War on all fronts! Our country is under invasion from another imperialist enemy: Japan. We also face the reality of being torn apart from within as the Guomindang have relentlessly pursued the Communists to the remote northern location: Yenan. After a year on the road, and eight years in Yenan, in the northern province of Shaanxi, I am reporting to the people on the activity of the Communists in this faraway place, and to provide some insight as to why so many have flocked here.
I first interviewed Chairman Mao Zedong, the leader of the Communist Party, who has provided an attractive ideology and alternative leadership approach towards governance. Leading by example, Mao has been able to connect with the poorer classes on an unprecedented level. Incredibly, he walked the 6,000 miles on the Long March, he eats the common food of the people, and he lives in caves with his fellow comrades. Mao additionally has encouraged his military to treat the people with respect and to become “one with the people,” where the military, the party and the people work together to achieve revolutionary change. This approach has been well received among the poorer peasant classes and stands in contrast to the unpopular practices of the Guomindang who are often cruel towards commoners. Mao’s ability to live like a peasant and his willingness to listen to the most populus class in China, the peasants, has proved to be an effective strategy for garnering popular support for the Communist movement and attracting many people to move to Yenan.
I interviewed He Manquiu, a young woman living in the countryside. When the Red Army passed through her village, she expected the army to brutally pillage her family’s home. Instead, she discovered that the Red Army treated peasants with respect, encouraged, she joined their ranks and was provided with the opportunity to become a military doctor. He was provided with an out from traditional female cultural norms such as being regulated to homelife and commonly placed in an unwanted and arranged marriage. Mao wanted to ensure “freedom of marriage equality between men and women, equal pay for equal work,” and he argued that “genuine equality between the sexes can only be realized in the complete transformation of society as a whole.” Equal treatment and class mobility offered by Mao provided an alternative lifestyle for women who did not fit into traditional gender roles like He. Thus, He was able to transcend her intellectual class background and advance within society because of army’s implementation of Mao’s rhetoric. Freedom from traditional Confucian feminine roles was immensely attractive for women who do not fit into traditional gender roles, who want to live their own independent life or who simply want respect and equal treatment among other men. The promise of equality and the opportunity to create an independent and equal life among men has attracted many women to the Communist movement in Yenan.
Party rhetoric and practices have not always aligned over women’s rights. Women like He have been promised gender equality and have received overall better treatment because of party policy but widespread social change has yet to be implemented as the party fears alienating poor peasant men in the more conservative northern provinces and practical issues such as economic production have taken the driver’s seat to sustain the Red Army. Consequently, while many women have been promised opportunity for advancements, they were often silenced by part officials. When I interviewed Ting Ling, she felt the party was not going far enough to implement reform and she felt old traditional values were resurfacing within the movement. She points out a double standard where “women who do not marry are ridiculed, and if they do marry and have children, they are criticized for attending political events instead of caring for their family.” The Party soon moved to silence Ting’s criticisms of reform. Mao’s pragmatic attitude towards women’s rights has kept his movement intact and popular. He continues to focus on repelling the Japanese invaders and he continues to promote Chinese unity when most within the country understand Chiang Kai-shek only suspended hostilities with the Communists because he was kidnapped. Mao’s Communist Party adapts to popular support and listens to the people, which best explains why so many people have flocked to Yenan in recent years.
I wonder if, given more time, the Communists could teach the peasants in the countryside to have more egalitarian views when it came to women and marriage but, for that to happen, they would have to commit time and resources to this issue which they don’t seem willing to do. However, I can’t deny that I have more opportunities as a woman with the Communists than I ever have in China, though that doesn’t make me equal to a man. Thank you for giving a voice to someone like Ting Ling! A report on Yan’an would not be complete without it, unfortunately.
well written your last concluding sentence is all I needed to read to get the gist. Like how you including Ting Ling’s story to show that its not all perfect there. However, u give Mao far too much credit for being a man of the people. If he truly was for them, he would not have let the stories like Ting Ling’s and many others actually happen… I wouldn’t call eventually helping kill tens of millions of people as him being a man of the people, but maybe thats just me;)
Ting Ling’s story and others like hers happened because Mao and the communists were trying to keep their movement intact. There is always a difference between the ideals political parties promote, and the circumstances present to implement those ideals. The fact Mao backed off on women’s rights highlights his practical approach to governance in the northern more conservative countryside, his understanding that women needed to participate in the war effort to support male soldiers, and that keeping male morale high by limiting women’s rights was essential to having a movement that could seriously contend with the Nationalists at the end of World War II was essential to revolutionary success.
I am curious to see if the end of the war period will bring a more egalitarian face to the CCP. I agree the current attitude towards women’s rights in Yenan is not as it should be. Loved your writing on Mao, it was very interesting.
I’m curious as to where the nation will go from here, the war will not go on indefinitely. Are these merely measures to weed out those detrimental to the war effort or a sign of what’s to come for the Communist party? In my eyes, a tendency to silence and ridicule decent does not bode well for the rights of all, but then again the Communists have time and time again proved to fight for the interests of the oppressed over the oppressors. Maybe we’ve just hit a bump on the road, and eventually, Mao will lead us back on the track.