Benton / Hunter Wild Lily, Prairie Fire

China's Road to Democracy, Yan'an to Tian'anmen, 1942-1989
Course Book
ISBN: 978-1-4008-2182-2
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 400 Seiten, Web PDF

Gregor Benton and Alan Hunter provide here a source book of documents of democratic dissent under Chinese Communism, most of them previously untranslated and difficult to find in the West. Ranging from eye-witness accounts of a massacre to theoretical critiques of Chinese Marxist thought, these essays are among the most powerful and important works of Chinese dissident literature written in this century. An extensive introduction maintains that the documents reveal a tradition of democratic thought and practice that traces its descent to the New Culture Movement of the 1910s and the founding generation of the Chinese Communist Party. Far from being a late twentieth-century import (along with capitalist economics) from Europe, Japan, and the United States, this tradition of dissent is deeply embedded in the experience of China's revolutionary movements.

The story of Chinese Communism has often been reduced to uniformity not only by political bureaucrats in China but by Western scholarship derived from official Chinese histories. Wild Lily, Prairie Fire paints a far richer picture. The book calls into question many of the usual beliefs about the relation between democracy and communism, at least in the Chinese case, which may now be seen to depart from the Soviet model in yet another crucial respect.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Benton, Gregor

Hunter, Alan

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Asiatische Geschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

A Note on Pronunciation

Abbreviations

Introduction 3

Ch. 1 Wild Lily, 1942 69

Wild Lily 69

Politicians, Artists 75

Thoughts on March 8 (Women's Day) 78

It Is Still the Age of the Zawen 82

Ch. 2 The Hundred Flowers, 1957 85

Forum of Democratic Parties and Groups on the Rectification Movement 85

Symposium of Scientists 88

What Is the Fundamental Cause of the Trade Union Crisis? 89

Distressing Contradiction 92

Rebellious Journalists 93

Excerpts from a Speech Made at a Debate Held at People's University on May 30, 1957 94

On the New Development of "Class" 98

Heaven, Water, Heart: Democracy? Party Rule? 99

I Accuse, I Protest 100

Seven Theses on Socialism and Democracy 101

Ch. 3 Cultural Revolution, 1966-1976 104

What Have Song Shuo, Lu Ping, and Peng Peiyun Done in the Cultural Revolution? 104

Red Guard Statements, 1966-1967 108

"Revolutionary" Power-holders 120

Whither China? 124

On Socialist Democracy and the Legal System 134

On the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" 145

Ch. 4 China Spring, 1979-1981 157

Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution 157

China: A History That Must Be Told 175

Democracy or a New Dictatorship? 180

Interview with Xu Wenli 185

A Reform Program for the Eighties 189

A Statement of Clarification 194

Democracy and Legality Are Safeguards of Stability and Unity 196

A Guangdong Youth Forum on Wall Posters 199

The Wind Rises from among the Duckweed: Elections at Beijing University 202

Election Scandal in a Rural Commune 210

The Election Movement Is in the Ascendant 213

The Student Movement in Hunan 217

Youth Disturbances in China's Far West 221

Advertisement: Modern Clothes 227

The Reawakening of the Chinese Working Class 228

In Memory of Wang Shenyou, Pioneer of the Democratic Movement, Teacher, Comrade 229

Interview with Yang Jing 234

Eyewitness Account of the Arrest of Liu Qing 239

Liu Qing Is Innocent! 244

Sad Memories and Prospects: My Appeal to the Tribunal of the People 247

Women Are Human Beings Too 257

China and Solidarnosc 259

Ch. 5 Prairie Fire, 1989 264

Proposal to Resign from the Party and Prepare an "Association to Promote China's Democracy Movement" 264

Letter of Petition 266

Speech in Tian'anmen Square 266

A Worker's Letter to the Students 269

A Choice Made on the Basis of Conscience and Party Spirit: An Open Letter to All Party Members 270

Hoist High the Flag of Reason 271

Where I Stand 274

The Socialist Multiparty System and China 275

A Letter to the People 278

Preparatory Program of the Autonomous Federation of Workers of the Capital 279

Workers' Declaration 280

Open Letter to the Students from an Army Veteran 281

Smart Thieves' Voice 282

Provisional Statutes of the Autonomous Federation of Workers of the Capital 283

Statement 284

Statement 285

The Massacre in Tian'anmen Square 286

Account of the Beijing Massacre 291

The Square 295

Open Letter to the Chinese Communist Party 296

Ch. 6 The Intellectuals' Critique 299

Proposals for Reform of the Political Structure, 1986 299

The Theory of Two Cultural Factors 305

Problems of Modernization 307

In Defense of Humanism 312

On Political Reform 317

The Bureaucratic Paradise 327

Appendix: Sources of the Texts 333

Index 343

Über Autor(innen)

Gregor Benton is Professor of Chinese Studies, and Alan Hunter is Lecturer and Senior Research Fellow, both in the Department of East Asian Studies, University of Leeds, England. Benton's previous book was Mountain Fires: The Red Army's Three-Year War in South China, 1934-1938 (California). With Chan Kim-Kwong, Hunter is the author of Protestantism in Contemporary China (Cambridge).