Taking Action: 
The Early Twentieth Century 1900-1949

"Modern" vs. Traditional or Industrial vs. Agricultural?

Continuing impact of the west:

How do early twentieth century Western intellectual trends including the language of Social Darwinism produce factionalism in Chinese intelligencia and general ethnic division?

Huxley's Evolution and Ethics (1898)
Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations (1900)
J.S. Mill's On Liberty (1903) and Logic (1909)
Herbert Spencer's A Study of Sociology (1903)
Montesquieu's The Spirit of Laws (1909)

Evolving Chinese responses:

Yan Fu: "Only 30% of China's troubles were caused by foreigners; the rest were her own fault and could be remedied by her own actions."

1903 Zou Rong: "wipe out the five million barbarian Manchus, wash away the shame of 260 years of cruelty and oppression and make China clean once again".

Why would Japanese and Germany government styles be more appealing than the U.S.A.?

1905 Civil Service exams abolished

Sun Zhongshan (Sun Yatsen, 1866-1925): cuts his pigtail and forms the Revolutionary Alliance from bases in the Japan and the U.S.

Dynastic cycle themes (a period of disunity):

Yuan Shikai (1869-1916), general finds himself in power after a coincidental chain of events.

1912 last Qing emperor abdicates

1916-1928 Warlord Period, Tibet and Mongolia declare independence

Battle over the North

evolving responses continued:

Vernacular literature: Periodical, New Youth, founded by Chen Duxiu
.  .  .  don't waste time "arguing with the older generation on [the significance of youth and new ideas] and that, hoping for them to be reborn and remodeled." "We must be thoroughly aware of the incompatibility between Confucianism and the new belief, the new society and the new state."

Lu Xun lambastes Chinese xenophobia and rejection of  everything foreign

How does Lu Xun's views represent traditional Chinese thinking at a different level, and the movement to Marxist thinking in China? 

First World War disappointments: 

Treaty of Versailles gives Chinese land to the Japanese (leads to the May 4th student movement and China not signing the treaty). Western Europe let's down the intelligencia and the Russian Revolution offers only hope for independence for many.

From Marx to Lenin to Mao.

Beijing University study group on Marx led by Li Dazhao. Class struggle and capitalist exploitation. Mao Zedong of privileged peasant background in Hunan, is a librarian at Beijing University.

Role of the Cominterm: Democratic Centralism

How does the Cominterm fill a political/organizational vacuum in China?

We concluded in class that the cominterm party organization of democratic centralism gave the Chinese a way to organize which had eluded them until then. Their main form of central command until then was the civil service exam system of selecting and rotating magistrates and officials. There was no tradition of voting or parliment.

Nationalists and Communists: Which is which and why?

In class we considered Lenin's vision of Marxism which held that for a Socialist revolution to succeed, a nation would first have to go through the necessary "stages" of development: primitive communism, slave production, feudal production, capitalist production, and finally socialism. Because China had not yet "gone through" the capitalist period thoroughly, support was given intitially to the Chang Kaishek's Nationalists. The Communists, including Mao were told to work within that framework.

Enter Japan: Takes Taiwan in 1895, defeats Russia in 1905, controls Manchuria by 1915, Nanjing massacre in 1937, "three all" policy for resisters -- killing all, burning all, looting all.

How does the Cominterm offer a more convincing response to the threat from Japan than American and Western responses?

In class we concluded that American and Western European nations were partly responsible for Japan's continued penetration of China. The Cominterm had the only legitimate response to foreign threats on Chinese sovereignty.

Challenges of the industrial age:

Industrial life in China: many factories Japanese and foreign-owned, laws against union organization, exploitation of women, British atrocities (see pp.274-275).

Continued suffering of the peasants; land reform suggestions looked on with suspicion.

World Economic Depression

Women's rights movement limited to cities. Qui Jin publishes Chinese Women's Journal. Girls schools increase. Ibsen's play A Doll's House, and Ba Jin's The Family further exemplifies the Chinese struggle with traditional social hierarchies.

In the countryside, wives are financial transactions, so women's divorce rights are more problematic.

Rise of Mao's Communists. Why? Nationalist corruption, Communist platform, Mao Zedong as the ideal leader?

White Terror: Nationalist shift by Jiang Jieshi to repress Communists in the Nationalist party. Increased support for Nationalists from Western Europe and America.

Myth of the Long March to Shaanxi, Yan'an. Mao's conversion strategy of personal confessions and struggle sessions of accusation and response.

Ebrey's final analysis:

19th century was a struggle between indigenous and external; whereas the 20th century was a China interacting creatively with the world (p.291).