In this book, Xuduo Zhao revisits the early twentieth-century Chinese revolution by focusing on two forgotten Cantonese socialists: Chen Gongbo and Tan Pingshan. By analyzing a host of previously untapped primary sources, Zhao discovers a social democratic approach within the newly founded Chinese Communist Party and argues that its decline marked a key moment in the Chinese communist movement.

The study of these two figures, and the ebbs and flows of their lives, reflects and reveals the fundamental tensions in the Chinese revolution which have shaped China’s political trajectory to contemporary times and the broader political, social, and cultural landscapes of Republican China.