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Prison Management in the Kiangsi and Yenan Periods

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Patricia Griffin
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Extract

Recent studies on the origins of various Chinese Communist administrative techniques have revealed a striking continuity between present methods and the Communists' pre-1949 experiments in the Kiangsi Soviet (1927–34) and in the Border Regions of the north-west (1935–45).1 The Kiangsi and Yenan experiences are particularly vital to an under-standing of the Party's penal theories, since it was during the 1927–49 period that the Communists formulated their policies concerning release, leniency, production, democratic management, education and thought reform. Of particular interest is the gradual elaboration, during a war-time situation, of their controversial procedures of thought control or “ brainwashing.” While a description of the development of these policies from 1927–49 is interesting in itself, this article aims in addition to analyse how changes in technique were a response to environmental and political factors. It can be shown that prison policies varied in a direct relationship to the changing economic, political and military environment; consequently, the present penal policies of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) cannot be understood without reference to their origin in the physical and psychological environment of Kiangsi and Yenan.

Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 58 , June 1974 , pp. 310 - 331
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1974

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References

1. For examples see articles by Illpyong, Kim and Selden, Mark in Baraett, A.Doak (ed.), Chinese Communist Politics in Action ( Washington: University of Washington Press, 1969)Google Scholar; Also seeSchwarz, Henry, “The nature of leadership of the Chinese Communists 1930–45,” World Politics, 22 (1969/1970), pp. 541–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Eto, Shinkichi, “Hai-lu-feng: The first Chinese Soviet government,” The China Quarterly, No. 8 (1961), pp. 160–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar and No. 9 (1962), pp. 149–81 and Peter Seybolt, “The Yenan Revolution in mass education,” ibid. No. 48 (1971), pp. 641–69 .

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4. Ted-hang Report, p. 33.

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13. The term tzu-hsin is usually translated as one who has reformed himself into a new man. As the translation implies, it denotes one who has reformed or is in the process of reforming. However, in the Tai-hang Report the term seems to be used simply as a synonym for convict.

14. “Conciliation in civil cases and education in criminal cases,” Chieh-fang jih-pao (.Liberation Daily), 1 August 1946, p. 2.

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25. Ibid.

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31. Guaranteeing allowed a criminal to be released before completing his sentence providing that a certain number of people would sign a guarantee for his behaviour. This practice, which followed a pre-modern example, had been temporarily suspended by the Communists in Kiangsi during the 1933–34 crisis period.

32. “Shensi-Kansu-Ninghsia Border Region Government Directive No. 48,” dated 18 February 1944. Located in Compendium… Shensi-Kansu-Ninghsia, Supplement, pp. 271–73.

33. Hsien-hsing fa-lii hui-chi (Compendium of Current Laws) (Administrative Committee of Shansi-Chahar-Hopei Border Region, 1945), pp. 702–703Google Scholar;

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41. Ibid. Art 6.

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61. “Directive from the Shensi-Kansu-Ninghsia Border Region High Court…,” p. 757.

62. Ibid.

63. Ch'i Li, Shensi-Kansu, p. 36.

64. “Life of a criminal in the High Court prison.”

65. SeeVogel, Ezra, “Voluntarism and social control,” in Treadgold, Donald W. (ed.), Soviet and Chinese Communism: Similarities and Differences (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1967), pp. 168–84Google Scholar; Also seeMonro, Donald J., “The malleability of man in Chinese Marxism,” The China Quarterly, No. 48 (1971), pp. 609–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar;

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67. For examples seeRigney, Harold, Four Years in a Red Hell (Chicago: Henry Regnery Co., 1956)Google Scholar and Allyn, and Rickett, Adele, Prisoners of Liberation (New York: Cameron Associates, 1957)Google Scholar;

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69. Ibid. p. 200.

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71. Schein, Edgar, Coercive Persuasion (New York: Norton, 1961), pp. 176, 193Google Scholar;

72. Such an incident was related to Allyn Rickett while in a Chinese Communist prison and relayed to me in a recent conversation.

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