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Political Beliefs or Practical Gains?: Interpreting for the Chinese Communist Party

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Surviving in Violent Conflicts

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Languages at War ((PASLW))

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Abstract

Using examples of Wang Ming, Wang Zhitao, and Wu Xiuquan, the interpreters for Comintern representatives in China, this chapter discusses how the interaction between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Comintern in the 1930s created opportunities for the “Russian-returned students” and how their interpreter positions were affected due to the internal power struggle between the pro-Soviet group and the new power center led by Mao Zedong. It argues that rather than seeing themselves as independent linguists, these interpreters related their interpreting work to their political status and position with the CCP. This practical concern and active re-positioning of social agents is further examined in the discussion of the Yan’an public’s interest in learning foreign languages and their speculation of the CCP’s potential international collaborators in the 1940s.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Scholars disagree on the exact date of Shanghai University’s founding and organization. Price (1976: 39) contends that it was founded by the KMT in 1923 with four departments (social sciences, Russian language, Chinese language, and English language); however, Zhang and Ding (2002: 30–1) claim that it was founded in October 1922 with only three departments (Chinese literature, English literature, and social sciences) but courses in Russian as a foreign language.

  2. 2.

    The data for this table were taken from Wu’s memoir Huiyi yu huainian 回忆与怀念 (Memory and memorial) (1991) and other resources (Chen 1993; Cui 2006).

  3. 3.

    There was probably more interpreting staff towards the end of war. According to Yu Fan, there were at least five senior CCP members from the CCP involving in interpreting/translation work, with support from other interpreting/translation staff, in the American mediated peace talk between the CCP and the KMT in 1946, Zhonggong de yang baozi 中共的洋包子 (interpreting/translation staff in the CCP), published in Xiaoxi (news) 1946, No 11, 174–5.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Modern Languages, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK

    Ting Guo

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  1. Ting Guo
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Guo, T. (2016). Political Beliefs or Practical Gains?: Interpreting for the Chinese Communist Party. In: Surviving in Violent Conflicts. Palgrave Studies in Languages at War. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-46119-3_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-46119-3_3

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  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-46118-6

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