Early Socialist Currents in the Chinese Revolutionary Movement: Sun Yat-sen Versus Liang Chʽi-chʽao

1959 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 321-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert A. Scalapino ◽  
Harold Schiffrin
Keyword(s):  
Second Generation ◽  
Dialectical Materialism ◽  
The Other ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
Revolutionary Movement ◽  
The Past ◽  
Modern Chinese ◽  
Modern Chinese History ◽  
Cult Of Personality ◽  
Communist Revolution

After a decade in power, the Chinese Communists have had enough time to change the past as well as the present. Voluminous documentary collections, monographs, and general treatises on modern Chinese history have been published. Many of these works are designed to tell how socialism was victorious over evil and oppression, why the Communists deserved to inherit the mantle of heaven. Modern Chinese history is being reconstructed, with one eye always focussed upon those impersonal and inexorable forces of dialectical materialism and economic determinism, while the other is fixed upon the very personal if enormously heroic qualities of Chairman Mao. In the opening stages of a Communist revolution (and perhaps of most revolutions), a cult of personality comes so naturally and serves so many strategi c purposes, it is difficult to avoid, whatever the logic in second generation criticisms.

Urban Mass Movement: The May Thirtieth Movement in Shanghai

1979 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hung-Ting Ku
Keyword(s):  
Mass Movement ◽  
The Other ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
Modern Chinese ◽  
Modern Chinese History ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Source Materials

The May Thirtieth Incident which occurred in Shanghai during 1925 has been regarded by the Chinese as one of the most important events in modern Chinese history, and the incident has been called ‘Wu-san Ch'an-an’ (the May 30th Tragedy) ever since 1925. Yet only a few studies in the Western languages deal with such an important event. Among those few studies, two of them concentrate on the role of labor in the movement, and the other after collecting a lot of source materials decides to add a subtitle, ‘an outline’, to recognize the vastness and complexity of the subject without making much effort to analyze or discuss the movement.

Japanese Peasants: Moral? Rational? Revolutionary? Duped?–A Review Article

1988 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 821-832 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Bowen
Keyword(s):  
Class Struggle ◽  
Review Article ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
Agricultural Prices ◽  
The Past ◽  
Modern Chinese ◽  
Modern Chinese History ◽  
Popular Movements ◽  
Chinese Peasant ◽  
Peasant Resistance

A full decade has passed since Frederic Wakeman, Jr., published his influential “Rebellion and Revolution: The Study of Popular Movements in Chinese History” (1977). He opened his article with the observation, “During the past twenty-five years, hundreds of studies of Chinese peasant rebellions have appeared in print.” He added that most of these studies had been published in the People's Republic, but in his bibliography he listed dozens of entries by Western scholars on the topic. Significantly, while noting that Western studies of peasant resistance in China “drew upon Chinese scholarship to write histories of their own,” Wakeman emphasized that Western historians were divided on the issue of whether the “Maoist depiction of Chinese history as perennial class struggle” was accurate. He summed up the controversy in these words:Was an immiserated peasantry ruthlessly exploited by a venal landlord class through the sweep of pre-modern Chinese history? Or would it be more accurate to say that, while the population suffered in times of epidemic or famine, there were long periods of plenty when relatively affluent farmers benefited from rising agricultural prices, and negotiated rental contracts to their own liking with accommodating landlords? (Wakeman 1977:202)

Recent Studies of Modern Chinese History

1996 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans van de Ven
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Modern Chinese ◽  
Modern Chinese History ◽  
Western Scholarship

Some time ago the Commonwealth and Overseas History Society of Cambridge University asked me to provide an overview of recent scholarship on modern Chinese history. What follows is a written version of this ‘public service’ lecture aimed at non-specialist historians. It discusses Western scholarship on China from the eighteenth until the twentieth century.

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