Red Genesis

Liyan Liu

Description

Winner of the 2013 Best Publication Award for Original Scholarship presented by the Association of Chinese Professors of Social Sciences in the United States

How did an obscure provincial teachers college produce graduates who would go on to become founders and ideologues of the Chinese Communist Party? Mao Zedong, Cai Hesen, Xiao Zisheng, and others attended the Hunan First Normal School. Focusing on their alma mater, this work explores the critical but overlooked role modern schools played in sowing the seeds of revolution in the minds of students seeking modern education in the 1910s. The Hunan First Normal School was one of many reformed schools established in China in the early twentieth century in response to the urgent need to modernize the nation. Its history is a tapestry woven of traditional Chinese and modern Western threads. Chinese tradition figured significantly in the character of the school, yet Western ideas and contemporary social, political, and intellectual circumstances strongly shaped its policies and practices. Examining the background, curriculum, and the reforms of the school, as well as its teachers and radical students, Liyan Liu argues that China's modern schools provided a venue that nurtured and spread new ideas, including Communist revolution.
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Exceptional Normal and the Paradox of Hunan

1. Reform in Hunan, 1895-1900

2. From Confucian Academy to Modern School

3. The Milieu of First Normal, 1912-1919

4. Teaching the New Culture: First Normal’s Faculty

5. Sage in Residence: Yang Changji

6. Provincial Scholars and Young Radicals

7. Education of a Provincial Radical: Cai Hesen

Conclusion

Notes
Glossary
Bibliography

Sujets

• 20th century
• History of Asia
• Asia
• China

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 31 octobre 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438445052
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 6 Mo

Extrait

SUNY series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture

Roger T. Ames, editor

Red Genesis

The Hunan Normal School and the Creation of Chinese Communism, 1903–1921

Liyan Liu

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

© 2012 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu

Production by Eileen Meehan Marketing by Anne M. Valentine

Lib rary ofCo ngressCataloging-in-P ublication Data

Liu, Liyan. Red genesis : the Hunan Normal School and the creation of Chinese communism, 1903– 1921 / Liyan Liu. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4384-4503-8 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Hunan Sheng di yi shi fan xue xiao—History. 2. Communism—China—History. 3. Educational change—China—History—20th century. I. Title. II. Title: Hunan Normal School and the creation of Chinese communism, 1903–1921.

LB2127.C4854L58 2012 378.51'215—dc23

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

2012019746

In memory of my mother

Map 1. Republic of China.

List of Illustrations

Map 2. Map of Hunan Province.

Maps

Figure

Figure 3.1. Hunan First Normal School Admonition (1911–1918).

Table

Table 3.1. Class Hours per Week by Subject Prescrib ed by the Curriculum of Divisions One and Two of the Undergraduate Department, 1913.

Illustrations

Illustration 1. Picture of First Normal School, which was reconstructed in 1968 (based on the original feature of the school in 1912).

Illustration 2. Picture of the well where Mao and o ther students came to have cold water baths year round.

Illustration 3. School anthem translated into English by Yan-shuan Lao.

Illustration 4. Picture of Yang Changji.

Illustration 5. Picture of Xu Teli.

Illustration 6. Picture of Li Jinxi.

Illustration 7. Picture of Wang Jifan

Illustration 8. Picture of Tan Yankai.

Illustration 9. Picture of Fang Weixia.

Illustration 10. Class Eight, 1918

Illustration 11. Picture of Mao at First Normal, 1918.

Illustration 12. Picture of Cai Hesen.

Illustration 13. Picture of Li Weihan.

Illustration 14. Picture of He Shuheng.

Illustration 15. Picture of Chen Zhangpu.

Illustration 16. Picture of Luo Xuezan

Acknowledgments

This book is the product of a long journey of intel lectual inquiry. During the past fifteen years or more that this book was being conceived, written, and repeatedly revised, many people offered invaluable support. Teachers were the first to encourage my pursuit of this topic in graduate school. At the outset, I express deep gratitude to my previous PhD adviser, Hao Chang, for having directed me to this subject, and for guiding me, encouraging me, and teaching me throughout the rese arch. His preeminent scholarship had a strong influence on me while I was conducting research and in the early stage of writing this book. My sincere gratitude goes to James R. Bartholomew, my co-adviser, for his unfailing support, warm encouragement, and valuable advice. I owe an equal debt of gratitude to Christopher A. Reed for his generous s upport, academic encouragement, insightful advice, and criticism. I am very grateful to him for reading parts of my work and providing many valuable insights and criticism. I also am grateful to Kirk A. Denton for his strong support and invaluable comments and advice.

I am particularly grateful to Yan-shuan Lao, whose unfailing help and encouragement continued after my graduation and helped me to purs ue and accomplish this work. His sinological erudition, especially in the area of cl assical Chinese, helped me in many valuable and concrete ways. He receives my heartiest thanks.

I am greatly indebted to Charlton M. Lewis who pointed me to the materials of Hunan and guided me through the maze of Chinese documents in the early stage. He also read different versions of parts of this work and gave v ery valuable comments and advice. Dajiang He and Jingshen Xia helped me interpret some classical Chinese into graceful modern Chinese in the early stage of writing, which made it much easier for me to write in English.

When I was doing research in China in 1997, I benef ited tremendously from the help of several scholars and institutions. Foremost among t hem was Wang Xingguo of Hunan Provincial Social Science Institute to whom I owe a great debt of gratitude for sharing with me his wide-ranging knowledge of Yang Changji and Mao Zedong, and also for guiding me to many valuable sources, including his manuscript about famous people in Hunan. I benefited greatly from many discussions with him and his insights on Yang and Mao while I was writing and revising this book. I w ould like to thank Sun Hailin, former vice principal of Hunan First Normal School, for he lping me to gain access to some fascinating materials on First Normal and for granting permission to reproduce the photos at the school's archives and use my interviews with him in the book. I am grateful to Dai Zuocai of Hunan People's Press for helping me gain access to valuable and relevant materials at archives in Hunan.

In the process of writing and revising this book, many friends and colleagues kindly read and commented on parts or all of the book manuscrip t at one stage or another. I am grateful to Barry Keenan, Xiaobing Li, Kathryn Bern hardt, the late Stephen C. Averill, George Wei, Robert Culp, Merle Rife, Yi Sun, and Sa m Gilbert for their invaluable suggestions and corrections.

Particular gratitude goes to Kristin Stapleton for her strong support and warm encouragement over the years and for her insightful comments and criticism on this work. I owe special thanks for her help and for being a v ery special friend. Special thanks go to my good friend Xiaoping Cong, who read numerous drafts of parts of the work, offered invaluable criticism and suggestions, and shared with me her resources and expertise. I benefited greatly from our many discussions togethe r. I am grateful to my friend Greg Epp, who read the manuscript and offered valuable c omments and helped polish the prose.

Special thanks to my colleagues in the Department o f History at Georgetown College. First of all, I am deeply grateful to James Klotter for his unfailing help. He read numerous drafts of the manuscript and offered helpful remarks, suggestions, and edits. He has been an invaluable source of intellectual guidance as we ll as a reliable friend who was always there whenever I needed his help. I am equally inde bted to Lindsey Apple who read several various versions of the manuscript and offe red valuable comments, suggestions, and editing. I thank him for his help and for being a very special friend. I also appreciate the inspiration and support that I received in vari ous ways from my colleagues Harold Tallant, Clifford Wargelin, Ellen Emerick, and Lisa Lykins, who have now become my friends. Special appreciation goes to Provost Rosemary Allen for her warm support and assistance, which made the publication of this book occur sooner. I would like to express my gratitude to Georgetown College for the Henlein Junior Faculty Research Fellowship in spring 2006, which greatly facilitated the writing of the manuscript. Finally, a number of people provided other kinds of intellectual and tec hnical assistance or helped with materials. For their help, I thank Pingchao Zhu, Xi aoming Chen, Xiansheng Tian, Wu Yunji, Vince Sizemore, and Grover Hibberd. Thanks also go to Zhu Yumo for letting me use pictures he took of the Hunan First Normal in the book. Many thanks are due to the staff of the following l ibraries and archives for their kind assistance in finding many precious documents that have enriched my research: the Ohio State University Library, the Hunan Provincial Arch ives and Library, the Hunan First Normal School Archives and Library, and the Georgetown College Library. My colleague, Susan Martin at the College Library even helped me get materials from as far as Aberdeen in Scotland. She receives my sincerest app reciation. I also thank the Hunan Provincial Archives and the Hunan First Normal Scho ol Archives and Library for granting permission to reproduce the photos and maps in the book. Parts ofChapter 5 appeared as “The Man Who Molded Mao: Yang Changji and the Fi rst Generation of Chinese Communists,” in Modern China , vol. 32 (2006).Chapter 7 is based on a revision of an article, “A Provincial Scholar becomes a Young Radical” published in Twentieth-Century China , vol. 32, No. 2 (2007). I am grateful for the permission to quote from those articles. I truly appreciate the support from all of the abov e colleagues, friends and institutions. Nonetheless, any errors of fact or judgment in this book are my own. I thank my SUNY Press editors, Nancy Ellegate, for having endorsed this project in the first place and having found knowledgeable readers to review this manuscript; Eileen Meehan for her production skills; Robin B. Weisberg for copyediting; and Anne Valentine for marketing. I am also grateful to the anonymous readers who made critical comments and invaluable suggestions that have made this a better book. Finally, my deepest gratitude is directed to my family—my husband Xinhe and our son Chris—for their boundless support and love. During the past fifteen years as the dissertation was written and then revised into a ma nuscript, they have helped me to endure those stressful and hectic times during whic h I nearly lost sight of the final goal. Their confidence in my work and in me made this book possible.

Map 1. Republic of China.