OxTalks will soon move to the new Halo platform and will become 'Oxford Events.' There will be a need for an OxTalks freeze. This was previously planned for Friday 14th November – a new date will be shared as soon as it is available (full details will be available on the Staff Gateway).
In the meantime, the OxTalks site will remain active and events will continue to be published.
If staff have any questions about the Oxford Events launch, please contact halo@digital.ox.ac.uk
The Luochuan Conference of August 1937 was a crucial moment in Mao Zedong’s struggle for power. Mao tried to force the party to adopt his guerrilla war strategy; he failed. Mao nonetheless exploited his position as the Politburo member in charge of military affairs and put his strategy into action in fall 1937. Mao’s actions worried Josef Stalin, who was depending on Chiang Kai-shek to keep Japan from invading Siberia. Mao therefore moderated his behaviour but clung to his strategy. This talk discusses how Mao managed to win Stalin and the CCP over to his strategy, and thus consolidated his hold on the CCP.