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Revolutions and socialism--Soviet Union--History--20th century and Revolutions and socialism--China--History--20th century

China's ascent to the ranks of the world's second largest economic power has given its revolution a better image than that of its Russian counterpart. Yet the two have a great deal in common. Indeed, the Chinese revolution was a carbon copy of its predecessor, until Mao became aware, not so much of the failures of the Russian model, but of its inability to adapt to an overcrowded third-world country. Yet, instead of correcting that model, Mao decided to go further and faster in the same direction. The aftershock of an earthquake may be weaker, but the Great Leap Forward of 1958 in China was far more destructive than the Great Turn of 1929 in the Soviet Union. It was conceived with an idealistic end but failed to take all the possibilities into account. China's development only took off after—and thanks to—Mao's death, once the country turned its back on the revolution. Lucien Bianco's original comparative study highlights the similarities: the all-powerful bureaucracy; the over-exploitation of the peasantry, which triggered two of the worst famines of the 20th century; control over writers and artists; repression and labor camps. The comparison of Stalin and Mao that completes the picture, leads the author straight back to Lenin and he quotes the observation by a Chinese historian that, “If at all possible, it is best to avoid revolutions altogether.”

Socialism--China

The founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 1921, the spread of Marxism, and the rise of the workers and peasants'movement provided a powerful organization and ideological basis for China to explore a new road to modernization. Relying on a mass movement supported by strong ideals, beliefs, and strict discipline, the CPC with Mao Zedong as the representative successfully opened a revolutionary'road'to reclaim the national power. From 1949 to 1976, great efforts were made to explore the road of socialism construction. During this time, China's modernization made great strides forward but also experienced some serious twists and turns. The experiences and lessons of this time period have provided valuable political material and ideological resources for the future. China has successfully found a different road to modernization from the Western countries and the Soviet Union, giving the'Chinese Road'great historical significance. This book takes an in-depth look at this fascinating history in Chinese politics. [Subject: Chinese Studies, Politics, Socialism]

Privatization--Social aspects--China--Congresses, Communism and individualism--China--Congresses, Socialism--China--Congresses, and Social ethics--China--Congresses

Everyday life in China is increasingly shaped by a novel mix of neoliberal and socialist elements, of individual choices and state objectives. This combination of self-determination and socialism from afar has incited profound changes in the ways individuals think and act in different spheres of society.Covering a vast range of daily life—from homeowner organizations and the users of Internet cafes to self-directed professionals and informed consumers—the essays in Privatizing China create a compelling picture of the burgeoning awareness of self-governing within the postsocialist context. The introduction by Aihwa Ong and Li Zhang presents assemblage as a concept for studying China as a unique postsocialist society created through interactions with global forms. The authors conduct their ethnographic fieldwork in a spectrum of domains—family, community, real estate, business, taxation, politics, labor, health, professions, religion, and consumption—that are infiltrated by new techniques of the self and yet also regulated by broader socialist norms. Privatizing China gives readers a grounded, fine-grained intimacy with the variety and complexity of everyday conduct in China's turbulent transformation.

Utopian socialism--China--History

Throughout Nanjing's history, writers have claimed that its spectacular landscape of mountains and rivers imbued the city with “royal qi,” making it a place of great political significance. City of Virtues examines the ways a series of visionaries, drawing on past glories of the city, projected their ideologies onto Nanjing as they constructed buildings, performed rituals, and reworked the literary heritage of the city. More than an urban history of Nanjing from the late 18th century until 1911 — encompassing the Opium War, the Taiping occupation of the city, the rebuilding of the city by Zeng Guofan, and attempts to establish it as the capital of the Republic of China — this study shows how utopian visions of the cosmos shaped Nanjing's path through the turbulent 19th century.

Socialism--China

This book integrates the history of China's socialist ideology and socialist movement with the history of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and that of modern China. It offers an objective narration of major historical events and a vivid depiction of great personalities. The book covers the period spanning from the May 4th Movement of 1919 to the eve of the Cultural Revolution in 1965. Providing a broad historical perspective and sharp insights, it describes this period in detail, from the introduction of Marxism to China to the CPC integrating the theory with China's prevailing conditions and enriching it with Chinese characteristics, to the evolution and practice of scientific socialism in China. The Chinese Communists, represented by Mao Zedong, integrated the fundamental tenets of Marxism with China's prevailing conditions and revolutionary practices in order to create their own New Democracy Theory (that included both the new democratic revolution and the new democratic society), and to establish the People's Republic of China. The book's systematic review of a theory and path to build socialism in a country that was semi-colonial and semi-feudal, burdened with a backward economy and culture, acts as a mirror for today's governance and education. ••• Librarians: ebook available on ProQuest and EBSCO [Subject: History, Asian Studies, Chinese Studies, Politics]

Social structure--China and Socialism--China

This book examines the various social contradictions that sit at the heart of China's strategy of maintaining a harmonious socialist society while generating vertiginous economic growth. Edited by a senior member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the book discusses the roots and backgrounds of the key theories of contradiction, alongside the practical implications on modern-day China. The content is divided into two unique parts. The first section focuses on the contradictions among the people, while the second section examines the contradictions between different social groups and social classes. Systematic and wide-ranging, the book provides a clear understanding into China's perceptions and ideas of social contradiction theory. It will be particularly relevant to scholars in social sciences/socialism studies, Marxist theory studies, and Chinese/Asian studies. (Series: Philosophy in Modern China)

Protest movements--China--Beijing--History--20th century, Student movements--China--Beijing--History--20th century, Political violence--China--Beijing--History--20th century, and Socialism--China--20th century

The Cultural Revolution began from above, yet it was students and workers at the grassroots who advanced the movement's radical possibilities by acting and thinking for themselves. Resolving to suppress the resulting crisis, Mao set events in motion in 1968 that left out in the cold those rebels who had taken it most seriously, Yiching Wu shows.

Labor unions and socialism--China and Labor unions--China--History

During the first decade of the twenty-first century, worker resistance in China increased rapidly despite the fact that certain segments of the state began moving in a pro-labor direction. In explaining this, Eli Friedman argues that the Chinese state has become hemmed in by an'insurgency trap'of its own devising and is thus unable to tame expansive worker unrest. Labor conflict in the process of capitalist industrialization is certainly not unique to China and indeed has appeared in a wide array of countries around the world. What is distinct in China, however, is the combination of postsocialist politics with rapid capitalist development. Other countries undergoing capitalist industrialization have incorporated relatively independent unions to tame labor conflict and channel insurgent workers into legal and rationalized modes of contention. In contrast, the Chinese state only allows for one union federation, the All China Federation of Trade Unions, over which it maintains tight control. Official unions have been unable to win recognition from workers, and wildcat strikes and other forms of disruption continue to be the most effective means for addressing workplace grievances. In support of this argument, Friedman offers evidence from Guangdong and Zhejiang provinces, where unions are experimenting with new initiatives, leadership models, and organizational forms.

Socialism--China--History

Gilbert Rozman examines the Soviet debate on Chinese socialism, revealing striking similarities between what Soviet scholars write about China and what they criticize as anticommunist'in Western writing on the Soviet Union.Originally published in 1985.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Socialism in literature and Socialism--China

Against the dire consequences of China's market development, a new intellectual force of the New Left has come on the scene since the mid 1990s. New Left intellectuals debate the issues of social justice, distributive equality, markets, state intervention, the socialist legacy, and sustainable development. Against the neoliberal trends of free markets, liberal democracy, and consumerism, New Left critics launched a critique in hopes of seeking an alternative to global capitalism. This volume takes a comprehensive look at China's New Left in intellectual, cultural, and literary manifestations. The writers place the New Left within a global anti-hegemonic movement and the legacy of the Cold War. They discover grassroots literature that portrays the plight and resilience of the downtrodden and disadvantaged. With historical visions the writers also shed light on the present by drawing on the socialist past.

Socialism--China--Shaanxi Sheng--History, Rural women--China--Shaanxi Sheng--Social conditions, and Rural women--China--Shaanxi Sheng--Economic conditions

What can we learn about the Chinese revolution by placing a doubly marginalized group—rural women—at the center of the inquiry? In this book, Gail Hershatter explores changes in the lives of seventy-two elderly women in rural Shaanxi province during the revolutionary decades of the 1950s and 1960s. Interweaving these women's life histories with insightful analysis, Hershatter shows how Party-state policy became local and personal, and how it affected women's agricultural work, domestic routines, activism, marriage, childbirth, and parenting—even their notions of virtue and respectability. The women narrate their pasts from the vantage point of the present and highlight their enduring virtues, important achievements, and most deeply harbored grievances. In showing what memories can tell us about gender as an axis of power, difference, and collectivity in 1950s rural China and the present, Hershatter powerfully examines the nature of socialism and how gender figured in its creation.

Socialism--China--Shanghai, Social change--China--Shanghai--Case studies, and Communities--Social aspects--China--Shanghai

There is no denying that China has experienced, and is still experiencing, radical changes, generally initiated by the vibrant market-driven economy that began in the late 1970s. The question remains, however, of what has happened to those who, just a few decades before, experienced pride and power in being part of the proletariat. How do they make sense of the past and face up to the uncertainties of the future? This book presents an anthropological investigation into their lives and memories in order to understand their situation.Presently a working-class neighborhood in Shanghai, Cucumber Lane was in the 1960s a well-known socialist “model community” being transformed from an urban slum in the 1940s. The neighborhood was further recast as a “civilized small community” in the 1990s. Based on oral histories as well as ethnographic observations and pertinent historical materials, this book portrays the ways the Chinese have been making sense of and coping with radical changes during a period punctuated by shifts in political priorities, vicissitudes in ideological orientation, changes in the way they conceive of their relationship with the state and enterprises, the (de-)politicization of social identities, the rise and fall of collectivism, and the explosive vitality of the new market economy.

Social change--China--History--20th century, Socialism--China--History--20th century, Liberalism--China--History--20th century, and Conservatism--China--History--20th century

In the early twentieth century, China was on the brink of change. Different ideologies - those of radicalism, conservatism, liberalism, and social democracy - were much debated in political and intellectual circles. Whereas previous works have analyzed these trends in isolation, Edmund S. K. Fung shows how they related to one another and how intellectuals in China engaged according to their cultural and political persuasions. The author argues that it is this interrelatedness and interplay between different schools of thought that are central to the understanding of Chinese modernity, for many of the debates that began in the Republican era still resonate in China today. The book charts the development of these ideologies and explores the work and influence of the intellectuals who were associated with them. In its challenge to previous scholarship and the breadth of its approach, the book makes a major contribution to the study of Chinese political philosophy and intellectual history.

Socialism--China, Ideology--China, and Communism--China

Representing a lifetime of research and writing by noted historian Arif Dirlik, the essays collected here explore developments in Chinese socialism and the issues that have occupied historians of the Chinese revolution for the past three decades. Dirlik engages Chinese socialism critically but with sympathy for the aspirations of revolutionaries who found the hope of social, political, and cultural liberation in Communist alternatives to capitalism and the intellectual inspiration to realize their hopes in Marxist theory. The book's historical approach to Marxist theory emphasizes its global relevance while avoiding dogmatic and Eurocentric limitations. These incisive essays range from the origins of socialism in the early twentieth century, through the victory of the Communists in mid-century, to the virtual abandonment by century's end of any pretense to a socialist revolutionary project by the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. All that remains of the revolution in historical hindsight are memories of its failures and misdeeds, but Dirlik retains a critical perspective not just toward the past but also toward the ideological hegemonies of the present. Taken together, his writings reaffirm the centrality of the revolution to modern Chinese history. They also illuminate the fundamental importance of Marxism to grasping the flaws of capitalist modernity, despite the fact that in the end the socialist response was unable to transcend the social and ideological horizons of capitalism.

Women and socialism--China--Hangzhou Shi--Case studies, Women silk industry workers--China--Hangzhou Shi--Case studies, Women--China--Hangzhou Shi--Case studies, and Socialism--China--20th century

In this analysis of three generations of women in a Chinese silk factory, Lisa Rofel brilliantly interweaves the intimate details of her observations with a broad-ranging critique of the meaning of modernity in a postmodern age.The author based her study at a silk factory in the city of Hangzhou in eastern China. She compares the lives of three generations of women workers: those who entered the factory right around the Communist revolution in 1949, those who were youths during the Cultural Revolution of the 1970s, and those who have come of age in the Deng era. Exploring attitudes toward work, marriage, society, and culture, she convincingly connects the changing meanings of the modern in official discourse to the stories women tell about themselves and what they make of their lives.One of the first studies to take up theoretically sophisticated issues about gender, modernity, and power based on a solid ethnographic ground, this much-needed cross-generational study will be a model for future anthropological work around the world.

Industrial organization--China, Industrial management--China, Industrial organization--Soviet Union, Industrial management--Soviet Union, Socialism--China, and Socialism--Soviet Union

Drawing on previously unknown primary sources in both Chinese and Russian, Deborah A. Kaple has written a powerful and absorbing account of the model of factory management and organization that the Chinese communists formulated in the 1949-1953 period. She reveals that their'new'management techniques were adapted from Soviet propaganda during the harsh period of Stalin's post-war reconstruction. The idealized Stalinist management system consisted mainly of strict Communist Party control of all aspects of workers'lives, which is the root of such strong Party control over Chinese society today. Dream of a Red Factory is a rare and revealing look at the consolidation rule in China; told through the prism of the development of new'socialist'factories and enterprises. Kaple completely counters the old myth of the'Soviet monolith'in China, and carefully reconstructs how the Chinese communists came to rely on an idealized, propagandistic version of the Soviet model instead.

Communism--China--History--20th century, Villages--China--History--20th century, Villages--China--Case studies, and Socialism--China--20th century

Family--China--History, Confucianism--China--History, Women peasants--China--History, and Socialism--China--History

Kay Ann Johnson provides much-needed information about women and gender equality under Communist leadership. She contends that, although the Chinese Communist Party has always ostensibly favored women's rights and family reform, it has rarely pushed for such reforms. In reality, its policies often have reinforced the traditional role of women to further the Party's predominant economic and military aims. Johnson's primary focus is on reforms of marriage and family because traditional marriage, family, and kinship practices have had the greatest influence in defining and shaping women's place in Chinese society. Conversant with current theory in political science, anthropology, and Marxist and feminist analysis, Johnson writes with clarity and discernment free of dogma. Her discussions of family reform ultimately provide insights into the Chinese government's concern with decreasing the national birth rate, which has become a top priority. Johnson's predictions of a coming crisis in population control are borne out by the recent increase in female infanticide and the government abortion campaign.

Women and socialism--China and Communism--China--History

Christina Kelley Gilmartin rewrites the history of gender politics in the 1920s with this compelling assessment of the impact of feminist ideals on the Chinese Communist Party during its formative years. For the first time, Gilmartin reveals the extent to which revolutionaries in the 1920s were committed to women's emancipation and the radical political efforts that were made to overcome women's subordination and to transform gender relations.Women activists whose experiences and achievements have been previously ignored are brought to life in this study, which illustrates how the Party functioned not only as a political organization but as a subculture for women as well. We learn about the intersection of the personal and political lives of male communists and how this affected their beliefs about women's emancipation. Gilmartin depicts with thorough and incisive scholarship how the Party formulated an ideological challenge to traditional gender relations while it also preserved aspects of those relationships in its organization.

Mixed economy--China, Socialism--China, and Legitimacy of governments--China

Argues that the legitimacy of the Chinese government relies on two factors: the national myth of revolution and ideological orthodoxy.The reform program of Deng Xiaoping in the People's Republic of China constitutes one of the most significant political and social change programs in recent history. A singularly important question arises from this experiment: How does a nation implement a stock market and call it Marxism? This book answers this question by examining the official discourse bridging the gap between the reform policies and orthodox Marxism. Focusing on Chinese Communist Party Congresses and the Resolution on CPC History, the author extends recent writings on the reforms by analyzing the ways in which the Chinese leadership justified the reforms, in the face of social and economic turmoil, such as the 1989 Tiananmen Square movement.Also examined is the role of discourse in the Chinese political culture. The author argues that legitimacy of the government in China rests on two factors: the national myth of revolution and ideological orthodoxy. These serve the same legitimating functions in the Communist political culture as the Confucian doctrines of the Mandate of Heaven and virtue, providing continuity in political discourse across the centuries, although the political systems have changed drastically.Alan R. Kluver is Assistant Professor of Speech and Rhetoric and Director of the Asian Studies Program at Oklahoma City University.