ANYUAN: Mining China’S Revolutionary Tradition 安源中国の革命的伝統の採掘

ANYUAN: Mining China’s Revolutionary Tradition 安源中国の革命的伝統の採掘

Elizabeth Perry

Anyuan: Mining China’s RevolutionaryChapter Two, “Teaching Revolution,” is Tradition (University of California Press, 2012) reproduced here with permission from the seeks to answer the complex question of why University of California Press. It focuses on the Chinese Communist revolution took such a these early mobilization efforts, which resulted different path from its Russian prototype. It in the influential Anyuan Great Strike of 1922 suggests that a key distinction between the two and led to Anyuan’s status as the major center revolutions lay in the Chinese Communists’ of Chinese Communist labor organizing for the creative development and deployment of following three years. cultural resources – during their rise to power and afterward. Skillful “cultural positioning” and “cultural patronage” on the part of Mao Zedong, his comrades, and successors helped to construct a polity in which a once-alien Communist system came to be accepted as familiarly “Chinese.”

The book traces this process through a case study of the Anyuan coal mine on the Jiangxi- Hunan provincial border, where Mao and other pioneers of the Chinese Communist Party – most notably Li Lisan and Liu Shaoqi – mobilized an influential labor movement at the very beginning of their revolution.

Known in that period as “China’s Little Moscow,” Anyuan served then and later as a touchstone of political correctness that over

1 11 | 1 | 4 APJ | JF time came to symbolize an authentically The Strike of 1922 Chinese revolutionary tradition. The book examines the contested meanings of that Despite an accumulation of excellent tradition throughout the history of the People’s scholarship on the Chinese Communist Republic down to the present, as Chinese revolution, we are still hard-pressed to offer a debate their revolutionary past in search of a compelling answer to a question that goes to new political future. the heart of explaining the revolution’s success: How did the intellectuals who founded the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) manage to cultivate a large and loyal following among illiterate and impoverished peasants and workers, a stratum of the populace so distant from themselves?

One might ask a similar question of many revolutions, of course, in light of the leadership role that intellectuals have typically played in nationalist and Communist movements around the world.1 It seems especially perplexing in the case of China, however, where Confucian precepts had long fostered a stark distinction between mental and manual labor. The superior status of the literati, celebrated in Mencius’s dictum that “those who labor with their brains rule over those who labor with their brawn,” contributed to a huge social and Elizabeth J. Perry is Henry Rosovsky Professor political distance between the “cultured” and of Government at Harvard University and “uncultured.” Moreover, although the Director of the Harvard-Yenching Institute and iconoclastic New Culture Movement of the author ofANYUAN: Minging China’s early twentieth century inspired many pro- Revolutionary Tradition. Other recent books gressive Chinese intellectuals, Mao Zedong include Mao’s Invisible Hand: The Political among them, to repudiate Confucianism in Foundation of Adaptive Governance in China; favor first of anarchism and then of Marxism- Patrolling the Revolution: Worker Militias, Leninism, among ordinary workers and Citizenship, and the Modern Chinese State; and peasants these radical new ideas had made few Chinese Society: Change, Conflict and inroads. Nationalism (as opposed to Resistance. xenophobia) was also initially an ideology 2 Recommended citation: Elizabeth J. Perry, largely confined to the educated elite. For ANYUAN: Mining China’s Revolutionary most Chinese, both the nation-state and the Tradition, The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol 11, social classes that supposedly comprised it Issue 1, No. 4, January 14, 2013. were still unfamiliar concepts.

As we saw in the case of the failed Ping-Liu-Li Uprising (Chapter 1), an alliance between Chapter Two - Teaching Revolution would-be revolutionaries and their purported followers was far from a foregone conclusion. Fertile ground as Anyuan was for collective

2 11 | 1 | 4 APJ | JF protest, preexisting solidarities and mentalities official government position as well as were not easily converted to alternativeresponsibility for the moral cultivation of those political purposes. Furthermore, theliving under their rule, was the institutionalized Communists were determined from the start to expression of this philosophy.8 Seen as the sur- introduce new modes of grassrootsest path to political and economic success for organization. The founding resolution of the families who could afford it, education for Chinese Communist Party, adopted in Shanghai centuries had been highly prized as a means of in July 1921, began as follows: “The basic upward mobility.9 In this particular context, mission of this party is to establish industrial “teaching revolution” would prove to be an unions.”3 The resolution went on to explain the unusually persuasive mode of popular means by which this mission was to be mobilization. accomplished, stressing the key role of education: “Because workers’ schools are a When Communist study groups first formed in stage in the process of organizing industrial Beijing and Shanghai in the wake of the 1919 unions, these sorts of schools must beMay Fourth Movement, their members established in every industrial sector. . . . The dedicated themselves to the project of main task of the workers’ schools is to raise educating workers. More than a year before the workers’ consciousness, so that they recognize formal founding of the CCP in July of 1921, the need to establish a union.”4 Communist students from Beijing had already established a school for workers at In emphasizing proletarian education, CCP Changxindian, a terminus along the Jing-Han policy drew both upon the precedent of the Railway. Within a few months, the railroad Russian Revolution (where schooling for worker-students organized a labor union that workers was an element of Bolshevik strategy) they euphemistically called a “workers’ club” and upon contemporary experiments within (gongren julebu) to avoid arousing suspicion China.5 At the time, Y. C. James Yen’s Mass among the local authorities. Soon Communist Education Movement, Huang Yanpei’sactivists in Shanghai followed the Vocational Education Campaign, and Liang Changxindian model, introducing first schools Shumin’s Rural Reconstruction Movement were and then unions among textile workers in the part of a growing number of high-profile city.10 This linkage between mass education and initiatives, intended to foster popular literacy grassroots organization was critical to the and provide practical training, which had success of the Communist revolutionary effort. captured the imaginations of many concerned young Chinese intellectuals, including aTargeting Anyuan number of future Communists.6 Equally significant for the ultimate success of the Mao Zedong, having attended the founding Chinese Communists’ pedagogical effort was congress of the Chinese Com- munist Party in the central place that education had long Shanghai before returning to his native Hunan occupied in Chinese popular and political province to head a branch of the CCP- culture. A belief in the educability of all human sponsored Labor Secretariat in Changsha, was beings, and an attendant obligation on the part eager to follow the party’s prescribed recipe for of the intel- ligentsia to provide moralproletarian mobilization. At the time, however, instruction to those with less education, were factories in Hunan were generally small and deeply ingrained precepts of both ancient and scattered, and the nascent labor movement was modern Chinese thought.7 In the late imperial under strong anarchist influence.11 The nearby period, the civil service examination system, site of Anyuan, located just across the border in which rewarded outstanding scholars with Jiangxi’s Pingxiang County, was virgin

3 11 | 1 | 4 APJ | JF territory. Its coal mine and railroad had a mobilization. Shortly after returning from the combined and concentrated labor force of over founding party congress, Mao Zedong made ten thousand workers, making it the largest another trip to Pingxiang, this time for the industrial enterprise in the area. The region’s express purpose of investigating conditions at reputation for rebelliousness rendered it of the Anyuan coal mine.13 Mao embarked on his particular interest. fact-finding mission in a period, in the fall of 1921, when the mine was experiencing severe In fact, Mao Zedong had been attracted to the economic difficulties as a result of a dramatic revolutionary potential of Pingxiang even drop in demand for coal at the end of the First before the first CCP congress. In November World War. To make matters worse, battling 1920 he traveled there for a week to enjoy the warlords had cut the critical Zhuping rail line refreshing mountain scenery and investigate and exacted a toll on the labor force through local conditions. At the time, Mao was teaching the forcible conscription of miners into their Chinese literature at the First Normal School in makeshift armies.14 That the moment was ripe Changsha to make ends meet, but most of his for agitation was clear from the fact that energy was already directed toward social several educated Hunanese railroad workers activism. Although Mao seems not to have had taken it upon themselves to write to the visited the Anyuan coal mine on his initial trip Communist Labor Secretariat, requesting that to Pingxiang, he was clearly taken by the it send someone to Anyuan to help organize a possibilities for popular mobilization in this labor movement.15 area. A few months earlier, thousands of Pingxiang peasants had engaged in a series of To make contact with the miners, however, rowdy “eat-ins” at landlords’ homes; in one required a proper introduction. On his initial instance, the peasants set fire to a landlord’s visit, Mao stayed at the home of a man from his house, incinerating several of his familyhome county of Xiangtan, a distant relative by members. Shortly after his Pingxiang journey, the name of Mao Ziyun, who happened to be Mao wrote a stirring piece entitled “Open employed as a supervisor at the coal mine. Letter to the Peasants of China” for the journal Renowned for his skill in using Chinese herbal Communist Party in which he enthusiastically medicine to heal the painful throat ailments referred to the recent uprising: “This year’s that afflicted many miners, Mao Ziyun had events in Pingxiang are inklings of dawn for the befriended a good number of Anyuan workers awakening of the Chinese peasantry. . . . It is in the course of practicing his curative exactly like the first rays of sunshine from the techniques. Living in a comfortable house just east after a pitch black night. . . . From birth outside the main entrance to the mine, Mao you have had to work like beasts of burden. . . . Ziyun was well situated to assist his visiting You just need to imitate the peasants of relative from Hunan. After being introduced to Pingxiang. . . . Of course Communism will come several miners at his kinsman’s home, Mao to your aid. . . . So long as you follow the lead Zedong ventured down into the coal pits. of the peasants of Pingxiang, Communism will release you from all suffering so that you may According to later interviews conducted with enjoy unprecedented good fortune.”12 miners who encountered Mao Zedong during this visit, Mao arrived at Anyuan carrying a Mao’s budding interest in the power of the Hunan umbrella made of oiled paper and peasantry notwithstanding, at this early stage dressed in a long blue Mandarin gown of the in its history the newly established Chinese sort worn by teachers at the time.16 Mao’s Communist Party was oriented towardscholarly demeanor left a deep impression proletarian—rather than peasant—upon the workers, who recalled being surprised

4 11 | 1 | 4 APJ | JF by the peculiar sight of a privileged intellectual dialect, was able to converse easily with the anxious to interact with lowly coal miners. The workers—most of whom shared his Hunan Confucian separation between mental and origins—and by week’s end he had shed his manual labor rendered such a cross-class scholar’s gown in favor of a pair of trousers, encounter unusual, to say the least. The miners which were more suitable for forays down into were not the only ones struck by the cultural the mining pits. distance between themselves and the young teacher from Changsha. More than thirty years In his exploratory conversations with the later, when Mao Zedong hosted a banquet for Anyuan workers, after a few inquiries about newly appointed members of the Central their difficult working and living conditions, Military Affairs Commission, several of whom Mao Zedong turned to the topic of education. were former Anyuan workers, he reminisced Since Mao was supporting his revolutionary about his first visit to the coal mine. Aactivities by teaching in the mass education participant at the 1954 banquet later reported: movement in Hunan, it must have seemed quite natural for him to direct the discussion toward Chairman Mao recalled his this issue. Although the establishment of youthful effort to develop the labor schools was official CCP policy, in accordance movement in Anyuan, Pingxiang. with the Russian revolutionary recipe, it Chairman Mao said, “In those resonated especially strongly in a cultural years, after receiving some milieu where education had long been valued education in Marxism, I imagined I as the pathway to social mobility. A miner who was a revolutionary. But as it met with Mao Zedong on his maiden visit to turned out, when I got to the coal Anyuan later recalled Mao’s introduction of this mine and began to interact with topic (referring, anachronistically, to Mao as the workers, because I was still a “Chairman”): student at heart and a teacher in style, the workers wouldn’t buy it. We didn’t know how to proceed. The Chairman asked us whether Looking back now, it was pretty we went to school. I answered that amusing. I spent the whole day just we weren’t even able to afford to walking back and forth along the eat, so how could we possibly railroad tracks trying to figure out manage to take classes. The what to do. . . . Only when we Chairman asked: what if education dropped our pretentious airs and were free? I said that if it didn’t respected the workers as our require any money of course teachers did things change. Later people would want to study. I we chatted with the workers, asked the Chairman when we sharing our genuine feelings, and could get started. He pointed out the worker comrades gradually that the year was almost over, but began to get close to us, telling promised that the next year he us what was really on their would send someone to open a minds.”17 school. The following day I ran into the Chairman again and he Despite the initial cultural gulf that separated repeated that he would send him from his targeted constituency, Mao, somebody in the new year to open thanks to his rural upbringing and colloquial a school for us.18

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In December 1921 Mao Zedong returned to pedagogical pledge. Mao impressed upon Li Anyuan to make concrete plans for establishing Lisan the importance of dealing sensitively with a school at the mine.19 He took with him three prevailing conditions and customs. In other educational activists from Hunan,particular, he cautioned Li about the power of including the energetic Li Lisan, who had the Red Gang in light of the secret society’s recently returned from two years of studies in formidable grip on the workers. Stressing that France and had joined the Communist Party in the “reactionary ruling forces” and “dark social Shanghai before heading home to Hunan. In environment” at the mine made it impossible to addition to Mao and Li Lisan, the advance team undertake open revolutionary mobilization, was composed of Song Yousheng, a teacher at Mao suggested a more oblique approach. First a Hunan elementary school, and Zhang Liquan, on Li’s agenda would be to establish schools for a cadre in the Liaison Department of the Hunan workers and their children. Only after having Labor Secretariat who edited the secretariat earned the miners’ trust as a respected teacher journal, Labor Weekly, while teaching at the would Li be in a position to organize them for Hunan Jiazhong Industrial School in Changsha. overtly political purposes.22 The four young men stayed for several days in a small inn near the mine, inviting workers to The first resolution of the newly founded CCP, drop by for a chat as soon as they got off as we have seen, gave the official party stamp work.20 of approval to workers’ education as a stepping-stone toward unionization. Mao’s Initially, the members of the Anyuan workforce specific instructions to Li Lisan reiterated these most receptive to Communist overtures were guiding principles. Li recalled many years later railway workers, whose own educational and that, although Mao Zedong had chosen Anyuan cultural backgrounds facilitated communication because of its exceptional revolutionary with the young intellectuals from across the potential, he warned the impatient young border. Among the most enthusiastic was the firebrand against premature radicalism. chief engineer of the Zhuping railway, a fellow Instead Li was to proceed by stages, beginning Hunanese by the name of Zhu Shaolian, who with a focus on public education: had graduated from the railroad academy in Hubei before being assigned to the job at Anyuan. When quizzed by the visitors from In November 1921, when Comrade Hunan about their most pressing concerns, Zhu Mao Zedong sent me to Anyuan to and his fellow workers reiterated what the undertake the labor movement, he miners had previously told Mao Zedong, already had a clear idea of how to complaining that their children were unable to begin work among the workers, attend school because of the prohibitive how to gradually organize so as to expense. Mao reportedly replied, “Suffering is advance toward struggle. He told caused by lack of knowledge. We are not only us . . . that it wouldn’t be easy to going to open a school for workers’ children. launch a revolutionary movement, We will also open a school to educate and he said we must first take workers.”21 advantage of all legal opportunities and focus on open activities to get Educating Anyuan close to the labor movement and identify outstanding elements Soon after the group had returned to Hunan, among the workers, gradually Mao Zedong informed Li Lisan of his decision disciplining and organizing them to send Li back to Anyuan to make good on his before establishing a

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[Communist] party branch. He classical training to use by composing in his wanted us to operate under the best literary Chinese a flowery petition banner of mass education, going to requesting official permission to open a school Anyuan with an introduction from at Anyuan. the Hunan branch of the Mass Education Society.23 Like Mao Zedong before him, Li Lisan relied upon the introductions of relatives to gain local access. Thanks to the help of a friend of Li Only twenty-two years of age at the time, Li Lisan’s father, a Liling man by the name of Xie Lisan was an ideal choice to assume the role of Lanfang who happened to be the director of the Anyuan schoolteacher. His father was an Anyuan chamber of commerce, Li Lisan’s imperial degree holder from nearby Liling petition was delivered directly to the county County (less than thirty miles due west of magistrate. Delighted by the classical style and Anyuan, in Hunan Province) who offered fluid calligraphy of Li’s writing, the Pingxiang instruction in the Confucian classics, and Li magistrate invited the young scholar from Lisan himself—at his father’s insistence—had Liling to meet in person to discuss his taught at an elementary school in his native pedagogical proposal. So pleased was the Liling before heading off to Beijing and France conservative magistrate by Li Lisan’s for additional studies. Within weeks of his Confucian-sounding pronouncements about the return from Lyons in late 1921, Li Lisan contribution of education to the improvement traveled to Beijing to see one of his old middle of public ethics that he immediately agreed to school classmates from Hunan, Luo Zhanglong, issue an official proclamation in support of the who was then directing the new Communist- proposed new school. The proclamation quoted sponsored school for railroad workers at the verbatim from Li’s petition: “helping workers Changxindian station on the Jing-Han Railway. to increase their knowledge in order to Impressed by what he witnessed, Li was promote virtue.”24 Unbeknownst to the anxious to replicate Luo’s pioneering efforts in magistrate, Confucian rhetoric would pave the another industrial set- ting. The fact that many way toward Communist revolution. of the Anyuan miners hailed from Li Lisan’s home county of Liling (as well as from Mao The moralistic magistrate, who hailed from Zedong’s home county of Xiangtan) was an Hubei, hoped that Li Lisan’s pedagogical additional attraction for the would-be labor efforts might help to improve public civility in organizer. the notoriously roughneck town of Anyuan, where brothels, opium dens, and gambling Armed, at Mao Zedong’s suggestion, with a halls far outnumbered schools. In this town of letter attesting to his educational credentials eighty thousand inhabitants, the only written by Li Liuru, the deputy director of the functioning school, -- which was operated by St. Hunan branch of the Mass Education Society, James Episcopal Church with some assistance Li Lisan returned to Anyuan under the guise of from the mining company (see Chapter 1), an aspiring schoolmaster. Although the idea of charged steep tuition fees in return for a worker schools derived from the Russian strongly religious regimen of instruction. experience, Li’s method of implementation Enrollment at the church school was largely drew self-consciously on his own cultural limited to the children of high-level staff; the traditions. Upon learning that the magistrate of sons and daughters of electrical engineers from Pingxiang County was a top-ranked Confucian Shanghai and Guangzhou were especially well degree holder who adamantly opposed written represented among the few hundred children vernacular language, Li Lisan put his own fortunate enough to attend. Ordinary workers

7 11 | 1 | 4 APJ | JF at Anyuan had little prospect of educational was living) along with several recent graduates advancement for either themselves or their of the progressive Jiazhong Industrial School in children.25 From the magistrate’s (mistaken) Changsha, formed the nucleus of Li Lisan’s perspective, Li Lisan’s proposed school could coterie. Within a couple of weeks, Li had serve as a Confucian counterweight to the identified eight potential activists—all but one Christian education being dispensed by the of them railway workers—whom he persuaded local church. to join him in forming an Anyuan branch of the Socialist Youth League. At Li Lisan’s With assistance from Zhuping railway chief prompting, the league members (six of whom Li engineer Zhu Shaolian and a couple of fellow soon tapped to constitute a Communist Party Hunanese railway workers to whom Mao had cell) focused on educating fellow workers as previously introduced him, Li Lisan rented the their first priority. They converted the rented top floor (three rooms) of a house in town for classrooms, occupied by the workers’ children his school, prominently posting theduring the day, into a school for workers at magistrate’s supportive proclamation above the night.28 front door. He also put up several announcements around town advertising the Starting with a handful of students drawn from new tuition-free educational opportunity. Thirty the railway machine shop, the night school or forty students, almost all of them the quickly expanded to enroll several dozen children of railway workers, soon enrolled.26 Li workers. Li Lisan’s dynamic teaching Lisan took advantage of his position as teacher style—which combined basic literacy to pay home visits to the children’s parents, instruction with revolutionary thereby becoming acquainted with a number of messages—proved immensely popular. the workers. Wearing his long Mandarin gown Employing the art of glyphomancy (the and striding ostentatiously from house to house deconstruction and recombination of Chinese to drum up additional pupils for his classes, Li characters) familiar from secret-society fortune acquired the moniker of “itinerant scholar- telling, Li Lisan showed how the two characters teacher” (youxue xiansheng) among thethat combined horizontally to form the term for locals.27 “worker” (gongren) could be repositioned vertically into a single character meaning Although his literati dress and obvious“Heaven” (tian). When the workers stood up, he erudition allowed Li Lisan to win the approval explained, they would enjoy the blessing of of local officials, a crucial first step toward Heaven. Li also had a knack for translating realizing his educational ambitions, he soon abstract concepts into mundane metaphors. revealed that he was no ordinary Confucian Many years later, one of his Anyuan students teacher. Despite his Mandarin bearing, Li Lisan still recalled the memorable way in which Li on evening visits to his students’ families had conveyed the importance of proletarian engaged his hosts in animated discussions unity: “Once, when Comrade Li Lisan was about the possibility of improving laborlecturing about how the workers needed to conditions through workers’ education,unite in order to have enough power to organization, and struggle. Railwaystruggle against the capitalists, he grabbed a workers—who generally had somesingle chopstick along with a bundle of education—initially proved much morechopsticks as an illus- tration. A single receptive to Li’s message than did the illiterate chopstick, he demonstrated, could be broken miners. A group of Hunanese railwaywith one flick of the wrist. When bundled mechanics, including Hubei Railway Academy together, however, no single chopstick could alumnus Zhu Shaolian (at whose house Li Lisan easily be broken. This simple example left a

8 11 | 1 | 4 APJ | JF profound impression on our thinking.”29 Soon railway workers by nearly ten to one. Despite the CCP assigned another young teacher from the railway workers’ educational advantage Hunan, Jiang Xianyun, to handle the classes for over miners, their shared dialect and culture children, so that Li Lisan could devote himself facilitated communication and cooperation. Li to the workers full-time.30 The initial eight or therefore encouraged the railroad nine worker-students, like the foundingworkers—some of whom had Red Gang members of the Anyuan Socialist Youth League connections—to reach out to their sworn and Communist Party, were predominantly brothers among the miners. Although he railway mechanics from Hunan who had imagined that new Communist-sponsored attended the Jiazhong Industrial School. institutions would eventually supplant the Red Gang’s hold over the workers, Li Lisan realized The receptivity of Hunanese engineers and (as Mao Zedong had warned) that a direct clash mechanics to Communist appeals was not an with the secret society would be disastrous at Anyuan anomaly; in other parts of China as well this preliminary stage. In order to enroll in Li’s shared native-place origins and educational school, therefore, miners were required first to backgrounds rendered skilled male workers obtain permission from their labor contractors, especially responsive to Communistvirtually all of whom were Elder Brother initiatives.31 But whereas in many Chinese chieftains.32 industrial enterprises occupational skill was closely aligned with gender and native-place When Li Lisan first headed into the coal pits to origin, the situation at Anyuan was rather more enjoin miners to attend his classes, this bizarre complicated. Unlike textile mills or tobacco behavior on the part of an intellectual was factories, where unskilled labor was often greeted with sarcastic incredulity: “Is this the performed by women migrants who did not Episcopal Church or the Catholic Church? The speak the local dialect, the Anyuan coal mine Red Gang or the Green Gang? Come to spread was an all-male operation that recruited its the gospel or to enlist soldiers?”33 But Li was haulers and diggers as well as its railway undeterred by the tendency to inter- pret his engineers from within the local dialect region. revolutionary efforts in terms of more familiar The majority of unskilled miners shared with institutions. He persisted, prevailing upon each skilled railway workers a common Hunan new student at his night school to recruit provenance. In this they differed markedly from several friends, and soon the coterie of worker- upper-level staff and electrical engineers, who students had expanded in both number and hailed from distant urban centers indiversity. When the sixty enrollees could no Guangdong, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang. The Hunan longer be accommodated within the space that miners were distinct as well from those miners Li had originally rented, he formed the (a minority, but a significant minorityEducational Affairs Committee—composed of nonetheless) who came from nearby villages in himself and his fellow teacher together with Pingxiang County itself. Despite the strong railway engineer Zhu Shaolian and one similarity in language and customs between miner—to oversee the move to a larger facility. Pingxiang and Hunan, many locals harbored Both the school for children and the workers’ resentment toward Hunanese incursions into night school were relocated to a more spacious their economy and politics that dated back to building, which housed a newly opened reading the founding of the modern coal mine. room stocked with left-wing periodicals in addition to several classrooms.34 It was obvious to Li Lisan from the outset that success at Anyuan would require substantial Besides the issue of space, Li faced the support from coal miners, who outnumbered problem of securing appropriate instructional

9 11 | 1 | 4 APJ | JF materials for his educational activities. The the workers’ school there. After touring the classes for children could make use of basic coal pits and dormitories to observe labor and textbooks that had been compiled previously by living conditions firsthand, Li Liuru compiled a the Mass Education Society with the help of the four-volume series, known as Mass Reader YMCA. These con- tained beginning lessons in (Pingmin Duben), which introduced students to reading and arithmetic. More challenging, a rudimentary understanding of Marxism- however, were the textbooks for workers, Leninism.38 whose education was intended ultimately to instill revolutionary class consciousness in Renting classrooms and printing and addition to functional literacy. Li Lisan later purchasing textbooks all took money, of course, recounted how he gradually introducedand obtaining enough funding to underwrite subversive ideas under the cover of an officially these educational activities posed another approved curriculum: “The workers’ classes challenge for Li Lisan. At first the Anyuan used two types of textbooks. Openly we used school was financed by the Labor Secretariat in the textbooks prepared for mass education. But Shanghai and the Hunan branch of the Mass actually we used materials that we ourselves Education Society in Changsha.39 But this had edited. At every class we dispensed a bit of dependence upon distant benefactors with basic Marxist-Leninist knowledge, emphasizing more pressing priorities presented obvious that all the world’s wealth had been produced disadvantages, and Li again employed by the working class.”35 The first lesson in the Confucian logic on local notables to remind approved thousand-character mass education them of the moral benefits of education. Soon reader began with the innocuous sentence the classes were supported by philanthropic “One person has two hands; two hands have contributions from members of the local elite, ten fingers.” The unauthorized materials, by augmented by nominal fees from the workers contrast, included lessons in class conflict with themselves. The foreman for construction at telling titles such as “Workers andthe coal mine, a skilled artisan by the name of 36 Capitalists.” The combination of conventional Chen Shengfang who hailed from Li Lisan’s textbooks together with unorthodox handouts own native county of Liling, was a particularly called for some subterfuge on the part of the generous source of financial assistance.40 students. As one of them recalled, “When Li Lisan first opened the school, I joined. Our text Unionizing Anyuan was the thousand-character reader. But his lectures stressed the exploitation andJust as party policy prescribed, the Anyuan oppression of the workers. Someone stood workers’ school served as a springboard for guard at the classroom door to keep outsiders other modes of labor organization. One from eavesdropping. Later on, stencils of evening, some of the workers came across a Marx’s ideas were handed out for us to study. If journal article in their school reading room outsiders happened to come by, we covered the about Shanghai textile workers having recently stencils with the thousand-character reader.”37 formed a “club” (a euphe- mism for a labor Aware of the pressing need for teaching union) to advance their collective interests. The materials, Mao Zedong sent the deputy direc- workers asked Li Lisan whether they might do tor of the Hunan branch of the Mass Education something similar at Anyuan, a proposal that of Society, Li Liuru (whose letter of introduction course delighted the eager young Communist had opened official doors for Li Lisan and organizer. After two preparatory meetings, Li whom Mao had just recruited into the CCP) to Lisan, Zhu Shaolian, and several other workers Anyuan in the spring of 1922 for the express submitted a petition to the Pingxiang County purpose of editing textbooks appropriate for government requesting official approval to

10 11 | 1 | 4 APJ | JF establish a “workers’ club,” which would be from Li Lisan himself.45 restricted to railway workers and miners (and explicitly exclude the company staff). Satisfied The reliance on recognizable secret-society with the club’s seemingly innocent motto of conventions to build new revolutionary “forge friendships, nurture virtue, provide unity organizations was not unique to Li Lisan and and mutual aid, and seek common happiness,” the fledgling Anyuan workers’ club. At this the county magistrate—without consulting the same time, peasant movement activist Peng Pai Ping- xiang Railway and Miningborrowed liberally from Triad traditions to Company—readily approved the request.41 The establish a radical peasant union in his native new Anyuan workers’ club preparatorycounty of Haifeng, Guangdong. As Fernando committee, with Li Lisan as its director and Galbiati writes of the former Triads who railroad engineer Zhu Shaolian as its deputy flocked to Peng’s new peasant union, “they saw 46 director, was headquartered in rented space at no contradiction between the two.” the Hubei Guild Hall, and the night school classes were moved to this more capacious site.42

Although the introduction of a labor union was a novel development, its organization and operations were evocative of local precedents. As in the Hongjiang hui of the Ping-Liu-Li Uprising (see chapter 1), club members were organized according to a decimal system. Groups of ten (shirentuan) were established in every workshop, with one leader from each workshop responsible for all of the ten-person groups in his department.43 Like Red Gang lodges, the Anyuan workers’ club had its own clandestine code phrases. Although the public Figure 3. The Anyuan Workers’ Club motto was sufficiently innocuous to win the Preparatory Committee. Li Lisan stands in instant support of the magistrate, the internal the central row from the engine head, fifth maxim—which new members pledged to keep from the right. Zhu Shaolian is looking out confidential—was more revealing of the the window of the engineer’s booth. proto–labor union’s actual aspirations: “protect workers’ interests and relieve the oppression and suffering of the workers.” As was true for Secret societies were not the only local secret societies, membership demanded an institution whose practices the Communists entrance fee. New initiates, after swearing a found serviceable in the process of solemn oath of unity and a pledge of mutual constructing new associations. Li Lisan’s aid, were required to contribute the equivalent efforts at cultural positioning drew upon a of one day’s wages. Thereafter, a modest broad range of familiar rituals. For example, to monthly fee was charged to underwrite basic stir up greater interest in the workers’ club, Li operating expenses.44 Even so, finances decided that the night school should host a lion remained an issue, and for the initial six dance at the time of the annual Lantern months of its existence nearly half the income Festival. In this region of China, the Lantern of the workers’ club (90 yuan out of a total Festival was customarily an occasion when the revenue of 206 yuan) came in the form of a loan local elite sponsored exhibitions by martial

11 11 | 1 | 4 APJ | JF arts masters, who displayed their skills and end there. On May Day in 1922 the Anyuan thereby attracted new disciples in the course of Railway and Mining Workers’ Club was publicly performing spirited lion dances. One of Li’s inaugurated with a gala parade in which new recruits to the workers’ club, a highly hundreds of workers carrying red flags adept performer by the name of You Congnai, marched behind Li Lisan shouting was persuaded to take the lead. You was a low- revolutionary slogans: “Workers of the World, level chieftain in the Red Gang whose martial Unite!” “Long Live Labor!” “Long Live the arts skills were second to none. He dutifully Club!” “Down with Warlords!” “Long Live the donned a resplendent lion’s costume, tailor- Communist Party!” Once again Li Lisan’s made for this occasion by local artisans, ingenuity in reworking traditional practices for and—to the loud accompaniment of cymbals new mobilizing purposes was on brilliant and firecrackers—gamely pranced from the display. Martial arts adepts among the crowd coal mine to the railway station, stopping along carried an open palanquin of the sort that was the way at the general headquarters of the normally used to transport statues of deities company, the chamber of commerce, St. James during religious festivals (see chapter 1), but Episcopal Church, the Hunan and Hubei native- the honored passenger this day was none other place associations, and the homes of the gang than a bust of that “bearded grandpa” from chieftains to pay his respects. As intended, the across the seven seas, Karl Marx.49 Li Lisan’s performance attracted a large and appreciative innovative cultural positioning was converting crowd, which followed the sprightly dancer familiar folk rituals into vehicles for back to the workers’ club to learn how to enlist revolutionary recruitment. as his disciples. Contrary to popular expectation, however, the martial arts master A few weeks after this boisterous public announced to the assembled audience,celebration of the new workers’ club, Mao “Teacher Li of the night school has instructed Zedong returned to Anyuan to evaluate the us that, starting tonight, we should no longer progress of the labor movement. Expressing study martial arts. Instead, we should all study overall satisfaction with recent develop- ments, diligently at the night school. AnyoneMao nevertheless bluntly criticized the interested in studying, come with us.”47 inclusion of “Long Live the Communist Party” among the slogans shouted in the inaugural It soon became clear that the Communists had parade. At a meeting of the recently in mind something altogether different from established Communist party cell, Mao stressed traditional pedagogy—whether of the Confu- the importance of strict secrecy in party affairs cian literary (wen) or the martial arts wu( ) and the need for strengthening the variety. As lion dancer You Congnai put it to organizational foundation of the labor the throngs of would-be disciples, “Ourmovement before making such public teacher’s home is in Liling [Li Lisan’s native declarations about the role of the Communist county, just across the provincial border in Party. Mao reiterated his earlier directive that Hunan], but the ancestral founder of our school mobilization must proceed gradually, avoiding lives far, far away. To find him one must cross any unnecessary and premature radicalism.50 the seven seas. He’s now more than a hundred years old and his name is Teacher Ma [Marx], a Mao Zedong’s stern admonition to the Anyuan bearded grandpa.”48 activists was an early harbinger of the Chinese Communist Party’s unease about Li Lisan’s Li Lisan’s imaginative recruitment drivefreewheeling approach to mass mobilization. resulted in a large influx of new members to Contemporary CCP leader Zhang Guotao would the workers’ club, but the festivities did not later write of Li Lisan, “Completely a man of

12 11 | 1 | 4 APJ | JF action, he looked only for results, and he was rice, and the like) at below-market prices. unaccustomed to restrictions from theStarting with only thirty or so members and a organization . . . he always insisted that he ‘had mere one hundred yuan in capital, the new co- to have an immediate solution.’”51 op was initially a small-scale operation that conducted its activities out of the workers’ Impetuous and uninhibited in both personality school. Modest as this beginning was, and work style, Li Lisan’s flamboyant manner however, the company recognized that the was as captivating to ordinary workers as it cooperative—whose first general manager was was disturbing to his party superiors. Li Li Lisan—presented a challenge to its own sashayed ostentatiously around the grimy coal monopolistic control over the workers’ mining town of Anyuan, dressed either in long livelihood. Li publicized the new venture with a Mandarin gown or in stylish Western coat and simple yet appealing slogan: “cheap goods for tie, in a fashion designed to attract attention. sale.” The concrete economic benefits that When the shiny metal badge (acquired in resulted from co-op membership, which was France) that he sported on his chest generated restricted to those who had already joined the persistent rumors of Li Lisan’s invulnerability workers’ club, attracted a surge of new club to swords and bullets, he did nothing to dispel members.54 them. On the contrary, taking a cue from Elder Brother dragon heads whose authority rested An additional concern for the mining company upon their reputation for supernatural powers, was that the workers’ club (like the Red Gang Li Lisan actively encouraged the belief that he whose structure it resembled) had organized its enjoyed the magical protection of “five foreign own militia. Called a “patrol team” (jianchadui), countries” bestowed during his travelsthe force was recruited primarily from among abroad.52 In this overwhelmingly maleRed Gang members known for their martial environment, where female companionship was arts skills. Responsible for providing security in short sup- ply, even Li Lisan’s reputation for for the workers’ club and its Communist womanizing may have contributed to his leadership and for gathering intelligence on charismatic aura.53 But surely what most company management, the patrols carried endeared Li Lisan to the workers of Anyuan wooden staves and drilled regularly at the was the tireless dedication that he devoted to night school. Their captain, Zhou Huaide, was a their cause, whether as a schoolteacher or as a notoriously combative miner who hailed from union organizer. Mao’s native county of Xiangtan in Hunan and had been active in the Elder Brothers Society Although the hundreds who had joined Li for nearly two decades before his association Lisan’s workers’ club still comprised but a with the Communists. Zhou was a veteran of small percentage of the total Anyuanthe Ping-Liu-Li Uprising, having served as a workforce, which stood at over thirteenpetty chieftain in the Hong-jiang hui in 1906. thousand, their enthusiasm and organization Zhou also had a history of directing his were seen by the mining company as a serious pugilistic skills against the foreign staff at the and growing threat. One of the more worrisome mine, spearheading a series of assaults on initiatives of the workers’ club from the German advisors and engineers until their perspective of the company was thedeparture en masse in 1919. Thanks to his establishment of a consumers’ cooperative. In martial prowess, Zhou was often called upon to July 1922 the club opened a cooperative store settle disputes among his fellow workers. that offered its members low-interest loans, Because of his truculence and his standing attractive rates for converting silver to copper among the workers, Zhou—like fellow gang currency, and basic necessities (oil, salt, cloth, members You Congnai (the lion dancer) and Xie

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Huaide (who became vice-captain of the expected to demonstrate any particular patrols)—was specifically targeted by Li Lisan knowledge of or commitment to Marxist theory. for recruitment, first to the night school and Instead, as one of them later reported when eventually to the Communist Party.55 A similar asked about the criteria for membership, “the pat- tern obtained in the case of Yuan Pin’gao, requirements were to keep secrets, promote a young miner from Li Lisan’s native place of mass interests, and sacrifice oneself.”58 Liling who was also known for exceptional martial arts skills. Yuan was persuaded by Li to Even if party membership did not mark a study at the workers’ night school, then to join qualitative ideational break with previous the workers’ club, then the Socialist Youth secret-society beliefs and practices, rumors of League, and eventually the Communist Party. the party’s rapid growth raised the disturbing He became a key member of the patrol team specter of a militant proletariat in the eyes of and later served as Liu Shaoqi’s trusted the Pingxiang Mining Company. As had been bodyguard after Liu’s arrival at Anyuan.56 the case during the Ping-Liu-Li Uprising fifteen years earlier, the challenge presented by Once prospective members had been identified restive workers generated a rift within the and recruited, initiation into the Communist upper managerial ranks of the coal mine. Faced Party was a fairly simple affair. An inductee with the prospect of an increasingly organized recalled, and unruly workforce at just the time that a massive strike wave was sweep- ing much of industrial China,59 the directors of the mining Li Lisan operated a school for workers. I studied at that school. I company disagreed on how to respond. entered the party before the strike, Whereas Director Li Shouquan’s revolutionary introduced by Li Lisan. I was sympathies (see chapter 1) inclined him toward inducted together with Yi Shaoqin, compromise, Deputy Director Shu Xiutai was a supervisor on the railway. The intransigent. The result was vacillation oath swearing took place in a between clumsy attempts to buy out the rented upstairs room on the walls workers’ club leadership followed by hollow of which there were pictures of threats of repression. When these efforts failed Marx, Engels, Rosa Luxemburg, to entice or intimidate either Li Lisan or Zhu and Karl Liebknecht. The words of Shaolian, the company petitioned the county the oath were “Sacrifice the magistrate and the garrison commander for individual for the interests of the military assistance to forcibly close down the 60 masses, strictly maintain secrecy, workers’ club. say nothing to fathers, mothers, wives, or children, observe The Great Strike of 1922 discipline, struggle to the end for 57 At this critical juncture, Mao Zedong paid revolution!” another visit to Anyuan. Noting the further progress that Li Lisan had made in educating For many of Li Lisan’s recruits, previous and mobilizing railway workers and miners experience with Red Gang induction rituals alike, including the organization of a must have lent the party initiation process a Communist Party cell that now had more than certain air of déjà vu. The qualifications for thirty members and was firmly in charge of the party membership were in fact quite similar to rapidly growing workers’ club, Mao concluded those for gang membership. When joining the that conditions at Anyuan were ripe for a major Communist Party, Anyuan workers were not strike. The fact that the Pingxiang Railway and

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Mining Company (responding to the drop in the event, aside from a skeleton crew to maintain price of coal) was several months in arrears on the basic infrastructure, the whole workforce of wage payments had angered the entireover ten thousand miners and railway men was workforce. Moreover, its bungled efforts to expected to participate. suppress the workers’ club presented a perfect provocation for a walkout. After returning to Worried about maintaining order in this place Changsha, Mao summed up hisrenowned for its history of violence, Mao recommendations in a letter to Li Lisan, who Zedong decided at the eleventh hour to happened to be home in Liling at the time, dispatch another comrade from Hunan, Liu calling on him to return to Anyuan immediately Shaoqi, to provide supervision and impose to carry out an orderly strike designed to elicit restraint during the impending strike.64 Liu widespread public sympathy. Drawing on an had attended the same school as Mao in idea from the legendary Daoist thinker Laozi Changsha before going to the Soviet Union to that “an army burning with righteousstudy at the University of the Toilers of the indignation will surely win” (aibing bisheng), East in 1921. Just returned from his year in Mao proposed as the guiding philosophy behind Moscow, Liu was already known for a the strike a literary phrase of his own: “Move disciplined Leninist work style that the people through righteous indignation” ai( Mao believed could serve to temper Li Lisan’s er dongren).61 more impulsive inclinations.65 Together, Li and Liu worked to ensure that the impending strike In keeping with Mao’s instructions, Li Lisan would proceed under party command. A miner hurried back to Anyuan to mobilize his involved in the preparations explained, followers for a general walkout. At the same time, he emphasized the important participants remembered, “Two days before the strike The night before the strike got started, I was called to a meeting at the underway, the leaders and workers’ club at which Li Lisan presided. It was members of the workers’ club held at night, and over one hundred people convened a meeting that lasted the attended. We were all students at the night entire night to decide upon the school. Li explained that we were all going on strike resolution and to figure out strike, except for the electricity room, the various strike- related measures. boiler room, and the ventilation room.”62 The At that time management regarded boiler and ventilation rooms remaining open the club as a pain in the neck and would ensure that the pumps and fans designed the immensely popular Li Lisan as to prevent flooding and gas explosions in the a thorn in the flesh. So they mine pits would continue to operate. The threatened to harm him. At the electricity room, which provided illumination meeting, everyone agreed that Li and running water to the entire town of Lisan should not go out in public Anyuan, would also stay open in order to avoid for the period of the strike. But plunging the community into darkness and then who should be in charge of inciting public anger and disorder.63 That the negotiations? This led to a very these critical workshops were staffed by spirited debate. . . . In the end, technicians from Jiangnan and Guangdong—the Comrade Li Lisan made the segment of the workforce among which the decision, “The strike is led by the Hunan-born Communists had made the fewest party. Comrade Liu Shaoqi was inroads—was perhaps also a consideration in sent by the party to undertake a exempting them from the strike action. In any leadership role. Naturally he must

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serve as the negotiator.” Finally, Our work is so difficult; our pay so the meeting decided that Li Lisan meager. We are often beaten and would serve as supreme cursed, robbing us of our commander of the strike while Liu humanity. The oppression we Shaoqi would serve as top suffer has already reached the negotiator. Next on the agenda extreme limit so we are seeking were the strike demands to be “better treatment,” “higher negotiated. This issue also wages,” and an “organized generated considerable disagree- association—a club.” . . . We want ment. Some workers raised to live! We want to eat! We are unrealistic demands. Only after hungry. Our lives are in danger. In patient persuasion and explanation the midst of death we seek life. by Li Lisan and Liu Shaoqi did Forced to the breaking point, we these workers agree to drop their have no choice but to go on strike radical demands.66 as our last resort. . . . Our demands are extremely reasonable. We are willing to give our lives to reach Under the combined leadership of Li Lisan and our goals . . . Everyone, strictly Liu Shaoqi, the Anyuan strikers presented the maintain order! Carry through to railway and mining company with a set of the end!70 demands that they considered ambitious yet attainable: payment of back wages, improvement in working conditions, reform of As the manifesto implied, public support the labor contract system, and—mostdepended upon the ability of the strikers to important of all from the perspective of the ensure order. With some five thousand Communist leaders—a guarantee of recognition unemployed laborers milling about the town of and financial support for their newlyAnyuan at the time, the possibility of violent established workers’ club. confrontations between strikers and strikebreakers was of particular concern. In the spirit of Mao’s classical admonition to move the people through righteous indignation, Both Li Lisan and Liu Shaoqi, like Mao before Li Lisan came up with a stirring colloquial them, recognized that the key to maintaining slogan for the strike: “Once beasts of burden, order was the cooperation of the Red Gang. now we will be men!” congqian( shi niuma, Accordingly, they agreed that Li xianzai yao zuoren). Referring to unskilled Lisan—accompanied by workers’ club laborers as “beasts of burden” (niuma) was a patrolmen and gang members Zhou Huaide and familiar trope, but the call for these “cattle and You Congnai—should visit the local dragon horses” to stand up as men was fresh and head to secure his assistance. Bearing a bottle arresting.67 This cri de coeur was elaborated in of liquor and a rooster, the basic elements of a a strike manifesto (also composed by Li Lisan) Triad-type initiation rite, Li and his companions intended to elicit widespread public sympathy went to the society lodge on a night when they for the workers’ cause.68 In the centuries-old knew that the top leaders of the Red Gang had tradition of protest petitions,69 the manifesto been planning to hold an induction ceremony. emphasized the desperate defensiveLi strode brazenly into the main hall, plunked motivations of the participants. Significantly, his gifts on the altar, and—using Elder Brother the argument was framed not in terms of class code language that his associates had taught struggle but as a plea for human dignity: him—indicated his desire to enter the

16 11 | 1 | 4 APJ | JF fraternity. When the Red Gang leaders the strike, our biggest fear was expressed some doubts about Li Lisan’s that the Red Gang would break the sincerity, Zhou Huaide rushed to his defense: “I strike. So Liu Shaoqi instructed me won’t deceive my brothers. Mr. Li has traveled to have a couple of gang chieftains all over China, to cities large and small. He has under our influence take me to see also gone overseas to many countries. He has the Red Gang leader. I bought taken ‘Ma the Bearded’ [Marx] and ‘En the some presents and went there. The Bearded’ [Engels] as his teachers, and his head of the Red Gang was very person is protected by these two foreign pleased that I had come. He called worthies.” You Congnai added, “Whoever me Director Li (as workers’ club makes friends with Mr. Li enjoys good fortune.” director), and after we had drunk Persuaded by this character reference from his the rooster blood (I had brought underlings, the dragon head accepted Li along a rooster), I told him we Lisan’s presents and invited him to state his were planning to go on strike. I concerns.71 Li made three requests—the also explained that the strike was suspension of gambling operations, opium intended to help our impoverished dens, and looting incidents for the duration of brothers “seek happiness,” the strike. When the Red Gang leader beat his “protect the poor,” and so forth. I breast three times to indicate his assurance asked that he do the “honorable” that all three demands would be met, the strike thing by helping out. He slapped was called. his chest and said, “I will definitely help.” I immediately raised three Li Lisan later acknowledged the signal demands for the period of the importance of this diplomatic mission to the strike: 1) close the opium dens, 2) Red Gang in facilitating the success of the suspend street gambling, 3) Anyuan strike, explaining how he had won the prevent looting. He slapped his dragon head’s acquiescence by framing his chest three times in a row: “The request in a manner congruent with secret- first point, I guarantee, the second society precepts: point I guarantee, and the third point I also guarantee.” He even wrote the first and second points We paid a great deal of attention to into a public notice. The working with the Red Gang. Many implementation of these three of the workers had joined the Red provisions had a dramatic effect on Gang, and the Red Gang leader [Anyuan] society. Even some was an advisor to the mining capitalists and intellectuals company. The great majority of thought the workers’ club was labor contractors were his pretty amazing (because for so followers, and the capitalists at the many years these problems could mine relied on them to oppress the not be solved, but the strike workers. They used concepts such completely resolved them).72 as “honor,” “protecting the poor,” “seeking happiness for the poor,” and so on to trick the workers. Having secured this critical guarantee of Red Thanks to our efforts, several of Gang cooperation, the strike commenced at two the lower-level Red Gang o’clock in the morning on September 14, 1922, chieftains joined the party. Before among the most reliable base of Communist

17 11 | 1 | 4 APJ | JF support, the railway workers. Within two hours, advantage of this invitation. But however, the walkout had spread—by careful the workers’ patrols were very prearrangement—to the rest of the workforce. strict and did not allow them to At each of the more than forty workstations, enter the pits.75 yellow triangular flags—bearing the characters for “strike”—were unfurled and patrols were stationed to ensure that no one entered the To carry out its enlarged responsibility for premises. Workers were told to return to their combating scabs, the patrol team of the homes or dormitories to reduce the potential workers’ club was expanded in both size and for public disorder.73 Notices were posted on scope. In addition to guarding against the streets, in all the residential districts, in the strikebreakers, a major duty of the patrols was workers’ dormitories, at the train station, and to conduct nightly inspections of the workers’ at the entrances to the pits urging fulldormitories to ensure that the idled workers cooperation: “Wait for an announcement from remained indoors and refrained from gambling the club before resuming work!” “Everyone or other activities deemed corrosive of strike return home!” “No disorderly conduct!”74 discipline. For the duration of the strike, by eight or nine o’clock at night the normally With virtually the entire workforce idled, a bustling streets of Anyuan were entirely empty group of labor contractors—fearing an end to except for the workers’ patrols. Wearing red their lucrative livelihood should the strikers armbands, waving white flags, and armed with win their demands—attempted to intervene. wooden staves and metal bars, the patrols also The general foreman, Bearded Wang the Third provided protection—and the threat of an iron (see chapter 1), led this opposition. As Liu fist—for Liu Shaoqi and Li Lisan during their Shaoqi and Zhu Shaolian described Wang’s negotiating sessions with the railway and unsuccessful effort, mining company management. When word of an assassination plot aimed at Li Lisan reached the strikers (via Li’s fellow Liling The labor contractors were deeply native, mine construction foreman Chen upset by the strike. They tried by Shengfang), a special contin- gent of pickets every means possible to destroy it was deployed as round-the-clock bodyguards. in order to protect themselves. The On more than one occasion, threats from the worst offender was General workers’ club patrols to destroy company Foreman Wang Hongqing (from property if management were to reject the Hubei), who received thousands of strike demands served to expedite the yuan each month from the sale of negotiation process.76 labor contractor positions. After the strike began, Wang convened a Despite the social tensions that the work meeting of all the labor contractors stoppage inevitably generated, the strikers for underground operations to continued to stress the defensive motivations discuss methods for breaking the that underpinned their struggle. Halfway into strike. They decided that every the strike, the Anyuan workers’ club, with Li contractor would offer some of the Lisan’s guidance, issued a second manifesto, workers under his control full pay addressed to “fathers and brothers in all social simply for entering the pits without circles”: “The life we have lived in the past is doing any work. Some of the not the life of a human being; it is the life of a workers, either because of family beast of burden or a slave. Working for a dozen pressure or greed, wanted to take hours a day, day after day in the depths of

18 11 | 1 | 4 APJ | JF darkness, we suffer beatings and curses. We of the day-to-day responsibility for negotiating definitely do not want to continue thisto Liu Shaoqi. Li Lisan remained secretary of nonhuman sort of life. . . . Fathers and the Anyuan party committee as well as director brothers! Twenty thousand of us workers are of the workers’ club, however, and it was he on the verge of death! Can you bear to watch who crafted the strike manifestos, signed the death without offering assistance?”77 The final agreement on behalf of the workers, and consistent demand for human dignity,presided over the jubilant victory celebration at presented as a plea for sympathy from fellow the conclusion of the strike action.80 Li’s kinsmen, ultimately proved persuasive. After cultural positioning—a blend of old and new five days off the job, with no injuries or major that augmented prevailing notions of property damage, the strikers won agreement invulnerability and master-disciple relations, to nearly all of their demands. This impressive for example, with novel claims to overseas outcome, at a time when the labor movement sources of power—contributed to a leadership was being suppressed in other parts of China, style that was both appealing and effective. contributed to the iconic status of the Anyuan Liu’s obsession with order was also strike in the annals of the Chinese Communist instrumental in forestalling violence and revolution. CCP labor organizer Deng Zhongxia winning widespread public support for the wrote of Anyuan in his influential history of the walkout. Chinese labor movement, “The strike demonstrated the great enthusiasm and courage of the masses. After five days, the company caved in and accepted the workers’ thirteen demands, the most important of which were the recognition of the authority of the workers’ club to represent the workers and a wage increase. It was a complete victory.”78 Even a labor historian hostile to the Communist cause acknowledged the strike’s importance: “The most notorious strike in the annals of the Chinese labor movement was the strike in the Anyuang [Anyuan] and Chuping [Zhuping] Railroad in September, involving an overwhelming body of 20,000 miners and 1,500 railway workers. . . . [T]he workers in Anyuang Figure 4. Celebrating the victory of the and Chuping started to organize themselves Anyuan Great Strike on September 18, and built a clubhouse which was only another 1922. name for a union.”79

Historians and activists alike attributed the As soon as the strike settlement was signed in Anyuan victory to the power of a united, the chamber of commerce offices, Li Lisan militant workforce. But leadership was also a convened a massive outdoor celebration in the critical factor. As Mao Zedong had calculated, open field in the center of town. To thunderous Li Lisan’s penchant for creativity and Liu applause, Li ascended a makeshift stage. When Shaoqi’s tempering concern for control were a he began to speak, a hush fell over the winning combination. Because of the threat of assembled multitude, who hung on his every assassination, Li Lisan was forced to spend part word: “The victory of this strike was entirely of the strike period in hiding and to cede much due to our singleness of purpose. I hope

19 11 | 1 | 4 APJ | JF everyone will forever maintain this spirit.”81 Li was launched and led by outside intellectuals; concluded his remarks with a rousing cheer— moreover, its nonviolent, swift, and generous “Once beasts of burden, now we will be settlement was enabled only by the men!”—a mantra that the crowd echoed with a sympathetic involvement of a wide array of deafening roar.82 A jubilant march through the local elites. At this stage in the Chinese streets of Anyuan to the accompaniment of revolution, Li Lisan would later recall, it was firecrackers was followed by the prom- ulgation still possible to elicit the gentry’s cooperation of a triumphant work resumption manifesto, by a policy of “education for national drafted by Li Lisan: “The strike has been salvation.”85 The ready acquiescence of the victorious! . . . In the past, workers were Pingxiang County magistrate to Li’s ‘beasts of burden’ but now it’s ‘Long Live the pedagogical proposal had indeed set the stage Workers!’ . . . We have received the support of for the entire mobilization effort. When the the garrison commander and the martial law strike erupted, moreover, the head of the most command post as well as negotiators from powerful lineage in Pingxiang, Wen Zhongbo, among the gentry, merchant, and educational was vocal in pressing for a swift settlement that 86 circles, allowing our demands to be entirely would meet most of the workers’ demands. satisfied. We thank them profoundly. . . . This Wen’s position was quite possibly a product of strike was the first time that the workers of the longstanding resentment of the modern Anyuan lifted up their heads, exposing the dark mining company on the part of the local gentry, side of Anyuan. From today for- ward we are but elite involvement was not limited to the closely united, of one mind, in the struggle for gentry. Even “capitalists” seemed willing to our own rights. We now wish to declare ‘Long betray their class status. As Li Lisan Live the Workers!’ ‘Long Live the Workers’ acknowledged, “The family members of mine Club!’”83 director Li [Shouquan] all joined the workers’ club at the time of the strike.”87 More prosaically, in keeping with his controlled Leninist approach, Liu Shaoqi summed up the A powerful element of the local elite whose achievements of the strike this way: “The Great sympathetic stance facilitated the peaceful Strike lasted, altogether, five days. Discipline resolution of the strike was the military. At the was extremely good and organization was very outset of the strike the mining company had strict. The workers did a fine job of obeying persuaded the garrison commander of western orders. It cost the workers’ club only a total of Jiangxi, who received a generous monthly some 120 yuan in expenses; not a single person stipend from the mine, to declare martial law in was injured and no property was damaged. Yet Anyuan. However, the officer in charge of the a complete victory was won. This truly was a martial law command post, Li Hongcheng, was unique event in the experience of the young so impressed by the effectiveness of the Chinese labor movement.”84 workers’ club patrols—whose discipline was noticeably superior to that of his own motley Elite Involvement crew of soldiers—that he ordered his troops not to interfere with the strike. The soldiers, having The Anyuan strike is portrayed in CCP legend heard the pervasive rumors of Li Lisan’s as a shining example of pure proletarian magical invulnerability, were happy to prowess. The actual story was considerably comply.88 Liu Shaoqi expressed appreciation for more complicated. Intellectuals, local gentry, the military’s accom- modation: “Brigadier Li military officers, merchants, Red Gang dragon understood that the workers were demanding heads, and church clergy also contributed to its an improvement in their livelihood, which could success. As we have seen, the strike of 1922 not be settled by military force. Over time he

20 11 | 1 | 4 APJ | JF even became an active advocate of the strike, warning mine director Li Shouquan that unless making a huge contribution.”89 the company were willing to accept the strikers’ demands, Li Lisan would feel When the workers’ club delivered its list of compelled to give in to the workers’ desire for a strike demands to the company management violent resolution.94 Even the rector of the St. (with copies sent to the county magistrate as James Episcopal Church, in his role as principal well as the garrison command), an addendum of the mining company’s school, volunteered was attached: “If you wish to negotiate, please his services as mediator. Many of his send formal representatives designated by the parishioners were active in the strike, and the chamber of commerce to meet with Liu warden of his church vestry was a profes- 90 Shaoqi.” Initially, the company wassional photographer who, at the invitation of represented in the strike negotiations by its the workers’ club, shot the only surviving newly appointed deputy director, Shu Xiutai, photos of the victory celebration following the who hoped that his unbending stance would so strike.95 ingratiate himself with the upper echelons of the Hanyeping Coal and Iron Company that he The Anyuan strike of 1922 stands as one of the might be tapped to succeed Director Limajor accomplishments of the early Chinese Shouquan. But, after repeated importuning Communist Party. In less than a year’s time, Li from the chamber of commerce and local Lisan and his comrades had managed to gentry, Director Li himself helped broker a mobilize a remarkably successful protest peaceful resolution.91 among a large, unruly, and initially mostly uneducated workforce. Although Anyuan The head of the Anyuan chamber of commerce, proved exceptionally amenable to revolutionary Xie Lanfang (the same friend of Li Lisan’s initiatives (due to a combination of its father who had delivered Li’s initial petition to rebellious heritage, concentrated living and the county magistrate), played a major role in working conditions, Hunan connections, convincing the railway and mining company to cooperative local elite, and above all the 92 accede to the strikers’ demands. Li Lisan brilliant organizing efforts of Li Lisan), the explained, “The negotiations . . . were mediated basic model that the Communists followed at by the chamber of commerce. . . . We had good Anyuan was standard operating procedure for relations with the chamber of commerce. I used the day. a friend of my father’s named Xie.”93 Xie Lanfang was hardly a disinterested arbiter; The recipe was copied in part from Russian Anyuan workers and their families were the revolutionary experience, but it also displayed main customers for his many grocery stores a distinctly Chinese flavor. The Communists dotted across western Jiangxi, and thetook special advantage of the cultural capital business- man no doubt appreciated that a hike that Confucianism bestowed upon educators to in workers’ wages would bring him increased “teach revolution” to their worker-pupils. sales. In serving as intermediary between Sporting literati attire and spouting literary strikers and management, Xie was joined by adages, cadres drew from a deep reservoir of craftsman, landlord, and capitalist Chenboth elite and popular respect for intellectuals Shengfang, from Li Lisan’s native county of to pioneer a highly successful nonviolent Liling, who enjoyed close relations with the movement. Martial arts traditions and strike commander as well as with company underworld Triad connections were crucial to management. At a crucial juncture, Chen the mobilization effort, but these “heterodox” Shengfang, who was hosting the negotiations at ties were subsumed within a broader his Anyuan home, expedited the process by “orthodox” pedagogical strategy. Li Lisan’s

21 11 | 1 | 4 APJ | JF masterful mix of literary and military—wen and workers required the complicity of power wu—authority was a winning combination that holders who had long wielded effective cultural established his own leadership credentials control over the labor force, Mao and his within the all-male community of miners and comrades avoided the dismal failure that so railway workers while at the same time frequently greets attempts by outside radicals garnering support from a wide spectrum of the to organize among coal miners. In the case of local elite. America’s Appalachian Valley, for example, repeated efforts by committed activists to Framing the strike as a plea for fundamental unionize the miners were frustrated by the human dignity was a masterstroke conceived powers that be. As John Gaventa explains, by Mao Zedong (who presented it in literary “Those who sought to alter the oppression of language) and executed by Li Lisan (who the miner—the northern liberal and the Marxist translated the concept colloquially into a radical—failed partly because they did not stirring slogan that promised to make “men” understand fully the power situation they out of former “beasts of burden”). As John sought to change. . . . The radical sought to Fitzgerald argues in his study of Chinese develop a revolutionary class consciousness, nationalism, a demand for dignity has been at but he misunderstood the prior role of power in the heart of twentieth-century Chinese political shaping the consciousness which he discourse, fueling the outrage that has erupted encountered. It was the local mountain elite, repeatedly in protests against international who knew best the uses of power for control 96 humiliation. Similarly, Steve Smith’s study of within their culture, who effectively capitalized the Shanghai labor movement locates the nexus on the mistakes of the others.”99 The case of between working-class protest and nationalism Anyuan presents a dramatic contrast to this in a new stress on human dignity thatfamiliar scenario. As cultural insiders, Mao nevertheless echoed much older values: “The Zedong, Li Lisan, and Liu Shaoqi were keenly discursive link between national and [working-] aware of the need to engage and thereby class identities was forged, above all, around neutralize the control of local power holders. the issue of humane treatment. Workers’ Working within the existing power structure, refusal to be treated ‘like cattle and horses’ and using familiar symbolic tropes to gain derived from a new but powerfully felt sense of widespread support, the young Communists dignity, albeit one that resonated withsucceeded in mobilizing a spectacularly 97 traditional notions of ‘face.’” Presenting strike successful strike that opened the door to a new demands as a defensive cry for human dignity industrial order at Anyuan. was a unifying strategy as reassuring to the local elite as it was appealing to aggrieved coal By all accounts, the Great Strike of 1922 miners. The concerted efforts of various local resulted in notable gains for the workers of power holders were critical to the swift and Anyuan. One participant remembered, smooth resolution of the conflict.98

Mao’s periodic interventions were vitally The victory of the strike greatly important, but they were fully in line with boosted the workers’ confidence. official party policy. Workers’ schools, elite My strongest memory is of the alliances, secret-society cooptation, and orderly huge differences before and after strikes enforced by worker patrols were staple the strike. The workers’ livelihood ingredients in CCP-sponsored labor agitation improved markedly and the orga- around the country during this period. In nizational work of the club was recognizing that the mobilization of the Anyuan much expanded. Unlike before, the

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foremen and staff were no longer bestowed by the five foreign powers, frightens arrogant and didn’t dare to beat or the garrison commander into submission. It is curse the workers at will. The Li who tells Liu Shaoqi how best to offer workers gained some political assistance. Thanks to Li Lisan’s energetic rights and some economic rights. instigation and direction, the song explains, the There was a general wage hike. workers won a significant political victory that Before the strike, my monthly dramatically elevated their social status as well wage was three dollars. After the as their economic livelihood. Above all, Li is strike, it was immediately credited with restoring a sense of dignity and increased to four and a half self-esteem to the workers of Anyuan: dollars. The food in the miners’ cafeteria improved; we were no longer served moldy red rice and Teacher Li, just twenty-four, withered vegetables.100 From Liling County, right next door.

The perceptible improvement in material Taught us miners how to read; conditions fostered a more self- assured Attended to our every need. mentality on the part of many workers, who themselves became active participants in Called upon workers to unite; creating a new revolutionary culture. Helped us strike for what was right. The changed climate was reflected in a narrative folksong, composed in the poetic style Teacher urged workers, “Repeat of the “spring gong” chunluo( ), a rhymed after me: doggerel verse chanted to the beat of a gong Long live thy union and long live and traditionally popular in the Jiangxi-Hunan thee!” border area as a means of announcing the Workers echoed, with joyful glee: spring planting, which began to circulate “Long live our club and long live among the workers of Anyuan soon after the we!”102 victory of the 1922 strike. Although the three surviving versions of the song, all of which were transcribed in 1925 and all of which are The popularity of this vernacular folksong, hundreds of stanzas in length, differ slightly in known variously as “Labor Record” Laogong( substance and sequence, they concur in Ji) or “Strike Song” (Bagong Ge) and written lavishing praise upon Li Lisan as the beloved and sung joyfully by groups of miners in the leader of the strike who brought education and months and years following the strike of 1922, organization to the miners of Anyuan and suggests that Li Lisan’s skillful cultural whose innovative instruction convinced the positioning had pro- gressed from an elite workers to take action to ameliorate their lot. preoccupation to a process actively embraced Brief mention is made in the song of both Liu and advanced by the workers themselves. Faith Shaoqi and Zhu Shaolian, but the narrative in their charismatic leader had instilled makes clear that “Teacher Li” was regarded as confidence in their own capacities. the true hero of the Anyuan labor movement.101 It is Li whose resolve does not falter in the face The Communists’ success at Anyuan in of threats from capitalists and militarists. It is converting traditional sources of cultural power Li whose metal badge of invulnerability, to new revolutionary purposes was not without

23 11 | 1 | 4 APJ | JF parallel elsewhere in the country. At this same indicated that they did not oppose the socialism time, the rural organizer Peng Pai—addressed advocated by the Anyuan workers’ club. Their by the peasants of his native Haifeng as real concern at the time was the Nationalist “Bodhisattva Peng”—was the center of a cult, Party, not the Communists.104 Moreover, the “bordering on idolatry,” that greatly facilitated impressive educational efforts being carried his efforts to build a peasant union. As Peng out by the Anyuan workers’ club were widely later justified his approach to skeptical fellow viewed as a source of social stability rather cadres, “When we work in the villages, the first than a threat to the political order. Such step is to gain the confidence of the peasants. . tolerance on the part of local power holders . . And you can’t gain their trust if you attack afforded critical space within which the their belief in gods. There are times when we Communist experiment could grow. Alone must not only not insult their gods, but must among previous centers of labor mobilization, even worship along with them. This doesn’t Anyuan in the years immediately following the mean that we capitulate to religiousFebruary Seventh Massacre not only survived superstition, but only that some concessions but thrived. The remarkable victory of the 1922 are necessary to even begin to do our work.”103 strike strengthened the hand of the Communists, who, under the direction of Liu Popular as this flexible approach proved to be Shaoqi, began to express openly their Marxist- among workers and peasants alike, it was not Leninist allegiance and aspirations. easily sustained in the inhospitable political circumstances of the period. In a matter of Unlike Li Lisan, Liu Shaoqi had been trained in months after the victorious Anyuan strike—on the Soviet Union. When he succeeded Li as February 7, 1923, to be exact—the Communist head of Communist activities at the coal mine, movement would enter a new and much more Liu did his best to put a clear Leninist stamp on difficult phase. Warlord Wu Peifu’s bloody operations. Under Liu Shaoqi’s guidance, suppression that day of a strike by railway Anyuan would come to be known in progressive workers at Changxindian and other stations circles as “China’s Little Moscow,” a place along the Jing-Han railroad signaled a major where the Soviet Union was touted as a model setback. All across the country Communist of emulation for everything from political activists were rounded up and executed, and organization to architectural style. Despite the the workers’ clubs and unions that they had declared devotion to Russian ways, however, established were unceremoniously shut down. the Anyuan revolutionary tradition continued to reflect the imprint of indigenous patterns of Anyuan, thanks to its relatively remotemass mobilization. The workers’ club, although mountainous location and the forbearance of impressively reconstructed by Liu Shaoqi in a the local elite, was spared the devastation that fashion that he deemed reminiscent of the befell other hotbeds of labor organizing at this Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, would still serve as time. Both the warlord who controlled Hunan a classroom for popularizing new revolutionary Province, Zhao Hengti, and the head of the messages by recourse to familiar cultural western Jiangxi military garrison, Yue Zhaolin, media.

ANYUAN: Mining China’S Revolutionary Tradition 安源 中国の 革命的伝統の採掘

ANYUAN: Mining China’S Revolutionary Tradition 安源中国の革命的伝統の採掘