Hunan: Laboratory of Reform and Land of Revolution: Hunanese in the Making of Modern China

In: Modern Asian studies, Band 42, Heft 6, S. 1113-1136

Abstract

AbstractHunan produced the largest number and most able leaders for the Chinese Communist Party. How could this land-locked, sleepy and conservative province produce so many revolutionaries? This article examines the consequences of three consecutive political theatres and their actors that turned Hunan into a laboratory of reform and land of revolution. It focuses on what three generations of Hunanese did that pushed Hunan into and kept the province in the national spotlight. The Hunanese, be they Qing loyalists, constitutional reformers, Han nationalists or communists, dominated China's political stage from the 1850s to the 1980s. They were patriotic and pragmatic in their patriotism. Would the Communist Revolution have been so fundamental and bloody had Champagne liberals or those with no militarist tradition controlled the helm? With the tide of Hunan gone, we must re-examine this province to see how it had shaped and changed the course of modern China.