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Making Morality in Political Revolution

Webb Keane

in Ethical Life: Its Natural and Social Histories

This chapter examines the case of moral revolutions that are bound up with political ones that are self-consciously atheist. One of the hallmarks of the twentieth-century socialist and communist ... More

This chapter examines the case of moral revolutions that are bound up with political ones that are self-consciously atheist. One of the hallmarks of the twentieth-century socialist and communist revolutions was the effort to remake societies that were more or less dominated by religious faith on nonreligious or even militantly antireligious grounds. The chapter then focuses on some of the ethical sources and goals of Vietnam's anticolonial and communist revolution. By looking at how, in everyday practices, revolutions attempted to propagate an expanded moral sensibility, inculcate people with egalitarian values, and reconfigure their intuitions about agency and responsibility, one can see some of the links among psychology, face-to-face interaction, and social history.Less

Subjectivity and Revolutionary Commitment

Johanna Malt

in Obscure Objects of Desire Surrealism, Fetishism, and Politics

The point of departure in this chapter is the fundamental question of the possibility of a revolutionary art. What can writers and artists contribute to the cause of a Communist proletarian ... More

The point of departure in this chapter is the fundamental question of the possibility of a revolutionary art. What can writers and artists contribute to the cause of a Communist proletarian revolution? Though this may seem a very general, pragmatic, and perhaps ambitious place to start, it serves to establish the parameters of the debate in terms of Marxist cultural theory. The chapter sets out a brief account of André Breton's theory of the surrealist revolution, and sketches its possible positions in relation to the Communist revolution itself. The chapter's intention in doing this is not to rehearse a set of well-established surrealist tenets, and certainly not to retrace the movement's involvement with the Communist Party, but rather to establish the limitations of an approach based on individual or collective political engagement.Less

“Be Mao’s Good Soldiers”: Creating the New Man in China

Yinghong Cheng

in Creating the New Man: From Enlightenment Ideals to Socialist Realities

This chapter details China's communist experiment with human nature. The idea of a new man, a morally perfect person, served as a model for Chinese society and became embedded in the Chinese culture. ... More

This chapter details China's communist experiment with human nature. The idea of a new man, a morally perfect person, served as a model for Chinese society and became embedded in the Chinese culture. The concepts of human malleability and the role of social environment in shaping human nature were not alien to Chinese history either. However, they became part of the discourse of nationalist ideology in the early twentieth century; indeed, in the second half of the century, they became a prime target of the Chinese communist revolution, as Mao Zedong aspired to surpass the Soviet Union in both economic and ideological terms. The idea of new men—or “Mao's good soldiers”—was created to perpetuate the revolution and generate an economic miracle, born from the absolute selflessness and dedication of such new men.Less

Origins of the Revolutionary Narrative: Marxist Historiography before 1949

Huaiyin Li

in Reinventing Modern China: Imagination and Authenticity in Chinese Historical Writing

This chapter investigates the origins of the revolution narrative in the context of political and intellectual struggles between the Nationalists and the Communists and among the Communists. The ... More

This chapter investigates the origins of the revolution narrative in the context of political and intellectual struggles between the Nationalists and the Communists and among the Communists. The revolutionary narrative emerged in the 1930s and 1940s primarily as resistance by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its supporters to the modernization narrative then prevailing in mainstream historiography under the Nationalist regime. Among the Marxist historians and CCP theorists who contributed to its rise, Fan Wenlan (1891–1969) stood out for his writing, which had a profound impact on Chinese historiography during and after the communist revolution, and for his particular role as a trusted historian and personal friend of Mao Zedong.Less

The Conservative Backlash: Politics, Sex, and the Family in the Cultural Revolution, 1966–1968

in Revolutionizing the Family: Politics, Love, and Divorce in Urban and Rural China, 1949-1968

This chapter examines the issues of politics, sex and family in the context of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR) in China during the period from 1966 to 1968. It proposes new ... More

This chapter examines the issues of politics, sex and family in the context of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR) in China during the period from 1966 to 1968. It proposes new hypotheses concerning some of the sources and forms of political critique during the GPCR. It argues that aside from the well-documented elite and socioeconomic cleavages between the winners and losers under socialism, other important dimensions of conflict were brought about by the different conceptualizations of proper marital and sexual and behavior and changes in family relations after the Communist revolution.Less

Primitive Accumulation: 1850–1980

Ho-fung Hung

in The China Boom: Why China Will Not Rule the World

Mao era development actualized the aspirations of generations of Chinese state builders who sought state-directed industralization since the late nineteenth century. The chapter also explores how ... More

Mao era development actualized the aspirations of generations of Chinese state builders who sought state-directed industralization since the late nineteenth century. The chapter also explores how legacies of the Mao era laid the foundation for the China boom .Less

Revolution and Remigration

Kathleen López

in Chinese Cubans: A Transnational History

This chapter focuses on how politics, warfare, and revolutions disrupt migration flows, dislocate people, and sever homeland ties, sometimes forever. Revolutions in China, 1949, and Cuba, 1959, ... More

This chapter focuses on how politics, warfare, and revolutions disrupt migration flows, dislocate people, and sever homeland ties, sometimes forever. Revolutions in China, 1949, and Cuba, 1959, transformed both societies and altered the fabric of transnational Chinese merchant communities. Ironically, exiles fleeing Communism in China were confronted with a similar political upheaval in Cuba just ten years later. Both longtime residents and newer Chinese migrants joined the Cuban exodus in the wake of the revolution. The Chinese Communist Revolution contributed to the Cuban government's increasingly hardline stance toward its political opponents. In 1950, the government shut down the Communist newspaper Hoy. When a group of Chinese protested, their own publication Kwong Wah Po in Santiago de Cuba became a target of government censorship and repression.Less

Revolutionary Thought Reform: The Communist Version, 1946–1956

Jan Kiely

in The Compelling Ideal: Thought Reform and the Prison in China, 1901-1956

Beginning with an account of the accelerated expansion of the penal reformation and thought reform systems under Kuomintang and Communist authorities amid the late 1940s civil war, this chapter ... More

Beginning with an account of the accelerated expansion of the penal reformation and thought reform systems under Kuomintang and Communist authorities amid the late 1940s civil war, this chapter argues that the Communist version that became a core instrument in their process of revolutionary advance, conquest and transformation of society was an ultimate extension of the wartime mode of the system. It also presents a dynamic sense of the culminating moment when the thought reform regime proliferated across China as an integral mechanism critical to the disciplining of a rapidly expanding party and military apparatus, a mushrooming prison labor camp system, and campaigns of revolutionary social-political transformation in the early 1950s. Much of the Communist system of thought reform resembled its predecessors and revealed its debts to the foundations laid in the previous decades. Yet it also featured certain distinctive modes and methods unlike those of its predecessors not just in its vast scale, but also in the experience of its disciplinary process. The Communist thought reform regime regularly inverted a disciplinary mode long designed and still often pursued in highly moralistic terms into forms requiring an amoral commitment to absolute loyalty.Less

Introduction: Politicizing the Soldier Image in Modern Chinese History

Yan Xu

in The Soldier Image and State-Building in Modern China, 1924-1945

The introduction first provides a historical background for the book during the period from the 1924 establishment of the Whampoa Military Academy to the 1945 end of the Second Sino-Japanese War. Xu ... More

The introduction first provides a historical background for the book during the period from the 1924 establishment of the Whampoa Military Academy to the 1945 end of the Second Sino-Japanese War. Xu goes on to introduce the major themes that the book aims to engage with, namely state-building and state-society relations in modern China, war and soldiers in Chinese military history and literature, as well as social emotion and mass mobilization in the Chinese Communist Revolution. Xu argues in the introduction that her book focuses on both social and cultural impacts of war in order to treat war as a cultural event for the people it influences rather than simply an analysis of politics and strategy. Xu ends this section by introducing the chapter structure and primary sources of the book.Less

Ten Years Later: 1997–2007 as History

Kam Louie (ed.)

in Hong Kong Culture: Word and Image

This chapter provides an overview of the decade since the 1997 retrocession by framing it within the wider scope of Hong Kong's history and within comparative colonial history. After briefly ... More

This chapter provides an overview of the decade since the 1997 retrocession by framing it within the wider scope of Hong Kong's history and within comparative colonial history. After briefly reviewing some of the changes and continuities in the period between 1997 and 2007, it considers three main issues: the problems of periodization and definitions inherent in Hong Kong's unique decolonization process, the difficulties involved in commemorating Hong Kong's first postcolonial decade, and some of the region's colonial legacies and current political realities. The overwhelming majority of tourists are no longer Westerners but mainland Chinese. Whereas Westerners used to travel to Hong Kong to catch a glimpse of “Red China” across the border, they also came to see traditional China, preserved in the New Territories and seemingly unchanged by the Communist revolution. Now, newspapers and magazines overseas frequently carry articles about Hong Kong's heritage and the dynamic, hybrid flair reflected in its cinema, cuisine, and architecture.Less

The Red Sister-in-Law Remakes: Redefining the “Fish-and-Water” Relationship for the Era of Reform and Opening

Qian Gong

in The Making and Remaking of China's "Red Classics": Politics, Aesthetics, and Mass Culture

Ode to Yimeng (Yingmeng Song), a major ballet production created in May 1974, was based on the short story “Red Sister-in-Law” (Hongsao). It is one of the “red classics” that deals with a ... More

Ode to Yimeng (Yingmeng Song), a major ballet production created in May 1974, was based on the short story “Red Sister-in-Law” (Hongsao). It is one of the “red classics” that deals with a revolutionary “base area,” and in essence, is about how the Communist Party won the support of the subaltern, the backbone of Chinese society at a tipping point in modern Chinese history, when CCP triumphed over the Nationalist army. The story of heroine, Sister-in-Law Ying, who saved a seriously wounded Communist soldier with her breast milk and nurtured him back to life, was once metaphoric and metonymic of the symbiotic relationships between army and the people. This chapter argues that the post-Mao remake in the format of a television drama has significantly re-defined the essence of the “fish-and-water” relationship in the spirit of traditional Chinese values and, in particular, Confucian values.Less

Searching for “Authenticity” in Paul Bowles’s Denmark Vesey

Melissa J. De Graaf

in Blackness in Opera

This chapter examines the question of authenticity surrounding Paul Bowles's Denmark Vesey. Featuring music by Bowles set to a libretto by Charles Henri Ford, Denmark Vesey incorporates racial ... More

This chapter examines the question of authenticity surrounding Paul Bowles's Denmark Vesey. Featuring music by Bowles set to a libretto by Charles Henri Ford, Denmark Vesey incorporates racial politics and Marxist allusions. Its language and music emphasize Africanisms and African American folklore, much of it thoroughly researched and, in Bowles and Ford's minds, authentic. This chapter first considers “authentic” representations of blackness in Denmark Vesey before discussing some of the opera's prominent themes, including Love versus Hate and the use of animal masks. It also explores Denmark Vesey's evocation of Communist-style revolution, paying particular attention to the conflicts and the gradual alliance between blacks and the Left as elements that set up the context of the opera. Finally, it analyzes the demise of Denmark Vesey due to the loss of the score and explains how Bowles and Ford achieved a distinctive result in their integration of race and politics as well as their bridging of race and labor unrest of the 1820s and 1930s.Less

The Army-People Bond in Mass Culture in Wartime Yan’an

Yan Xu

in The Soldier Image and State-Building in Modern China, 1924-1945

The sixth chapter outlines another political force that influenced modern China: the Chinese Communists during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Xu claims that the CCP constructed the soldier figure here ... More

The sixth chapter outlines another political force that influenced modern China: the Chinese Communists during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Xu claims that the CCP constructed the soldier figure here within the parameters of an emotional bond between the army and the people, believing it to be essential for the state-building agenda that was contingent on winning support from peasants in the area and social integration in the revolutionary base. Xu, furthermore, splits the chapter up by examining first the CCP’s policies in Yan’an for integration and winning support from peasants, then later the army-peasant bond during the yangge movement.Less