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Beyond the Bounds of Revolutions: Chinese in Transnational Anarchist Networks from the 1920S to the 1950S

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Beyond the Bounds of Revolutions: Chinese in Transnational Anarchist Networks from the 1920S to the 1950S BEYOND THE BOUNDS OF REVOLUTIONS: CHINESE IN TRANSNATIONAL ANARCHIST NETWORKS FROM THE 1920S TO THE 1950S by MORGAN WILLIAM ROCKS BA, New Mexico State University, 2005 MA, New Mexico State University, 2012 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (History) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) November 2020 © Morgan William Rocks, 2020 The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the dissertation entitled: Beyond the Bounds of Revolutions: Chinese in Transnational Anarchist Networks from the 1920s to the 1950s submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements by Morgan William Rocks for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History Examining Committee: Timothy Cheek, History, UBC Supervisor Timothy Brook, History, UBC Supervisory Committee Member Glen Peterson, History, UBC Supervisory Committee Member Ross King, Asian Studies, UBC University Examiner Alison Bailey, Asian Studies, UBC University Examiner Additional Supervisory Committee Members: Robert Brain, History, UBC Supervisory Committee Member ii ABSTRACT Modern anarchism came to China in the twentieth century via transnational student networks in Tokyo and Paris. Even as anarchism and anarchists proliferated within China, the transnational links through which it came and the transnationalism of anarchism itself remained. However, scholars have subsumed the narrative of Chinese anarchism under larger ideological issues of nation and state building. Moving away from such frameworks, this dissertation aims to decouple Chinese anarchists from the nation and to treat anarchism in China not as a mode of thought, but as a set of concrete actors and practices. To analyze Chinese anarchists’ transnational endeavors, the dissertation makes use of recent methodologies of network tracing from the field of Anarchist Studies to both map the dense and often overlapping networks of three important anarchist figures, Ba Jin 巴金 (1904-2005), Ray Jones 刘钟时 (1889-1974), and Lu Jianbo 卢剑波 (1904- 1991), and detail the actions these networks produced. Ba Jin operated in France and Shanghai, Lu in Shanghai and Chengdu, and Jones in San Francisco. By looking at the extent, direction, and flow of their various networks, the dissertation argues Chinese anarchists created global connections that situated China and Chinese in an anarchist world stage and reflected modes of existence that were not bounded by the nation or revolution. Chapter 2 utilizes Ba Jin’s status as a hub within multiple networks to introduce the lines and dots of transnational Chinese anarchist activity. Chapter 3 traces Ray Jones and the anarchist Pingshe’s place within a multi-ethnic and trans-Pacific radical environment. Chapter 4 untangles how Ba Jin’s association was used to overshadow the radical transnational pasts of schools in Fujian. Chapter 5 examines Lu Jianbo’s attempts to weave together China’s Anti-Japanese War and Spanish Civil War in a global anti-fascist front. Chapter 6 probes the afterlives of these iii networks through the stories of two younger anarchists, Darren Kuang Chen and Liu Chuang. In the end, these networks faded with the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), but the connections they left have continued to serve as unconscious templates for later generations of Sinopshere anarchists. iv LAY SUMMARY This dissertation examines Chinese in transnational anarchist networks from the 1920s to the 1950s. It uses the experiences and activities of three anarchists, Ba Jin 巴金 (1904-2005), Ray Jones 刘钟时 (1889-1974), and Lu Jianbo 卢剑波 (1904-1991) to explore how Chinese anarchists utilized print and correspondence to connect with Asian, European, North American, and Latin American comrades. The friendships and working relationships fostered by being connected to a global anarchist movement reveals that contrary to previous understandings, of anarchism, it was not just a brief intellectual trend. It was a vital mode of action. In exploring the connections these anarchists made, the dissertation argues that anarchist activities offered Chinese anarchists a means by which to imagine and participate in worlds and communities beyond the Chinese nation-state. v PREFACE This dissertation is original and independent work by the author, Morgan William Rocks. Portions of Chapter 5 appear in the chapter “An Anarchist Popular Resistance: The Awakening and China’s Resistance War at Home and Abroad,” collected in Jonathan Henshaw, Craig A. Smith, and Norman Smith, eds., Translating the Occupation: The Japanese Invasion of China, 1931-1945 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2020). Research for the dissertation was carried out in archives in Ann Arbor, Berkeley, and Amsterdam, and made use of numerous digitized archives. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... iii Lay Summary ..................................................................................................................................v Preface ........................................................................................................................................... vi Table of Contents ......................................................................................................................... vii List of Figures .................................................................................................................................x Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................... xi Dedication ................................................................................................................................. xviii CHAPTER 1: Introduction: Anarchism, Networks, and Beyond ..................................................1 Setting the Scene .....................................................................................................1 The Scene and its Significance ...............................................................................9 Historiographical Backgrounds ............................................................................13 Methodologies .......................................................................................................28 Sources ..................................................................................................................33 Traveling through Chinese Anarchist Networks ...................................................37 Seeing Chinese in the World through Anarchist Practice .....................................43 CHAPTER 2 Spokes of the Wheel: Ba Jin as Hub within Global Anarchist Worlds ................47 Introduction ...........................................................................................................47 Networks and Nodes .............................................................................................52 Ray Jones and San Francisco ................................................................................61 A Pivot in Fujian ...................................................................................................68 The Spanish Civil War and its Lessons .................................................................74 A Node Revived ....................................................................................................84 vii Conclusions ...........................................................................................................93 CHAPTER 3 Anarchists on the Bay: Ray Jones, Pingshe, and Trans-Pacific Anarchist Networks ...............................................................................................................95 An Opening Scene ................................................................................................95 The San Francisco and Pac-Northwest Scene .....................................................102 Ray Jones and Comrades ....................................................................................105 Pingshe and its Beginnings ................................................................................. 115 Pingdeng as an International San Francisco Journal ..........................................129 Conclusions .........................................................................................................135 CHAPTER 4 An Anarchist History in Three Acts: Quanzhou’s Liming Advanced Middle School and Pingmin Middle School as Scholarship, as a Record of Overseas Chinese, and as a Celebration of Ba Jinology .....................................................138 Anarchists In Between and Among .....................................................................138 Ba Jin’s Time in Quanzhou as a Site of Celebration ...........................................142 Liming and Pingmin a la the Academicians .......................................................152 Fujian, Quanzhou, and China’s Transnational Revolutions ..........................154 Liming, Pingmin, Wenshi ziliao, and the Problem of Approach ...................160 Korean Anarchists and Ba Jin .......................................................................164 Liang Piyun, Radical Education, and Diasporic Chinese Ventures ....................166 Conclusions
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