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The Paris Commune in Shanghai: the Masses, the State, and Dynamics of “Continuous Revolution”

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The Paris Commune in Shanghai: the Masses, the State, and Dynamics of “Continuous Revolution” The Paris Commune in Shanghai: the Masses, the State, and Dynamics of “Continuous Revolution” by Hongsheng Jiang Program in Literature Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Michael Hardt, Supervisor ___________________________ Fredric Jameson ___________________________ Kenneth Surin ___________________________ Leo Ching Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Program in Literature in the Graduate School of Duke University 2010 ABSTRACT The Paris Commune in Shanghai: the Masses, the State, and Dynamics of “Continuous Revolution” by Hongsheng Jiang Program in Literature Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Michael Hardt, Supervisor ___________________________ Fredric Jameson ___________________________ Kenneth Surin ___________________________ Leo Ching An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Program in Literature in the Graduate School of Duke University 2010 Copyright by Hongsheng Jiang 2010 Abstract In 1871, during the Franco-Prussian War, the Parisian workers revolted against the bourgeois government and established the Paris Commune. Extolling it as the first workers’ government, classical Marxist writers took it as an exemplary—though embryonic— model of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The principles of the Paris Commune, according to Marx, lay in that “the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.” General elections and the abolishment of a standing army were regarded by classical Marxist writers as defining features of the organ of power established in the Paris Commune. After the defeat of the Paris Commune, the Marxist interpretation of the Commune was widely propagated throughout the world, including in China. 20th century China has been rich with experiences of Commune-type theories and practices. At the end of 1966 and the beginning of 1967, inspired by the Maoist theory of continuous revolution and the vision of a Commune-type state structure, the rebel workers in Shanghai, together with rebellious students and revolutionary party cadres and leaders, took the bold initiative to overthrow the old power structure from below. On Feb.5, 1967, the Shanghai workers established the Shanghai Commune modeled upon the Paris Commune. This became known as the January Storm. After Mao’s death in 1976, the communist party and government in China has rewritten history, attacking the Cultural Revolution. And the Shanghai Commune has barely been mentioned in China, let alone careful evaluation and in-depth study. This iv dissertation attempts to recover this lost yet crucial history by exploring in historical detail the origin, development and supersession of the Shanghai Commune. Examining the role of different mass organizations during the January Storm in Shanghai, I attempt to offer a full picture of the Maoist mass movement based on the theory of continuous revolution. Disagreeing with some critics’ arguments that the Shanghai Commune was a negation of the party-state, I argue that it neither negated the party nor the state. Instead, the Shanghai Commune embodied the seeds of a novel state structure that empowers the masses by relegating some of the state power to mass representatives and mass organs. Differing from the common narrative and most scholarship in the post-Mao era, I argue that the commune movement in the beginning of 1967 facilitated revolutionary changes in Chinese society and state structure. The Shanghai Commune and the Shanghai Revolutionary Committee developed as ruling bodies that did not hold general elections or abolish the standing army and in this way did not replicate the Paris Commune. But in contrast to the old Shanghai organs of power, they were largely in conformity with the principles of the Paris Commune by smashing the Old and establishing the New. Some of their creative measures, “socialist new things”, anticipated the features of a communal state –a state that does not eradicate class struggle yet begins to initiate the long process of the withering away of the state itself. v Dedication To my father Jiang Ronghua, a champion of People’s Communes and a devotee and practitioner of people’s education in rural China during the Mao Era, who died in his middle fifties during the Deng Xiaoping Era, when all the People’s Communes were dismantled, and people’s education was replaced by elite education. To the Shanghai Communards in 1967, who dared to rebel against imperialists, revisionists, and reactionaries. vi Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................iv Abbreviations.............................................................................................................x Acknowledgements.................................................................................................xi Introduction ................................................................................................................1 Recovering a Lost History: Unraveling the Shanghai Commune in 1967 ......................1 The Suppression of Cultural Revolution Activists and Burning of Cultural Revolution Books: Difficulties of Studying the Cultural Revolution ................................................14 My Use of Materials...........................................................................................................20 Chapter One: The Paris Commune Goes To China: Historical Contour and Scholarship of the Shanghai Commune...................................................28 A Chinese Eye-witness of the Paris Commune ................................................................28 Obliteration and Commemoration of the Paris Commune in the West ........................35 The Commune Practice in China......................................................................................44 Scholarship on the Shanghai Commune and Contemporary Chinese Commune Thinking..............................................................................................................................58 Memoirs of Foreign Observers of the Shanghai Commune .....................................................59 Early Western scholarship on the Shanghai Commune ...........................................................64 Chinese Scholarship Aimed At Negating the Shanghai Commune..........................................72 The Marxist Elegies to the Shanghai Commune in the West after 1976 Coup .......................83 Western China Scholars’ Rediscovery of the Shanghai Commune..........................................92 Badiou and Zizek on Revolution and the Shanghai Commune ...............................................99 Recent Chinese Reappraisals of the Shanghai Commune...................................................... 112 Chapter Two: Lessons of the Paris Commune: Classical Marxist Writers on the State.............................................................................................................121 The Paris Commune: An Embryonic Model of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat ..121 The Communal Semi-State..............................................................................................137 Class Struggle in the Commune State.............................................................................148 Chapter Three: Envisioning a Wholly New Form of State Structure.......168 The Two-line Struggle within the CCP and the Formation of Continuous Revolution ............................................................................................................................................170 The Paris Commune in the “Bourgeois Rights” (faquan) Debate: Theoretical Debut of Zhang Chunqiao...............................................................................................................188 Smashing the Old and Establishing the New: Zheng Zhisi’s Interpretation of the Paris vii Commune..........................................................................................................................195 Mass Movement and “The Declaration of the Chinese Paris Commune”..................206 The Sixteen Points: Call for Modeling upon the Paris Commune................................222 Proletarian Dictatorship, General Election and the Paris Commune.........................234 Chapter Four: The Road to the Shanghai January Revolution ................241 A So-called “Paris Commune-Style Election” at Shanghai No.17 Textile Mill...........241 The Formation of the Shanghai Workers' Revolutionary Rebel General Headquarters (WGH) and the Anting Battle .........................................................................................249 Bureaucratized Strikes and the Spate of Economism ...................................................265 The Committee of Grasping Revolution and Promoting Production: New Power Organ and Self-governance of Workers in Shanghai Glass Factory...........................289 Wild Fire Spreads: A Counter-offensive of Economism and Mass Takeover during the January Storm..................................................................................................................301 Chapter Five: The Rise of the Shanghai Commune ....................................327 The Dual Power in the January Storm...........................................................................327
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