Source: The Masses, October, 1917.
Transcribed: Sally Ryan for marxists.org in 2002.
The forcible dissolution of the Socialist Party of China a year ago by order of the military dictator, Yuan Shi Kai, attracted little attention in the American press. It was a party that had grown up so swiftly that even the Socialists of America hardly knew of its existence, let alone of its power and influence.
Yet it was so large and powerful as to arouse the fear of the despot, Yuan Shi Kai, and to call for the most bloody methods of suppression. The mere facts will astonish anyone not acquainted with the nature of the Chinese people, as revealed by recent history.
In 1911 the first Socialist group was formed, and the first Socialist paper started. In three months, under the impetus of the First Revolution, the movement spread all over China. Within two years its membership had grown to 500,000. Thirty Socialists had been elected to the parliament of the newly established Republic at Peking, and Socialist measures had been introduced. There were in existence more than fifty Socialist newspapers. Socialist free public schools had been established, a Socialist trade union organized, a woman's auxiliary started, and immense quantities of leaflets and pamphlets distributed. Most curiously Chinese of all, Socialist theatrical organizations were touring the country from end to end with Socialist plays.
In view of these facts, which only one who has seen the tremendous development of revolutionary ideas in China recently can well believe, it is not strange that the bloody hand of Yuan Shi Kai should have fallen on the Socialist movement. That the despot took the movement seriously is shown by the decree of dissolution which he issued August 8, 1913:
"The Socialist Party of China is using the cloak of a political party in order to conceal its evil designs. These demagogues would coerce the government and flatter the people for their own evil ends. They are a danger to peace and law and order. They advocate violence and assassination. Therefore they have incurred the displeasure not only of the government, but of the people as well: Many letters have been received from officers of Tien Tsin, Peking and elsewhere, warning us against Socialist plots and conspiracies. Many foreign Anarchists have joined them in order to disturb the international peace. The Socialist Party of China is not like the Socialists of other countries, who merely study Socialism. If we do not put an end to their activities, a great outburst will follow.
Therefore, we have issued this decree calling upon the Provincial Governments and Generals to dissolve the Socialist Party of China wherever found, and to arrest the leaders.
"Thus law and order can be preserved.
"YUAN SHI KAI,
"President of the Republic."
The decree was carried out. Everywhere the branches of the Socialist Party were forcibly broken up by troops, their treasuries confiscated, and their leaders arrested and executed. Not only that, but the homes and places of business of those known to be members of the Socialist Party were looted or confiscated.
The National Headquarters of the Party alone escaped, being located in English Town, Shanghai. But the whole fabric of the organization was effectually, for the time being, destroyed.
In order to make it clear how such an organization as this could come to exist in China, it is necessary to understand two things: One is that in China the propaganda of such doctrines as Republicanism and Revolutionism come with all the tremendous blasting power of the New. The Chinese have not been inoculated against these ideas. The Chinese mind in the first years of this century was virgin soil.
The other thing to understand is that the sentiment of Communism is very strong in China, having lasted from primitive times in the form of various customs and institutions. And industrially China is still in the handicraft stage of production: Capitalism has not yet brought in the philosophy of individualism as it has in the Western world. So the idea of the common ownership of the means of production is no strange and curious conception to the people of China. They do not have to overcome a century of capitalist education before they can believe in Socialism.
In the last decade there had been scattered here and there in small groups throughout the Empire a few people who studied and advocated Humanitarianism, Communism and Socialism. But these groups had no connection with each other, and their ideas were for the most part vague and misty. But they furnished in a few cases an impetus for the starting of radical newspapers. These newspapers had as their purpose the introduction of new ideas into the country.
Chief among the methods of introducing new ideas was the translation of Western authors. There were thus published in Chinese portions of the writings of Balzac and Victor Hugo, of Byron and Shelley, of Dickens and Mark Twain, of Goethe and Heine, and, later on, of Kropotkin, Marx, Engels and Bebel.
The revolutionary ideas of these poets and writers served to educate the readers of these newspapers, and incidentally their editors. I, Kiang Kang Hu, was an editor of one of these papers, being at the same time a professor in the University of Peking. Coming in contact with the doctrine of Socialism in this way, I became interested, and finally converted. Especially did I admire and value the master work of August Bebel, "Woman Under Socialism." So profoundly did it influence me that I began an agitation for the establishment of schools for women--a thing which had been undreamed of before in China. The agitation was successful and many schools were set up.
Full of this idea,. I went in June, 1911, on a lecturing tour through the Che Kiang province, speaking on "Woman and the Socialist Movement." This speech was issued in pamphlet form and had a tremendous circulation. Then the storm of official displeasure broke over me. The Viceroy of the Province ordered my arrest. My newspaper and pamphlet were confiscated, and with due solemnity publicly burned. I, disguised as a porter, escaped to English Town, Shanghai, where I was safe from arrest. This was the first instance on record of he prosecution of a Socialist in China.
It was also the beginning of the Socialist movement. On July 10, 1911, I organized a Socialist Club in Shanghai, and on the same day the Socialist Star, the first Socialist paper in China, made its appearance.
This Socialist Club of Shanghai was originally organized more to sturdy Socialism than to propagate it. About fifty men and women were members of the group, and earnestly they studied the Socialist classics.
But meanwhile, the First Revolution had started in the South, at Hankow. On November 3, 1911, Shanghai fell into the hands of the revolutionists. Then the club changed its name to the Socialist Party of China, and organizers were sent out into the Southern provinces, where many new branches were organized: The Socialist Star became a,daily, and had a wide circulation. The party membership increased with enormous rapidity. The Shi Hui Tong, or Socialist Party, was the first political party as such in China. On November 5, 1911, it met in its first annual convention at Shanghai and adopted a platform.
These Socialists, though not clear Marxists, having so recently been drawn into the movement, were nevertheless enthusiastic in earnest in their desire to establish a Socialist Republic. They declared in their preamble for the common ownership of the land and the means of production, and then adopted the following eight planks as a working platform:
1. The Establishment of a Republican Form of Government. This was necessary in any case, as under the old imperial form of government no freedom of organization existed.)
2. The Wiping Out of All Racial Differences. (It should be stated that at that time the Republicans were inflaming the race-hatred of the Hans or pure Chinese race against the governing Manchus, and the Manchus in return preaching a race-war against the Hans. While the Socialists favored a Republic, they could not accept the Republican doctrine of race-hatred.)
3. The Abolition of All Remaining Forms of Feudal Slavery and the Establishment of Equality Before the Law. (Girls are still sold into slavery in China, and people are sometimes sold for debt.)
4. The Abolition of All Hereditary Estates. (China has a vast agricultural population, which suffers under absentee landlordism. Many of the actual tillers of the soil are living under the most miserable conditions, and are at the mercy of the land-owners. The agrarian question is one of the greatest problems in China today.)
5. A Free and Universal School System, on Co-educational Lines, Together with Free Text-Books and the Feeding of School Children. (The great bulk of the people of China cannot read and write. There are as yet no public schools. If the Socialist movement would build upon permanent foundations, it must unremittingly carry on an educational propaganda. With a population steeped in illiteracy this would be impossible.)
6. The Abolition of All Titles and Estates. (The ruling class up to the present time has been based on the ownership of huge estates.)
8. The Abolition of the Army and Navy.
This platform was used by the thirty Socialists elected to the first Parliament at Peking as their working program. They introduced into Parliament a measure for equal, direct and secret suffrage; a measure for the establishment of public schools; a measure for the abolition of all personal taxes. A measure to create an inheritance tax; a measure to abolish capital punishment; a measure to reduce the standing army; a measure to abolish girl slavery. None of there measures came up for a final vote, for before that time the Parliament had been dissolved by the soldiers of Yuan Shi Kai.
The Party had by this time over 400 branches in China, each with its official teachers and readers--for a great part of the membership could not read. Agitators and organizers, most of them working without pay, were sent out broadcast. The Party owned its own printing plant, and published three official papers, the Daily Socialist Star, the Weekly Socialist Bulletin, and the Monthly Official Bulletin. Among the pamphlets and leaflets which were printed out in great quantities, one of the most popular was "The Communist Manifesto." In addition, many branches printed their own local papers, and at one time there were over fifty of these in existence. Then, too, there were between ten and fifteen privately owned papers which supported the Socialist Party. The extreme left of the Young China Association leaned strongly toward the Party, and the columns of many Young China papers were open to the Socialists.
The most important of the free public schools established by the Party was situated at Nanking. The school had an attendance of over eight hundred. Free public kindergartens were also established by the Party.
A very curious part of the Party organization was the Socialist Opera and Orchestra Company. In China, actors and musicians are very low caste. After the First Revolution, many of these joined the Party, and the Party organized them into several theatrical companies, which toured the country, playing symbolical Socialist plays, and proving themselves an invaluable adjunct to the Party propaganda.
The woman's organization had for its main work the furthering of the agitation for woman's suffrage. This organization had at one time close to one thousand members, and in addition many women belonged directly to the Party itself. Schools for women were started by the Party, ana had a large attendance.
The trade unions organized by the Party were made an inherent part of the Socialist movement, in conformity to the idea that economic action is equally necessary with political action in the work of revolution.
In addition, the Party collected funds for the sufferers in the famine districts, and in other places where there was need.
Meanwhile, an Anarchist movement had grown up in China. Some of the Anarchists joined the Socialist Party and sought to foist their views upon it. These two hostile schools of thought came to open battle at the second annual convention of the Party. Finding themselves in a hopelessly small minority, the Anarchists split off and formed the "Pure Socialist Party." Sha Kan, who had been a member of the Socialist Party, was the leader of the new organization. The "Pure Socialist Party" advocated the individual expropriation of property holders. It advocated assassination. It is not at all strange that this organization soon became a cloak and a mask for a gang of highway robbers and thieves whose acts could not be distinguished from those of other criminals.
During the Second Revolution this "Pure Socialist Party" organized a Chinese Red Cross Society, whose sole object was to collect money from credulous and sympathetic people. The International Red Cross Association exposed them, and Sha Kan was captured and shot.
The "Pure Socialist Party" and other Anarchist groups did much to discredit the Socialist Party of China. People confused one with the other, and when the reaction set in, the government craftily used this confusion to further its ends.
Already during the second year of its existence, the Socialist Party was meeting with bitter opposition. This opposition came not only from the government but also from the Republicans and from the Constitutional Monarchists. Nevertheless, the Party continued to grow.
But Yuan Shi Kai was now extending his power and strengthening his army, with the intention of making his despotism secure One by one the Republicans were skilfully worked out of place and power. Finally, Song Chi Ying, one of the leaders of the Young China Association, who had raised a voice of suspicion against Yuan Shi Kai, was assassinated, and though there was no direct proof, it was believed by all that the assassin had been paid to do his work by Yuan Shi Kai. The despot in the meantime had borrowed great sums of money from the foreign banks, without consulting Parliament as the constitution provided, and was using this money to strengthen his position.
All during the months of March and April, 1913, the Socialist Party held gigantic mass meetings all over the country, at which they exposed the duplicity of the Provisional President, Yuan Shi Kai. Manifestos were issued calling upon him to resign. Yuan Shi Kai now surrounded the House of Parliament with troops, gave "presents" to many of the representatives, and was almost unanimously elected President of China.
In July, 1913, the Southern Provinces, tardily awakening to the danger of the situation, rose against Yuan Shi Kai. It was too late. The Second Revolution, after two months of sanguinary fighting in Shanghai, Hanking and elsewhere, was drowned in blood.
Parliament was dissolved and new elections ordered. All pretense of political freedom disappeared. The Young China Association was outlawed. The decree against the Socialist Party was issued. Everywhere the heads of Socialists and Republicans rolled in the dust.
The Socialist Party of China, as a party, has ceased to exist. Most of the leaders of the organization, those who have not paid with their heads for their loyalty to the working class, have gone to foreign countries, where they are busy collecting money and laying plans for a new revolution. And in China itself the work is being carried on in secret by methods which cannot, at this time, be discussed. Suffice it to say that several brave comrades have already lost their lives in the hazardous work.
But there will be a Third Revolution, and the Socialist Party will again take its place in the Red International.