China and the British left in the twentieth century: transnational perspectives

Abstract

The relationship between China and the British left lends itself to a transnational approach as – in the virtual absence of formal institutional relationships – ephemeral committees and networks of activists carried particular weight. This article will focus on the transnational dimensions of four separate episodes: the ‘Hands off China!’ campaign (1925–1927), the campaign against Japanese aggression (1937–1939), the defence of the newly formed People's Republic of China (c.1949–1960) and the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). It highlights the role of a number of important individuals such as the political maverick Cecil l'Estrange Malone, the writer Hsiao Ch'ien, the artist Jack Chen and the scientist Joseph Needham.

Notes

^1. The IFTU was replaced by the World Federation of Trade Unions in 1945: the British trade unions subsequently joined the anti-Communist International Confederation of Free Trade Unions in 1949. Relations between international organisations within the Communist movement such as the Red International of Labor Unions and the Comintern (until its dissolution in 1943) were somewhat similarly structured, although the internal dynamics were inevitably very different.

^2. See, for instance, Buchanan, The Spanish Civil War.

^3. See Struck, Ferris and Revel, “Introduction”; Iriye, “Transnational History”; Clavin, “Defining Transnationalism”; and Clavin, “Time, Manner, Place.”

^4. The Chinese Association of Labor joined the IFTU in 1939, in time to participate in the Zurich Congress of July 1939.

^5. See Collette, The International Faith.

^6. For an excellent overview, see Bickers, Britain in China; The Scramble for China; and also Empire Made Me.

^7. For his career, see Hardy, Those Stormy Years, 193–210, and his personal MI5 file: The National Archives (TNA), Kew, KV2/1027.

^8. See Auerbach, Race, Law and “the Chinese Puzzle”.

^9. See Owen, The British Left and India; Ahmed and Mukherjee, South Asian Resistances, especially Chapter 5.

^10. See Buchanan, East Wind.

^11. National Museum of Labor History (NMLH), Manchester LRC 13/246, LRC leaflet 11, “Slavery in the Transvaal.”

^12. For a full account, see Buchanan, East Wind, 38–43.

^13. CPGB “Points for Propagandists,” no. 6, undated (but predating the collapse of the Chinese United Front in March 1927).

^14.New Leader, March 25, 1927.

^15. TNA, KV 2/1905, report to Foreign Office, December 20, 1924.

^16. This paragraph is based on TNA, KV 2/1905.

^17.TUC Congress Report, 1926, 226 and 416.

^18. For Malone's later activities, see TNA, KV 2/1906, 1907 and 1908.

^19. The most detailed account is by Clegg, Aid China, 1937–1949. Clegg was also a leading participant in the campaign, and a member of the CPGB until 1957.

^20.Buchanan, “Shanghai-Madrid Axis?”

^21.China Bulletin, January 8, Vol. 4, 1938, 1–2.

^22.New Statesman, October 2, 1937. Guernica had been attacked on April 26, 1937.

^23. Both of these journals had special supplements devoted to China.

^24.Daily Worker, September 28, 1937.

^25.Redfern, Class or Nation, 94–5 and 202.

^26.Benton and Gomez, The Chinese in Britain, 260–2.

^27. Shelley Wang, “China's War on Four Fronts,” Left Review, January 1938, 719.

^28.Auden and Isherwood, Journey to a War.

^29. Yuan-tsung Chen, Jack's third wife, has written a collective biography of the Chen family: Y. Chen, Return to the Middle Kingdom; J. Chen'sInside the Cultural Revolution also contains some biographical details.

^30. NMLH, CP/CENT/PERS/1/04. A letter to the Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in Chen's CPGB personnel record (January 25, 1956) notes that he had been ‘in good standing’ but that ‘the nature of his work prevented him from taking part in the main political activity of the Party …’

^31.Ch'ien, Traveller Without a Map.

^32. Ibid., 108–10.

^33.Artists' News Sheet (Artists International Association), January 1938, 1 and 4–5.

^34. See Buchanan, East Wind, 108–10.

^35. For a detailed account of these three delegations, see Wright, Passport to Peking.

^36.Brady, Making the Foreign Serve China, Chapter 1.

^37. NMLH, CP/PERS/06/07, copy of letter from Michael Shapiro to Jack Gaster, June 5, 1951 (my emphasis).

^38. Sheffield University, Winnington papers, Winnington to ‘G’ [George Matthews?], April 28, 1960.

^39. NMLH, CP/IND/MONT/07/06, Green to Montagu, October 27, 1959.

^40.Green, A Chronicle of Small Beer, 210–2. Green only identifies the man in question as ‘I.E’, ‘born in Poland and brought up in China and the USA’ – this was presumably a reference to Israel Epstein (1915–2005).

^41. He had published The Levellers and the English Revolution under the pseudonym ‘Henry Holorenshaw’.

^42.Buchanan, East Wind, 199–204.

^43. Ibid., 191–8.

^44. See the Foreign Office file: TNA, FCO 21/847.

^45. TNA, FCO 21/847, memorandum by L.V. Appleyard, May 24, 1971. Gordon was detained for attempting to leave China with notes and recordings – see Gordon, Freedom is a Word.

^46. TNA, FCO 21/497, May 20, 1969, memorandum by E.J. Sharland, citing information attributed to Hung-ying Bryan, a prominent figure in SACU.

^47.Knight, Window on Shanghai, 85–6, 126, 185, 213.

^48.Horn, Away with All Pests, 178, 176–7.

^49. Ibid., 181–2.

^50. University of Hull, Bridgeman papers, DBN 21/4.

^51.Buchanan, East Wind, 212–23.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tom Buchanan

Tom Buchanan is a Reader in Modern History and Politics at the Department for Continuing Education, University of Oxford, and a Fellow of Kellogg College. He is the author of three books on aspects of British involvement in the Spanish Civil War and of Europe's Troubled Peace Since 1945 (2nd ed., Chichester: Wiley/Blackwell, 2012). His most recent book is East Wind: China and the British Left, 1925–1976 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).