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Fang Zhimin, Jingdezhen and the Northeast Jiangxi Soviet

Tradition, Revolution and Civil War in a Pottery Town

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Michael Dillon
Michael Dillon
Affiliation:
University of Durham
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Extract

In June 1930, units of the 10th Red Army, which had been formed in northeastern Jiangxi by Fang Zhimin and Shao Shiping, entered the ancient porcelain town of Jingdezhen. The capture of the town brought the modern revolutionary politics of the Chines Communits Party (CCP) into contact with the local government and trades union organizations of a conservative, traditionally-minded town. Jingdezhen remained under the influence of the Red Army from 1930 until the strategic withdrawal from the Northeast Jiangxi Soviet in 1933 which was the forerunner of the complete withdrawal from the Jiangxi base areas and the Long March. There is ample information on the organization of the N.E. Jiangxi Soviet base and its best-known leader, Fang Zhimin, but most studies concentrate on the political structure of the Soviet government, the career and personality of Fang and the peasant milieu in which the Soviet emerged.1 Jingdezhen was not a peasant society or a major city: it was an intermediate small town world with part of the population permanently resident and many seasonal workers from the rural areas who provided a link with peasant communities.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , July 1992 , pp. 569 - 589
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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References

1 These include the short section by Kim, Ilpyong J. in The Politics of Chinese Communism: Kiangsi under the Soviets (University of California, 1973);Google ScholarAverill, Stephen C., ‘Party, Society and Local Elite in the Jiangxi Communist Movement’, Journal of Asian Studies 46, 2 (05 1987);CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Sheel, Kamal, Peasant Society and Maxist Intellectuals in China: Fang Zhimin and the Origin of a Revolutionary Movement in the Xinjiang Region (Princeton University Press, 1989). The Xinjiang rerferred to by Sheel is the Xin River region of Northeast Jiangxi. The CCP's brief period of influence and control in Jingdezhen is not mentioned by Averill or Sheel, although Sheel very briefly mentions violent conflict in the town in 1926 (pp. 202–3).Google Scholar

2 The principal sources are Jingdezhen taoci shigao (Draft history of the porcelain industry in Jingdezhen) edited by the Bureau, Jiangxi of Light Industry (Beijing, 1959) —henceforth Draft History;Google ScholarSiqing, Jiang, Jingdezhen ciye shi (History of the Porcelain Industry in Jingdezhen) (Shanghai, 1936);Google ScholarZeyi, Peng (ed.), Zhongguo jindai shougongye shi ziliao (Materials on the history of modern handicraft industry in China), 4 vols (Beijing, 1957).Google Scholar

A further reason for the scarcity of onformation is the fact that the attack on Jingdezhen was led by Fang Zhimin, a revolutionary martyr, and was preparatory to the planned capture of Jiujiang in the summer of 1930. The attack on Jiujiang, which never took place, was part of the catastrophic ‘Line’ of shi fting the focus of the revolution from the countryside back to the towns, and it is ubderstandable that Fang Zhimin's part in such a failure has been played down by communist writers. See Guillermaz, J., History of the Chinese Communist Party (1972), p. 199. Even the publication of less orthodox accounts of the history of the 1920s and 1930s in the major 1980s series of Wenshi Ziliao xuanbian and Wenshi ziliao xuanji has not yielded fresh information on these events.Google Scholar

3 For further information on the earlier history of Jingdezhen, see Dillon, M. S., ‘History of the Porcelain Industry in Jingdezhen’ Ph. D. thesis University of Leeds 1976; Draft History and Jiang (1936).Google Scholar

4 The hammers, shuidui, and stick powered wheels were still in use in the early 1980s (personal observation October 1983).Google Scholar

5 Information on wages and conditions from: Draft History pp. 334–8; Jiang (1936) pp. 185–8;Google ScholarZhuo, Xiang, Jingdezhen Taoye jishi (Records of the pottery industry in Jingdezhen) (1920), pp. 43–5;Google ScholarPeng, (1957) vol. II, p. 729, vol. III, pp. 227, 324, 588.Google Scholar

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12 Ibid., p. 340; Peng (1957), vol II, p. 604. There is information on the influence of the Boxer Movement and its links with peasant protest in Leping, one of the districts which supplied Jingdezhen with labour in Sheel (1989), p. 123.

13 Peng, (1957), vol. III, pp. 350–81.Google Scholar

14 Tayler, J. B., ‘The Hopei Pottery Industry and the Problem of Modernisation’, Chinese Social and Political Science Review XIV, 2 (04 1930), pp. 193–5;Google ScholarTayler, J. B., Farm and Factory (London, 1928), p. 36.Google Scholar

15 Jiang, (1936), pp. 185, 188. A similar device was used to launch the Luodi–Lanjia peasant uprising in 1927. Pictures of a clay ox, a model of which was traditionally carried through the villager to welcome the spring, were circulated. The symbol of spring doubled as the symbol of revolt. See Sheel (1989), p. 222.Google Scholar

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18 Averill, (1987), pp. 288–9; Sheel (1989), pp. 201–2.Google Scholar

19 Shiping, Shao, ‘Zhongguo gongnong hongjun dishi juntuan dansheng qian Gandongbei chu chi nongmin yundong de gaikuang’ in Zhongguo gongchandang zai Jiangxi dichu lingdao geming yundong de lishi ziliao (Nanchang, 1951)Google Scholar, cited in Sheel (1989), p. 202. Shao Shiping (1899–1965) was born in the same country as Fang Zhimin and went to school with him. He joined the CCP soon after 1925 and worked in the peasant movement in his home district. He held a number of posts in the Guomindang and CCP during the First United Front period and for a short time before the 1927 split was secretary to the Fuliang CCP Cmmitee and also the Jingdezhen CCP Committee. In autumn 1927, he moved from Jingdezhen to Heng-feng country and held several important military and political offices under the N. E. Jiangxi Soviet before moving to another soviet on the Fujian/ Jiangxi border and then leaving Jiangxi with the main body of the Long March, unlike Fang Zhimin. He was involved in educational work in Yan'an and moved to Manchuria in 1945. In June 1949, he returned to Jiangxi as Provincial Governor, a post he held until his death in 1965.Google Scholar

20 Draft History p. 342; Jiang, (1936), p. 158.Google Scholar

21 Draft History p. 342; Peng (1957), vol III, pp. 356, 378.Google Scholar

22 Averill, (1987), p. 283; Sheel (1989), p. 137.Google Scholar

23 Boorman, Howard L. and Howard, Richard C., Biographical Dictionary of Republican china (New York, 1967–1971), pp. 15–16;Google ScholarKlein, Donald W. and Clark, Anne B., Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Communism 1921–65 (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), pp. 268–72;Google ScholarBraun, Otto, A Comintern Agent in China 1932–1939 (London, 1982), p. 12;Google ScholarAverill, (1987), p. 283 and passim; Sheel (1989), pp. 136–71.Google Scholar

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25 Reproduced in Ken'ichi, Hatano, Chūgoku Kyōsantō shi (History of the Chinese Communist Party, 7 vols, Tokyo, 1962), Vol. 3, pp. 311–85. Du Zhennong was killed at about the same time as Fang Zhimin. Otto Braun, using information obtained from the CCP's Central Committee on the eve of the fith ‘Encirclement Campaign’ in 1932, wrote that the Northeast Jiangxi Soviet at that time was a ‘fiercely embattled guerrilla zone of 15,000 square km and just 1 million inhabitants. Here Fang [Zhimin] commanded the 10th Army with 5,000 to 6,000 men and 3,000 to 4,000 rifles’.Google ScholarBraun, (1982), p. 15.Google Scholar

26 Zhongguo Gongchandang zai zhongnan diqu lingdao geming douzheng de lishi ziliao (Historical material on the CCP leadership of the revolutionary struggle in South Central China) edited by the Wuhan Marxist Evening Institute (Wuhan, 1951), pp. 203–4.Google Scholar See also Sheel, (1989), p. 228–9.Google Scholar

27 Draft History, pp. 342–3.Google Scholar

28 Ibid.

29 Since Jingdezhen lies on a river crossing near the intersection of passes which cross the mountains from Anhui in the north to Fujian in the south and eastward to Zhejiang, it was also an important strategic and communication point. For the same reason, the town the scene of bitter fighting during the Taiping Rebellion.Google Scholar

30 This account is based on Fang Zhimin de gushi (The story of Fang Zhimin) edited by the Iyang County Committee ‘Story of Fang Zhimin’ writing group (Beijing, 1976), pp. 73–5;Google Scholar and Fang Zhimin edited by Shi, Feng (shanghai, 1975), pp. 40–1, both of which rather romanticize the attack on Jingdezhen.Google Scholar A similar account is given in Zhi, Zhang, Fang Zhimin (Beijing, 1983), pp. 129–36.Google Scholar

31 Jiang, (1936), p. 158.Google Scholar

32 Zhang, (1983), p. 136.Google Scholar

33 Draft History, p. 344; Zhi, Zhang (1983), p. 136.Google Scholar

34 Ibid.

35 Boorman, and Howard, (1967–1971); Guillermaz (1972), pp. 239; Braun (1982), p. 75;Google ScholarYaowu, Wang, ‘Zujie Fang Zhimin beishang fangri xianqiandui zhanyi de jingyan’ (The combat experience of resisting the movement north of Fang Zhimin's advance guard to fight the Japanese,), Wenshi ziliao xuanbian (Beijing, 1986), vol. 24, pp. 187–203.Google Scholar

36 Jiang, (1936), p. 158.Google Scholar On fleeing merchants, see also ‘“Fang Zhimin Gan Dongbei Suweiai chuangli de lishi” xuyan’, in Ke'ai de Zkongguo (Beijing, 1965), p. 86.Google Scholar

37 There is a detailed account of the connection between the crisis in the rural economy of Northeast Jiangxi and peasant protests and rebellions in Sheel, (1989), ch. 5.Google Scholar

38 Hongqi piaopiao, vol. V, pp. 74–8, vol. XII, pp. 140–6.Google Scholar

39 Hershatter, Gail, The Workers of Tianjin 1900–1949 (Stanford University Press, 1986), pp. 212–20.Google Scholar

40 Ibid., p. 220.

41 perry, Elizabeth J., Rebels and Revolutionaries in North China, 1845–1945 (Stanford, 1980), p. 208.Google Scholar

42 Ibid., pp. 209, 211.

43 Ibid., pp. 245–6.

44 Ibid., pp. 216–24.

45 This concern has been reflected, although not directly, in the work of Chinese thinkers of the 1980s who have been trying to understand CCP policies in terms of the ‘legacy of feudalism’.Google Scholar

46 For example, one drawn up by the journalist and pottery manager Zhongyuan, Du in 1934, Draft History, p. 275.Google Scholar

47 Ibid., pp. 349ff.