EDWARD N. SMITH Throughout the twentieth century, China and its people witnessed great—often violent—social changes, from dynastic imperial rule of the Qing and foreign encroachment at the start of the century, to the era of rule by warlords and the Guomindang, to brutal colonial conquests by Japan, and finally the establishment of Communist government and the Party’s growing pains of the latter half of the century. During the opening of the century, decidedly anti-foreign sentiment resulted in the violent popular movements known as the Boxer Uprising in 1900. Sixty-six years later, another social, at times violent, uprising, known as the Cultural Revolution, attempted to purify the ruling Communist Party of China. Both movements sought to define what it meant to be Chinese in the face of alternative views through the overwhelming force of people in motion. In this time of defining terms, women played critical roles as they too sought to find their place both in terms of nationality and gender. Despite this, whether by circumstance or by choice, women received “scant notice”[1] in historical accounts of twentieth century social unrest in China. Interestingly, in the case of these two uprisings, female participants shared similar characteristics of social background, age, and location that ultimately contributed to their choice to engage in social unrest. These demographic details should serve to inform our understanding both of Chinese history in the twentieth century and provide insights—and perhaps inspiration—to seek out other instances of women’s movements in history to build a more complete narrative.
Examination of the backgrounds of women, known as Red Lanterns, who participated in the Boxer Uprising and the female participants in the Cultural Revolution revealed a series of shared characteristics in their family backgrounds. In the case of those who participated in the Boxer Uprising, as a whole seventy percent of the movement’s composition consisted of young men from meager backgrounds while itinerants and artisans composed the remainder.[2] Many of the recruits came from agricultural backgrounds or the labor force and, due to natural disasters, such as drought, forced into desperation.[3] While these figures principally presented the male side of the Boxer Uprising, some conclusions regarding female participation therein arose from which researchers may extrapolate reasonably information about the remaining thirty percent of Red Lanterns. First, humble parentage and occupations, such as those in agriculture and artistry, formed the largest composition of social classes. The parentage and background of the “supreme leader”[4] of the Red Lanterns, Hung-lien Shêng-mu, validated this assertion. Hung-lien Shêng-mu came from a “modest origin;”[5]either that of a boatman’s daughter or she made a living on her own as a prostitute.[6] Further, if family patriarchs chose to rebel because of suffering brought about by natural disasters, then the premise that daughters also joined in upheaval because of either reliance on their fathers or support or sympathies with their unrest is not beyond reason. As a marginalized demographic to begin with, further aggravated by increased economic pressures on already oppressed classes, gave a promising image to participation as a Red Lantern in the Boxer Uprising. As for female participants in the Cultural Revolution, women with similar family circumstances formed a large part of the membership. According to the memoir Wang Zheng, one female witness of and participant in the Cultural Revolution, “only students from Red families were allowed to join the Red Guards.”[7] Red Families included five categories of social background: workers, poor and lower-middle peasants, revolutionary cadres, revolutionary service members, and revolutionary Martyrs.[8] In the case of the Red Guard, just as that of the Red Lanterns, the predominant backgrounds consisted of modest origins, such as the peasantry. However, the preferred membership of the Red Guards included the addition of members from revolutionary parentage, such as the descendants of cadre members, those with parents in the People’s Revolutionary Army, or children of those killed in the name of spreading the message of the Chinese Communist Party. Despite this seemingly limiting factor of restricted membership in the Red Guard, similar class origins defined membership in both groups. Women who participated in the social unrest of the Red Lanterns and the Red Guards shared similar ages in addition to similar socio-economic backgrounds. In the case of the Red Lanterns, their range of ages appeared among the scarce details of their activities. Historian Paul A. Cohen described the composed membership of the Red Lanterns as “teenage girls and unmarried women.”[9] John D. Spence added a degree of specificity to the range of age to between 12 and 18 years, and included that virginity acted as a prerequisite for membership.[10] The young ages of Red Lanterns identified with those who plausibly still resided with their parents prior to the arrangement of marriage or those who failed to be self-sufficient at the time the Boxer Uprising initiated. The prerequisite of virginity reasonably excluded married womenor mothers from participating in the activities of the Red Lanterns. Obligations of managing households or physical limitations due to age excluded married and elderly women from participation in the Red Lanterns, especially under more violent circumstances. Conversely, while young girls shared the responsibility of chores with other family members, being unrestricted by demands of husbands or children allotted greater potential for the Red Lanterns to participate in the uprising. Female members of the Red Guards occupied and age group that spanned from high school to college age.[11] This range bore a strong similarity to the Red Lanterns. The period of adolescence that both the Red Lanterns and the Red Guards commonly shared may offer some evidence as to why these young women participated in these violent uprisings. Commonly, this period of development received characterization as a time when young people struggled with self-identity and seek to define themselves to their society, to their peers, and to themselves. Where one would expect in a traditional Chinese society, this would mean a good Confucian girl would define herself in those roles as a loyal daughter and wife, or a demure and subservient possible wife. In these cases of social unrest, however, other outlets of identity proved appealing to those seeking identity outside of these strict social constraints. Through association with the movements of the Red Lanterns and the Red Guards, young women achieved a level of socialization and self-identity through association that provided alternatives. The locations of origin of the Red Lanterns and the Red Guard movements both arose in the northern region of China—an interesting variation since the origins of social uprising in China historically occurred in the southern regions. The Red Lanterns began in the early months of 1900, in Zhili. Historian Paul Cohen reported the “high water mark” of Red Lantern activity occurred within the municipality of Tianjin.[12] The prominence of nautical geographic features in Tianjin played an important factor in the origination of Red Lantern activity in the area. The Bohao Wan Gulf, an extension of the Huang Hai or Yellow Sea, for example, laid a relatively short distance, slightly greater than 50 kilometers (or approximately 32 miles), from Tianjin. Furthermore, the Haihe water system flowed into the Bohao Gulf and bisected Tianjin. The access to sea afforded by the water systems of Tianjin made it possible for Western powers, which largely relied on maritime transportation and superiority, admission to the city of Tianjin and other inner regions of China. With Western powers commonly in their midst, young women personally witnessed the presence of foreigners that motivated the larger Boxer movement to violence. The beginning of the student organization that served as a model for other student factions leading to the Red Guard originated in Beijing at Qīnghuá middle school attached to Qīnghuá University.[13] In a similar manner to the discussion of the circumstances of the Red Lanterns, elements of geography and location influenced the rise of Red Guard activity. Beijing contained a dense population that required education to continued indoctrination of new generations in communist theory and rhetoric. However, administers of education—among others—became targets of Chairman’s Mao Zedong’s accusations of a reactionary infection in the Party. Chairman Mao described the teachers to struggle against as those who “treated the students as their enemies.”[14] Young students, eager for what one young female future Red Guard, Rae Yang, described as revenge attacked educators with dazibao (criticism in big characters) and other forms of “political denunciation” and “violent tactics.”[15] Safe from reprimand due to public praise received from Chairman Mao, the Red Guard grew and flourished in the densely packed city of Beijing. However, unlike the Red Lanterns, the Red Guard eventually burst forth from the city of Beijing and spread into the extremities of China to guard against a slackening of Communist ideals. One key area of seeming difference historians have evaluated is the role of ideology in the movements. According to Jerome Ch’én, participants of the Boxer Uprising shared no common ideology.[16] This contrasted strongly against the Red Guards whose motivation to reinforce Communist ideology across China drove their movement. This analysis, however, disregarded a central motivation in the Boxer Uprising, id est, Chinese nationalism and anti-foreign sentiment. So strong is this connection of ideas being a source of motivation between the two groups that quickly the Red Lanterns became the poster children—literally—for females in the Red Guards.[17] Though the ideologies came from different philosophical underpinnings, the role of ideology influenced both groups to a considerable degree. Because of the similarities in social backgrounds, age, and general region, it is of little wonder that during the Cultural Revolution the Red Guard would hearken back with socialist reverence to the Red Lanterns. In 1967, a “dramatic upsurge of articles on the Boxers” appeared in the press,”[18] more because of shared characteristics such as those aforementioned as opposed to factual historical accounts.[19] During the Cultural Revolution, the Party line put forth the romantic idea that the Red Lanterns and Red Guard shared a relationship of “blood brothers and sisters.”[20] While the Red Lanterns never advocated a policy of land reform or the destruction of the Qing dynasty[21] in favor of Marxist communal ownership and government, the did in a similar way express pro-Chinese sentiments. During the Cultural Revolution, clever propagandists attempted to characterize the Red Lanterns and the Boxer Uprising as “the second revolutionary high tide in contemporary Chinese history.”[22] Though a small sampling from only two tumultuous events, it stands to reason that these insights should inform our study and appreciation both of popular uprisings and, more importantly, to build a more complete appreciation of history that examines the role of women therein. [1] Paul A. Cohen, History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth. (Columbia University Press: New York, 1997), 263. [2] Jonathan D. Spence. The Search for Modern China. (W.W. Norton & Company: New York, 1999), 231. [3] Spence, 230. [4] Jerome Ch’én. “The Nature and Characteristics of the boxer Movement—A Morphological Study,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 23 (1960): 298, note 7. [5] Ch’en, 298, note 7. [6] Ch’en, 298. [7] Wang Zheng. “Call Me Qingnian but Not Funü: A Maoist Youth in Retrospect.” Feminist Studies, 27, (Spring, 2001): 25. [8] Rae Yang. Spider Eaters: A Memoir. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 137. [9] Cohen, 39. [10] Jonathan D. Spence. The Search for Modern China. (W.W. Norton & Company: New York, 1999), 231. [11] Andrew G. Walder. “Beijing Red Guard Factionalist: Social Interpretations Reconsidered.” The Journal of Asian Studies, 61 (2002): 454 and Paul Cohen. “The Contested Past: The Boxers as History and Myth.” The Journal of Asian Studies, 51 (1991), 98. 15 Cohen Three Keys, 39. [12] Cohen, 29. Searching more into records available in this region would prove fruitful in an expansion of this analysis. [13] Joel Andreas. “Battling over Political and Cultural Power during the Chinese Cultural Revolution.” Theory and Society, 31, (August 2002): 465. [14] Rae, 117. [15] Central Intelligence Agency. Red Guards and Party Purge. 19 September 1966. (Declassified 21 October 1999): 1. [16] Ch’en, 296. [17] One may even go so far as to argue that, in reinforcing Chinese Communism across the country in their time that the Red Guards were also reinforcing the anti-foreign sentiments found in early Chinese Communist Party writings. [18] Cohen, Three Keys, 263. [19] Cohen, Three Keys, 264. [20] Cohen, Three Keys, 267-268. [21] “‘People’s Daily’ on the Boxers and the ‘Forbidden Topic’ of Xenophobia” BBC Summary of World Broadcasts (12 February 1980), from “Academic notes – different views on evaluating the Boxer movement” People’s Daily (31 January 1980). [22] “‘People’s Daily’ on the Boxers and the ‘Forbidden Topic.’ Works Cited Andreas, Joel. “Battling over Political and Cultural Power during the Chinese Cultural Revolution.” Theory and Society, vol. 31, No. 4. 9August 2002): 463-519. Central Intelligence Agency. Red Guards and Party Purge. 19 September 1966. Declassified 21 October 1999. Ch’én, Jerome. “The Nature and Characteristics of the Boxer Movement—A Morphological Study,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 23 (1960): 287-308. Cohen, Paul A. History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth. Columbia University Press: New York, 1997. Cohen, Paul. “The Contested Past: The Boxers as History and Myth.” The Journal of Asian Studies, 51 (1991): 82-113. “‘People’s Daily’ on the Boxers and the “Forbidden Topic” of Xenophobia” BBC Summary of World Broadcasts (12 February 1980), from “Academic notes – different views on evaluating the Boxer movement” People’s Daily (31 January 1980). Rae Yang. Spider Eaters: A Memoir. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. Spence, Jonathan D. The Search for Modern China. W.W. Norton & Company: New York, 1999. Walder, Andrew G. “Beijing Red Guard Factionalist: Social Interpretations Reconsidered.” The Journal of Asian Studies, 61 (2002): 437-471. Wang Zheng. “Call Me Qingnian but Not Funü: A Maoist Youth in Retrospect.” Feminist Studies, 27, (Spring, 2001): 9-34.
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