- Location
- Fort Worth, TX
Nehru visited the otl ussr in 1927. Did he do the same here?
The Widening Gyre: The Great War and the Remaking of Europe
- Thread starter Curby
- Start date
- Timeline Post-1900
Bisexual-Mart
Far from the shallow ground
- Location
- The Great State of Warshington
- Pronouns
- He/Him
What I'm curious about is: Will the first wave of Mexican migration as a result of the Mexican Revolution still happen here? IOTL, that was when the first true wave of Mexican immigration into the United States, mostly in the former Mexican territories in the Southwest (like Arizona, New Mexico, California, Texas, Utah, Nevada, and Colorado) came in.
Interestingly enough, it also plays a role in the development of one of America's most beloved snack foods. A Mexican-born entrepreneur in San Antonio, Texas, sold his recipe during the Great Depression when he wanted to return to Mexico, to a local man named Chester Doolin. Doolin eventually turned the recipe into Fritos, and founded the Frito Company.
Interestingly enough, it also plays a role in the development of one of America's most beloved snack foods. A Mexican-born entrepreneur in San Antonio, Texas, sold his recipe during the Great Depression when he wanted to return to Mexico, to a local man named Chester Doolin. Doolin eventually turned the recipe into Fritos, and founded the Frito Company.
- Location
- India
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Nah, the initial posts clearly imply that the red regions of the world are, well, Europe and South Asia.(Which presumably turns red in the SRE)
Mainly, at least.
The implication is definitely that America stays the capitalist behemoth — wait that's not even an implication, we have an interview from 1962 in the USA with the US still being, well, capitalist.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I wouldn't be surprised if in a world where the Communists (and Anarchists) are more successful, America finds that even South America is going to be a reach. OTL, Russia mostly just stuck its oar in in small ways designed to annoy the United States when it came to South America, with most of the leftism being (primarily) homegrown or so on.
So it's easy to imagine a situation where America survives as a capitalist state but faces challenges with projecting power beyond their borders, even in "their" Americas.
- Location
- India
- Pronouns
- He/Him
oh yeah that's definitely fair, I was talking about America as in the Estados Unidos, not the Americas as a whole
finally caught up with this timeline it's so cool, I wonder if you've given any thought to how marcus garvey and garveyism(s) rise in this time period?
Bisexual-Mart
Far from the shallow ground
- Location
- The Great State of Warshington
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Just hoping that this timeline's Marcus Garvey does not write letters to the Klan expressing their shared interest in racial separatism. It would be awesome if in this timeline, Garvey actually buys land in Africa somewhere to explore his "back-to-Africa project".
Definitely hope so, and it's really interesting actually how garveyism was a radical force in much of the diaspora, being intertwined with left labour radicalisms in the Caribbean and anticolonial african nationalisms in East and South Africa. Which could be altered to be much more radical and left-leaning in this timeline.
a pretty interesting video on the matter of garveyism as a pan-african anti-colonial movement:
View: https://youtu.be/s4bVp8l04pI?si=8IaxAxkBV7UroJyk
Forging a New China: Revolution, War, and State-making, 1919-1924
New
Curby
recovering analytic philosopher, still sensitive
- Location
- Most Serene Republic of Unwashed Brooklyn
- Pronouns
- He/They
Forging a New China: Revolution, War, and State-making, 1919-1924
We are the poorest and weakest state in the world, occupying the lowest position in international affairs; the rest of mankind is the carving knife and the serving dish, while we are the fish and the meat.
-Sun Yat-sen
Alas! The war steeds of Europe are intruding into your house. Where can you quietly repose under a white cloud?
-Chen Duxiu
The earth must be governed in such a way that there is only one world but no states. If there were no states, there would not be any boundaries, wars, suspicion, jealousy, power-struggles, distinction between self and others, and equality would emerge...
-Tan Sitong
If we were to adopt a democratic system of government now, it would be nothing less than committing national suicide. Freedom, constitutionalism, and republicanism would be like hempen clothes in winter or furs in summer; it is not that they are not beautiful, they are just not suitable for us.
-Liang Qichao
All our traditional ethics, law, scholarship, rites, and customs are survivals of fuedalism...What more needs to be said?... I would rather see the past culture of our nation disappear than see our race die out now because of its unfitness for living in the modern world...
-Chen Duxiu
Historical and Ideological Prelude
If the long crisis of capitalism commenced in 1914, China's own political crisis began considerably earlier, with the failure of the Qing reform effort in 1898. The sclerotic dynasty finally collapsed in 1911, but this hardly brought political stability to China. The new Republic based in Beijing had popular support amongst intellectuals, students, and some urban workers but also found that overthrowing the Qing regime hardly tempered the centrifugal tendencies of Chinese politics. The empowerment of a local, rural elite, which had begun in the late Qing Era, continued to haunt the new republic. Sun Yat-sen, a centralist ideologue, was forced to concede the presidency to the military.
Yet this was not to be the end for Sun. In fact, the revolution of 1911 turned out to be only the first such upheaval in the decade. The overthrow of the Qing dynasty inaugurated a period of unprecedented political, social, and intellectual experimentation in China. At its center was a nationalist social and intellectual problematic. For centuries on end, China had conceived of itself as a civilization alone, with its center in the person of the Emperor. The intrusion of Western colonialism and the quite evident weakness of the Qing state made the old feudal-imperial ideology untenable. China was clearly one civilization amongst many others - and not, many Chinese reformists thought, a particularly advanced one. The overriding desire of most reformists and radicals alike was to make China into a representative nation-state on the western model, thereby securing the fealty of its own people and ensuring that the national interest was adequately embodied in the government.
Such aspirations drove the 1911 Xinhai Revolution, yet the nationalist problematic had a curious way of pointing beyond itself to broader concerns. From its very beginning, Chinese Republican radicalism was focused upon larger questions of social organization and social justice. Westernization was not seen as an end in itself. For many conservatives, it was meant primarily to reinforce existing Chinese traditional institutions, but for others, it was a tool to launch a more thoroughgoing assault on the Confucian edifice of the old society. Few advocated for a strictly political revolution; even most liberals and moderates believed that for a new, Republican government to be successful, some amount of social reform would be necessary. Central to the nationalist project was the notion of "education". Everyone from conservative confucian reformers to radical anarchists believed in the necessity for a national program of re-learning to prepare the common people to be upstanding members of the new china. Democratic habits for a democratic citizenry.
The Xinhai Revolution ended in great disappointment. The military government of Duan Qirui did manage to avoid a breakdown of China into outright warlordism, largely through the power of the Beiyang Army. In practice, however, many of the southern and western provinces had autonomy verging on independence. The manifestly corrupt character of the government and its rigging of elections did a great deal to disabuse the radical left - and some liberals, even - of conventional Republicanism, and prompted a search for new ideologies. Qirui made some efforts to employ the allure of Chinese nationalism to reinforce the central government, which were bolstered somewhat by the rising tensions with Japan. But Qurui was a member of the old military elite averse to mass mobilization by his very nature. He would only go so far.
When he defeated his Republican rivals Sun Yat-sen and Chen Jingmiong, they brought their remaining soldiers into the mountainous and inaccessible province of Yunnan and declared a rival government. A second Tongmenghui, or revolutionary alliance, was forged between Sun and a diverse group of Chinese radicals, ranging from anarchists to trade unionists to socialists to disaffected liberal republicans. The task was made significantly easier by the heavy-handed repression employed by the Qirui government and its tenuous hold over many of the provinces. The network of western concessions, particularly Shanghai and Tianjin, served as hubs for dissident groups.
Sun's isolation in the mountains of Yunnan meant that there was little prospect of directly overthrowing Qurui's military dictatorship. The most direct effect of the second Tongmenghui was to bring together radicals from many different regions into a shared national struggle. The dominant tendency on the left was anarchism, and this was a diffuse and decentralized movement with a variety of different strands. In fact, anarchism cut across divides between revolutionaries and reformists, as well as modernists and antimodernists. It included both internationalist utopians and somewhat more nationally-minded patriots. There were also a sizable contingent of individualist anarchists, though these played a smaller role in the politics of the era.
In 1917, two years after the New Culture movement mounted a thoroughgoing challenge to traditional Chinese Confucian ideology, there were at least five distinct groupings of anarchists that were drawn into the Revolutionary Alliance. Firstly, there was the "Paris" group, most of whom returned home as the Great War radicalized. Led by Li Shizeng and Wu Zhihui, these were doctrinaire and scientistic followers of Kropotkin, scornful of traditional Chinese culture and largely disconnected from the broader masses. Their magazine, New Era, was vital in introducing anarchist ideas into China; most of the first translations of left-wing texts from the west were made in this journal. Standing on the opposite end of the spectrum were Liu Shipei's Tokyo anarchists associated with the Society for the Study of Socialism. They embraced a curious mix of social radicalism and cultural traditionalism. The traditional institutions of Chinese society, such as the scholar-gentry and patriarchal family, were roundly criticized, but Shipei insisted that because of its centuries of weak central governance, China was uniquely prepared for anarchism. Shipei looked to the agrarian utopianism of China's past as a model for what the future anarchist society might look like. The rapid pace of urbanization and modernization concerned him. Unsurprisingly, he found inspiration in Tolstoy rather than Bakunin or Kropotkin. Shipei and his associates also made their way back to the mainland in 1917, as tensions with Japan began to mount.
The three remaining sections of anarchists all operated on the mainland, and on the whole tended to be more involved in local activism. This was particularly true of Liu Shifu's Guangzhou anarchists, who were the first to organize trade unions in China. Though all anarchists believed in a social revolution of some form, Shifu's group were the most optimistic about the time-frame in which it might occur, and least adverse to overt acts of resistance and sabotage. The fanning out of his disciples across Fujan and Shanghai also meant that they were in the best position to exert influence over the course of the revolution.
Also vital for the development of the anarchist movement was the Sea of Learning group in Beijing and Shanxi. Initially, the leading figure here was Jing Meijiu, who fell under the influence of the Tokyo anarchists. Meijiu spearheaded rural organizing that was to create a vital base for later anarchist campaigns in the countryside. In 1916 and 1917, as the despotism of Qurui's government rankled Chinese intellectuals, more were drawn into his sphere. The most well-known and important for the future of Chinese anarchism was Li Dazhao, who overcame his prior skepticism and converted to the cause sometime in 1916. His connections at Beida (Peking University) allowed him to embed himself in the June 10th movement. Such students as Mao Zedong and professors as Cai Yuanpei joined the Sea of Learning society through Li.
Finally, we must discuss the so-called "Chinese Social Party", or "Pure Socialists", led by the Buddhist monk Taixu. They had split off from the Chinese Socialist Party in 1912, likely because they were unaware of the reformist character of their agenda. Taixu's "Social party" described themselves as anarcho-communists who aimed to abolish class and educational divisions. Though most of their leading members were ordained Buddhist monks, their program did not meaningfully differ from most other radical anarchist groups. They advocated not simply the abolition of class distinctions but the elimination of all distinctions based on the state, family, and religion, as well as the practices which sustained them, such as ancestor worship and the patriarchal lineage system.
What united these diverse sections of anarchists? All were deeply skeptical of state-power, though some, such as the Paris and Sea of Learning anarchists, were willing to make temporary compromises with it. Most were internationalist-minded. All believed fervently in a social revolution which would lead to the end of class distinctions, the traditional family, and gender hierarchies. Most importantly, all were united by their conviction that such a revolution could not be achieved primarily through politics. The old habits of obedience and authority were too ingrained in the Chinese people for a revised political order to solve its problems. What was needed was a cultural revolution, a grand national re-education in which new habits and virtues would be learned by the common peoples, allowing them to rule themselves. Thus the sustained anarchist interest in establishing schools, cooperatives and "virtue societies" which encouraged individuals to give up vices and work collectively.
Such a common program would serve as the basis for an anarchist federation founded in 1917. Of course, most anarchists resisted centralization and the adoption of anything like a party-line, and initially the federation simply formalized networks of exchange that had already come into place with the second Revolutionary Alliance. Only certain chapters of Guangzhou anarchists resisted joining, but Li Dazhao's diplomacy eventually convinced them to seek entry. Innumerable smaller anarchist societies and journals soon chose to formally affiliate with the new Federation of Chinese Anarchists.
Besides the anarchists, there was only one other group which played an important role in the Second Revolutionary Alliance: Jiang Kanghu's Party of Chinese Socialists. Kanghu's own writings contain within them all the contradictions of pre-war European Social Democracy. While overtly advocating for a social revolution, he also denounced "extremism" and shied away from any use of violence. He was more liable to advocate for the equality of opportunity rather than the shared ownership of the means of production or other more ambitious forms of social egalitarianism. Kanghu's vision was, in fact, likely closest to the statist social-democracy of Sun Yat-sen, who conceived of socialism primarily as a means to temper capitalist inequality and ensure social stability. His differences with Sun were more personal than they were ideological. Despite the meekness of Kanghu's socialism (and its questionable claim to be a genuine socialism), his party won broad support amongst many urban laborers in the 1910s, and had over 475,000 members by 1917.
Not all intellectuals and activists rallied to the side of the new Revolutionary Alliance. For reasons both pragmatic and political, many decided to endorse and work within the Qurui government. Liang Qichao, one of the leading figures in the effort to reform the Qing Dynasty, steadfastly supported Qurui's dictatorship, fearing that any revolutionary upheaval would make China easy prey for the imperial powers. Hu Shi, a Deweyite liberal, found himself disaffected with both camps, and began withdrawing from politics. Such was the fate of most Chinese liberals, who were never a large camp to begin with. One exception was the young Yan Yangchu, a rural reformer with a scholarly background, who returned to China after graduating from Yale University. After journeying back to his hometown of Sichuan, he eventually made contact with the revolutionary government in Yunnan and became an associate of Sun Yat-sen.
From the June 10th Movement to the Second National Revolution
On June 10th, Britain made a public declaration of its support for Japan to annex the city of Qingdao, and also promised that it would agree to special Japanese commercial rights throughout the Shandong Peninsula. We are now aware that the Chinese government knew of these developments well before-hand, but purposely chose not to divulge the information publicly, believing that it could employ the nationalistic outrage which would result for its own purposes. This was to prove a grave mistake. The announcement was met with anger and indignation across literate and educated China, as well as among significant parts of the working classes. It very much appeared as if Japan and Britain were treating China less as a sovereign nation than a colony whose land could be apportioned out without its consultation - and there was, of course, more than a hint of truth in this.
Anti-British and Anti-Japanese riots began in Beijing, Guangzhou, and Fujan. They reached Shanghai within a few days. Students played a leading role, particularly in Beijing. Yet the sense of nationalist aggrievement was not directed solely at the foreign powers. Students, workers, and educated professionals also blamed their own government for failing to confront the forces of imperialism. Several prominent officials were lynched by students in Beijing. Anarchist societies proliferated, and a boycott on British and Japanese goods began. Into this void stepped native Chinese manufactures, typically funded by American capital. With American assistance, Qurui announced an ambitious expansion of the Beiyang Army that would "secure the territorial integrity of China from rapacious imperialism".
This did not suffice to calm the student's movement, and Qurui refused to crack down on the activists, worried about its optics. Qurui simply ignored British demands to restore order in the Chinese-controlled portions of Shanghai. On June 21st, after over a week of protests in Chinese Shanghai, a large crowd of students and workers crossed into the International section of the city, overwhelming the small British presence along the entrance into the concession. They gathered in several "Whites-only" parks from which Chinese nationals were normally prohibited and aired their grievances. This continued for three days, until the British garrison barred the entrances to the park. When the protestors attempted to breach it, two dozen of them were killed by the British soldiers. Denunciations of the British action followed not simply from Qurui, but also from William Jennings Bryan, who formally withdrew America's presence in the International settlement in protest. This action won sustained approbation in the Chinese press.
The June 10th movement slowly fizzled out over July. Students and workers could not strike indefinitely, though they often continued to boycott Japanese and British goods. However, many of them would join secretive anarchist societies, while others swore loyalty to the distant Yunnan government. Throughout the remainder of 1917 and 1918, Qurui's government was not only weakened by elite and student disapproval, but also by growing warlordism in the south and the west. Few openly declared a break from the central government, but revenues from the outlying provinces started to dry up, necessitating further American loans. The growth of industries in Beijing, Shanghai, and other parts of Eastern China prompted a rise in worker's activity. The cautious Qurui refused to employ the powerful Beiyang Army to assert his control over the provinces or the workers; he was worried that further conflict would merely open up the opportunity for Japan to extend its influence further.
When war did finally break out with Japan in early 1919, many of the more patriotically-inclined students were relieved. At last, China would be offered its opportunity to avenge the outrage of 1895 and take its rightful presence on the world-stage. Duan's government could no longer shy away from confrontation with imperialism, and with any luck, the war would bring China together and at last permit a modern nation to be forged. While some anarchists were worried about the "nativism" that the war might provoke, almost none wished to offer active resistance to a government fighting a war of national defense. When Sun Yat-sen announced the official dissolution of the Second Revolutionary Alliance and offered his support to the government, only a few Guangzhou anarchists objected. The anarchist federation endorsed a "people's war of defense" against Japan. Duan chose to accept the support of the southern governors and Sun, and appointed individuals associated with them to positions in his government. Bryan, in fact, had urged Duan to do this, and promised him that America would do everything it could to support China in the coming war short of attacking Japan outright.
The vast majority of historians writing about the Second Sino-Japanese war have been impressed with the performance, professionalism, and tactical prowess of Duan Qurui's Chinese National Army. Japan was never able to destroy the core of the Beiyang Army, which was supplied with American artillery and trained by American advisors. The long retreat into the south and the west was meant to play for time, until Germany defeated the western powers and could direct its navy against Japan, or America could be persuaded to join the war outright.
The assessment of historians, however, did not match the perception of the Chinese population. The loss of Beijing stung bitterly. Qurui could only delay but could not entirely halt Japan's advance toward Nanjing. Tens of thousands of students, professionals, and literati evacuated Northern China in the wake of the Japanese assault. The military effort of the government came under withering criticism. This was not helped by the desperate logistical situation of the National Army, which forced them to plunder the countryside to stay in the field. Chinese peasants did not show a uniform enthusiasm for the war.
By evacuating to Wuhan, Qurui's government also put itself in far less friendly territory. The provincial governor was known to have sympathies for Sun Yat-sen, who was recently allowed to return to Guangzhou, where he and Chen Jiongming established their own power base and began redistributing the property of landowners and merchants. The anti-imperialist ideology of the Chinese radicals soared in popularity during the war, even as skeptical voices warned that the time was not ripe to litigate the matter of "social revolution" until the Japanese invader was expelled.
What was the situation of the Chinese left in 1920? The anarchists had benefited tremendously from both the Soviet Revolution and, to a lesser extent, from the May 10th movement. Whatever their differences with the Bolsheviks, most anarchists - and other Chinese intellectuals - saw the events unfolding in Russia as conterminous with the anarchist's own ideas. The boundaries between different strands of Chinese radicalism were rarely delineated very clearly. Most journalists, commentators, and other Chinese thinkers thought that an "Anarchist revolution" was occurring in Russia, and believed that native Chinese anarchists were advocating a revolution along similar lines.
The war against Japan presented far greater difficulties for the anarchists. They struggled to justify their support for it in strictly anarchist terms. Li Dazhao initially argued that foreign imperialism would need to be confronted before a social revolution could take place, though this hardly satisfied the more hardline anarchist radicals. The November Revolutions in Europe posed even greater problems for the leadership; while there was a massive upswing in popular unrest, labor mobilizing, and utopian ideation all across China, anarchists found themselves torn between their loyalty to the nation and loyalty to the revolution. The anarchist federation met in Guangzhou in early 1920 and endorsed the formation of "independent" anarchist militias, but these were quickly folded into the chain of command of Sun Yat-sen's regional army. Nonetheless, they resolved to continue organizing, but without opposing the efforts of the Qurui government. In reality, however, the federation did not have the ability to impose a unified line on the diverse anarchist organizations and societies, and in fact, the Guangzhou and then - in the middle of 1920 - the Northern "sea of learning" anarchists led by Li Dazhao would meet with Sun Yat-sen and agree to support his coup attempt.
By all accounts, the anarchists played an important part in the "Second National Revolution" in Wuhan. So too, however, did the Chinese Socialist Party, which was far less squeamish about committing to political action. The anarchist federation once again met, this time discussing whether they would take positions in Sun's new government. His closeness to the Americans made some of them quite skeptical. But there were also concerns that refraining from participation would lead to their marginalization. In the end, Li, Taixu, and Zhihui agreed to serve in advisory roles.
At this point, differences were starting to emerge between the anarchists themselves. Thus far, the feverish and nationalistic environment of wartime China propelled most anarchists to minimize the differences between them, but the question of participation in government now forced their hand. Chen Duxiu, once a prominent professor at Peking University and leader of the "New Youth" movement, excoriated the "Guangzhou utopians" and the "Confucian moralists" alike, both of whom, he argued, wished to dispense with the necessary practical tasks of politics. The anarchist federation noted their disapproval, but a vote to expel Chen failed when Dazhao, his former student, spoke in his defense. Clearer lines were now drawn between the populist agrarian radicalism of Dazhao, the reformist moralism of the Paris school, and the syndicalist actionism of the Guangzhou group.
The Nationalist coup occurred almost bloodlessly. The soldiers of the Beiyang Army, currently on the front, were sympathetic enough to Sun's project, and most of Duan's senior officers swore loyalty to the new government. Those who did not were arrested as potential saboteurs. At first, the political situation proved far more challenging than the military one. The unwieldy "national committee" of the new government included Sun Yat-sen, Wang Jingwei, Hu Hanmin, and Chen Jiongming, all representatives of Yat-sen's "Chinese Nationalist Party", or Kuomintang. However, Jiang Kanghu's reformist socialists were also given an important role, and though the anarchists technically served in strictly advisory roles, in practice their counsel was seldom entirely ignored. At American insistence, Yan Yangchu and Hu Shi, two liberals, were also placed on the committee. Disagreements were endemic, and tensions within the government rose when there were further military setbacks to the east. An effort to place Kuomintang loyalists into the Beiyang army was stifled by both the non-kuomintang representatives on the executive committee and the reticence of the senior officers. Sun privately worried that his own fate might resemble that of European leaders in the Great War.
In practice, however, the left took pains to distinguish China's war of national defense from an inter-imperialist war and did little to actively undermine the government. In fact, the activity of anarchist-aligned peasant guerillas behind Japanese lines did a great deal to disrupt Japanese logistics and prevent a crushing offensive toward Wuhan in 1920. American involvement, meanwhile, forced the Japanese to divert increasing numbers of forces to the east. Japan hoped to force America into attritional warfare that would sour its public on the war, allowing them to conclude a separate peace before knocking out the Wuhan government.
The long pause in campaigning over 1921 and 1922 permitted Yat'sen's government to begin the crucial project of state-building. Under great pressure from Sun and his allies, Jiang Kanghu folded his organization into the Nationalist party in exchange for a position of leadership. The centralist re-ordering of the state slowly started to alienate some of Sun's allies, but they could not do much to actively resist the government without being branded as traitors; Chen Jingmiong kept his reservations about Sun largely to himself, though he did begin covertly establishing connections with some of the anarchists.
Over 1922, as the Japanese navy suffered defeats in the Philippine Sea, American aid began arriving in China. This gave the government a crucial new tool for consolidating its power and expanding its influence: material largesse. Military commanders who agreed to promote Kuomintang-sympathetic junior officers were given access to the latest equipment, and friendly provincial governors granted priority for food shipments. A new state bureaucracy, largely loyal to the Kuomintang, was gradually constructed with American money. At terrible cost to the Beiyang Army, it began an offensive in 1923 that pushed the Japanese away from the outskirts of Wuhan.
Yat-sen's reforms were made easier by internal divisions in the anarchist camp and the broader left-wing opposition. When news reached China of IntRevMAr's decision to consign anarchist organizations to a purely advisory role, a furious debate broke out on the left. The differences between different left-radical currents could no longer be ignored. Chinese intellectuals tended to focus upon the "dictatorship of the proletariat" clause as the key dividing line between anarchists and socialists. The rural organizers of the Sea of Learning school engaged in a lengthy polemic against this tenet of traditional Marxism, arguing that it was exclusionary of social classes vital to a revolution. More conservative and agrarian-minded anarchists agreed, contending that Marxism was a doctrine which was devised for the "capitalist west" and not for the "Chinese peoples". Not all agreed. Li Dazhao broke from his own association, as did Taixu; both insisted on the need for a "broad alliance of workers and peasants". In a future social revolution, each would be vital, but this did not imply any hard break with IntRevMar. After all, China's peasants were themselves in the process of being "proletarianized". And the "dictatorship" needn't violate any anarchist principles, insofar as it was meant to be a strictly provisional and temporary construction.
At the Fourth general congress of the anarchist federation, a more conciliatory line won out. Ou Shengbai, a prominent Guangzhou anarchist who had done important activist and organizing work in Nanjing, was sent to Berlin, where he was instructed to request admission to IntRevMar in return for a series of concessions. "Owing to the present state of social development in China", Shengbai explained to the permanent standing committee of the Third Internationale, "We see no need to recognize any class as having a leading role, nor wish to establish a dictatorship on behalf of any particular group; our goal is to create a society in which all laboring peoples may live free of class oppression, and we believe that it is the education and activity of all oppressed peoples that will achieve this goal. The peasantry and rural folk of China are as desirous of the future world of socialism as all their brethren in the cities." Unlike some other anarchist organizations, Shengbai explained, the Chinese Anarchist Federation was a truly internationalist group which wished to participate in the new revolutionary union. All that was required, he said, was that the anarchist federation be exempted from the first two conditions of entry, which demanded an acceptance of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the creation of an executive committee composed of the most advanced sections of the working-class.
It appears that the Standing Committee knew relatively little of the Chinese anarchists and their sympathy for revolutionary socialism. Leon Trotsky, Karl Radek, and Paul Levi, all members of the committee, likened Shengbai's politics to those of the Russian socialist-revolutionaries. With the red-green civil war still fresh in their memories, they did not receive his request with particular favour or tact. The committee failed to see any reason for the Chinese anarchists to be offered an exemption, and instead suggested - to Shengbai's shock - that the federation be dissolved into two separate parties for the peasantry and socialist workers. The latter would be welcome as a full member, and the former in an advisory role.
Shengbai soon returned to China. He was not the only one coming back. During the 1910s, an anarchist-funded work study program had offered numerous opportunities for bright - or well-connected - Chinese youth to study in Paris. Following the outbreak of revolution, many of these students returned to China, but three of them - Shen Dingyi, Shi Cuntong, and Zhou Enlai - chose to remain in revolutionary France, where they contributed to a small Chinese-language journal while there. All three became converts to radical politics, and at varying points lived in both the anarcho-syndicalist controlled Rhone region and in red Paris. They were thus some of the only Chinese citizens with firsthand experience of both anarchism and socialist worker's democracy. Only Zhou Enlai had travelled more broadly, visiting revolutionary Berlin and Amsterdam.
All filtered back into the revolutionary atmosphere of Guangzhou in 1923. They found the local anarchists in the midst of a scathing internal debate. How to respond to IntRevMar's refusal to admit the Anarchist Federation as a full member? To many radicals who had not previously distinguished between anarchism and socialism, this had come as a jarring shock. Some denounced it as another example of western imperialism, and urged the anarchist federation to embark upon its own path to revolution. Others believed that IntRevMar's response was the consequence of a misunderstanding, and urged the federation to send another, different delegate.
Li Dazhao, now one of the leading representatives of Chinese anarchism, had been set on the backfoot by the rhetorical and political prowess of his former professor Chen Duxiu. Chen argued that many of the anarchists, in their strict focus on "moral education", had in fact still been in thrall to the old confucian heritage. The revolutionary science of Marxism described a clear path to revolution which involved not "inner self-purification" but the "hard, practical work of revolutionary politics". Anything else was simply "native utopianism", and the claim that China's situation was different amounted to little else besides national particularism. Refusing to submit fully to IntRevMar's ten conditions would throw the Chinese worker and peasant's movement into isolation, thereby dooming it. The internationalism of the Chinese Anarchists made it difficult for them to resist Chen's arguments, even though many objected to its tacitly marxist logic. Li, normally a sharp rhetorician, was forced to make increasing concessions to Chen over the course of their exchange, which was published in the now Guangzhou-based New Era journal.
Cuntong and Shingyi both made important, perhaps decisive contributions to this debate. They co-authored a series of articles describing what they saw as the "primary differences" between the anarchist and socialist forms of political organization. The free worker's commune of Lyon was compared favorably with the repressive soldier's state in Paris. Only in the anarchist-controlled areas were the common peoples truly capable of conducting their affairs freely and without coercion. Cuntong and Shingyi had both become disillusioned by the heavy-handed repression of the Paris government, and there was undoubtedly a certain degree of romanticization of the Rhone communes in their account. But none of the denizens of Guangzhou could know this. Zhou Enlai separately published a more balanced account, but this did not achieve nearly the same readership. The anarchists in Rhone - and, in Dingyi and Cuntong's telling, in Italy as well - had proved that a social revolution could occur without the need for a repressive state. The Rhone workers led by Pierre Monatte had accomplished this of their own accord, and so too could the Chinese people. Chen's charges of utopianism were simply false. As for IntRevMar, both agreed that the Chinese anarchists should "join their brethren in the west", but primarily to "convert them to the revolutionary creed of anarchism."
Cuntong, Shinyi, and Dazhao's line eventually won out. In August 1923, the Anarchist Federation sent a telegram to IntRevMar explaining their decision to remain a "single association of free anarchist societies, unions, and cooperatives", and requested affiliate membership. This was granted shortly thereafter, though not before Russian agents convinced Chen Duxiu to break off from the anarchist federation with a small group of his followers, founding the new Communist Party of China. In reality, it was little more than a study group, at least for now.
Between Scylla and Charbidys: Politics, Thought, and Geopolitics in the New China
On paper, the peace deal negotiated in October 1924 should have been a triumph for the new government. China had won a war with Japan. Sovereignty over Beijing and all other provinces south of Manchuria would revert to the Chinese government. Japanese naval power was, at least temporarily, shattered by the Americans, and China had a new, powerful ally across the Pacific invested in the maintenance of Chinese territorial integrity. Celebrations were in order.
Yet, at least privately, many felt disappointed by the peace, which formalized Japanese control over Manchuria and Qingdao. Having thrown off the "Manchu yoke" a little over a decade ago, China now found itself deprived of its northern territories. Matters were not helped by the encroachments of the Soviet Union, which had used China's moment of weakness to install puppet regimes in the western borderlands, principally to secure routes to Indian rebels, but also with an eye to spreading its own influence further inland. Many had fervently hoped that victory in the war would mean the end of foreign imperialism in China. In reality, however, China was fast turning into a battleground between the two rival blocs; American influence in particular was ballooning at an alarming pace, with Sun's government dependent on American-run factories and American loans.
For those patriots, nationalists, and anti-imperialists disgusted by the compromise peace, there were few outlets through which to express one's outrage. The old conservative class that had opposed Sun Yat-sen's seizure of power, largely functionaries of the old Qing dynasty, had their power shattered by the war and anyways were not fond of anti-imperialist radicalism or nationalism. The anarchists left had no desire to resume the war or engage in flights of rhetoric which might provoke another. Only the tiny Chinese Communist Party of Chen Duxiu condemned the "imperialist peace" outright, a fact which was to earn it some important converts and sympathizers in the military.
For now, the scale of American influence was not completely apparent. When Sun Yat-sen purged the anarchists and their sympathizers from his government at the request of the Americans, few attributed this to their recent allies. Sun had correctly judged that the anarchists themselves were divided on the matter of participating in government, and few organized protests were made in response. He still refrained from cracking down directly on anarchist publications, unions, and associations, hoping to consolidate the new government before confronting its potential enemies. This did not please the Americans, but they were wise enough to defer to Sun in this matter. Their participation in the war against Japan and generous aid to China had, at least temporarily, earned the trust of much of the Chinese elite. A wave of Pro-American sentiment swept across the country over 1924, and a grand parade inaugurated the opening of a new American embassy in Beijing.
Yat-sen had achieved his dream of a national revolution, but now he had to determine the shape that the new nation would take. Yat-sen still believed that to forestall radicalism, a form of "socialism" was needed, but now he clarified that this was a "Chinese Socialism" which had nothing to do with the doctrines of Marx or the utopian imaginings of the anarchists. Such socialism, he claimed, could be found in the old confucian texts, in the ideal of ren (humanity) and their emphasis on social harmony and conciliation. Even suitably qualified, this made the Americans uneasy, but Sun feared that his grasp on power would be short indeed if he did not expend his utmost efforts to tailor his government's program to the popular will.
The other question, of course, was democratic representation. Sun himself held that a period of "tutelage" was necessary before the Chinese people would be capable of democracy. After China's disastrous first experiment in Republicanism, many were liable to agree. Yat-sen promised elections in the future, but in reality, he focused on turning the nation into a party-state. Much of the local elite along the Yellow and Eastern Yangtze Rivers had been decimated by the Japanese assault; this made the task of establishing administration there more costly, but also permitted a greater range of action once it was accomplished.
Sun was never the most capable bureaucrat or administrator, and the day-to-day running of the government was largely devolved to five men: Wang Jingwei, Liao Zhongkai, Jiang Kanghu, Yan Yangchu and Hu Hanmin. At the insistence of Jingwei and Kanghu, they worked on a plan to expand the Kuomintang's mass base and construct alternative, non-parliamentary institutions which would ensure the general population could provide feedback and input to the government as it embarked on social reform. By necessity, the more ambitious plans for social democracy had to be moderated. The Americans would not tolerate a social revolution. The creation of a progressive income tax system and the implementation of more robust factory safety acts was another matter, however. This could be accomplished, but it would require the centralization of more power in Nanjing, something which was not accepted by many of the provincial governors. There was still a long road ahead in turning China into a modern and stable nation-state.
And then, of course, there was the matter of China's place in the world. The peace treaty had formalized Japanese control over Manchuria, permitting them to station over one hundred thousand troops in the northern province. So long as the government leaned on the Americans for finance and weaponry, the Soviet Union was sure to be hostile. Relations had been normalized with Britain, and much of its assets in the lower Yangtze had been bought off by the Americans, but the presence of British soldiers in Mainland China was still widely viewed as an affront.
A year after the Second Sino-Japanese War and more than a decade after the first national revolution, China was in the same predicament as it was in the Qing Era: surrounded by rapacious imperialists, besieged by alien ideologies, and struggling to construct a modern state which could establish its true independence on the world stage. Yet there was a crucial difference. In the era of high imperialism, the western powers had presented a united front: the boxer rebellion was crushed by a coalition of eight different nations. Now, that unity had been shattered. The socialists presented a potentially lethal challenge to the British imperial order, Japan and America fought for supremacy in the east, and cracks were even beginning to emerge in the Anglo-American front. In this new world, it would be all too easy to play China's multiple enemies off against one another. On September 12th, Sun Yat-sen invited the Soviet Ambassador to a private meeting in Beijing; China would one day be free of the imperialist powers, but first they would play their own game…
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It's been a day since I started following this story, and you've written an excellent chapter. I love your take on China post-1911.
- Location
- Fort Worth, TX
We the loss of Central Europe I see a lot more American and British capital being funneled into Chinese investments.
- Location
- India
- Pronouns
- He/Him
yeah, Chinese names have family names first and given names next
It's Sun that's the surname of Sun Yat-Sen, not Yat-sen, for example
Bisexual-Mart
Far from the shallow ground
- Location
- The Great State of Warshington
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Tan Sitong also feels like an interesting figure. An anarchist from a culture that is centered around respect for your superiors, and around strict social hierarchies.
I'm not sure if this is a real obscure historical figure, or a name that was derived from the surname of writer Amy Tan. Either way, he feels like an interesting figure.
I'm not sure if this is a real obscure historical figure, or a name that was derived from the surname of writer Amy Tan. Either way, he feels like an interesting figure.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
rajavlitra
"illustrator"
- Location
- qc
Damn, Taixu mentioned? Wonder what he'd do outside of radical politics. He's a major Buddhist reformer—maybe the father of modern Chinese Zen—and his ties to revolutionary ideas are partly informed by faith ("building the Pure Land on this earth").
Would he have found more followers ttl? Would the old monasteries see his efforts more favorably?
On another note, what has become of Song Jiaoren?
Would he have found more followers ttl? Would the old monasteries see his efforts more favorably?
On another note, what has become of Song Jiaoren?
Bisexual-Mart
Far from the shallow ground
- Location
- The Great State of Warshington
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Of course, why do I get the feeling that the revolutionary movement would go after the monasteries because the revolutionaries would seize the wealth of the monasteries to give to the people.
Of course, the only context I have for this is Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries in 1537. Come to think of it I wonder what happened to the old monasteries in the OTL Chinese Revolutionary period of the 1930s and 1940s.
Of course, the only context I have for this is Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries in 1537. Come to think of it I wonder what happened to the old monasteries in the OTL Chinese Revolutionary period of the 1930s and 1940s.