This book offers a comprehensive account of indentured Chinese labour in the Dutch East Indies between 1880 and 1942, particularly in its twilight years after 1917. The author shows that Chinese indenture started and evolved differently from other forms of bonded labour in Southeast Asia and globally, including its Indian and Javanese variants. This difference is reflected in its lexicon, which was in part special to the Chinese strain. Using fieldwork findings from the tin islands of Bangka and Belitung and the Deli plantations on Sumatra as well as archival materials in Dutch, Chinese, and other languages held in libraries in Java, Nanjing, Taipei, Hong Kong, and Leiden, this book presents cutting-edge research that sets out to contribute to the revising of our historical understanding of indenture
Preliminary Material /Gregor Benton -- Editor's Introduction /Gregor Benton -- Preface /Sihe Chen -- Moscow's Sun Yat-sen University /Gregor Benton -- The Year 1931 /Gregor Benton -- Chen Duxiu /Gregor Benton -- Peng Shuzhi /Gregor Benton -- The Chinese Trotskyists' Unification Congress /Gregor Benton -- Traitors and Informers /Gregor Benton -- Chen Duxiu's Last Years /Gregor Benton -- Chen Qichang /Gregor Benton -- Zheng Chaolin /Gregor Benton -- Huang Jiantong /Gregor Benton -- Du Weizhi /Gregor Benton -- Wang Guolong, Zhou Rensheng, and Zhou Lüqiang /Gregor Benton -- Epilogue /Gregor Benton -- Postscript /Gregor Benton -- Unfinished Autobiography /Duxiu Chen -- A Consciousness Awakes /Chaolin Zheng -- My First Contact With New Ideas /Fanxi Wang -- Before and After May Thirtieth /Chaolin Zheng -- Two Years at University /Fanxi Wang -- Twelve People /Chaolin Zheng -- Chinese Students in Moscow /Fanxi Wang -- Chinese Students at the International Lenin School in Moscow, 1926–38: Light from the Russian Archives /Alexander V. Pantsov and Daria A. Spichak -- Stalin and the Chinese Communist Dissidents /Alexander V. Pantsov -- Appeal to All Comrades of the Chinese Communist Party (10 December 1929) /Duxiu Chen -- An Ebbing or a Flowing Tide? /Chaolin Zheng -- The Left Opposition /Chaolin Zheng -- Unification of the Four Groups /Fanxi Wang -- The Founding of Struggle and the Darkest Days of My Life /Fanxi Wang -- Chen Duxiu, the Chinese Trotskyists, and the War of Resistance /Fanxi Wang -- The Pacific War and a New Split in the Organisation /Fanxi Wang -- From War to Revolution /Fanxi Wang -- The Communist League of China (January 1940) /Frank Glass -- Chen Duxiu, Founder of Chinese Communism /Fanxi Wang -- Chen Duxiu and the Trotskyists /Chaolin Zheng -- Chen Duxiu Had No Wish to Rejoin the ccp on Leaving Jail /Chaolin Zheng -- Preface to the Collected Poems of Chen Duxiu (June 2, 1993) /Ke Xiao -- Editor's Introduction to Chen Duxiu's Last Articles and Letters /Gregor Benton -- Letter to Chen Qichang and Others (21 November 1937) /Gregor Benton -- Letter to Leon Trotsky (3 November 1938) /Gregor Benton -- Letter to Xiliu and Others (1 March 1940) /Gregor Benton -- Letter to Xiliu and Others (24 April 1940) /Gregor Benton -- Letter to Xiliu (3 November 1938) /Gregor Benton -- Letter to Liangen (31 July 1940) /Gregor Benton -- Letter to Xiliu (September 1940) /Gregor Benton -- My Basic Views (28 November 1940) /Gregor Benton -- Letter to Y (19 January 1941) /Gregor Benton -- Letter to H and S (19 January 1941) /Gregor Benton -- A Sketch of the Post-War World (10 February 1942) /Gregor Benton -- Once Again on the World Situation (19 April 1942) /Gregor Benton -- The Future of the Oppressed Nations (13 May 1942) /Gregor Benton -- My Feelings on the Death of Mr Cai Jiemin /Duxiu Chen -- On Chen Duxiu's Last Views /Shuang Shan -- Introduction to Leon Trotsky on China (1974) /Shuzhi Peng -- Introduction: Leon Trotsky and Chinese Communism (1980) /Fanxi Wang -- Trotskyism in China (1947) /Shuzhi Peng.
Prophets Unarmed is an authoritative sourcebook on the Chinese Communist Party's main early opposition. The Opposition's standpoints and proposals and its association with the democratic movement are not without relevance to China's present crisis of morals and authority.
Based upon a huge range of contrasting source material, and including seven varied case studies, this book tells the story of the involvement of overseas Chinese in labour and social-revolutionary movements and internationalism.
