Dear Readers:
The China we are living in now is a product of the 1911 Revolution that overthrew the Qing Dynasty and released the country from thousands of years of stifling tradition and oppressive governmental rule. It is hard to go a day without someone of the older generation despairing over how they suffered just a few decades ago, especially those in the poor countryside. However, one can still detect a certain discontentment with China and its new government among the people. As someone born after the Revolution, I have to rely on stories from my family and others in my village to paint a picture of what China was like before the emperor was overthrown, but I think it’s obvious why we, as a people, were fed up with the old system. Now, under Chiang Kai-Shek’s Nationalist Party, some Chinese people have found peace with this new system and believe that the Nationalists are the answer to regaining China’s strength. On the other hand, there are many who still feel unfairly suppressed by the institutions in place and have begun looking toward another revolution, a revolution led by the Chinese Communist Party.
I’ve had the chance to speak to the industrial workers working in Beijing, catching them after their exhausting 17-hour shifts. I met a young girl named Qui Hui-ying whose hands were riddled with burns from her silk-spinning job (that could easily have been me if my parents hadn’t been as lucky as they were back in our small village) who told me about the Communists who secretly spread their ideas to her and her coworkers. She explained to me how she finally felt cared for by the Communist worker, who told her “people were not born to be poor” and that the real reason for their misfortune was “exploitation by others” like capitalists and their employers. After getting my hands on the Communist Manifesto from one of my classmates, I found that it specifically condemns child labor and declares that capitalism encourages the exploitation of children; I’m not an expert on the economy, but I can’t deny the number of injured, hungry children I see walking through Beijing after their grueling shifts and I’m not surprised that this sight would drive people into the Communist Party’s arms.
I also found an interesting section in the Manifesto about the exploitation of women. As someone who barely escaped the prospect of an arranged marriage and had to convince my parents to let me study instead, I am well aware of how traditional China suppressed women and how that tendency has a strong grip on our country even today. One of my progressive friends at school recommended a book to me, Family by Pa Chin, when I started studying here, because of its acknowledgment of how the traditional marriage system and the expectations set for women were particularly stifling. I couldn’t help but see connections between this book and the Manifesto, which claims that men exploit women like any other “instrument of production.” It basically calls women glorified prostitutes and I couldn’t help but think of my sisters-in-law back home, who had to leave their families and home to join mine, therefore making it possible for me to leave home and go to college in the first place. The copy of the Manifesto that my friend lent me has the sentence about the “community of women” underlined and when I asked her about it, she told me that it was proof enough that the Communists knew what they were talking about; it was her opinion that they were acutely aware of the oppression women face and had no plans to silence their “communities”, unlike the more conservative Chinese people.
I wrote to some people back home in my rural village to see if anyone had heard of the Party and its message. My neighbor told me that some people in our neighborhood were still so poor even under the Nationalists, all they had the energy to do was worry about food, and she had to convince her husband that they didn’t need to sell their daughter to survive the winter. My childhood friend Xie Pei-lan very passionately insulted the Nationalists who had not solved the problems of poor peasants like her and made the comment that she wished she could be in Beijing with me to also avoid marriage. She included a sentence about a Communist official preaching a woman’s right to choose who she married, but she crossed this line out, probably worried about how it would make her look if anyone found the letter before it got to me.
It seems that the CCP is particularly appealing to those who have experienced the exploitation the Party claims it wants to free China from. The Party condemns child labor as well as arranged marriages, issues that plague China even now, and one of its goals seems to be filling the stomachs of the poor peasants who starve while others stuff themselves. Readers, what do you think of the Communist Party? Could they be what leads China to its fullest potential? Thanks for reading! That’s all for now.
I like how you interweaved the communist manifesto with the experiences of workers in factories during this time. There certainly seems to be a direct connection between Marxist ideology and the ideology that was developed by the CCP. The CCP’s approach towards women was informed by Marxist thinking and attitudes, and in a culture with a bunch of repressed women the manifesto’s call for women to be treated equally certainly must have motivated women to join the CCP.
I had not yet thought about the privileged position we as women are in to research the plights of other citizens just simply trying to survive rather than experience it. I know I have been fortunate to escape the life my sister and mother have been forced to lead. Although some people are focused on survival, like those in your village, it is only a matter of time until they become politically aware and we move closer to revolution.
I worry about how directly we can convert the writings and ideology of Marx to the needs and wants of the people of China today. By no means an industrial society we are working with a peasantry that does not, as of right now, own the means to their liberation. The desire for emancipation exists within some groups, those aware of their own oppression, but by and large people cannot imagine a changed society. For thousands of years we have been oppressed by those claiming to be divinely endowed without a say in our own governance and treatment, Chiang Kai-shek is just another man in that long line. Although the communist party proclaims to provide a means to a better end they have yet to bring about a decisive blow to the Nationalist Party that would indicate the ability to take on the ruling class, that would prove to everyone that there is the possibility for change. Theory is well and good but practice, long-term, and unfettered implementation, is what will bring the entire country to the movement.
U did a fantastic job, but wish you warned the reader about the negatives of communism as well. In theory yes its perfect, but in practice we have already seen many negatives. You could have made a pros and cons list, but I like how you included your first hand experiences and other examples.