Re: chinese anarchism after 1949

[Yvonne Liu <yl90@columbia.edu>]

Ba Jin was a Chinese anarchist, who recently passed away in  
Shanghai.  Obit and brief bio here: http://www.ainfos.ca/en/ 
ainfos17204.html
Ba Jin in Anarchy Archives: http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/ 
Anarchist_Archives/bright/bajin/bajinarchive.html

And, Gaizao (http://gaizao.org) is a web portal written by an  
anonymous anarchist based in Asia, with links to groups of a more  
lifestyle anarchist nature in Asia.  I'd be curious about  
manifestations of anarchism in Beijing, which has a burgeoning punk  
scene.

I have a question too:  I'm writing a paper refuting the Eurocentrism  
and Orientalism of Karl Wittfogel's theory of hydraulic  
civilizations.  I think this is a hegemonic concept that has found  
consensus among Chinese, who say that Mao was another tyrant in a  
long line of despotic and authoritarian dictators.  I'd like to use  
the work of Chinese geographers to refute Wittfogel but I'm  
unfamiliar with that field in China.  Can someone recommend Chinese  
geographers, particularly of the radical or critical geography vein?   
Thanks, much appreciated.

Also, noted that this article on Chinese anarchism (R. Scalapino and  
G.T. Yu, 1961, http://www.radio4all.org/redblack/books/china1.html)  
says that Chinese anarchists were influenced by folks such as Elisee  
Reclus -- a French anarchist and participant in the Paris Commune,  
and famous geographer of the 19th century (he was a friend of  
Kropotkin).  For someone familiar with Chinese anarchism: Do you know  
of Chinese anarchists specially influenced by Reclus?  Citations and  
references would be greatly appreciated.


On Nov 17, 2005, at 8:10 PM, Matt Hale wrote:

> Arif Dirlik argues in _Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution_ that CR  
> Ultra-Leftism and some of its subsequent theoretical developments  
> gave expression to "traces" of the early 20th century Chinese  
> anarchism that had entered the genealogy of Chinese Marxism, but  
> that he has seen no evidence that these later activists and  
> theorists acknowledged this connection, nor any indigenous attempts  
> to put CR Ultra-Leftism in dialogue with anarchism as a philosophy  
> (as opposed to a mere slur). I find this hard to believe  
> considering that a number of Ultra-Leftists fled to HK and entered  
> dialogue with other left currents such as the "libertarian  
> communist" 70s Collective, who were making their own analyses of  
> the CR struggles. Did none of these perspectives make it back to  
> the mainland? Moreover, I know that a number of mainland scholars  
> started publishing books on anarchism and Chinese anarchism in the  
> 1980s - most, at least on the surface, from an orthodox anti- 
> anarchist perspective (some more clearly sympathetic) and all, as  
> far as I have seen, ending their discussions of Chinese anarchism  
> well before 1949 (despite evidence that there were scattered  
> pockets of peasants and workers maintaining fidelity to the  
> anarchist tradition until at least the 1960s), but one expects that  
> someone on the mainland would have written about the connection at  
> some point. Can anyone help to fill in the gaps here?
>
> More generally, can anyone provide a list of Chinese language  
> resources related to anarchism, anti-state communism, etc.? In  
> addition to books, I'm also interested in other media, such as  
> film, music, websites, as well any current or recent periodicals.  
> And related to that, does anyone know of any existing anarchist  
> collectives or resource centers in HK or Taiwan?
>
> (I was surprised to see that a search of my library for "annaqi",  
> "an na ch'i", "wuzhengfu", "wu cheng fu" yielded several books  
> published on the mainland, only one from Taiwan, and none from HK.  
> I guess I need to use a Cantonese transliteration for HK books?  
> Anyone know what that would be?)
>
> Thanks,
>
> Matt
>
> *****
> Matthew Allen Hale
> Anthropology Department
> University of Washington
> Seattle, WA 98195
> *****
> "I have never let my schooling stand in the way of my education"
> (Mark Twain)
>
>
>



--
http://yvonneliu.com
vox: 646.321.5710
aim/skype: whyloo

Cats are "natural anarchists" because "there is not a human sentiment  
which on occasion they do not understand or share, not an idea which  
they may not devine, not a desire but what they forestall it" (George  
Woodward in M. Fleming's "The Geography of Freedom: The Odyssey of  
Elisee Reclus," NY: Black Rose, 1988).