Sarah Paine

And he turns his guns on the communists and just massacres them in droves.

And this is when Mao has to think of a rural strategy to power because the urban strategy is no longer feasible.

Well, once this happens, Stalin can use it to just trounce Trotsky in the internal power struggle, because it's, look, see, revolution in one country, doesn't work abroad.

And a lot of Chinese died, proving Stalin's point.

All right.

Another example where Russia literally derails the rise of China.

There's a railway system there.

We're going to talk rails.

In the Russo-Japanese War of 1904 and 1905, Japan wins it and gets from Russia, which built all these things in Chinese territory, the southern half of that railway net in lieu of an indemnity.

Japan invests.

massively in railways, infrastructure, and apparently in local politicians.

But the ruling warlord apparently wasn't sufficiently attentive to Japanese needs, so they assassinated him in 1928.

So this is his son, Zhang Xueliang, who the following year, 1929, decides he wants his railways back from Russia.

What does Russia do?

It's not either version of the Karakhan Manifesto.

The Russians deploy over 100,000 troops, tanks, airplanes, the works, and just pound this man.

And so the Russians keep their railways.

So if you want to delay the rise of China, that sort of thing delays the rise of China.

But now for the first rule of continental empire, no two-front wars.

You have to move fast forward to the 1930s, and Stalin thinks he may very well face a two-front war with Germans in the West and Japanese in the East.