“On the Path of Liberation”: Chinese Anticolonialism in the 1920s and 1930s

As I was browsing through early Soviet propaganda posters, I came across an intriguing one from 1930 that showed a Chinese soldier punching another person in a blue uniform under a banner that read “China on the Path of Liberation from Imperialism.” (The poster is below.) In the background are three naval ships with Japanese, British, and American flags. Given the date of the poster, I wasn’t entirely sure of its meaning or how it fits into my current focus on decolonization. After some research, I was surprised to learn how the Chinese understood “anti-imperialism” in 1930 and how the Chinese communists influenced the nationalist Guomindang (KMT).

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