Kang Keqing: from Victor to Victim Rebecca Pullano SUNY Geneseo
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Proceedings of GREAT Day Volume 2011 Article 19 2012 Kang Keqing: From Victor to Victim Rebecca Pullano SUNY Geneseo Follow this and additional works at: https://knightscholar.geneseo.edu/proceedings-of-great-day Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Recommended Citation Pullano, Rebecca (2012) "Kang Keqing: From Victor to Victim," Proceedings of GREAT Day: Vol. 2011 , Article 19. Available at: https://knightscholar.geneseo.edu/proceedings-of-great-day/vol2011/iss1/19 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the GREAT Day at KnightScholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in Proceedings of GREAT Day by an authorized editor of KnightScholar. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Pullano: Kang Keqing Kang Keqing: From Victor to Victim Rebecca Pullano Since the earliest recorded times in Chinese Communist Movement that began shortly after the history, women had been considered inferior to fall of the Qing Dynasty in the 1920s,5 and, later, men. However, the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, which in 19111 marked the commencement of the lasted from 1966 to 1976,6 is Kang Kequing, destruction of traditional Chinese culture; this known as the “Girl Commander” in the Red Army. cultural change coincident with the growing seeds Traditional China was dominated by of Communism in the country, led to the Confucian teachings, which stated that “women in incorporation of women into society in a seemingly the human order should be lowly and inferior like more egalitarian manner. Yet, despite an outward the earth,”7 but the dawn of modern China brought appearance of equality, it is likely that providing about reforms that were promising in terms of women with greater rights was, in fact, a purposeful rights gained by women. After the collapse of the strategy of Mao Zedong and the Chinese Qing Dynasty, the two factions of the United Front, Communist Party intended to gain support for the Kuomintang Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communism. In fact, one could argue that, Communist Party (CCP), found themselves although women had significantly more freedom engaged in a power struggle for leadership of after the fall of the Qing Dynasty than they had China. The KMT was “the party of wealthy gentry experienced in traditional China, the nation was and landlords, [and it] had no place for peasants of still based in patriarchy, men and women were not women in either their political or military treated equally. The façade of power that women organisations.”8 The CCP, on the other hand, took assumed during the Communist Revolution is advantage of the fact that women had been essentially a microcosm that reflects the larger oppressed for so long. Rather than exclude women picture of Mao Zedong’s rule. Mao frequently used from joining the movement, “the CCP slowly false appearances in order to secure his personal rebuilt its popular support during the 1930s under power as the head of China, especially throughout [Mao Zedong’s] rule, [and] its focus shifted from the Cultural Revolution. For example, during the urban to rural recruitment, including the women of Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, which began China’s huge peasant class.”9 During the in the mid-1960s,2 many Communist Party revolutionary struggles, women played a vital role members who were essentially responsible for in the Communist cause, as they found themselves helping Mao rise to power were removed from involved in production of resources and propaganda power on unreasonable grounds and shunned by campaigns. In addition, according to historian Mao, who “preferred to use the masses more Bernard Cook, “Communist women’s groups directly”3 to accomplish his goals because they focused on maintaining morale and enhancing were more willing to accept his beliefs without women’s status within the family and the questioning him as higher party cadres were more Communist movement.”10 Because Mao and the 4 likely to do. One important woman in Chinese history who exemplifies the notion of appearance 5 Marc J. Belcher, China Against the Tides: versus reality under Mao’s rule during the Chinese Restructuring through Revolution Radicalism, and Reform, Third Edition (New York: The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc., 2010), 205. 6 William J. Duiker, Contemporary World History, Fifth Edition (Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2010), 1 Maria R. Haberfield and Ibrahim Cerrah, Comparative 269. Policing: The Struggle for Democratization (California: 7 Arvind Sharma, ed., Women in World Religions Sage Publications, 2008), 16. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987), 2 William J. Duiker, Contemporary World History, Fifth 140. Edition (Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2010), 8 Lily Xiao Hong Lee and Sue Wiles, Women of 269. the Long March. (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1999), 79. 3 R. Keith Schoppa, Revolution and Its Past: Identities 9 Bernard A. Cook, Women and War: a Historical and Change in Modern Chinese History, Third Edition Encyclopedia from Antiquity to the Present, Volume 1. (New York: Prentice Hall, 2011), 348. (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2006),108. 4 Ibid., 346- 349. 10 Ibid., 109. 161 Published by KnightScholar, 2012 1 Proceedings of GREAT Day, Vol. 2011 [2012], Art. 19 CCP offered women greater rights, women were 1926, Kang “joined the Communist Youth and was naturally drawn to support them, and holding made captain of the Young Pioneers.”15 In an leadership positions in the CCP made women feel interview with Helen Foster Snow, Kang as though they played an important role in the referenced a massacre in February 1927 during cause for which they were fighting. Kang, for which the KMT mercilessly murdered a thousand example, chose to support the CCP because she peasants, many of whom were not even was able to get more involved and was offered Communists, in Kang’s district. She said “‘The more personal and professional freedom. It is killing of my comrades made me furiously angry possible that, because the KMT was more exclusive and more revolutionary than before.’”16 Motivated in its membership, the CCP was able to gain by the Communists’ cause, Kang joined the Fourth momentum and emerge victorious from the struggle Front Army in 1928 to avoid an arranged marriage for leadership in China in the 1940s. set up by her foster father. While working in Later, after the CCP celebrated success and Jinggangshan, where the Red Army base was Mao emerged as China’s leader, the women’s located, Kang Keqing met Zhu De,17 the “ ‘father’ movement continued as reforms were being made of the Chinese Red Army.”18 Although he was in the country. For example, a 1951 speech made married when they met, his wife at the time, Wu by Teng Ying-chao, Vice-President of the All Yulan, was captured and decapitated by Nationalist China Democratic Women’s Federation proclaimed soldiers in 1929, and a few months later, Zhu and that the People’s Republic of China (PRC), led by Kang were married. Kang admits that she was not the CCP, made significant reforms that gave in love with Zhu when she first married him, but women “ ‘equal rights with men in political, she was drawn to his devotion to the Communists’ economic, cultural, educational, and social life.’ ”11 cause and had great respect for him.19 As will be However, as evident from the experiences of seen later on, this marriage allowed Kang Keqing female Red Army general Kang Kequing, Mao and significant benefits as a woman. She used her the Communist party leaders did not intend to guanxi20 as Zhi De’s wife to her advantage, gaining equate women’s status to that of their male opportunities that she would not normally have had counterparts. as a woman.21 Kang Keqing was born in 1911 to a poor In 1930, the Fourth Front Army, pressured by peasant family in Jiangxi Province, where she was the Nationalists, evacuated Jinggangshan and adopted into a nearby farmer’s family because her reestablished their base in Jiangxi.22 Kang travelled biological parents were too poor to raise Kang 12 themselves. Unfortunately, the family into which 15 Anne Commire and Deborah Klezmer, ed., Women in Kang Kequing was adopted became financially World History. A Biographical Encyclopedia. Volume insecure, so when Communist organizers came to 8: Jab - Kyt (Waterford, CT: Yorkin Publications, her village in 1926, her adopted family was enticed 2000), 440. by the benefits Communism seemed to offer. In 16 Nym Wales, The Chinese Communists: Sketches and fact, her foster father was so enchanted with the Autobiographies of the Old Guard: Book 1: Red Dust, ideas of Communism that he became the head of Book 2: Autobiographical Sketches, Books 1-2, 13 (Greenwood Pub. Co., 1952), 213. the village’s Peasant Union. Kang was also 17 captivated by these ideas and was repulsed by the Lily Xiao Hong Lee and Sue Wiles. Women of the Long March. (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1999), 80. “rapacious landlords and gentry of the KMT… 18 Anne Commire and Deborah Klezmer, ed., Women in [whose] soldiers and landlord militiamen World History. A Biographical Encyclopedia. Volume 14 committed atrocious acts of intimidation.” In 8: Jab - Kyt (Waterford, CT: Yorkin Publications, 2000), 440. 19 11 Teng Ying-chao, The Women’s Movement in New Dean King, Unbound (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2010), 37. China (All China Democratic Women’s Federation, 20 1952), 1. Guanxi describes the interplay of a complex network 12 Anne Commire and Deborah Klezmer, ed., of personal and social relationships. It can be understood in terms of it not being just what you Women in World History. A Biographical know, but also whom you know” [definition from Encyclopedia.