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The Sexual Revolution in the Kiangsi Soviet

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Chi-hsi Hu
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Extract

One of the most effective weapons used by the Kuomintang in its struggle against the Chinese Communist Party during the Kiangsi period was probably the allegation that the revolutionaries had completely destroyed morals, collectivized women and contributed to sexual chaos. In 1931, a Kuomintang newspaper went so far as to affirm that units of the Red Army had revolted against Mao Tse-tung at Fut'ien in December 1930 because they were opposed to the partition of land and the practice of sexual liberty in the Kiangsi Soviet. In 1934, among the 42 anti-communist slogans adopted by the nationalist authorities, five had to do with the theme of sexual morality. Thus, in the “white areas” of Kiangsi, wall posters appeared bearing the words, “The red bandits wish to destroy virtue: they practise free sex. They are savage beasts who abandon themselves to debauchery!” Or, “If women wish to preserve their chastity and enjoy familial happiness, they must take up arms to exterminate the red bandits!“

Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 59 , September 1974 , pp. 477 - 490
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1974

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References

1. Cf. Hua-pei jih-pao (North China Daily News), 2 August 1931, quoted in Kuan Hai (China Newspaper Clipping Service) (Shanghai), September 1931, p. 53.

2. Chiang-hsi sheng-hui ko-chieh min-chung hsieh-chu chiao-fei-hui kung-tso paokao (Report of the Association of the Masses of Kiangsi to Help in the Extermination of Bandits), 1934, microfilm belonging to Cornell University, pp. 41–42Google Scholar.

3. On the question of the fear of the Chinese peasants, rich or poor, concerning the collectivization of women, alleged to be practised by the communists in the Kiangsi Soviet, see, in particular, Tzu-hui, Teng, “Fu-an nung-min ke-ming ti kai-tuan” (“The beginning of the peasant revolution at Fu-an”), Hung-ch'i p'iao p'iao (Red Flags Flying) (Peking), Vol. XI, 1959, p. 84Google Scholar.

4. This phrase was suppressed in the present version of the Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung. Extracts from the text of the original version of the “Report on Hunan” were translated into English by Schram, Stuart, in The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung (Hannondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1969 (p. 258))Google Scholar.

5. Cf. Tse-tung, Mao, Hsing-kuo tiao-ch'a (Hsinglcuo Survey), in Minoru, Takeuchi (ed.), Mao Tse-tung chi (Collected Writings of Mao Tse-tung) (Tokyo: Hokubosha), Vol. II, pp. 217 and 223Google Scholar. At the personal request of Mao, this text, like all the other rural investigations, was excluded from the Selected Works.

6. Ibid. p. 223.

7. Ibid. p. 221. This grammatical distortion represented a great deal more than a simple linguistic innovation and showed the perception of a profound alteration in the psychic structure of the population. It summarized, indeed, all the hatred felt by peasant men and women towards the matrimonial system of the old society, characterized by arranged marriages, concubinage, the adoption of child “fiancées,” the unilateral notion of chastity, the suicide of women in the name of virtue and fidelity. The 1930 decree might therefore be translated as follows: “Let men without wives freely procure wives as rapidly as possible…” or even, “Let men without wives ‘hustle’ wives as rapidly as possible…”

8. Hsing-kuo tiao-ch'a, p. 223.

9. Ibid. pp. 217,221,223 and 226.

10. “Fu-nü kung-tso chi-hua” (Work plan for the organization of women), in Ch'ih-fei chi-mi wen-chien hui-pien (Collection of Secret Documents of the Red Bandits), Vol. IV, 1931, pp. 41–42Google Scholar, Ch'en Ch'eng Collection, reel 20.

11. “Shao-kung pei-lu chih-wei ch'ing-fu shu-chih lien-hsi wei-yüan-hui chüehi-an “(Resolution of the Joint Committee of Secretaries of the Feminine Committee of the Communist Youth League in North Kiangsi), ibid. p. 37.

12. Ibid. p. 40.

13. For a discussion of this problem, see, in particular, Shao-bin, Shih (ed.), Chung-kuo feng-chien she-hui nung-min ke-ming wen-ti tao-lun chi (Collection of Articles on the Problem of the Revolutionary Wars of the Peasants in Chinese Feudal Society) (Peking, 1962)Google Scholar, and Tsu-min, Sun, Chung-kuo nung-min chan-cheng wen-ti t'an-so (Research into the Problem of the Chinese Peasant Wars) (Shanghai, 1956)Google Scholar.

14. Hung-se chung-hua (Red China), No. 2, 28 11 1931, p. 4Google Scholar. This document was signed jointly by Mao Tse-tung, president of the Central Executive Committee of the government of the Chinese Soviet Republic, and by Hsiang Ying and Chang Kuo-t'ao, vice-presidents. But there is no doubt that it was the work of Mao, fervent fighter for the liberty of love and marriage since the era of the May Fourth Movement, Hsiang Ying having never shown any interest in this question and Chang Kuo-t'ao never having been in the Kiangsi Soviet. The preamble to this document was translated into English by Schram, Stuart. Cf. The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung, pp. 337–38Google Scholar. See also, Kun, Béia, Fundamental Laws of the Chinese Soviet Republic (London: Martin Lawrence, 1934)Google Scholar.

15. We must make a distinction here between a reform of the system of marriage, elaborated in a thoughtful manner and aiming at the conscious modification of the psychic structure of an entire population, and the sudden flare-ups, generally ephemeral, of a certain mass sexual mysticism of Taoist inspiration which exploded from time to time throughout the history of China. On the problem of Taoist sexual mysticism, see Gulik, Robert Van, Sexual Life in Ancient China: A Preliminary Survey of Sex and Society from ca. 1500 B.C. till 1644 A.D. (Leiden: Brill, E. J., 1961)Google Scholar.

16. Deutscher, Isaac, Ironies of History (London; Oxford Univ. Press, 1966), p 89Google Scholar.

17. According to Mao, marriages concluded according to the doctrine of pre-destined marriage represented approximately 80% of all marriages in China at the time of the May Fourth Movement (1919). Cf. Shih-chao, Chou, “My Recollections of Chairman Mao in Ch'angsha before and after the May Fourth Movement,” Kung-jen jih-pao, 20 04 1959Google Scholar, translated in Survey of China Mainland Press (Hong Kong: U.S. Consulate General), No. 2011, 12 05 1959, p. 1Google Scholar.

18. The notion of grounds for divorce, suppressed during the Kiangsi period, was reintroduced during the Yenan period in the Shen-kan-ning pien-ch'ü hun-yin l'iao-li (Regulations on Marriage in the Frontier Region of Shen-kan-ning) of 4 April 1939. Cf. Chien-min, Wang, Chung-kuo kung-ch'art-tang shih kao (A Draft History of the CCP), Vol. III (Taipei, 1965), pp. 247–48Google Scholar. The 10 causes for divorce enumerated in Article II of this document are those which one might expect to find in any “bourgeois” law governing marriage.

19. “Fan feng-chien hai-shih t'i fan-ke-ming tsao chi-hui?” (“Combat feudalism or furnish weapons to the counter-revolution?”), Ch'ing-nien shih-hua, (True Words of Youth), No. 11, 25 02 1932, p. 16Google Scholar.

20. Cf. “Wei-sheng yü kui” (“Hygiene and phantom”), Ch'ing-nien shih-hua. No. 13, 25 03 1932, p. 24Google Scholar.

21. Po-t'ai, Liang, “Fan-tui fu-shi shang-chi ming-ling yü fu-yen se-tse ti o-hsi” (“Let us oppose bad habits which consist of neglecting orders and being careless in our work”), Hung-se chung-hua, No. 9, 10 03 1932, p. 8Google Scholar.

22. Ibid. No. 20,25 May 1932, p. 8.

23. “Chiang-hsi sheng-su pao-kao” (“Report of the provincial soviet government of Kiangsi”), ibid. No. 41,21 November 1932, p. 6.

24. Ibid. p. 6.

25. “Chien-ch'a ning-tu-hsien ti kung-tso” (“Verification of work in Ningtu County”), Hung-ti chiang-hsi (Red Kiangsi), No. 2, 26 06 1932, p. 2Google Scholar.

26. Cf. Chung-hua su-wei-ai kung-ho-kuo ti-erh-tz'u ch'üan-kuo tai-piao ta-hui wen-hsien (Collection of Documents of the Second National Congress of the Dele-gates of the Chinese Soviet Republic), Juichin, 03 1934, p. 97Google Scholar, Ch'en Ch'eng Collection, reel 16.

27. “Chung-kuo su-wei-ai kung-ho-kuo hun-yin fa” (“Law on marriage of the Chinese Soviet Republic”), Su-wei-ai fa-tien (The Soviet Code) (Juichin: People's Commissariat of Justice, 07 1934), Vol. II, pp. 49–53Google Scholar, Ch'en Ch'eng Collection, reel 16.

28. Following the suicide of a girl in Ch'angsha because she was forced to marry a man she did not love, Mao, in an article published in November 1919 in the paper Ta-kung Pao of Ch'angsha, had violently condemned the Chinese doctrine of predestined marriage. He wrote, “Once the belief in predestined marriage is destroyed, the concept of the eventual incompatibility of a husband and wife will immediately appear. The army of familial revolution will then rise en masse, and the great wave of liberty in marriage and in love will spread over China.” Cf. Witke, Roxane, “Mao Tse-tung, women and suicide in the May Fourth era,” The China Quarterly, No. 31 (1967), pp. 128–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29. Ch'ang, Sheng, “Ch'ih-ch'u chung ti nan-nü kuan-hsi” (“The relations between man and woman in the Red Zone”), Kuo-wen chou-pao (The China Weekly Review), Vol. X, No. 32, 14 08 1933, p. 5Google Scholar. We do not have available statistics on the population of these two counties in 1932. We know only that after the “census” effected by the Chinese communists in 10 other counties of the soviet zone of Kiangsi, the number of inhabitants of a county varied from 80,000 to 270,000.

30. Cf. Li-ming, Liu-Wang, Chung-kuo fu-nü yun-tung (The Feminist Movement in China) (Shanghai: The Commercial Press, n.d.) (circa 1933–1934), pp. 117–18Google Scholar.

31. Tse-tung, Mao, “Hsing-kuo ch'ang-kang-hsiang ti su-wei-ai kung-tso” (”Soviet work in Ch'ang-kang township, Hsing-kuo County”), Tou-cheng (Struggle), No. 43, 19 01 1934, p. 20Google Scholar.

32. “Ti-erh-shih chan-shih tsai ch'ien-hsien tao-lun hun-yin wen-t'i” (”The combatants of the second division at the front discuss the problem of marriage), Ch'ing-nien shih-hua, Vol. III, No. 4, 17 12 1933, p. 14Google Scholar.

33. Mao's hostility towards precocious marriage probably had a double origin: on the one hand, the trauma which he must have experienced at the age of 13 when his father forced upon him a wife six years older than he, and, on the other hand, the influence of Yang Ch'ang-chi, first his philosophy professor at Ch'angsha and later his father-in-law, who was a fierce detractor of the Chinese custom of precocious marriage. For the position of Yang Ch'ang-chi on this issue, see, in particular, his article “Chih-sheng pien” (“On the rules of life”) in Hsin Ch'ingnien (New Youth), Vol. II, No. 4, 12 12 1916, p. 12Google Scholar.

34. Tse-tung, Mao, “Kuan-yü chung-yang chih-hsing wei-yüan-hui pao-kao ti chieh-lun” (“Conclusions concerning the report of the Central Executive Com- mittee”), Hung-se chung-hua, special numbers published on the occasion of the Second National Soviet Congress, No. 5, 31 01 1934, pp. 1–2Google Scholar.

35. Cf. “Fan-dui p'iao” (“Against debauchery”) in San-shih sheng-huo (The Life of the Third Division), No. 2, 14 01 1932, p. 1Google Scholar, Chen Ch'eng Collection, reel 1.

36. “Ning-tu-hsien fu-nü yün-tung kung-tso chi-hua” (“Work plan for the feminist movement of Ningtu County”), an un-dated document published by the Provisory Committee of the Communist Youth League of Ningtu County, Ch'en Ch'eng Collection, reel 6.

37. Cf. Tse-tung, Mao, “Chung-kuo nung-min ko-chieh-chi ti fen-hsi chi ch'i tui-yü ke-ming ti t'ai-tu” (“Analysis of various classes of Chinese peasantry and their attitudes towards revolution”), Chung-kuo nung-min (The Chinese Peasant), I, No. 1, 01 1926, p. 19Google Scholar.

38. Cf.“Fan-dui p'iao.”

39. “Chi-hui chu-i ti tung-yüan” (“Opportunistic mobilization”) Hung-se chung-hua. No. 92, 8 07 1933, p. 6Google Scholar.

40. Cf. Chiang-hsi sheng-hui ko-chieh min-chung hsieh-chu chiao-fei-hui kungtso pao-kao.

41. Cf. “Chung-yang cheng-fu chi hsiang-kan sheng kung-nung bing tai-piao ta-hui tien” (“Telegram from the central government to the Congress of Workers, Peasants and Soldiers of Hunan-Kiangsi Province”), Hung-se chung-hua, No. 22, 9 06 1932, p. 1Google Scholar. See also, “Chung-yang chi hung-chün tang-pu chi ko-chih ti-fang tang-pu ti hsün-ling” (“Instructions of the Central Committee to the committees of the Party of the Red Army and to the local committees of the Party at all levels”) Pu-erh-se-wei-k'e (Bolshevik) (Shanghai), Vol. IV, No. 6, 10 11 1931, p. 16Google Scholar.

42. Smedley, Agnes, The Great Road (London: John Calder, 1958), p. 281Google Scholar.