Anarchism in early twentieth century China: A contemporary perspective

Abstract

Anarchism flourished in Chinese radical thought and practice during the first three decades of the twentieth century. While the issues and concepts which anarchists introduced into radical thought would continue to retain their significance, they persisted as trace elements largely assimilated into mainstream radical ideology, increasingly represented by Marxism from the mid 1920s. Anarchist activity (including ideological activity) since then has been isolated, transient and marginal, without a visible or sustained impact on the course of Chinese radicalism. Chinese anarchists' conflicting engagements with anarchism may be of some relevance in sorting out contemporary problems within anarchism, especially over issues of cultural difference. Most of those who identified themselves as anarchists were drawn to anarchism not because of some native predisposition but because of its universal appeal. The indigenization of anarchism indicates an effort by some anarchists to adapt native intellectual legacies to an assortment of imported ideas that already had come to be associated with the term “anarchy” in its European origins. Why and how they did so are important questions with theoretical implications that go beyond anarchism in China, as they bear upon issues of universalism and localism in anarchist theory and practice.

Keywords:

• anarchism
• Marxism
• post-anarchism
• culture
• universalism

Notes

¹ Arif Dirlik, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1991); Edward Krebs, Shifu: The Soul of Chinese Anarchism (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998); and, Peter Zarrow, Anarchism and Chinese Political Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990).

² As in the rendering of Laozi into the origins of anarchism, see, Randall Amster et al., eds., Contemporary Anarchist Studies: An Introductory Anthology of Anarchy in the Academy (London and New York: Routledge, 2009), Introduction, 2.

³ Gabriel Kuhn, “Anarchism, Postmodernity, and Poststructuralism,” in Contemporary Anarchist Studies, 18–25. The most elaborate exposition of postructuralist anarchism, or post-anarchism, is that of Todd May, The Political Philosophy of Poststructuralist Anarchism (University Parl, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994). See, also, Lewis Call, “Editorial – Post-Anarchism Today,” Anarchist Developments in Cultural Studies, no. 1 (2010): 1–15, and, Andrew M. Koch, “Poststructuralism and Epistemological Basis of Anarchism,” The Philosophy of the Social Sciences 23, no. 3 (September 1993): 327–351.

⁴ For recent discussions of anarchism that take a global perspective, see, Steven Hirsch and Lucien van der Walt, eds., Anarchism and Syndicalism in the Colonial and Postcolonial World, 1870–1940: The Parxis of National Liberation, Internationalism, and Social Revolution (Leiden: EJ Brill, 2010), and, Jason Adams, “Non-Western Anarchisms: The Global Context,” pamphlet (2003) http://raforum.info/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=2@lang=en.

⁵ Arif Dirlik, Global Modernity: Modernity in the Age of Global Capitalism (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Books, 2006).

⁶ The summary below of anarchism in China draws on the three works cited above in footnote 1.

⁷ For more detailed discussion and references, see, Dirlik, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution, 133–145. It is important to emphasize here that anarchists opposed not just the state but all authority relations in society. The term wuzhengfu is misleading in this respect as it refers only to the state. Some anarchists preferred the term “no rule,” wuzhi to wuzhengfu, but the latter term won out in the long run.

⁸ For detailed discussion, see, Arif Dirlik, The Origins of Chinese Communism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).

⁹ Nancy Tsou and Len Tsou, Ganlan guiguande zhaohuan: Canjia Xibanya neizhande Zhongguo ren (1936–1939) [The Call of the Olive Laurel: Chinese in the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939] (Taipei: Renjian Publishers, 2001). Its English title on the cover is given as The Call of Spain.

¹⁰ Li Shizeng, who himself was quite nomadic, privileged migration much like contemporary postcolonial intellectuals, and proposed a new field of study, “qiaologie” (or qiaoxue), which is best rendered as “diasporalogy” (note the bilinguality of the term). See, Li Shizeng, “Qiaoxue fafan” [Introduction to Diasporalogy], in Li Shizeng xiansheng wenji [Collection of Mr Li Shizeng's Writings] (Taipei: Zhongguo Guomindang dangshi weiyuan hui, 1980), 291–341. Originally published in New York in Ziyou shijie [Free World], 1942.

¹¹ Ming K. Chan and Arif Dirlik, Schools into Fields and Factories: Anarchists, the Guomindang, and the Labor University in Shanghai, 1927–1932 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991).

¹² Wu Yiching, “Revolution at the Margins: Social Protest and the Politics of Class in the Chinese Cultural Revolution, 1966–1968,” (manuscript under consideration). I am grateful to Professor Wu for sharing it with me.

¹³ See his contribution to the special issue on Shifu of Minzhong [People's Tocsin], 2.1 (March, 1927).

¹⁴ See, Jue Sheng, “PaiKong zhengyan” [Soliciting the Overthrow of Confucius], Xin shiji [New Era], no. 52 (June 10, 1908): 4, and, Zhen (Li Shizeng), “Sangang geming” [Three Bonds Revolution], Xin shiji, no. 11 (August 31, 1907): 2.

¹⁵ Many important Chinese communists (Marxist) were graduates of this program. See, Marilyn A. Levine, The Found Generation: Chinese Communists in Europe during the Twenties (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1993).

¹⁶ Ming K. Chan and Arif Dirlik, Schools into Fields and Factories, chapter 9, 269–276.

¹⁷ Zheng Shiqu, Wan Qing Guocui pai wenhua sixiang yanjiu [The National Essence Group of Late Qing: Study of Culture and Thought] (Beijing: Beijing Shifan daxue chubanshe, 1997), chapters 3 and 6.

¹⁸ For a discussion, see, Hon Tze-ki, “Revolution as Restoration: The Meanings of ‘National Essence’ and ‘National Learning’ in the Guocui xuebao (National Essence Journal), 1905–1911” (paper presented at The Writing of History in 20th Century East Asia: Between Linear Time and the Reproduction of National Consciousness Leiden, Netherlands, June 4–7, 2007). I am grateful to Professor Hon for sharing this paper with me. See, also, Arif Dirlik, “Guoxue/National Learning in the Age of Global Modernity,” China Perspectives, no. 1 (2011): 4–13.

¹⁹ Peter Zarrow, Anarchism and Chinese Political Culture, chapter 6, and, Peter Zarrow, “He Zhen and Anarcho-Feminism in China,” Journal of Asian Studies 47, no. 4 (1988): 796–813.

²⁰ Peter Zarrow, Anarchism in Chinese Political Culture, chap. 6, 130–155

²¹ See the report, “Shehui zhuyi jiangxihui diyici kaihui jishi” [Record of the Inaugural Meeting of the Society for the Study of Socialism], Xin Shiji (New Era), nos. 22, 25, 26. This in no. 22 (November 16, 1907): 4.

²² Shenshu (Liu Shipei), “Renlei junli shuo” [On the Equal Ability of Human Beings], Tianyi bao [Natural Justice], no. 3 (July 10, 1907): 24–36

²³ Shenshu, “Dushu zaji” [Random Notes on Books Read], Tianyi bao, nos. 11–12 (November 30, 1907): 416–7.

²⁴ It is noteworthy that Liu was also among the first critics of imperialism, and an advocate of Asia for Asians. See, Shenshu, “Yazhou xianshi lun” [The Contemporary Trend in Asia], Tianyi bao [Natural Justice], nos. 11–12 (November 30, 1907): 345–368

²⁵ For traces of anarchism in Maoism, see Dirlik, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution, 294–300. The township economies that played an important in the take-off of the Chinese economy in the 1990s are discussed in the essays collected in Gregory E. Guldin, ed., Farewell to Peasant China: Rural Urbanization and Social Change in the Late Twentieth Century (Armonk, NY: ME Sharpe, 1997).

²⁶ Unfortunately, most discussions of anarchism that juxtapose it to Marxism are quite oblivious to anything outside of Europe and North America. Todd May, to note one important example, works his way through his argument by sorting out anarchist tendencies in post-Bolshevik Marxism, but has nothing to say about Mao's Marxism or, for that matter, other tricontinental Marxisms which were marked by their own contradictions. See, May, The Political Philosophy of Poststructuralist Anarchism, chapter 2, 17–44.

²⁷ May, The Political Philosophy of Poststructuralist Anarchism, 135.

²⁸ Ibid., chapter 1. See also, David Graeber, “Anarchism, Academia, and the Avant-Garde,” in Contemporary Anarchist Studies, 103–112.

²⁹ Saul Newman, “The Horizon of Anarchy: Anarchism and Contemporary Radical Thought,” Theory and Event 13, no. 2 (2010), http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/theory_and_event/ v013/13.2.newman.html.

³⁰ For an important critique, see, Murray Bookchin, Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable Chasm (Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2001). It has been suggested that postanarchist efforts to distinguish contemporary from classical anarchism is driven partly out of anxiety about the latter's resemblance to and overlap with Marxism (Amster et al., Contemporary Anarchist Studies, 3). Mutual suspicion and hostility between these two radical political philosophies has been detrimental to both. These two philosophies are divided by common goals, so to speak, due to the implicit Bolshevism of one and the implicit libertarianism of the other. But they not only share common aspirations to democracy and community, they are complementary in their different emphases on social structure and the state, which are integral aspects of any constitution of power that need to be addressed in radical philosophy worthy of the name. Presently, the libertarian wing of anarchism (poststructuralist or otherwise) would seem to be enjoying ascendancy as it resonates with its contemporary social, ideological, cultural and intellectual context. The challenge to social anarchism likely seems less of a factionalist move within the broader context of the retreat from Marxism in radical politics.

³¹ May, The Political Philosophy of Poststructuralist Anarchism, 133–7.

³² This is, after all, evident in the recruitment of Daoism into the anarchist pantheon, although this has taken the form of the assimilation of Daoism to anarchism which would seem problematic from a contemporary perspective which would recognize Daoist difference and make its values into candidates for the enrichment of anarchism.

³³ For Li, see footnote 8 above. For culturology, see, Huang Wenshan, Wenhuaxue lunwen ji [Collected Essays on Culturology] (Guangzhou: Zhongguo wenhua xuehui, 1938).

³⁴ Anarchist feminism espoused by He Zhen as the core of anarchism nevertheless was viewed “as but one aspect of the anarchist revolution,” a position with which contemporary feminism would take issue for not sufficiently stressing the particularities of women's problems. See, Zarrow, Anarchism and Chinese Political Culture, 130.