Introduction

Back Matter

Arif Dirlik’s latest offering is a revisionist perspective on Chinese radicalism in the twentieth century. He argues that the history of anarchism is indispensable to understanding crucial themes in Chinese radicalism. And anarchism is particularly significant now as a source of democratic ideals within the history of the socialist movement in China.

Dirlik draws on the most recent scholarship and on materials available only in the last decade to compile the first comprehensive history of his subject available in a Western language. He emphasizes the anarchist contribution to revolutionary discourse and elucidates this theme through detailed analysis of both anarchist polemics and social practice. The changing circumstances of the Chinese revolution provide the immediate context, but throughout his writing the author views Chinese anarchism in relation to anarchism worldwide.

Arif Dirlik is Professor of History at Duke University. He is the author of Revolution and History: Origins of Marxist Historiography in China, 1919–1937 (California, 1978) and The Origins of Chinese Communism (1989).

Author’s Note

Chapter 3 is a revised version of an article that first appeared in Modern China 12. no. 2 (April 1986); chapter 4 is a revised version of an article (coauthored with Edward Krebs) that first appeared in Modern China 7, no. 2 (April 1981); chapter 5 is a revised version of an article that first appeared in Modern China 11, no. 3 (July 1985); chapter 6 is a revised version of an article that first appeared in International Review of Social History 1 (1989); chapter 7 first appeared in Modern China 15, no. 4 (October 1989). I am indebted to these journals and to Sage Publications.

Dedication

For Roxann

Acknowledgments

This work is a preliminary one, an attempt to lay the groundwork for further study of anarchism in China. The substance of the study is based on articles on Chinese anarchism that I have published over the last decade. I have added several new chapters and revised already published ones extensively, both to incorporate new materials and to rework them into a historical narrative. In the process, I have also brought to the foreground an interpretation of the place of anarchism in Chinese radicalism that was present only implicitly in my previous work.

Several people have contributed to this work significantly, both with their own work and with the materials they have uncovered. I should like to mention five scholars in particular who, in the best spirit of scholarship (and anarchy) have shared with me their work and research: Professor Lu Zhe of Nanjing University, an Old Comrade, whose own manuscript on Chinese anarchism has just been published; Diane Scherer, who generously kept me informed of her findings over the course of a long trek of research into Chinese anarchism that took her around the world; Edward Krebs, who was my coauthor in the writing of the original article that was the basis for chapter 5; Marilyn Levine and Peter Zarrow, who shared with me their dissertations. Zarrow’s Anarchism and Chinese Political Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989) and Lu Zhe’s Zhongguo wuzhengfu zhuyi shi (History of Chinese anarchism) (Fujian: Renmin chubanshe, 1990) have already added much to our understanding of anarchism in China. I look forward to the publication of the studies by Krebs, Levine, and Scherer.

Unfailingly stimulating conversations with Harry Harrotunian (friend, colleague, and former professor) helped me think out the ideas that have gone into the theoretical underpinnings of this study. The study also benefited from careful readings by Irwin Scheiner, Larry Schneider, and Peter Zarrow. I acknowledge their contributions while relieving them of any responsibility for what appears here.

I should like also to acknowledge a long-standing debt to a former teacher, Dr. Ercument Atabay of Bosphorus University, Istanbul (formerly Robert College), who had much to do with my interest in history while I was still an engineering student. Dorothy Sapp, of the Department of History at Duke University, as usual gave her all to seeing this manuscript through to its completion (and to catching the errors that rarely escape her sharp eyes).

I first seriously got into the collection of materials for this study in 197879, with a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for the study of Chinese political thought. Over the years I have received support from the Duke University Research Council, as well as a summer grant from the Hoover Institution and the Stanford Center for East Asian Studies, which have enabled me to keep up with new materials pouring out of the People’s Republic of China. A grant from the American Council of Learned Societies in 198586 for writing up the study ended with a diversion to a study of the origins of Chinese communism; this study shows, I hope, that the diversion was not whimsical. Finally, I should like to thank the staff of the Hoover Institution’s East Asian Collection (where I have spent a good deal of research time over the years), in particular its curator, Ramon Myers, for their gracious hospitality over the years.

I dedicate the study with love to my spouse, colleague, and comrade, Roxann Prazniak. Roxann’s animism has influenced the way I look at anarchism. I leave it to her, however, to delve into the question of the relationship between anarchism, Buddhism, and Saint Francis!