Anarchism in China

[4] In 1839, the Qing dynasty entered a period of decline, beginning with its defeat by foreign powers during the Opium Wars and continuing with a string of revolts and rebellions, which severely weakened the empire's centralized rule.

[6] This rise in Chinese nationalism, which advocated for a form of popular sovereignty, was poorly received by the governing Confucianists, whose conservative desire to preserve the inherited institutions of the empire led them to oust many nationalists from office during the 1880s.

Having previously met Zhang and Li in Shanghai, Wu joined the pair in Paris, where he introduced them to his friend Cai Yuanpei,[23] who had just published his short story the New Year's Dream, which predicted the great changes in the world with the passage of time.

[43] Liu Shipei argued that the Confucianist and Taoist advocacy of laissez-faire government had curtailed wider imperial intervention in society, which made China more able to achieve anarchism in the short-term than countries which had undergone the establishment of a centralized nation-state.

[63] Perceiving anarchism as primarily a way to transform behavior, the Paris anarchists also established the Promote Virtue Society, which advocated for self-improvement, forbidding members from engaging in prostitution, gambling, eating meat, drinking alcohol and smoking.

[69] In a lecture given at a party meeting, Sun Yat-sen declared his commitment to a socialist program, which would utilize a single-tax policy and controls on monopolies, holding the ideas of Henry George alongside that of Karl Marx.

[87] In the Goals and Methods of the Anarchist-Communist Party, the Society called for abolition of class distinctions, the state, marriage, religion and borders, as well as the institution of common ownership of the means of production, formation of democratic public associations to coordinate the economy, universal free education, the eight-hour day, the cultivation of mutual aid and an international language.

[96] Anarchism became a genuine popular movement in China as increasing numbers of people from peasants and factory workers to intellectuals and students became disillusioned with the national government and its inability to realize the peace and prosperity it had promised.

[104] Many of China's prominent scholars began to openly revolt against Confucianism, instead promoting a society based on individual freedom, complete with women's liberation from the patriarchy, democratic and egalitarian values, as well as a forward-looking orientation.

[121] The CCP was itself founded on the basis of student associations that had been inspired by anarchism during the May Fourth Movement, particularly by the principles of mutual aid and the practice of labor that had been foundational to the organization of collective living in rural areas.

"[117] With the death of Sun Yat-sen in March 1925, a power struggle emerged within the Kuomintang, with the left-wing Wang Jingwei, the centrist Chiang Kai-shek and the right-wing Hu Hanmin all vying for control of the party apparatus.

The former leaders of the Paris anarchist group Zhang Renjie, Li Shizeng, Wu Zhihui and Cai Yuanpei had become known as the Four Elders of the Kuomintang, holding strong influence over the party and supporting Chiang Kai-shek's candidacy for the leadership.

[155] In April 1927, the Four Elders determined that the actions of the CCP were counter-revolutionary and urged Chiang Kai-shek to initiate a purge of the leftists, culminating in the Shanghai massacre,[156] during which thousands of communists were arrested and killed, effectively ending the First United Front.

Zhang Renjie took a position as governor of Zhejiang, where he oversaw a number of public infrastructure projects,[156] before they were eventually sold to private firms,[175] after which he broke with Chiang and resigned,[176] later retiring from politics altogether.

[179] Another uprising in Changsha, but this was defeated and the survivors retreated to the Jinggang Mountains,[180] where Mao Zedong established a base, uniting five villages into a self-governing territory and implementing a policy of confiscating lands from rich landowners.

[186] The KMT was eventually forced to retreat in order to deal with Japanese incursions into China,[187] which allowed the Soviet Republic to expand its influence,[188] with Mao initiating a wide-ranging program of land reform, education and increased gender equality.

Among the figures in the collaborationist government were the Chief of the Education Yuan Jiang Kanghu, the founder of the Socialist Party, and the Foreign Minister Chu Minyi, who had met Wang when they were both members of the Paris anarchist group.

In a massive reversal of his previously held views, Wang blamed communism, anarchism and internationalism for the decadence of Modern China, arguing for the necessity of promoting Confucianism in a return to traditional values.

"[200] After a series of party meetings, bureaucratic authority was reasserted over the rural cadres and centralized state control of the communes was established, reintroducing private ownership and resolving to distribute resources based on work output rather than individual needs.

[211] By the end of 1968, the last vestiges of the radical popular uprising had been suppressed by the PLA, with revolutionary committees finally coming to dominate the country,[213] restoring managerial rule over the workers who "in the name of rebellion and opposing slavishness [...] in reality stir up anarchism.

China–United States relations were normalized, party officials that had been attacked during the revolution were rehabilitated and managerial authority was strengthened, with calls for labor discipline, further rules and regulations, as well as an industrial struggle against the forces of "anarchism" and "ultra-leftism".

When the Maoists launched a campaign to criticise these right-wing elements, numerous dissident trade unionists in the city of Hangzhou resumed their struggle to seize power from the local elites, mobilizing workers' militia against the state for the first time since the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.

[217] The Maoist Wang Hongwen attempted to repeat his earlier taming of the revolution in Shanghai, but was unsuccessful, with the "capitalist roader" Deng Xiaoping stepping in to provide a line against those elements that had "stirred up anarchism", leading to the imposition of martial law on the city and the PLA being sent in to put down the rebellion.

[218] After the death of Mao Zedong and the end of the first generation of Chinese leadership, it was Deng Xiaoping that established himself as the country's paramount leader and began to repress the leftist elements of the Cultural Revolution, such as the Gang of Four.

[223] Although this period initially saw a rise in living standards, it also brought an increase in cronyism and inflation, leading many workers to consider themselves "losers in the decade of economic reform" and began to respond with slowdowns and wildcat strikes.

"[225] He even went as far as to propose that "to overcome alienation, one should take anarchism into account"[226] and called for the institution of universal suffrage with the right to recall elected officials, which led him to be purged from his post at the People's Daily newspaper.

[234] Sections of the New Left began to radicalize further during the fourth generation, as the advent of the internet brought together a number of new leftists on websites such as Utopia,[235] cultivating a rise in democratic socialism, neo-Maoism and anarchism, which attacked Communist Party policy from the far-left.

The Hongkongese political scientist Chris Man-kong Li criticized the "statist apologism" displayed by sections of the New Left, particularly focusing on the work of Wang Hui, whom he accused of whitewashing state oppression and justifying authoritarianism.

[237][238] At the turn of the 21st century, the Chinese punk subculture began to emerge underground in Wuhan, born from youth frustration with mainstream society in mainland China,[239] particularly with patriarchal family structures and the strict schooling system.

[239] The Wuhan punk scene brought about the production of the Chaos magazine, the first anarchist publication to be published in mainland China since the establishment of the People's Republic, which issued articles about the Situationists and green anarchism, as well as translations of the works of Peter Kropotkin and CrimethInc.