On the tracks of Ma Lin in China

Synopsis

In the Netherlands, a viaduct is named after him; in China, in the museum in Shanghai, he is depicted alongside Mao Zedong as one of the founders of the Chinese Communist Party. Who was Henk Sneevliet, what drove him, and how would he have viewed the realization of his ideal while traveling through present-day China? In Sneevliet’s Footsteps, René Seegers travels through present-day China and reports on what has become of Sneevliet’s ideal. He wonders how Sneevliet would have viewed present-day communist China. Prof. Tang Boalin (biographer of Chen Duxiu) and Ms. Li Yuzhen (Chinese biographer of Sneevliet) provide an explanation of Sneevliet’s historical role. Zhang Wensheng (Director of the Institute for the Study of Socialism) and Prof. Wang Hui (Editor-in-Chief of the critical journal Dushu) offer their views on the nature of Communism in present-day China.