ABSTRACT
Until the end of 1926, the disputes in the ECCI between Trotsky and Stalin were largely unknown to the individual sections of the Communist International. Not only the rank and file but also the leaders of these parties were ignorant of Trotsky’s, Zinoviel’s or Radek’s positions on the fundamental issues of the inner-party regime, economic construction in the USSR, and the direction of world developments, including the Chinese revolution. This was the result of Stalin’s attempt to fence off the world Communist movement from the influence of his principal rival. In this, however, he was only partially successful. Despite his best efforts, both the foreign staff of the ECCI and other foreign Communists who were, for various reasons, living in the USSR were drawn into the struggle within the Bolshevik party. Above all, this meant those who had come to study in the various universities and “cadre schools” set up to train militants of the world Communist movement. And if the CCP as a whole, knowing nothing about Trotsky’s position, mechanically followed Stalin as leader of the International Communist movement, it was precisely within the circles of Chinese students in Moscow that the Left Opposition in the Chinese Communist Party was born.
