Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution

Introduction

Back Matter Arif Dirlik’s latest offering is a revisionist perspective on Chinese radicalism in the twentieth century. He argues that the history of anarchism is indispensable to understanding crucial themes in Chinese radicalism. And anarchism is particularly significant now as a source of democratic ideals within the history of the socialist movement in China. Dirlik draws on the most recent scholarship and on materials available only in the last decade to compile the first comprehensive history of his subject available in a Western language. He emphasizes the anarchist contribution to revolutionary discourse and elucidates this theme through detailed analysis of both anarchist polemics and social practice. The changing circumst... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Bibliography

Bibliography Albert, Michael, Leslie Cagan, Noam Chomsky, Robin Hahnel, Mel King, Lydia Sargent, Holly Sklar. Liberating Theory. Boston: South End Press, 1986. Anarchism and Anarcho-syndicalism: Selected Writings by Marx-Engels-Lenin. New York: International Publishers, 1974. Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 1983. Arblaster, Anthony. The Relevance of Anarchism. Socialist Register. Annual. 1971. Aronowitz, Stanley. Science as Power: Discourse and Ideology in Modern Society. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988. Avrich, Paul. The Russian Anarchists. New York: Norton, 1978. Ba Jin. The Family. Translated by S. Shapiro. Beijing: Foreign Language... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 1 : Introduction: Anarchism and Re...

Chapter One Introduction: Anarchism and Revolutionary Discourse Anarchism is not the easiest subject to think, speak, or write about within a cultural context that takes hegemony for granted as a principle of social and political integration. The most consistent and thoroughgoing of all modern radical social philosophies in its repudiation of this principle, anarchism has also for that reason suffered the greatest marginalization. Other radicalisms, too, have invoked fear and ridicule, but they have acquired respectability to the extent that they have come to share in the premises of organized power. The fear of anarchism, in contrast, is built into the word itself, whose meaning (no rule) has been suppressed in everyday language ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 2 : Nationalism, Utopianism, and R...

Chapter Two Nationalism, Utopianism, and Revolutionary Politics: Anarchist Themes in the Early Chinese Revolutionary Movement. Anarchism appeared in China at a moment of national crisis. In 19067 Chinese intellectuals abroad established two societies, within months of each other, devoted to the propagation of anarchism, one in Paris, the other in Tokyo. At a time when a revolutionary discourse was taking shape, with origins in a new national consciousness, the anarchism these societies promoted introduced into the discourse dissonant themes that would have a lasting effect. In spite of their basic conflict with nationalist goals, these themes would display a remarkable staying power in the revolutionary discourse fueled by the pursu... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 3 : Science, Morality, and Revolut...

Chapter Three Science, Morality, and Revolution: Anarchism and the Origins of Social Revolutionary Thought in China Anarchism emerged as a distinctive current in Chinese revolutionary thought when, in 19067, Chinese intellectuals studying abroad launched, almost simultaneously, two openly anarchist societies in Paris and in Tokyo. Before 1907 Chinese intellectuals had little appreciation of anarchism as an integral social philosophy. Rather, anarchist themes had been assimilated to the orientation of revolutionary thinking by intellectual dispositions that had originated in the revolutionary situation created by a new national consciousness. These dispositions were to persist in anarchist thinking. With the founding of these societi... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 4 : Anarchists Against Socialists ...

Chapter Four Anarchists against Socialists in Early Republican China Anarchism germinated in Chinese thought in the radical culture of Chinese students studying abroad. Like other currents in Chinese radicalism, it was a product of Chinese intellectuals’ confrontation with other societies that already showed the strains of modernity and struggled with alternatives to the dominant capitalist ideology of development. Chinese students’ experiences abroad had a liberating effect on their thinking; the same experiences made them wary of what they found. It was not until after the Revolution of 1911 that anarchism appeared within China. The literature that anarchists produced abroad found its way into the mainland before 1911, ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 5 : Radical Culture and Cultural R...

Chapter Five Radical Culture and Cultural Revolution: Anarchism in the May Fourth Movement In the early afternoon of May 4, 1919, three thousand students from three Beijing universities gathered at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square to demonstrate against the Versailles Peace Conference decision in favor of Japan on the Shandong Question. The students had originally intended to continue their demonstration in the foreign legation quarters in Beijing, but finding their way blocked by the legation police, they proceeded instead to the house of Cao Rulin, a Foreign Ministry official who had drawn the ire of the patriotic students for his pro-Japanese sentiments. The students were stymied momentarily by the police who had cordoned off the... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 6 : The Anarchist Alternative in C...

Chapter Six The Anarchist Alternative in Chinese Socialism, 1921–1927 The appearance and rapid ascendancy of Marxian communism (or Bolshevism) in the 1920s has long overshadowed in historians’ consciousness the role anarchism played in nourishing social revolutionary thinking and activity for the previous decade and a half, which contributed directly to the founding of the Communist party of China in 1921. Well past the establishment of communism, anarchism continued to serve as a fecund source of social revolutionary ideals that kept alive a radical alternative to Bolshevism. Anarchist thinking and activity during this period overlapped with the Communist party’s conception of revolution, but also sharply differed w... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 7 : The Revolution That Never Was:...

Chapter Seven The Revolution That Never Was: Anarchism in the Guomindang Anarchists made an attempt in 1927 to acquire a voice in the Guomindang, perhaps even to shape its future. Their goal was not to take over the Guomindang politically, as some opponents charged, since they rejected politics, but rather to use the possibilities the party offered to channel the Chinese revolution in a direction consistent with anarchist goals. In hindsight, the attempt was futile, a last desperate, and somewhat opportunistic, act in anarchists’ efforts to recapture the revolutionary ground they had lost over the previous three years to successful Communist inroads among the masses. Following this attempt, anarchism for all practical purposes... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 8 : Aftermath and Afterthoughts

Chapter Eight Aftermath and Afterthoughts For more than two decades in the early part of this century, anarchism nourished Chinese radicalism. Before the May Fourth Movement in 1919, anarchists virtually monopolized the social revolutionary Left. Having reached the apogee of its popularity in the early May Fourth period, anarchism in the twenties declined before its new competitor on the Left, Marxian communism. Following the attempt to reassert an anarchist presence in the revolution through the Guomindang in the late 1920s, anarchists once again dispersed to their regional bases, and anarchism ceased to exert any significant influence on the course of the revolution. Anarchists did not vanish, but they no longer exhibited the vitali... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Notes

[1] Eric Hobsbawm, Revolutionaries (New York: New American Library, 1973), 61. [2] Arif Dirlik, The Origins of Chinese Communism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), esp. chapters 3 and 8. [3] Ge Maochun, Jiang Jun, and Li Xingzhi, eds., Wuzhengfu zhuyi sixiang ziliao xuan (Selection of materials on anarchist thought [hereafter WZFZYSX]), 2 vols. (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 1984); Gao Jun et al., eds., Wuzhengfu zhuyi zai Zhongguo (Anarchism in China) (Changsha: Hunan renmin chubanshe, 1984); Lu Zhe, Zhongguo wuzhengfu zhuyi shi (History of Chinese anarchism) (Fujian: Renmin chubanshe); Xu Shanguang and Liu Liuping, Zhongguo wuzhengfu zhuyi shi (History of Chinese anarchism) (Changsha: Hunan renmin chubanshe, 1989); Makesi En... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

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Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution

By Arif Dirlik

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Author : Arif Dirlik

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