The Broken Wave: The Chinese Communist Peasant Movement, 1922–1928 PDF
Preview The Broken Wave: The Chinese Communist Peasant Movement, 1922–1928
THE BROKEN WAVE HARVARD EAST ASIAN SERIES 90 The East Asian Research Center at Harvard University administers research projects de- signed to further scholarly understanding of China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Inner Asia, and adjacent areas. Brought to you by | Renmin University of China Authenticated Download Date | 6/29/16 5:43 AM Brought to you by | Renmin University of China Authenticated Download Date | 6/29/16 5:43 AM The Broken Wave THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PEASANT MOVEMENT, 1922-1928 ROY HOFHEINZ, JR. HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS AND LONDON, ENGLAND 1977 Brought to you by | Renmin University of China Authenticated Download Date | 6/29/16 5:43 AM Copyright © 1977 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Preparation of this volume has been aided by a grant from the Ford Foundation. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Hofheinz, Roy, 1935- The broken wave. (Harvard East Asian series; 90) Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. China—Politics and government —1912-1937. 2. Communism —China. 3. Peasant uprisings—China. I. Title. II. Series DS777.47.H65 1977 951.04Ί 76-56097 ISBN 0-674-08391-1 Brought to you by | Renmin University of China Authenticated Download Date | 6/29/16 5:43 AM PREFACE This book is about a peasant revolution that failed. It is also about men with an idea of revolution that ultimately succeeded. These two concerns, rather than fascination with a voluminously documented historical tragedy, have led me to retell the story of the Chinese Revolution of the 1920s. Contemporary events compel us to consider the conditions that produce revolutions —especially rural ones —as well as the quality of the men who continue to rule the world's most populous nation. Two theses emerge from this retelling. The first is historical: that the practice of rural revolution later propounded by Mao Tse-tung and others had its origins before the Red Army, the rural soviets, or the anti-Japanese liberated areas were even conceived of. A corol- lary of this thesis is that the characteristic attitudes of Peking's pres- ent-day leaders bear the stamp of this early failure as much as of later success. The second thesis is analytical: that the Chinese Com- munists failed to win their rural revolution in the 1920s because they had not laid the proper political foundation for it. By showing that revolutionary politics, like any other kind, requires a proper mixture of persuasion, compromise, and coercion, this thesis challenges those who would define revolutionary potential in other than political terms. The conditions for revolution, as well as for successful coun- Brought to you by | Renmin University of China Authenticated Download Date | 6/29/16 5:44 AM terrevolution, are essentially artifacts of human effort rather than immutable givens of social structure, economics, or demography. These theses point to no conclusions about the desirability of revolution or the moral worth of men who seek it. I remain per- suaded that human warfare of whatever kind is inane. The real tragedy of the Chinese Revolution, to use Harold Isaacs's famous title, was not so much that one side failed to win as that the goals of national unity and broader political participation for the mass of villagers could not be achieved without great bloodshed. It is rele- vant to our concerns in the 1970s to learn why this was so. This work could not have been done without help. I owe a great debt to many people who shared with me their knowledge of China. Etö Shinkichi, Ichiko Chüzö, Ishikawa Tadaö, and Eugene Wu pointed me to new materials and guided me through the maze of Chinese and Japanese documentation. Edward C. M. Chan, Frances Hsieh, June Mei, and Marcia Reed Yee helped me interpret the raw materials at our command. Donald W. Klein, Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Michel Oksenberg, Harold Zvi Schiffrin, and Ezra F. Vogel offered valuable observations on earlier drafts. Suzanne Berger and John D. Powell shared insights into other kinds of peasant politics than I treat here. My intellectual debt to my predecessors in the study of China in the twenties — Conrad Brandt, Robert North, Harold Isaacs, Jean Chesneaux, and C. Martin Wilbur—will be obvious to those who know of their seminal work. To John K. Fairbank, Ben- jamin I. Schwartz, and John M. H. Lindbeck, teachers and col- leagues, I owe a special personal debt. Without their support and that of the East Asian Research Center at Harvard, where we worked together, this book would not have been written. Finally, Harriet Parker Hofheinz has contributed the hope and good cheer without which sustained scholarly effort is impossible. The title of The Broken Wave carries a double meaning. Explicitly it promises to explore the wave of peasant revolution in south China that crested and crashed between 1922 and 1928, a task undertaken in Parts One and Two. Less evidently, it points to the father of Chi- nese rural communism, P'eng P'ai, whose chosen name mimicked the booming sound of breaking waves. Until he receives the recogni- tion he deserves in China, Part Three will have to serve as a partial tribute to his seminal role in modern Chinese politics. Brought to you by | Renmin University of China Authenticated Download Date | 6/29/16 5:44 AM CONTENTS PART ONE STRATEGY 1 The Birth of the Rural Strategy 3 2 Mao Tse-tung as a Rural Strategist 29 PART TWO ORGANIZATION 3 Staffing the Revolution: The Kuomintang Peasant Bureaucracy 67 4 Education for Revolution: The Peasant Movement Institute 78 5 Organizing the Masses: The Peasant Associations 93 6 The Social Background: Explanations of Success and Failure 110 PART THREE PRACTICE 7 Origins of a Revolution: P'eng P'ai in Haifeng, 1922-1924 139 8 The Politics of Dependency: Kwangning, 1924-1925 179 9 The Face of the Enemy: Hua County, 1926 214 Brought to you by | Renmin University of China Authenticated Download Date | 6/29/16 5:44 AM 10 Birth of a People's War: Haifeng, 1927 234 11 Deathofa Revolution: Haifeng, 1928 263 12 The Legacy of China's Peasant Movement 284 Appendix A 309 Appendix Β 310 Notes 313 Bibliography 340 Index 349 Brought to you by | Renmin University of China Authenticated Download Date | 6/29/16 5:44 AM TABLES 1 Communist and non-Communist KMT regional and provincial officers, 1924 70 2 Political affiliation of section chiefs and secretaries in the KMT regional executive offices, 1924 71 3 Political affiliation of section chiefs and secretaries in KMT central departments 72 4 Classes, principals, dates of operation, and graduates of the Peasant Movement Institute 79 5 Provincial origins of Peasant Movement Institute and Whampoa students and active Communist peasant movement workers 82 6 Structure of Kwangtung Provincial Peasant Association, 1926 101 7 Peasant association membership claimed by organizers from 1924 to 1927 in four provinces and all of China 104 8 Peasant association membership statistics for three provinces, 1926- 1927 112 9 Correlations of some explanatory variables with peasant association success 113 10 Peasant association success correlations with political measures 116 11 Regional origins of Kwangtung students at the Whampoa Academy and Peasant Movement Institute 127 12 Characteristics of Communist base counties in three periods, 1924- 1945: average value on five variables potentially affecting success 135 Brought to you by | Renmin University of China Authenticated Download Date | 6/29/16 5:44 AM Brought to you by | Renmin University of China Authenticated Download Date | 6/29/16 5:44 AM
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