Under the Gun: Nationalist Military Service and Society in Wartime Sichuan, 1938-1945 by Kevin Paul Landdeck a Dissertation
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Under the Gun: Nationalist Military Service and Society in Wartime Sichuan, 1938-1945 By Kevin Paul Landdeck A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Wen-hsin Yeh, Chair Professor Margaret Anderson Professor Kevin O’Brien Professor R. Keith Schoppa (Loyola College, Maryland) Spring 2011 Abstract Under the Gun: Nationalist Military Service and Society in Wartime Sichuan, 1938-1945 by Kevin Paul Landdeck Doctor of Philosophy in History University of California, Berkeley Professor Wen-hsin Yeh, Chair This dissertation examines the state-making and citizenship projects embedded within the Na- tionalist (KMT) government’s mobilization of men to serve in the army during World War Two. My project views wartime conscription as a fundamental break with earlier modes of recruit- ment, the gentry-led militarization of the late-Qing dynasty and the mercenary armies of the war- lords. Nationalist authorities saw compulsory service as a tool for creating genuine citizen-sol- diers and yet, while conscription was a strategic success, it proved to be a political failure. Despite the expansion of the institutional structures to extract men from their villages, conscrip- tion work was always dependent on local community elites. The result was a persistent commer- cialization of conscription, as men were hired as substitute draftees or literally bought and sold The draft became a stark lesson in political alienation from the government: individuals evaded; rural communities shielded their residents and preyed on outsiders; and Chongqing’s densely packed urban institutions defended, sometimes violently, their human resources from the state’s agents. In contrast to this political debacle, the Intellectual Youth Volunteer Movement (1943-45) was a triumph. Deracinated refugee youth – students, teachers, petty professionals and civil servants – who were already dependent on the state and ravaged by inflation, volunteered to serve in the In- tellectual Youth Army. An elite force that was ironically militarily irrelevant, the Youth Army had a political mission to legitimize the Nationalist state by embodying, and publicizing them- selves as, model citizens and elite soldiers. This study not only contributes to the history of the war in China, which remains only partially understood, but also to debates on Nationalist state-making and issues of political culture. It tackles the relatively neglected area of Nationalist-held interior society, rather than revolution in communist base areas or collaboration in Japanese occupied areas. It challenges the convention- al narrative of wholesale disintegration in the KMT-held interior, a perspective which grew out of America’s involvement in China during the war and subsequent scholarship’s focus on the revo- lutionary growth of the Communist Party. And it offers new and nuanced perspectives on the in- - 1 - stitutional expansion of the Nationalist state, its connection to the war, and the responses (both rural and urban) to state demands. The picture that emerges is one of uneven state growth, com- bined with political alienation in the countryside. On the citizenship front, my project again shows a degree of vitality in the Nationalist state that has not previously been appreciated in the literature. The Youth Army and its prolific autobiographical propaganda are analyzed to uncover the socio-economic bases of volunteerism, the careful bargain struck between the state and the volunteers, and their complex self-identities as loyal citizen-soldiers. A close analysis of the po- litical techniques to inculcate those identities and an excavation of the material object of the rifle, which stood at the center of the Youth Army’s political symbology, outline the nature of Nation- alist citizenship, not as a position endowed with “rights” but as an affirmation of the fundamental myth of the Nationalist state itself: that the state was coterminous with the people. - 2 - Table of Contents Abbreviations ii Note on Citations iv Acknowledgements v Introduction 1 Chapter One Repertoires of Recruitment: Historical Precedents and Nationalist Ideals 19 Chapter Two The Politics of Conscription: State-Building, Commercialization, and Alienation 75 Chapter Three Of Redoubts and Hotpot: Geography and State-Making in Prewar Sichuan 136 Chapter Four Patterns of Conscription: Villages, the City, and Factories 187 Chapter Five Modes and Methods of Mobilization: The Intellectual Youth Volunteer Movement and Youth Army, 1943-46 246 Chapter Six Of Pen and Gun: Political Practice, Culture, and Identity in the Youth Army 349 Conclusion Modern China as a Warfare State 431 Epilogue Postwar Youth Army: Promises Fulfilled, Loyal Services Rendered, 1946-49 447 Bibliography 465 Appendix Early Repertoires Revisited 486 - i - Abbreviations The following abbreviations are used throughout the dissertation, primarily in the foot- notes and citations. A few common institutional ones are found in the main text as well, however. 3PPYC Three People’s Principles Youth Corps (Sanmin zhuyi qingnian tuan 三民主義青年團) AD administrative oversight district (xingzheng ducha qu 行政督察區), usually preceded by a number; e.g., 3AD is the Third Administrative District BYYK Bingyi yuekan (兵役月刊) (serial) CCP Chinese Communist Party CEC Central Executive Committee (zhongyang zhixing weiyuanhui 中央執行委員會) CEF China Expeditionary Force (Zhongguo yuanzheng jun 中國遠征軍) CHoC The Cambridge History of China CQ Chongqing (重慶) (in institutional names) CQMA Chongqing Municipal Archives (Chongqingshi dang’anguan 重慶市檔案館) CQMG Chongqing Municipal Government (Chongqing shi zhengfu 重慶市政府) DD divisional district (shiguanqu 師管區) GJZGSG Guojun zhenggong shigao (國軍政工史稿) GMBT Citizen Militia (guomin bingtuan 國民兵團) GMWX Geming wenxian (革命文獻) HYQNJ Huoyue qingnian jun (活躍青年軍) IEF Indian Expeditionary Force (Yindu yuanzhengjun 印度遠征軍) IYVM Intellectual Youth Volunteer Movement (Zhishi qingnian zhiyuan yundong 知識青年志願運動) JAS Journal of Asian Studies KMT Kuomintang (Guomindang 國民黨) KRZZ Kangri zhanzheng (抗日战争 ) KRZZYJ Kangri zhanzheng yanjiu (抗日戰爭研究 ) (serial) MAC Military Affairs Commission (Junshi weiyuanhui 軍事委員會 ) MP Military Police (junjing 軍警 ) MSO Military Service Office (bingyi shu 兵役署 ) NRA National Revolutionary Army (國民革命軍 ) PD provincial (military) district (sheng junguanqu 省軍管區 ) PRC People’s Republic of China QNJS Qingnianjun shiliao (青年軍史料 ) QNYZJJY Qingnian yuanzhengjun jianying (青年遠征軍剪影 ) RD regimental district (tuanguanqu 團管區 ) RR replacement regiment (buchongtuan 補充團 ) RTO Replacement Training Office (buchongxunlian chu 補充訓練處 ) WA War Area (zhanqu 戰區 ) WSZLXY Wenshi ziliao xuanji (文史资料选辑 ) - ii - XSCJ Xuesheng congjun (學生從軍 ) YA Youth Army (Qingnianjun 青年軍 ) YC Youth Corps (see 3PPYC) YZSL Yizheng shiliao (役政史料 ) A number followed by “AG”, “A”, “D”, or “R” is a military unit; army group, army, division, or regiment, respectively. E.g., 201D is the 201st division. Preceded by a capital “N”, it designates a “New” (or reorganized) division. A number followed by “AD” is a specific special administra- tive oversight district (xingzheng ducha qu 行政督察區 ) within a province. - iii - Note on Citations for Archival Materials All archival documents from CQMA follow a specific citation format: the document group (quanzong 全宗 ) number follows “qz”; the sub-group and folder number (mujuan 目卷 ), divided by a dash, follow “mj”, and finally a page number for the specific document. For example, in the citation “qz0041.mj1-26, pp. 2a-9b and 33a-36”, the document is found on pages 2a through 9b and 33a through 36a of document group (quanzong) 41, in sub-group (mu) 1, folder (juan) num- ber 26. If a date is available, it is included after the citation, sometimes only the date the docu- ment was delivered to the receiving office is available (or legible) and this is noted by “(rec’d)” after the date. Some documents have an old and a new (re-numbered) sub-group and folder loca- tion (mujuan); in those cases both are included. Printed or published documents accessed at CQMA are cited not only by regular publishing information, but also according to the archives’ classification scheme in which they have been sorted into topical categories and assigned a specific number within that group. - iv - Acknowledgements The many pleasures of writing history are all tinged with the fact that, at bottom, it is work. No such whiff of distaste appears as I sit down to write this page of thanks for the people who have aided and abetted my research; it is an unsullied pleasure to express my gratitude for those who have supported me during my long years in graduate school. It is a fact of modern research that institutional support is almost always necessary. I have been fortunate to receive funding and assistance from several places. The History Depart- ment and the Institute for East Asian Studies at Berkeley provided me with a four-year fellow- ship. Special thanks are due to the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Ex- change for a generous dissertation research grant (2006-7) that allowed me to do my field research in Chongqing. Librarians at Stanford’s Hoover Institution were helpful, particularly in the beginning stages of the project, while Bruce Williams and Haneda Tomoko at Berkeley’s East Asian Library have given unselfishly of their time on more occasions than I can count. At the Chongqing Municipal Archives, head archivist