40 Facts About Mikhail Borodin

Mikhail Borodin was an advisor to Sun Yat-sen and the Kuomintang in China during the 1920s.

In 1921, Mikhail Borodin arrived in Turkey to help the Turkish National Movement in the War of Independence against Britain.

Mikhail Borodin was arrested and detained by Britain for half a year due to his activities in Turkey.

Mikhail Borodin served in various positions within the Soviet government, and later helped found the English-language Moscow News newspaper, of which he would become the editor-in-chief.

Amidst rising antisemitism in the Soviet Union during the late 1940s, Mikhail Borodin was arrested and deported to a prison camp.

Mikhail Borodin died in 1951 and was officially rehabilitated in 1964.

Mikhail Borodin later moved to Riga, where he attended Russian-language night schools while working in the city's port.

Mikhail Borodin joined the General Jewish Labour Bund at age sixteen, switching allegiance to Vladimir Lenin's Bolsheviks in 1903.

Mikhail Borodin became a close associate of Lenin, making use of his knowledge of the Yiddish, German, and Latvian languages in work as a Bolshevik agent in the empire's northwest region.

Mikhail Borodin proposed a joint propaganda campaign with George Creel's Committee on Public Information, though this never came to fruition.

Mikhail Borodin then moved on to Stockholm, where he met American writer Carl Sandburg, with whom he discussed the Bolshevik revolution.

In March 1919, Mikhail Borodin participated in the first congress of the Communist International in Moscow.

Mikhail Borodin travelled through a variety of European countries, deposited Soviet funds in a Swiss bank account, and otherwise tried to raise money to finance the establishment of communist parties in the Americas.

Mikhail Borodin then travelled to Santo Domingo, from which he booked passage to New York, where he arrived in August 1919.

Mikhail Borodin's mission was known to the American authorities, and as such he was briefly detained by the Bureau of Investigation upon arrival.

Mikhail Borodin taught Roy about the Russian Revolution and communism, and it was under Mikhail Borodin's influence that he took up communist beliefs.

Mikhail Borodin later returned to Britain under the alias "George Brown", where he was tasked with ascertaining the cause of the revolution's failure there, and reorganising the British Communist Party.

Mikhail Borodin reached Beijing in the latter part of 1923, and arrived in Guangzhou, the seat of Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary government, on 6 October.

Mikhail Borodin understood no Chinese; English was to be the medium of discussion between the two.

Mikhail Borodin was known for speaking with a clear midwestern American accent that offered no indication of his Russian origin, allowing him to easily communicate with the largely anglophone and American-educated leadership of the Kuomintang.

Mikhail Borodin negotiated the First United Front between Sun's KMT and the nascent Chinese Communist Party, convincing that party, which consisted of only about 300 members at that time, that the alliance was in its long-term interest, as it would facilitate the organisation of both urban and rural workers.

Mikhail Borodin arranged shipments of Soviet arms and shrewdly kept a balance between the middle-class elements of the KMT and the more radical CCP.

When Mikhail Borodin was confronted on this subject, he stated that continued Soviet aid was linked to co-operation with the communists.

Mikhail Borodin made clear to them that their continued participation in the United Front was both necessary and expected.

Feng and Mikhail Borodin got along well, and although Feng did not join the KMT at this juncture, he did allow KMT propagandists and agitators to embed with his army, bolstering its cause.

Mikhail Borodin initially opposed Chiang's planned Northern Expedition to reunify China, and grew concerned about Chiang's growing standing in the NRA.

When Mikhail Borodin went north in another attempt to bring Feng Yuxiang and his Guominjun into the Kuomintang in early 1926, Chiang began preparations to consolidate his position in Guangzhou.

Mikhail Borodin's fears were then realised in March 1926, when Chiang launched the "Canton Coup" purge of hardline leftists who opposed the launch of the expedition.

On Joseph Stalin's suggestion, Mikhail Borodin agreed to continue Soviet aid to the KMT, and to support the Northern Expedition, which began in July 1926.

Mikhail Borodin agreed, noting that the purpose of the Northern Expedition was "not the establishment of a proletarian state, but the creation of conditions which would give an impetus to the mass movement".

Chiang, who refused to move his headquarters from Nanchang to Wuhan, gradually came into conflict with the leftist-dominated KMT government from December 1926, and Mikhail Borodin publicly disavowed him the following month.

Mikhail Borodin's anxieties heightened even further in April 1927, when Chiang initiated a new purge of KMT leftists and communists, known as the "Shanghai Massacre".

Mikhail Borodin's activities were brought into the British political limelight during the Arcos Affair of May 1927.

Mikhail Borodin, who was more familiar with Stalin's inner workings, interpreted the instructions as a ploy to relinquish blame for their inevitable failure, whilst Roy thought they signalled a long-awaited quickening of the Chinese revolution.

Mikhail Borodin was accompanied on his journey by Sun Yat-sen's widow Soong Ching-ling, Eugene Chen's son Percy Chen, and other Russian and Chinese revolutionary figures.

Mikhail Borodin died two years later on 29 May 1951 at a prison camp near Yakutsk.

Mikhail Borodin married Fanya Orluk, known as "Fanny", and originally from Vilnius, in Chicago in 1908.

Mikhail Borodin had two sons, Fred Borodin and Norman Borodin, both of whom were American-born.

Mikhail Borodin is one of the main characters in Andre Malraux's 1928 novel Les Conquerants.

Mikhail Borodin appears in Kenneth Rexroth's poem Another Early Morning Exercise.