers from the urban working class, lage. New York: Vintage Books.
whereas China’s revolution occurred primarily in the Perez-Stable, M. (1998). Cuban revolution: Origins, course, and legacy.
New York: Oxford University Press.
country’s vast rural hinterland, with peasants as a pri- Read, C. (1996). From tsar to Soviets: The Russian people and their rev-
mary source of recruits.This difference reflected the much olution, 1917–1921. New York: Oxford University Press.
Rosenberg,W. G., & Young, M. (1982). Transforming Russia and China:
greater industrial development of the Russian economy.
Revolutionary struggle in the twentieth century. New York: Oxford
Russia’s peasants did join the revolution in the summer University Press.
of 1917, but they did so spontaneously and without the Spence, J. (1999). The search for modern China. New York: W. W.
Norton.
active rural involvement of the Communist Party that was
so important in China.
World war nurtured both of these revolutions,
although in different ways. In Russia the Communists
gained credibility by opposing their country’s participa- Ricci, Matteo
tion in World War I, arguing that it was an imperialist (1552–1610)
conflict that socialists scorned. However, in China the Jesuit missionary
Communists gained much popular support by vigorously
leading their country’s opposition to Japanese aggression he Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) is a
in World War II. China was a victim of imperialist aggres- Tleading figure in the history of the West’s interaction
sion rather than a participant in it, and the Communists with China. Despite the fact that few religious converts
cast themselves as defenders of the nation far more deci- were made during his twenty-seven years in China, Ricci
sively than did their Russian counterparts. Furthermore, did lay the foundation for the early Catholic presence in
because theirs was the first Communist revolution, the the “Middle Kingdom,” and his scholastic abilities, includ-
Russians faced almost universal hostility from estab- ing his incredible memory and mastery of Chinese lan-
lished capitalist states. Later revolutions in China, Viet- guage and philosophy, along with his knowledge of
nam, Cuba, and elsewhere had the support of an mathematics, cartography, and astronomy, impressed
established Communist power—the Soviet Union—in many members of the ruling class. Through his transla-
their struggles.They were joining an already established tions he introduced the basic tenets of the Christian faith
Communist world. to China, most notably in his work, The True Meaning of
the Lord of Heaven, as well as the math and logic of
Robert W. Strayer
Euclid. Matteo Ricci is remembered for his role in pio-
neering the early cultural relations between Europe and
China.
Further Reading Born in the Italian city of Macerata, Ricci received his
Dommen, A. J. (2001). The Indochinese experience of the French and the early education at home. In 1561, he entered a local
Americans: Nationalism and Communism in Cambodia, Laos, and Viet-
nam. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. school run by a religious order called the Society of
Figes, O. (1997). A people’s tragedy: The Russian Revolution, 1891– Jesus, commonly referred to as the Jesuits, and seven
1924. New York: Penguin Putnam.
Fitzpatrick, S. (1982). The Russian Revolution, 1917–1932. Oxford, UK: years later he left Macerata to study law in Rome. In
Oxford University Press. 1571, however, Matteo abandoned his legal studies and