Introduction

Document review is the best way to have a careful and in-depth understanding of a document.For us,literature review can not only understand the content of the article in detail,the academic history of the content of the article,but also make a comprehensive evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages of the whole article from a macro perspective.There are three parts to complete a literature review:1.Summarize the author's main views and article structure;2.Put this article into academic history;3.Evaluate and assess the advantages and disadvantages of the article.I chose to comment on this passages,“Reactions of Chinese Citizens to the Death of Stalin: Internal Communist Party Reports.”

The author's main views and article structure

In this article, the author uses 30 internal Reference articles as the original historical materials and tries to use them to examine the reaction of Chinese citizens to Stalin's death.The author believes that these 30 articles can explain certain problems and represent the Chinese people's reaction to Stalin's death.These historical materials reflect that the Chinese people are pro-American and anti-Russian, the Communist Party of China just ruled the Chinese people, and the Chinese people are disgusted with the communist Party of China's rule.The author believes that the Chinese society was indifferent to Stalin's death,and even disgusted with it and disgusted with the Communist Party of China.The rich reaction of The Chinese people to Stalin's death highlights the complexity of life in China in the early 1950s.The authors draw three main conclusions.First,the class-based analysis done by the Xinhua reporters did not provide a clear-cut understanding of Chinese sentiments at the time.Second,the reports reveal the underlying anxiety and distrust felt by many Chinese toward the CCP and the Soviet Union.Third,the reports depict a complex Chinese society riven by serious social and political tensions,Finally,the reports show that the CCP had established a well-functioning network of informants to keep a watchful eye on the urban population.

In terms of structure,this is a fairly standard historical paper with a compact structure.The text consists of three parts:The first part is introduction,which introduces the main reference of the original historical materials of this article and the question whether 30 internal reference articles are representative;The second part is the text,which is divided into two parts according to people's different reaction to Stalin's death,including:official mourning for Stalin and Chinese citizens mourning for Stalin,among which,Chinese citizens mourning for Stalin can be divided into many kinds of reaction:Those who were extremely sad about Stalin's death,worried about the world situation,worried about Mao Zedong's health,were indifferent,questioned Soviet medical treatment, the counter-revolutionary actions of reactionaries,and the unwillingness of local party leaders.The third part is the analysis and summary,mainly on the above content to make an analysis,a clear conclusion.

Place in academic history

This article was published in The Journal of Cold War Studies in 2009 and is of great academic value.Today,more than ten years have passed since its publication,but it still has its place in academic history.There are few domestic studies on Stalin's death in China,and many outside China.Among the domestic studies in China,there are the analysis of the Eisenhower administration's policy adjustment to the Soviet Union after Stalin's death,[ Fan Bai-yu, Mastering Peace: The Adjustment of The Eisenhower Administration's Soviet Policy, XU LAN, Ed. Studies on the History of Modern and Contemporary International Relations, Vol. 14, Beijing: World Knowledge Press, 2018, pp. 192-205.]the assessment of the Soviet Union and the Communist countries in Eastern Europe after Stalin's death by the United States,[ Wang Gaiping: The Evaluation and Response of the United States to the Changes in The Soviet Union's Domestic and foreign Policies after Stalin's death (1953-1956), Master's thesis, Department of History, School of Humanities, East China Normal University, 2009.]and the assessment of the British Churchill government after Stalin's death,[ Guo Guokai: The Attempt to ease the Cold War: Churchill's Pursuit of great Power Summit and its Failure, Master's thesis, Fujian Normal University, 2015.].In China's foreign studies,including the interaction of the Soviet Union and central and Eastern Europe after Stalin's death,[ Mark Kramer,“The Early Post-Stalin Succession Struggle and Upheavals in East-Central Europe:Internal-External Linkages in Soviet Policy Making(Part 1),”Journal of Cold War Studies,Vol.1,No.1,Winter 1999,pp.3-55.]the general introduction of the Soviet Union's foreign policy after Stalin's death, [ Vojtech Mastny,“Soviet foreign policy, 1953-1962,”in Melvyn P.Leffler and Odd Arne Westad,eds.,The Cambridge History of The Cold War:Volume I Origins,Cambridgeshire:Cambridge University Press, 2010,pp.312-334.]the discussion of the influence of Stalin's death on the soviet-South relations, [ Svetozar Rajak,Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union in the Early Cold War:Reconciliation,comradeship, confrontation, 1953-1957,Taylor & Francis e-Library,2010.]and the analysis of the possibility of “detente” between the Eisenhower administration and the Soviet Union after Stalin's death.[ Klaus Larres,“Eisenhower and the First Forty Days after Stalin's Death: The Incompatibility of Détente and Political Warfare,”Diplomacy & Statecraft,Vol.6,No.2 (July 1995),pp.431-469.]From this point of view, there is a wide range of research on the impact of Stalin's death. However, it is difficult to see other research results on the reaction of Chinese citizens to Stalin's death, and the author fills the gap in this area.

The advantages and disadvantages of the article

The article as a whole has more advantages than disadvantages.The advantage of this paper is that it makes use of historical materials invisible to other researchers to analyze problems.It makes rigorous textual research in the analysis process,refers to various sayings and historical materials, and analyzes the original historical materials in hand more accurately,filling the research gap in this aspect.However,the article also has shortcomings,the article did not get rid of the "benefactor" narrative of American historians,still believe that Chinese citizens are pro-American and anti-Russian,the Communist Party of China to control the political power of the Chinese people are forced.This deficiency somewhat forces the author of this article,which is understandable because of his different position and ideology,and lack of access to more historical materials. Generally speaking,the article has more advantages than disadvantages.