Communist University of the Toilers of the East
The Communist University of the Toilers of the East or KUTV (Russian: Коммунистический университет трудящихся Востока or КУТВ; also known as the Far East University or Stalin School) was established April 21, 1921, in Moscow by the Communist International (Comintern) as a training college for communist cadres in the colonial world. The school officially opened on October 21, 1921. It performed a similar function to the International Lenin School, which mainly accepted students from Europe and the Americas. It was headed in its initial years by Karl Radek, who was later purged from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The curriculum included both theoretical and practical matters, including Marxist theory, party organization and propaganda, law and administration, theory and tactics of proletarian revolution, problems of socialist construction, and trade union organization.
KUTV had regional branches in Baku (in Azerbaijan), Irkutsk (in Siberia, Russia), and Tashkent (in Uzbekistan). The University published Revolutionary East (Революционный Восток).
In 1928 the Japanese Foreign Ministry estimated that some 1,000 foreign students studied at KUTV, and that 400 Chinese students comprised the majority, followed by 350 ethnic minorities within the Soviet Union, and between 30 and 40 Japanese. The Soviet Union solicited working-class Japanese to study at the KUTV without the Japanese government's consent. The Japanese students studied under Takahashi Sadaki and Yamamoto Keizo, along with several Russian instructors. The Japanese students studied economics, the history of world revolution, Leninism, philosophy, labor union theory, and Japanese studies. Tokuda Kyuichi, a member of the Japanese Communist Party, was instrumental in recruiting and sending these Japanese workers to KUTV via Shanghai and Vladivostok.[1]
KUTV was closed in the late 1930s. Its tasks were transferred to smaller, local institutions in the various Soviet republics.
Alumni
Prominent alumni of the KUTV include:
- Chiang Ching-kuo, President of the Republic of China, 1925 class
- Liu Shaoqi, President of the People's Republic of China, 1921 class
- Deng Xiaoping, paramount leader of the People's Republic of China, 1925 class.
- Hồ Chí Minh, President of Vietnam, 1923 class
- Trần Phú, first General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam
- Lê Hồng Phong, second General Secretary of the CPV.
- Hà Huy Tập, third General Secretary of the CPV.
- Salchak Toka, Tuvan government official
- Khertek Anchimaa-Toka, chairperson of the Little Khural of Tannu-Tuva
- Muhammad Najati Sidqi, writer, activist in the Palestinian independence movement, from 1925 to 1928
- Nâzım Hikmet, Turkish poet
- Magomet Mamakaev, Chechen writer
- Khasan Israilov, Chechen insurrectionist
- Khalid Bakdash, secretary of the Syrian Communist Party from 1936 until 1995
- Fahd, secretary of the Iraqi Communist Party from 1941 to 1949
- Harry Haywood, leading African American member of the Communist Party USA
- Sbulawelani Shwala, leader of the Young Communist League of South Africa and Revolutionary writer Republic of South Africa
- Manabendra Nath Roy, helped found the Communist parties in Mexico and India
- Sen Katayama of the American and Japanese CP
- Tan Malaka of the Indonesian CP
- Sultan Ghaliev, the Muslim National Communist
- Nikolaos Zachariadis, head of Greek Provisional Democratic Government
- Ja'far Pishevari, founder and chairman of communist Azerbaijan People's Government
See also
- Moscow Sun Yat-sen University
- Communist University of the National Minorities of the West
- List of modern universities in Europe (1801–1945)
- "Sun Yat-sen University in Moscow and the Chinese Revolution: A Personal Account" by Yueh Sheng
Sources consulted
- (Russian) Great Soviet Encyclopedia entry
- (English) "The Political Tasks of the University of the Peoples of the East" speech by Joseph Stalin (Marxists Internet Archive)
References
- ↑ Koshiro, Yukiko (May 10, 2013). Imperial Eclipse: Japan's Strategic Thinking about Continental Asia before August 1945. Cornell University Press. p. 15.
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