Suchergebnisse

The Canton rising of December 1927 was an event of international significance in Chinese Communist history. In order to understand it in proper perspective it is necessary to trace Comintern policy on rural and urban revolutions in China from 1920 to 1927. From the beginning the Comintern approach to the revolution in the East was different from that in the West. In the West the revolution was one of the industrial proletariat against the bourgeoisie with the rural toilers as the auxiliary revolutionary force. In the East, where there was almost no industrial proletariat or where, in some relatively advanced countries the industrial proletariat was just beginning to grow up, the Comintern supported the native bourgeoisie temporarily and the peasantry permanently in its grand strategy against "capitalist imperialism" and "feudalism" represented chiefly by landlords. While Comintern support for the bourgeoisie of the East was not expected to hinder future communist work against the native bourgeois democratic tendencies, Comintern support for the peasantry was so complete that no communist programme was considered possible in the pre-capitalist countries if it was not based on the peasant movement. The proletarian revolution was not a problem in the East at the outset.

This article attempts to present the impression made by Chinese communism in Hong Kong during the germinal period of the Chinese Communist Movement from 1921, when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was founded, to 1934, when the communist presence in Hong Kong and Guangdong had virtually disappeared and communist activities were not to be revived until shortly before the outbreak of China's war with Japan. The early perception of communism and its importance have to be understood in the context of the dual society of the colony, with the British as the ruler and the Chinese as the ruled in almost totally separate communities.

Afterlives of Chinese Communism comprises essays from over fifty world- renowned scholars in the China field, from various disciplines and continents. It provides an indispensable guide for understanding how the Mao era continues to shape Chinese politics today. Each chapter discusses a concept or practice from the Mao period, what it attempted to do, and what has become of it since. The authors respond to the legacy of Maoism from numerous perspectives to consider what lessons Chinese communism can offer today, and whether there is a future for the egalitarian politics that it once promised.