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Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution by Arif DirlikReview by: Elizabeth J. Perry

The American Historical Review, Vol. 97, No. 4 (Oct., 1992), pp. 1265-1266Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the American Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2165636 .

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7/28/2019 Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution by Arif Dirlik

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Asia 1265

ington Conference, rather than marking the begin-ning of a new era in which the Western powersinvited China to join the rest of the world, becameinstead an effort made by those powers to catch up tothe changes that had already taken place in Chinaand were threatening foreign control.

Although marred by a somewhat wooden style andthe occasional grammaticalSinicism, as well as the useof too many brief quotations which interrupt the flowof the author's words, this is an interesting and usefulbook.

NICHOLAS CLIFFORD

MiddleburyCollege

CHRISTIAN HENRIOT. Shanghai 1927-1937: Elites lo-cales et modernisation ans la Chine nationaliste. Mate-riaux pour l'etude de l'Asie orientale moderne et

contemporaine.) Paris: E1coledes Hautes Etudes enSciences Sociales. 1991. Pp. 342. 190 fr.

This well-organized and carefully nuanced study pro-vides a wealth of detail about Shanghai local govern-ment during the decade-long rule of the Nationalistregime in Nanjing. In addition to information oninstitutions, activities, personnel, and personal net-works in the municipal power structure, ChristianHenriot draws useful comparisons with Western citiesand municipal administrations. At the same time, heraises large questions about modernization and state-societal relations.

Henriot's major themes are many. First, he arguesthat municipal institutions originating in local eliteinitiatives at the end of the Qing dynasty had alreadybeen vitiated by militarists and were re-created asappendages of the central state. Second, he suggeststhat political power in the city nonetheless did notsimply flow from the center, but was defined througha complex, three-sided interplay between the militantShanghai Nationalist Party, the local municipal gov-ernment, and a small upper segment of Shanghaibourgeois society-all bolstering their local positionswith personal connections within the state center atNanjing. Third, Henriot contends that there was noplace for genuine representation of the Shanghaipopulation. Fourth, he finds that, despite unfavor-able circumstances and inefficiencies, the Shanghaigovernment made progress toward modernizationgoals and could deal effectively with emergencies.Fifth, Henriot makes some tentative observationsabout modernization. He suggests that modernizingprojects created new political "playingfields" (p. 249)as well as infrastructures and were accompanied bynew, intrusive ambitions to remake society. Moreambiguously, these projects emerged within a milieuof Confucian paternalism and traditional relation-

ships between government and social elites. Henriotrealizes that he is pushing against limits of the tradi-tional-modern dichotomy, but he does not step out-side this framework.

This book addresses a historical debate on thenature of the Nanjing government, taking issue withinterpretations of it either as a tool of the big bour-geoisie or as an autonomous authoritarian state pur-suing its own power interests. Henriot suggests morecareful attention to levels of government, local con-

ditions, and differing sources of power, and hissophisticated analysis is a fine addition to the middleground of this controversy. His analysis is also rele-vant to a different debate about state-building andsocietal activism in twentieth-century China; it pro-vides much information to support the view that thestate reasserted control over society after the tempo-rary fragmentation of the warlord period.

Henriot's structuralanalysis of local government isinherently state-centered, however, and does not en-compass the sociopolitical dynamics of an urban pub-lic sphere that are the focus of David Strand's Rick-

shawBeijing:CityPeopleand Politics n the 1920s (1989).He gives, for instance, good biographical material oncity employees and on the personal ties-linking bu-reau heads, but the big-bourgeoisie power players arenot much described, and the social organizations andelites acting within Shanghai public arenas are evenless delineated. As Henriot says in his conclusion,social histories of Shanghai are still to be written. Itshould then be possible to assess state-societal rela-tions in Shanghai more fully. This thoughtful expo-sition of governmental structure and activities willmake that task much easier.

MARY BACKUS RANKIN

Washington,D.C.

ARIF DIRLIK. Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution.Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of CaliforniaPress. 1991. Pp. x, 326. $39.95.

Arif Dirlik's book comes as little surprise to manyChina scholars. For one thing, five of the six substan-tive chapters are revisions of previously publishedarticles. For another, many of the central argumentswere anticipated in Dirlik's The Origins of ChineseCommunism1989). Here, as in his earlier work, Dirlikpresents anarchism as an important and influential"road not taken" in the Chinese Revolution. Headmits that "anarchism from a political perspectivewas in the long run irrelevant" (p. 40), yet Dirlikargues that anarchist ideas and adherents were none-theless major contributors to revolutionary discoursein China. The anarchists (despite their internal dif-ferences) called consistently for cultural revolutionand. the abolition of divisions between mental andmanual labor-features commonly associated withChinese Marxism. And of course many of the leadersof China'sCommunist revolution had been anarchists

before they became Marxists.Despite the sense of deja vu that those familiar with

Dirlik's previous work may experience in reading thisbook, it is still a significant piece of scholarship. More

AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW OCTOBER 1992

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1266 Reviews of Books

than other studies of the subject (Robert Scalapinoand George Yu's The Chinese Anarchist Movement[1961]; Martin Bernal's Chinese Socialism to 1907[1976]; Peter Zarrow'sAnarchism nd ChinesePoliticalCulture[1990]), Dirlik's provides a nuanced portraitof disparate ideas and activities within the Chineseanarchist movement: the Parisgroup, which attackedConfucianism and the institution of the Chinesefamily in favor of Western practices; the Tokyogroup, which prized China's cultural traditions; theGuangzhou group, which organized labor unions; theGuomindang group, which inaugurated a short-livedlabor university. Dirlik's informative presentation isenriched by recently (re)published Chinese sources,most notably a two-volume compendium of materialson anarchist thought put out by Beijing UniversityPress in 1984.

The most distinctive aspect of Dirlik's work is

neither its comprehensiveness nor its sources, how-ever; it is rather its sympathetic approach to thesubject matter. Although Dirlik does not discount theweaknesses of Chinese anarchism, whether as revolu-tionary program or as postrevolutionary inspiration,he finds in it "a critical perspective on the course theChinese revolution was to take" (p. 301) and "avantage point from which to rethink the most funda-mental problems of politics-not just Chinese orsocialist, but all politics" (p. 304). To Dirlik, thehallmark of anarchist thinking is its rigorous critiqueof hegemony-a perspective that permits anarchists

to "imagine social possibilities beyond the ideologicalhorizons established by political ideology" (pp. 302-03). Dirlik does not offer much guidance about justwhat those "social possibilities" might be. Neverthe-less, his engaged outlook imparts a refreshing imme-diacy not often found in intellectual histories of theChinese Revolution.

The book is not without shortcomings, of course.Its frequent reiteration of central arguments, minorpoints, and even word-for-word quotations becomestedious. Yet for all this attention to some themes,there is a surprising lack of attention to others. While

Dirlik repeatedly stresses anarchism's concern forsocial-rather than political-revolution, he does notprovide us with enough social history to assess theactual importance of this concern. What exactly wasthe relationship between anarchism and the contem-porary Chinese women's movement? Can anarchistideas be credited with changes in the nature of theChinese family? These questions are not addressed,whereas overtly political issues-the relationship be-tween anarchism and the Nationalist and Communistparties, for example-are dealt with at length.

Despite its somewhat idiosyncratic presentation,this is an important book not only for students of the

Chinese Revolution but also for students of revolu-tion in general. In this day when Communist regimesfrom Budapest to Bucharest have collapsed, a discus-sion of alternatives to the Marxist-Leninist state is

especially pressing. Dirlik's is a sensitive and sophis-ticated contribution to that discussion.

ELIZABETH J. PERRY

University f California,Berkeley

SAKAMOTO TARO.The Six National Historiesof Japan.Translated by JOHN S. BROWNLEE. Vancouver: Uni-versity of British Columbia Press or University ofTokyo Press, Tokyo. 1991. Pp. xxx, 232. $65.00.

The late Sakamoto Taro (1901-87) displayed a leg-endary mastery of documentary materials. Thus, it isappropriate that John S. Brownlee should translateSakamoto's classic study of the most important sourcematerials for the study of ancient Japan, the SixNational Histories (rikkokushi).

The rikkokushi re Japan's first document-basedhistories, compiled under Imperial edict by ministersof state and scholars between the seventh and tenthcenturies. Titles and dates of publication are: 1) NihonShoki,or Nihongi (Chronicles of Japan), 720; 2) ShokuNihongi (Chronicles of Japan Continued), 797; 3)NihonKoki (Later Chronicles of Japan), 840; 4) ShokuNihon Koki (Later Chronicles of Japan Continued),869; 5) NihonMontokuTennoJitsuroku Veritable Rec-ords of Emperor Montoku of Japan), 879; 6) NihonSandaiJitsuroku(Veritable Records of Three Reignsof Japan), 901.

AncientJapan borrowed the Chinese imperial state

system to buttress the sacred kingship of the Imperialclan. An official history in the Chinese style was oneway to provide an intellectual foundation to Imperialrule. Emperor Temmu ordered Hieda Are to mem-orize extant records to help prepare a "correct"history. (Completed in 712, this Kojiki [Record ofAncient Matters] traced Japanese history from theAge of the Gods to the late seventh century.) But theproject was fraught with problems.

Therefore, in 681 Temmu gathered twelve princesand nobles and ordered them to compile a "chronicleof the Emperors and matters of high antiquity."The

resulting Nihon Shoki differed from Kojiki: it wascompiled by an appointed team of government schol-ars and written in Chinese, the official language ofadministration, signifying the sophistication of theJapanese state. It further provided a strictchronologyand commentaries on differing textual versions ofevents. Later official histories were similarly com-piled. But Nihon Shokialso differed from the later fivehistories: since it covers an indistinct prehistory, itsearly dates are inaccurate, and many emperors areclearly inventions.

Later histories deal with comparatively short andbetter-documented periods. They are considered au-

thoritative because they "were compiled by a histori-ans' office working under imperial order and usingthe regular documentary materials of the govern-ment" (p. 21). Although they are "official" histories

AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW OCTOBER 1992