Sun Yat-sen University in Moscow and the Chinese Revolution - KU ...

the Trade Union Building in November of 1925. 2 The official opening
of Sun Yat-sen University was another mark in the "honeymoon" of
close cooperation between Soviet Russia and the KMT. It was opened
just a year and a half after Whampoa Military Academy, which was
set up in May, 1924, in Canton with the assistance of the Russians. In
any event, both the Russians who attended the opening ceremony of
Sun Yat-sen University and the Chinese students were excited about
the event. The hall was elegantly decorated. Portraits of Lenin and
Sun Yat-sen hung on the right and left sides of the hall under their
respective national flags. Many guests were present, including representatives
of the CC of the CPSU and the ECCI. The renowned
statesman and orator Leon Trotsky presided over the opening ceremony.
That evening many guests made speeches, but only Trotsky's
speech won the students' admiration. After pointing out the importance
of the Chinese revolution, he urged his fellow Russians to
reevaluate the importance of China and the Chinese people:
From now on, any Russian, be he a comrade or a citizen, who greets a Chinese
student with an air of contempt, shrugging his shoulders, is not entitled to be
either a Russian Communist or a Soviet citizen. 3
Trotsky's appeal was not made without cause. The prejudice of
the Russians against the Chinese had carried over from the days of
Tsarist Russia. 4 For example, we were often insulted on the streets
when people asked us in Russian, "Friend, do you want salt?" At first
we did not know what they meant. When we asked the instructors at
the university, they looked rather embarrassed and did not answer our
question. Only later did we find out that there was a legend to the
effect that a Chinese was reported to have died in St. Petersburg in the
summer. So that the body could be sent back to China for burial, a
relative was supposed to have packed the body with salt to prevent it
from decomposing. The customs officers who inspected the coffin at
Vladivostok supposedly observed the salt-packed body and regarded
it as a great joke. The story somehow spread all over Russia. Needless
to say, whenever we were asked, "Do you want some salt," we became
angry. And we were asked this question by all kinds of Russian people
—adults, teenagers, once-prominent figures, and "new Soviet citizens."
Still another thing which often irritated and angered us was that
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