Mikhail Markovich Gruzenberg, known by the alias Borodin (9 July 1884 – 29 May 1951), was a Bolshevik revolutionary and Communist International (Comintern) agent. He was an advisor to Sun Yat-sen and the Kuomintang (KMT) in China during the 1920s. Born in a rural part of the Russian Empire (now Belarus), to a Jewish family, Borodin joined the General Jewish Labour Bund at age sixteen, and then the Bolsheviks in 1903. After being arrested for participating in revolutionary activities, Borodin fled to America, attended Valparaiso University, started a family, and later established an English school for Russian Jewish immigrants in Chicago. Upon the success of the October Revolution in 1917, Borodin returned to Russia, and served in various capacities in the new Soviet government. From 1919, he served as an agent of the Comintern, travelling to various countries to spread the Bolshevik revolutionary cause. In 1921, Borodin arrived in Turkey to help the Turkish National Movement in the War of Independence against Britain. He was arrested and detained by Britain for half a year due to his activities in Turkey. In 1923, Vladimir Lenin picked Borodin to lead a Comintern mission to China, where he was tasked with aiding Sun Yat-sen and his Kuomintang. Following Sun's death, Borodin assisted in the planning of the Northern Expedition, and later became an integral backer of the KMT leftist government in Wuhan. Following a purge of communists from the Kuomintang, Borodin was forced to return to the Soviet Union in 1927, where he would remain for the rest of his life. He once again served in various positions within the Soviet government, and later helped found the English-language Moscow News newspaper, of which he would become the editor-in-chief. During the Second World War, he additionally served as editor-in-chief of the Soviet Information Bureau. Amidst rising antisemitism in the Soviet Union during the late 1940s, Borodin was arrested and deported to a prison camp. He died in 1951 and was officially rehabilitated in 1964. Early life Borodin was born Mikhail Markovich Gruzenberg () to a Jewish family in Yanovichi, Russian Empire, now part of Vitebsk Region, Belarus, on 9 July 1884. At a very young age, he began work as a boatman on the Western Dvina, traversing the stretch of the river between Vitebsk, Dvinsk, and Riga, now the capital of Latvia. He later moved to Riga, where he attended Russian-language night schools while