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Revolutionary Women and Women in the Revolution: The Chinese Communist Party andWomen in the War of Resistance to Japan, 1937-1945Author(s): David S. G. GoodmanSource: The China Quarterly, No. 164, (Dec., 2000), pp. 915-942Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the School of Oriental and AfricanStudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/655920Accessed: 19/07/2008 13:55

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Revolutionary Women and Women in the Revolution: The Chinese Communist Party and Women in the War of Resistance to Japan, 1937-1945*

David S. G. Goodman

On a late winter's day in 1989 a grey-haired, round woman of about 80 in a padded jacket and a black beanie moved across 1st May Square in the centre of Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi province. She was presenting awards to the PLA's most recent young "model soldiers" - recruits who had just finished top of their class in basic training. This was Balu mama - the "Mother of the Eighth Route Army," Bao Lianzi. Now the retired head of a clinic, 50 years earlier she had been part of a women's support group for soldiers during the War of Resistance to Japan, in her native Wuxiang.' At that time, Wuxiang, together with Liaoxian and Licheng counties in South-east Shanxi, and Shexian in Northern Henan,2 was the core of the Taihang Base Area,3 itself the centre of the Shanxi-Hebei- Shandong-Henan Border Region and one of the major base areas behind Japanese lines. It supported the field headquarters of the Eighth Route Army under Peng Dehuai; the offices of the North China Bureau under Yang Shangkun; and Deng Xiaoping, eyes and ears for Mao Zedong on the front line.4

Bringing Bao Lianzi out of retirement so publicly in late 1989 was designed to make a statement about the revolution and the present. The Beijing demonstrations of May and June were echoed in Taiyuan, with occupation by students of 1st May Square, although a violent outcome had been avoided largely through the actions of a not-unsympathetic

* An earlier version of this article was delivered at the conference on Women in Twentieth Century China organized by Dr Lily Lee at the University of Sydney during late April 2000. It has benefited greatly from discussions with Jing Wang, Mark Selden and Sue Wiles, as well as the comments of anonymous referees. Research was supported by the Australian Research Council, and would have not been possible without the assistance provided by Professor Tian Youru of the Modem Shanxi History Research Institute. It is based on interviews with survivors of and participants in the Taihang Base Area, as well as the documentary sources cited in the notes. The opinions articulated and the views expressed are those of the author alone, unless explicitly indicated.

1. Report of an interview detailing with part of her life and work may be found in Li Zhikuan and Song Ruzhen, "Balu mama" ("Mother of the Eighth Route Army"), in Zhonggong Wuxiang xianwei xuanchuanbu and Zhonggong Wuxiang xianwei dangshi bangongshi (ed.), Wuxiangfenghuo (The Flames of War in Wuxiang) (Licheng: Licheng CCP Committee, 1985), Vol.l, p. 535.

2. Though now somewhat confusingly Shexian is in South-west Hebei. Boundaries were adjusted after the end of the War of Resistance to Japan in 1945.

3. The Taihang Base Area, particularly in the form of the base area committee of the CCP, went through a number of different name changes during 1937-45. For the sake of convenience and clarity all will be referred to by the name that applied at the end of the war: the Taihang Base Area.

4. David S.G. Goodman "JinJiLuYu in the Sino-Japanese War: the border region and the border region government," The China Quarterly, No. 140 (December 1994), p. 1007.

? The China Quarterly, 2000

916 The China Quarterly

provincial leadership which persuaded the demonstrators to withdraw.5 All the same, the presentation of awards to model soldiers by Bao Lianzi provided a message of continuity and stability; emphasized the positive contribution of the the military as the keystone of Chinese patriotism; and stressed the close relationship between Shanxi and the Chinese Commu- nist Party (CCP).

The appellation "Mother of the Eighth Route Army" was not new, but it certainly did not date back to the War of Resistance itself. The CCP's retrieval of its own history during the 1980s once again highlighted the wartime experience of the Taihang Base Area, which largely for political reasons had remained somewhat concealed during the previous 20 years.6 Although the Taihang Base Area had contemporaneously prepared its own history, its reconstruction became a major project for Shanxi within the Seventh Five-Year Plan.7 In that process "Mother of the Eight Route Army" was first applied to Wuxiang, because of the large number of recruits it produced, and then later when further personification was required, to Bao Lianzi.8

The high profile afforded Bao Lianzi was far from typical of the way the role of women in the North China base areas of the War of Resistance was usually reported. In the CCP's account, these areas were socially conservative and only began modernization with the start of war and its own arrival from 1937. Women became emancipated through their participation in production and were more concerned with this immediate goal than with demands for political equality.9 As a result, women have made only a limited appearance in the CCP's history of the North China base areas, even in the 1980s revival, and then always in a support role to male CCP activists. Within Shanxi, Bao Lianzi is almost the only

5. Shanxi sheng shizhi yanjiuyuan (ed.), Zhongguo gongchandang Shanxi lishi dashijisu (1976.10-1992.12) (CCP Historical Record of Events in Shanxi, October 1976-December 1992) (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1995), pp. 298-99.

6. The activities of the Taihang Base Area had been more publicly celebrated than most other base areas outside Yan'an between 1949 and the mid-1960s. However, its reputation was always sidelined by Mao Zedong's vision of CCP history, and became completely submerged from 1965 until the late 1980s. On the historiography of the North China base areas, see Feng Chongyi and David S.G. Goodman "Explaining revolution," in Feng Chongyi and David S.G. Goodman (eds.), North China at War: The Social Ecology of Revolution, 1937-1945 (Latham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000). Probably the two best known publications about the Taihang Base Area from the 1950s and 1960s are: Qi Wu, Yige geming genjudi de chengzhang: KangRi zhanzheng he jiefang zhanzheng shiqi de JinJiLuYu Bianqu gaikuang (The Transformation of a Revolutionary Base Area: An Outline of the Shanxi-Hebei-Shan- dong-Henan BorderRegion during the Warof Resistance and the Warof Liberation) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1957); and Taihang renjia (Taihang People) (Beijing: Zhongguo qingnian chubanshe, 1964).

7. Tian Youru "Taihang kangRi genjudi shi yanjiu songshu" ("Research on the history of the Taihang Anti-Japanese Base Area"), Dangshi tongxun (Newsletter on Party History), No. 353 (No.7, 1987), p. 39.

8. Zhonggong Wuxiang xianwei xuanchuanbu and Zhonggong Wuxiang xianwei dangshi yanjiushi (ed.), KangRi zhanzheng zhongde Wuxiang (Wuxiang in the Anti-Japanese War) (Zhonggong Wuxiang, 1985), p. 3.

9. See, for example: Taihang geming genjudishi zongbian weihui (ed.), Qunzhong yundong (The Mass Movement) Taihang geming genjudi shiliao congshu No.7 (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1989), especially pp. 409-471.

Revolutionary Women 917

woman currently rated as a "revolutionary hero" from the War of Resistance, and certainly the most widely known during the 1990s.?1

This low profile afforded women extends to the literature published outside China. Histories of the War of Resistance in North China, and of its individual base areas, mention women but rarely, often only to

acknowledge the CCP's failure to meet its earlier commitments to gender equality.1 Even with the substantial growth during the 1970s and 1980s in studies of women in China there is remarkably little about women in the North China base areas at that time. Apart from the pioneering studies of women in Yan'an by Hua Chang-ming and Patricia Stranahan'2 the topic is usually considered within a much larger perspective of social change that focuses on the role of women either in the 20th century, or in relation to the CCP, or both. Ono Kazuko devotes a section to it in a discussion of the transformation of rural women between 1927 and 1949.13 Elisabeth Croll, Delia Davin and Judith Stacey examine women in the North China base areas as part of their discussions of the pre-1949 liberated areas more generally.14 Kay Ann Johnson considers the changes wrought by the War of Resistance together with those of the Civil War of 1946-49.15

The various accounts of the relationship between women and the CCP in the North China base areas during the war almost totally reflect the CCP's assessment of the social environment, and to some extent reinforce its explanation of women's mobilization. They commonly accept that the countryside of the North China base areas was, and remains, even more socially conservative on the issue of women's participation in public life than other parts of the country,16 and that at least in part the CCP's

10. Liu Hulan is of course considerably and nationally better known. However, herheroism was from the Civil War.

11. The most comprehensive account of this period is Lyman van Slyke "The Chinese Communist Movement during the Sino-Japanese War, 1937-45," in The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 13, Republican China, 1912-1949, Part II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), ch. 12, p. 609. For an example of such comments in a recently-published study of a specific base area, see: Pauline B Keating, Two Revolutions: Village Reconstruction and the Cooperative Movement in Northern Shaanxi 1934-1945 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), pp. 6-7.

12. Hua Chang-ming, La condition feminine et les communistes chinoises en action: Yan 'an, 1935-1946 (Paris: Editions de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 1981); Patricia Stranahan, Yan'an Women and the Communist Party (Berkeley: University of California, Institute of East Asian Studies, 1983).

13. Ono Kazuko, Chinese Women in a Century of Revolution, 1850-1950 (edited by Joshua A Fogel) (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989 (original publication, 1978), pp. 161-170.

14. Elisabeth Croll, Feminism and Socialism in China (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978), pp. 185-222; Delia Davin, "Women in the liberated areas," in Marilyn B. Young (ed.), Women in China (Michigan: University of Michigan Papers in Chinese Studies, 1973), pp. 73-87; Judith Stacey, Patriarchy and Socialist Revolution in China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), pp. 108-157.

15. Kay Ann Johnson, Women, the Family, and Peasant Revolution in China (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1983), pp. 63-83.

16. See, for example, and in addition to the already cited sources: Phyllis Andors, The Unfinished Revolution of Chinese Women (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1983), pp. 23 ff; and Delia Davin, Woman-Work: Women and the Party in Revolutionary China (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976), pp. 32 ff.


mobilization of women during the war was not designed to lead to gender equality but to increase "women's role in production to help support the economy and the anti-Japanese effort."'7 At the same time they clearly recognize that whilst contemporary commentators such as Agnes Smed- ley and Nym Wales talked about "gender equality" and "women's liberation,"'8 the wider experiments that were permitted to some extent by the CCP during the 1920s had long since been abandoned.19 To para- phrase Judith Stacey, whatever else transpired during the war the result was that the former traditional patriarchy was replaced by a new patriarchy that centred on the fraternity of the Red Army.20

All the same, these explanations are not totally convincing. They draw overwhelmingly on Yan'an rather than the front-line base areas, where conditions were almost necessarily different. Yan'an had been developed as the central CCP base area because of its suitable social environment and security, whereas the front-line base areas were not only considerably larger and more socially varied, but also more subject to the vagaries of war.21 Their development, as well as the CCP's structures of leadership, was all very experimental, especially in the first few years of the war. It was driven generally by young, inexperienced, middle-class (and male) recruits from the North China cities. In most cases their first encounter with rural China was when they joined the resistance to Japan at the beginning of the war. The inevitable result was that the development of organization and policies was highly localized, and influenced greatly by local conditions.22

17. Johnson, Women, the Family, and Peasant Revolution, p. 65. See, also, more generally, Davin "Women in the liberated areas," pp. 73-87; and Croll, Feminism and Socialism, pp. 202 ff.

18. Agnes Smedley, Battle Hymn of China (London: Gollancz, 1943), "The women take a hand," pp. 190 ff; Helen Foster Snow (Nym Wales), The Chinese Communists: Sketches and Autobiographies of the Old Guard (Westport, CN: Greenwood, 1972), Part 7 Women, pp. 199-266.

19. Christina Kelley Gilmartin, Engendering the Chinese Revolution: Radical Women, Communist Politics, and Mass Movements in the 1920s (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).

20. Judith Stacey, Patriarchy and Socialist Revolution in China (Berkeley University of California Press, 1983), pp. 154-55.

21. Mark Selden, China in Revolution: The Yenan Way Revisited (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1995); Feng and Goodman, North China at War.

22. In the Taihang Base Area, for example, the original organizational genesis of its civilian structures was the Beiping-Wuhan Railway CCP Committee which sent 31 activists, all male, to the region at the start of the war. They recruited several hundred other urban intellectuals, including many teachers, and formed the backbone of the CCP's organization to the end of the war. As Li Xuefeng, the ranking CCP secretary for the Taihang Base Area for all but a couple of months of the war, pointed out: "Many leading cadres are urban intellectuals. When they first came they knew little about the rural areas and the peasants, and nothing about peasants, peasant cadres or worker-peasant cadres." It was a heady mix: "Whether deliberately or not, they hurt the peasants and local cadres through their city views and absolutist interpretations of Marxism." Reported verbatim, in Zhonggong Taihang qudangwei, Taihang quwei diliuci zuzhihui jilu (Minutes of the Sixth Organizational Conference of the Taihang Region Party Committee), February-March 1945, 8 March 1945, 8 March 1945, p. 67. For further information on the social composition of the Taihang CCP, see David S.G. Goodman, Social and Political Change in Revolutionary China: The Taihang Base Area in the War of Resistance to Japan, 1937-1945 (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000, especially ch. 1, "Base area and border region."


A second problem is that where accounts of women in the North China base areas do attempt to move beyond Yan'an the few sources they access are drawn almost exclusively from the last half of the war rather than its full eight years. In the front-line base areas political conditions had changed dramatically in 1940. In the earlier part of the war the CCP was not only less assertive but also not in many places the principal force leading nationalist resistance. In late 1939 and early 1940 it moved to take control of the front-line base areas and thereafter consolidated its rule. Within that process, during 1942 it introduced a consistency across the base areas in a number of a policy areas, including women's mobilization, that had not existed earlier and which followed from wider political developments within the movement as Mao Zedong centralized his authority.23 At the start of 1942 the CCP abandoned any attempt to mobilize women behind appeals to emancipation and gender equality. Later that year Peng Dehuai, speaking at a meeting of senior cadres from the Taihang Base Area, warned that raising women's political conscious- ness was generally permitted but that cadres should determinedly ensure it take second place to economic mobilization, because of both war needs and concerns about potential resentment from male peasants.24

There is potential for considerable misunderstanding in viewing the history of women during the war only through the eyes of the CCP. An argument that women were denied significant political participation by the CCP during the war is not to say that women did not (or did) demand greater political participation at that time. In the case of the Taihang Base Area there is evidence to suggest that one important explanation for the relative absence of women is that at the very least some women chal- lenged the CCP and posed problems which it was unwilling or unable to meet. Somewhat conversely, there is also evidence to suggest that other, already organized, women were prepared to work very closely with the CCP, thereby ensuring a high degree of women's participation in politics generally in their locality. There is a need for a more women-centred narrative of the front-line base areas of the War of Resistance. However, retrieving a women's history - or indeed that of any social group separate from that of the CCP - is not easy. The sources for investigation are necessarily dominated by the CCP and its archives, and increasingly so as participants come to the ends of their lives. Contextualization becomes even more important, especially in the absence of direct and detailed sources of information, but this too brings other difficulties of balance in explanation.

The experience of three adjacent counties at the heart of the Taihang Base Area - Wuxiang, Licheng and Liaoxian - suggests that the explanation of women's interactions with the revolutionary process is more

23. Frederick C, Teiwes and Warren Sun, "From a Leninist to a charismatic party: the CCP's changing leadership, 1937-1945," in Tony Saich and Hans van de Ven (eds.), New Perspectives on the Chinese Communist Revolution (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1995), p. 339.

24. Peng Dehuai "Huabei genjudi gongzuo baogao" ("Report on work in the North China Base Areas"), March 1942, in Gongfei huoguo shiliao leibian (Collection of Historical Materials on the Communist Bandits) (Taipei: Zhonghua minguo guoji guanxi yanjiusuo, 1961), Vol. 3, pp. 380-82.


complex than either CCP history or the various other accounts have so far allowed. Even in the high mountains of this rural area it is clear that there is a need to differentiate the processes of social change and the CCP's revolution. Modernization had started well before 1937 and created not only a socio-economic environment that made CCP mobilization readily attractive in some places (notably Wuxiang) but also the conditions for some women to become socially, economically and politically active.

Social conditions varied a great deal from county to county, as did the subsequent relations that developed between the CCP and women. In Wuxiang, where the CCP, very unusually for the Taihang Base Area, had some native organizational tradition, women's participation largely followed the later approved CCP script. They played almost no role in politics, though they were active in social and economic support work to the CCP, as Bao Lianzi's story bears witness. However, Wuxiang's socio-economic environment - dominated by commercial tenancies, considerable land concentration, absentee landlords and recent extreme rural immiseration - was not only rare for the Taihang Base Area, it also seems to have been rare generally for the North China front-line base areas.25

Equally as unusual socio-economic conditions, though in another direction altogether, were to be found in Licheng. Here there was substantially greater equality, as well as wealth, than could be found elsewhere in the Taihang Base Area or than was normal for the North China front-line base areas. One result was a well-educated and organized group of young men and women who helped organize the county CCP at the start of the war. However, local politics were fractured by the CCP's seizure of power in January 1940 which alienated much of that support, particularly its female and wealthier components. Thereafter the CCP had considerably less success in mobilizing the population. In particular the desire for alternatives by women played a role in the development of a rebellion against the CCP-led county government that severely shocked the Communist movement.

More usual socio-economic conditions for both the Taihang Base Area and the North China front-line were to be found in Liaoxian, renamed Zuoquan in 1942 in memory of the CCP general Zuo Quan killed there in that year. However, Liaoxian also differs from the more orthodox account of women's participation in a North China base area: a local women's organization that pre-dated the CCP had a considerable hand in its formation and subsequent development. The Liaoxian Patriotic Women's Association (not to be confused with the CCP Women's Federation with which it much later merged) had been established as part

25. On socio-economic conditions in comparative perspective, see Tian Youru, "Shanxi tudi zhidu gaige lishi gaiyao" ("Outline history of reform of the land system in Shanxi"), Shanxi dangshi tongxun (Bulletin of Shanxi Party History), No. 2 (1993), p. 17; Philip C.C. Huang "Rural class struggle in the Chinese revolution: representational and objective realities from the land reform to the Cultural Revolution," Modem China, Vol.21, No.1 (January 1995), p. 105; and Li Xiangqian "Kang Ri zhanzheng yu Zhongguo Xibei nongcun shehuide biandong" ('The transformation of village society in North-west China during the War of Resistance"), in Feng Chongyi and Gu Deman (eds.), Huabei Kang Ri genjudi yu shehui shengtai (The Social Ecology of the North China Base Areas in the War of Resistance) (Beijing: Dangdai Zhongguo chubanshe, 1998), p. 25.

Figure 1: Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Border Region, 1945

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of the Shanxi Sacrifice League. With a solid organizational base among teachers it helped found the county CCP, and remained influential throughout the war. Women certainly participated in the CCP's social and economic campaigns in Liaoxian, but they also participated in politics on a scale that seems completely at odds with other accounts, achieving numerical equality with men on the county committee of the CCP during the second half of the war.

During 1942-45 the CCP certainly emphasized women's participation in production as opposed to a wider general equality, and moved decisively to shore up the patriarchy of its civilian and military forces. However, this was not always the total explanation of either the roles of women in the war, or even of the relationship between women and the CCP. In some places, at some times, and under certain conditions women did enjoy opportunities for greater participation in social and political activities. There were both other revolutionary women, and women in the revolution, whose stories are masked by later CCP interpretations, both of the 1940s and of the 1980s.

The Taihang Base Area

The Taihang Base Area emerged from various Anti-Japanese activities in the southern part of the Taihang Mountain range, on the borders of Shanxi, Hebei and Henan. Eighth Route Army troops had been led by Liu Bocheng, from North Shaanxi, specifically to establish a CCP base area here. In addition, there were pockets of CCP activists already in the area, including railway workers and coal miners, as well as one or two Anti-Japanese Resistance local governments formed as political order broke down with the invasion of Hebei and Henan.

In the Shanxi districts of the Taihang Base Area, a crucial role in its formation was played by the Sacrifice League (for National Salvation). Established in 1936 by Yan Xishan, the warlord of Shanxi, through alliance with the CCP, the Sacrifice League brought together a broad coalition of resistance to Japanese aggression - including Yan Xishan's followers, supporters of the Nationalist Party in the province, the CCP, local elites, intellectuals and urban workers - and played a central role in both provincial politics and the activities of base areas in the province until 1940.26 In particular, Yan appointed Bo Yibo and Rong Zihe, who were both CCP members,27 as directors, respectively, of the third and fifth administrative districts in South-east Shanxi: the former included Wuxiang and Liaoxian; the latter Licheng.

A major turning point in the development of the Taihang Base Area in Shanxi came at the end of 1939 and beginning of 1940. Before that time, the CCP did not control politics throughout the Taihang Base Area, and

26. Wang Shengbo, Ximenghui shi (History of the Sacrifice League) (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1987); and Donald G. Gillin, Warlord Yen Hsi-shan in Shansi Province, 1911-1949 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), pp. 231 ff.

27. Bo Yibo was the leader of the "Open" Shanxi Provincial Committee of the CCP, and had made the arrangements with Yan Xishan that led to the establishment of the Sacrifice League.


indeed in many counties was very much a minor partner in the Anti-

Japanese resistance (Licheng and Liaoxian are notable examples) under the umbrella of the Sacrifice League and the alliance with Yan Xishan. The civil war of late 1939 and early 1940 between Yan Xishan and the CCP led the CCP to seize power forcibly where it was not already in command, leading to the unification and institutionalization of the base area. By 1944 the Taihang Base Area had grown to have an estimated population of 2.8 million people in its core areas and another 1.8 million in its guerrilla districts, across 58 counties.

Wuxiang, Licheng and Liaoxian counties were at the heart of the Taihang Base Area both physically and organizationally. The high mountain area where the three counties meet in the north of Licheng, the east of Wuxiang and the south of Liaoxian was one of the most secure parts of any base area during the war, and consequently saw a concentration of CCP offices and headquarters in and after 1940. There were no Japanese or allied forces based here, and it was difficult for them to operate so far from their usual lines of communication and supply. Japanese troops only passed through the area to any serious effect a few times during the war, though on one occasion in May 1942 a significant part of the base area's civil organization was destroyed in Liaoxian along with a large number of guerrilla activists, including the deputy chief-of-staff of the Eighth Route Army, Zuo Quan.28

The CCP proved remarkably successful in mobilizing the local population of these three counties during the war. By August 1941, the 39 counties in the Taihang Base Area had a total of 24,512 CCP members29; almost a third of the total was to be found collectively in Wuxiang (16 per cent), Licheng (8.2 per cent) and Liaoxian (7.2 per cent.)30

During the war, Liaoxian became the administrative centre of the entire base area; Wuxiang was the area's radical heart in its pursuit of social reform in terms of class; and Licheng provided resistance to reform. All three were mountain counties, ranging in elevation from about 650 to 2,200 metres, with most habitation normally at or about 1,000 metres. The majority of the population was engaged in agriculture. However, in the two decades before the War of Resistance all three had been touched by modernization in various ways. Liaoxian had become a considerable commercial centre for coal and mountain goods, especially wool; Wuxi- ang had seen the concentration and corporatization of agriculture, and was a developing centre of rural industries, notably textiles and iron. Licheng had next to no industry and, remarkably for Shanxi, no coal, but was considerably wealthier. In additional contrast to Liaoxian and Wu-

28. Taihang geming genjudishi zongbian weihui (ed.), Taihang geming genjudi shigao (Outline History of the Taihang Revolutionary Base Area) (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1987), pp. 134-36.

29. This figure excludes CCP members serving in the Eighth Route Army or offices of the North China Bureau of the CCP based in the Taihang Base Area.

30. Zhonggong JinJiYu qudangwei, "Zuzhi gongzuo baogao" ("Report on organization work"), 1 August 1941, in Shanxisheng danganguan (ed.), Taihang dangshi ziliao huibian (Collection of Materials on the History of the Party in the Taihang Base Area) (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1994), Vol. 4, 1941, p. 544-46.


Table 1: Liaoxian, Wuxiang and Licheng Counties, Shanxi, 1943, Relative Size and Wealth

Population Number of Income Land (year as natural per capita productivity

County indicated) villages (yuan) (dan per mu)

Liaoxian 71,936 (1935) 451 7.09 1.23 Wuxiang 141,200 (1936) 875 6.48 1.02 Licheng 77,955 (1935) 301 7.83 1.43

Sources: Population: Zhongguo gongchandang Zuoquan xianwei dangshi yanjiushi, Zhongguo

gongchandang Zuoquan xian jianshi 1937-1949 (A Brief History of the CCP in Zuoquan County 1937-1949) Taihang geming genjudi shiliao congshu (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1995), p.2; Wuxiangxian xianzhi bianji weiyuanhui bangongshi (ed.), Wuxiang xianzhi (The Record of Wuxiang County) (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1986), p.39; Licheng xianzhi bianxi weiyuanhui (ed.), Licheng xianzhi (The Record of Licheng County) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1994), p. 642. Villages: Zhonggong Shanxisheng Zuoquan xianwei zuzhibu, Zhonggong Shanxisheng Zuoquan xianwei dangshi yanjiushi, Shanxisheng Zuoquan xian danganju (ed.), Zhongguo gongchandang Shanxisheng Zuoquan xian zuzhishi ziliao 1937.10-1987.10 (Organizational History of the CCP in Zuoquan County, Shanxi, 1937-1987) (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1992), p. 1; Zhonggong Shanxisheng Wuxiang xianwei zuzhibu, Zhonggong Shanxisheng Wuxiang xianwei dangshi yanjiushi, Shanxisheng Wuxiangxian danganju (ed.), Zhongguo gongchandang Shanxisheng Wuxiang- xian zuzhi shi ziliao 1933.8-1993.12 (Organizational History of the CCP in Wuxiang County, Shanxi, 1933-1993) (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1994), p. 7; Zhonggong Shanxisheng Licheng xianwei zuzhibu, Zhonggong Shanxisheng Licheng xianwei dangshi yanjiushi, Shanxisheng Licheng xian danganju (ed.), Zhongguo gongchandang Shanxi sheng Licheng xian zuzhishi ziliao 1937-1987 (Organizational History of Licheng County, Shanxi Province CCP, 1937-1987) (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1993), p. 1. Income and land productivity data for 1943: Taihangqu guomin caifu gaikuang (Outline of National Wealth in the Taihang Region) 1944, in JinJiLuYu Bianqu caizheng jingji shi bianjizu and Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong, Henan sheng danganguan (ed.), KangRi zhanzheng shiqi JinJiLu Yu Bianqu caizheng jingjishi ziliao xuanbian (Collection of Materials on the Economic and Financial History of the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Border Region during the War of Resistance to Japan) (Beijing: Caizheng jingji chubanshe, 1990), Vol.2, p. 1335.

xiang it had a small proportion of poor peasants and low concentration of

land-ownership, with high levels of education, having developed an extensive system of modem schools. Indeed, education was by way of being a major local industry.

At the same time, the impact of modernization should not be over- stated, and certainly with respect to the position of women. Isabel and David Crook undertook field research in a neighbouring county from late 1947. As they pointed out, even then the status of women "was low in

every class." They quote one woman's comments:

... the men used to talk about village affairs on the street, but we never dared take

part. And when someone came to the door and called out, "Is anyone at home?" we women ourselves would answer, "No there's nobody home." Women didn't count as human beings.31

31. Isabel and David Crook, Revolution in a Chinese Village: Ten Mile Inn (London: Routledge, 1959), p. 7.


There were distinct differences in the socio-economic conditions of the three counties. Table 1 provides an indication of the relative size and wealth of each during the war. Reliable comparative data are not available on the size of the population. However, there are separately reported data on the population of each county for different pre-war years, and these are presented in Table 1, together with the number of natural villages in each county. Data to indicate the relative wealth of each county are even less reliable, both because of the war and because the local economy in this part of the Taihang Mountains had been in a severe depression since 1931. Some indication may be gained from income per capita, and arable land productivity per mu at the end of 1943, when the local economy was becoming stabilized. In general, Licheng was wealthier than Liaoxian, which in turn was wealthier than Wuxiang. Land was dramatically more productive in Licheng than in Wuxiang, though this was somewhat offset by non-agricultural income. All the same, it would seem likely that this and other differences - socio-political as well as socio-economic - affected the course of mobilization, both generally and with respect to women's participation.

Wuxiang: Women in Economic Production

The experience of women's mobilization in Wuxiang most closely resembles the orthodox account presented in later histories. Women were noticeable by their absence from political participation, either in the ranks of the CCP or in the organization of the Communist-run local governments. On the other hand, considerable public emphasis was given at the time (as well as later) to activities such as the women's support group that Bao Lianzi had belonged to, or their mobilization for economic production.

In general, the CCP's experience in Wuxiang during the war was far from typical for the Taihang region. First, unlike almost every- where else, the CCP had been organized there before the war, and secondly, the socio-economic structure of the county was different. These two characteristics are not unrelated. There were far fewer landlords and rich peasants here than elsewhere in the region. Moreover, Wuxiang's landlords were far wealthier than their equivalents in other Taihang counties. Table 2 presents comparative data on social categories and land-holding for Wuxiang and the Taihang region as a whole. The identification of landlords, and indeed all the CCP's social categories rarely stand up to robust analysis. Landlords might rent out land but remain poor, both absolutely and relatively. The designation of landlord was politically determined, according to local conditions.32 However, in Wuxiang, 44 landlords owned half of all the agricultural land.33 It also had relatively few middle peasants (about one-fifth of households) and

32. Huang "Rural class struggle," p. 114. 33. Yang Wei "Taihangshan beiqude tudi wenti" ("Land issues in the northern part of

the Taihang Mountains"), May 1940, in Shanxisheng danganguan, Collection of Materials, Vol. 3, 1940, p. 311.


Table 2: Households and Land Ownership by Social Category, Wuxiang (1935) and the Taihang Region (1936), percentage

Households Land Social category Wuxiang Taihang Wuxiang Taihang

Landlords and 4.9 10.7 54.0 50.3 rich peasants Middle peasants 19.1 36.5 16.5 31.9 Poor peasants 76.0 52.8 29.5 17.8

Sources: Taihangqu shehui jingji diaocha (diyiji) (Social and Economic Survey of the

Taihang Region - First Collection) August 1944, in JinJiLuYu Bianqu caizheng jingji shi bianjizu and Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong, Henan sheng danganguan (ed.), Collection of Materials, Vol.2, p. 1349; Wuxiangxian xianzhi bianji weiyuanhui bangongshi (ed.), The Record of Wuxiang County, p. 291.

a large proportion of poor peasants (about three-quarters of households). As a result in each natural village there was often only a single land- owner, and frequently the largest land-holdings belonged to absentee landlords.34 Typically in the Taihang region there were many middle peasants, with just under half the population classified as poor peasants.35

By the start of the war the concentration of land ownership had become an issue in Wuxiang. There was a popular saying at the time that Wuxiang's establishment contained "four very important gentry families, eight who are just a bit less important, and 72 who have to keep up appearances."36 The situation was largely a consequence of commercialization over several decades, which had quickened with economic crisis during the 1930s. In one village in the eastern part of the county during 1934-36, some 85 households, including three landlords, 11 rich peasants, 39 middle peasants, 28 poor peasants, three farmhands and one tenant farmer, all had their land and property sequestered by creditors, and the land subsequently passed into the hands of a finance company.37

This peasant immiseration proved fertile ground for the CCP and its Peasant Refusal League during the 1930s. The development of the CCP in Wuxiang was led by Li Yisan, a native and a teacher who joined the CCP in 1926 and had participated in both the Nanchang and Guangzhou Uprisings. The League organized peasants to oppose "landlords, rich peasants and bureaucratic capitalists" and to refuse to pay their debts,

34. Zhonggong JinJiYu qudangwei "Guanyu Wuxiang gongzuode yijian" ("Opinions on Wuxiang's Work"), July 1940, in Shanxisheng danganguan, Collection of Materials, Vol. 3, 1940, p. 509.

35. Tian Youru "Outline history of reform," p. 4. 36. There are different versions of this same intent. See, for example: Zhonggong

Shanxisheng Wuxiang xianwei dangshi yanjiushi, Zhonggong Wuxiang jianshi (An Introductory History to the CCP in Wuxiang) (Wuxiang: Zhonggong Shanxisheng Wuxiang xianwei dangshi yanjiushi, 1990), p. 3.

37. Taihang geming genjudishi zongbian weihui (ed.), Tudi wenti (The Land Question) Taihang geming genjudi shiliao congshu No. 5 (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1987), pp. 86-88.


rents, grain and other taxes, and to resist conscription. It soon established rural branches in about half the county, but in consequence earned Yan Xishan's attention and ire, and was forcibly closed in early 1936.38

The early CCP organization in Wuxiang proved invaluable with the start of war, and the establishment of the alliance between Yan Xishan and the CCP. It bequeathed a core of fairly experienced, local cadres, many of whom were peasants, as well as a rural network of political mobilization that could be revived without too much difficulty. They were soon joined by other former Wuxiang CCP members who had been driven away in early 1936, and a group of about 30 students and teachers who were to become the backbone of the county Party committee's cadre force during the war.39 The initial organizational group consisted of 56 people, 29 of whom were teachers, and all of whom were male.40

The Wuxiang CCP was thus to some extent less experimental in its development than other counties, and was demonstrably more successful in achieving power quickly, winning open elections across the county in May 1939. Women's mobilization was on the agenda from the beginning. In October 1937 a recruitment team from the Eighth Route Army moved through the eastern part of the county and raised two guerrilla groups of approximately 300 soldiers each, and a smaller women's guerrilla battalion. The guerrilla groups later grew to regiments, and this was the start of a pattern of 14 main line regiments with their origins in Wuxiang, and a total of 14,600 recruits from the county. The women's battalion soon returned to the county and became part of the local militia.41

Although at the start of the war the CCP, both nationally and even in the Taihang Base Area, was committed to a rhetoric of gender equality, the Wuxiang CCP was more limited in its view of women's mobilization. This continued throughout the war era, and through the organizations of the Women's Federation concentrated on encouraging women to be good wives and mothers, organizing them to support military and CCP activities, and developing their potential for economic production. There was

38. Zhonggong Shanxisheng Wuxiang xianwei zuzhibu, Zhonggong Shanxisheng Wu- xiang xianwei dangshi yanjiushi, Shanxisheng Wuxiangxian danganju (ed.), Zhongguo gongchandang Shanxisheng Wuxiangxian zuzhi shi ziliao 1933.8-1993.12 (Organizational History of the CCP in Wuxiang County, Shanxi, 1933-1993) (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1994), p. 16; Wu Sanyou "Huiyi zhongde nongmin kangzhaituan" ("Recalling the peasants refusal league"), in Zhonggong Wuxiang xianwei xuanchuanbu and Zhonggong Wuxiang xianwei dangshi bangongshi, The Flames of War in Wuxiang, Vol. 1, p. 63; Gillin, Warlord Yen Hsi-shan, p. 229.

39. Wang Yutang "Zhengdun huifu Wuxiang dangzhuzhi jianyi" ("A concise recollection of the resumption and restoration of the CCP's organization in Wuxiang"), in Zhonggong Wuxiang xianwei xuanchuanbu and Zhonggong Wuxiang xianwei dangshi bangongshi, The Flames of War in Wuxiang, Vol. 1, p. 87.

40. Details from Lai Ruoyu's comments to Taihang Sixth Organizational Work Conference, 1 March 1945, in Zhonggong Taihang qudangwei, Minutes of the Sixth Organizational Conference, p. 30; and Wuxiangxian xianzhi bianji weiyuanhui bangongshi (ed.), Wuxiang xianzhi (The Record of Wuxiang County) (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1986), pp. 667-688.

41. Ibid. p. 303; Zeng Ke "Nu she ji shou" ("Women fighters"), in Shanxisheng Wuxiangxian funu lianhehui (ed.), Wuxiang funu yundong shiliao xuanbian (Selected Materials from the Women's Movement in Wuxiang) (Wuxiang, 1982), p. 130.


apparently no encouragement for them to participate in politics, and whilst their mobilization for production was lauded, the emphasis in social issues, particularly marriage and the family, remained on the rights of the male. Despite constant pressure from the Women's Federation, the traditional practice whereby widows were forbidden to remarry was repeatedly upheld. It was only under the pressure of food shortages and with the support of the Peasant's Association that this finally changed in 1944, resulting in the marriage of 300 bachelors and widows. However, the same logic - that a lower number of households should be generally encouraged because they required less food - had also led a year earlier to divorce being banned.42

The highly active Women's Federation was not slow to publicize as role models the activities of Kang Keqing, Pu Anxiu and Liu Zhilan, the wives of senior CCP cadres Zhu De, Peng Dehuai and Zuo Quan respectively, all of whom lived in the county for long periods.43 Without so much publicity, it also organized and encouraged the work of Bao Lianzi, her support group and others who followed her example. As already noted, Wuxiang was a major recruiting source for the Eighth Route Army. These support groups were essentially, in the words of one report, "the substitute family" for the new recruits who came through, many young and with no experience of the world outside their village, let alone life as soldiers.44 The role of women in support was also extended to the CCP's political struggle, especially in the handling of land redistri- bution cases. The Wuxiang CCP's standing orders provided for women to attend the struggle meetings against land-owners "on the right-hand side facing the stage, together with their children."45

Wuxiang CCP's most publicized successes in women's mobilization were in economic production. In order to ensure food supplies, particularly during the Great Production Campaign of 1943-44, women were not only mobilized into work teams to help army men's families with their production, they also formed their own "women's mutual aid teams."46

42. Taihang geming genjudishi zongbian weihui (ed.), Tudi wenti (The Land Question) Taihang geming genjudi shiliao congshu No. 5 (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1987), pp. 29-30; Taihang geming genjudishi zongbian weihui (ed.), Zhengquan jianshe (Political Development) Taihang geming genjudi shiliao congshu No. 4 (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1990), p. 58.

43. See, for example: "Kang Keqing and Liu Zhilan nushi fangwenji" ("Record of the visit by Kang Keqing and Liu Zhilan," Xinhua ribao (Huabeiban) (New China Daily, North China Edition), 7 March 1939. Xinhua ribao (Huabeiban) was the newspaper of the Taihang Base Area and its organization later became Renmin ribao (People's Daily).

44. See, for example, articles from Xinhua ribao reprinted in Shanxisheng Wuxiangxian funu lianhehui, Selected Materials from the Women's Movement: Li Zhikuan "Yingxiong muqin" ("Heroic mother"), p. 196; Zhang Fengru and Li Zhikuan "Geming mama Bao Lianzi" ("Revolutionary mother Bao Lianzi"), p. 205.

45. "Yijiusi'ernian kaizhan xiaozuxiaoxi douzhengde dianxing ziliao" ("Typical cases of rent and interest reduction in 1942"), in Zhonggong Taihang qudangwei, Taihang dang shiliao biancun (Collection of Historical Party Materials on Taihang) (Huabei: Xinhua shudian, 1944), Vol. 1, p. 397.

46. Zhonggong Shanxisheng Wuxiang xianwei dangshi yanjiushi, Zhonggong Wuxiang jianshi (An Introductory History to the CCP in Wuxiang) (Wuxiang: Zhonggong Shanxisheng Wuxiang xianwei dangshi yanjiushi, 1990), pp. 158-160.


The most famous of these, started initially by Wang Haicheng, was photographed (still a relatively rarity at that time) and much-publicized. It became so successful that it rapidly had to face the dilemma of whether men should be allowed to join.47

However, in many ways an even greater impact was achieved with the development of the textile industry, in which the Women's Federation took a leading role. The CCP used local technical knowledge to develop cotton and hemp production, based almost completely on women's labour. Much of the raw product was grown through women's work teams, with almost all the spinning and further processing out-sourced to co-operatives of women working at home.48

Women's participation in politics was virtually non-existent in Wuxi- ang. During the war 102 individuals served in leadership positions within the two county CCP committees (divided between east and west for strategic reasons in July 1940). Of these, only three were women and only one of those was a native of Wuxiang.49 The other two were veteran CCP organizers from the former Jiangxi Soviet who had been sent to the county during 1940 by the Taihang Base Area CCP Committee, because of political and organizational problems in a number of local branches.50

Remarkably there were even fewer women in leadership positions within the CCP-led local governments. Of the 97 people in the two county governments during the war, or in their immediately subordinate organizations, none was a woman. From 1940 this aspect of the Wuxiang CCP's practice was in defiance of a requirement for each local government in the Taihang Base Area to ensure the election of at least one woman to a position of leadership.5" However, the low number of women is partly explained by the low number who were members of the CCP. In 1938 and 1939 there were only about 100 in a total county membership of just under 6,000.52

There is no evidence in Wuxiang of dissent by women to either their social or political treatment in the later stages of the war. However,

47. Ma Guishu, "Wuxiang dashengchanzhong lingdao yu qongzhong jiehede jingyan" ("The experience of unity between masses and leadership in Wuxiang during the Great Production Campaign"), in Wuxiangxian xianzhi bianji weiyuanhui bangongshi, The Record of Wuxiang County, pp. 870 ff.

48. Zhonggong Shanxisheng Wuxiang xianwei dangshi yanjiushi, An Introductory History to the CCP in Wuxiang, pp. 140-43. See, for example: Li Yunsheng "Fangzhi yingxiong Shi Liuxian" ("Weaving hero Shi Liuxian"), in Zhonggong Wuxiang xianwei xuanchuanbu and Zhonggong Wuxiang xianwei dangshi bangongshi, The Flames of War in Wuxiang, Vol. 2, p. 520.

49. Information on leadership is taken from Zhonggong Shanxisheng Wuxiang xianwei zuzhibu, Zhonggong Shanxisheng Wuxiang xianwei dangshi yanjiushi, Shanxisheng Wuxiangxian danganju, Organizational History of the CCP in Wuxiang County, pp. 28-88.

50. Wen Jianping (Jian Ping), "Wuxiang shiyanxian shouci huodong fenzi dongyuan dahui zongjie" ("Summary of the Conference of Advanced Activists in Mobilization in Wuxiang Experimental County"), 25 April 1940, in Shanxisheng danganguan, Collection of Materials, Vol.34, 1940, esp. p. 266.

51. Li Xuefeng, Li Xuefeng huiyilu: Taihang shinian (The Memoirs of Li Xuefeng: Ten Years in the Taihang Mountains (Beijing: Zhonggong dangshi chubanshe, 1998), p. 113.

52. Zhonggong Shanxisheng Wuxiang xianwei zuzhibu, Zhonggong Shanxisheng Wu- xiang xianwei dangshi yanjiushi, Shanxisheng Wuxiangxian danganju, Organizational History of the CCP in Wuxiang County, p. 90.


during 1939-40, when there was considerable uncertainty about the CCP's strategy in the Taihang region and when many counties, including Wuxiang, saw radical land reform, objections were raised by women within the CCP's membership. According to the county CCP secretary, there had been problems with "young women from higher class backgrounds" at that time.53 There are no further details available as to their cause of complaint, though it seems likely that it was related to the difference between the CCP's rhetoric, which had probably raised their expectations, and its practice, which was somewhat different. Although in Wuxiang the CCP had the organizational capacity to deal with this problem, in Licheng it was to prove more of a challenge to local government.

Licheng: Women, Class and Rebellion

Women hardly feature at all in the histories of the CCP in Licheng, from either the 1940s or the 1980s. In part this is because there were very few women involved in the Licheng CCP's activities after 1940. How- ever, the likeliest explanation is the fractured nature of local politics that resulted from the CCP's seizure of power in that year. This effectively alienated the former members of the Sacrifice League, the local elite and intellectuals, including a large number of women, who then participated in organized resistance to the CCP. The Licheng CCP's ability to mobilize the population for social reform was repeatedly slowed during the second stage of the war, and it was unable to match the achievements in women's mobilization of other counties such as Wuxiang.

Licheng was unusual as a Taihang county during the war because the Japanese presence was minimal. There were attacks on the county, especially on the Taihang Base Area's major munitions factory in the north, but Licheng's distance from main lines of communication meant no occupying forces were permanently stationed there. Apart from topo-graphy, Licheng's advantage for the CCP lay in its wealth, based on high agricultural productivity, mainly grain and sheep. The county was a net exporter, and in 1933 for example, there was a 44 per cent trade surplus.54 Licheng was and remains the richest county per capita in the Taihang Mountain range.55 Moreover, wealth was more evenly distributed than in most parts of the Taihang region. There was a low concentration of land-holdings, very few landlords, far fewer poor peasants and a larger proportion of middle peasants than in other Taihang counties.

53. Wen Jianping (Jian Ping), "Summary of the Conference of Advanced Activists," p. 272.

54. The Shanxi Province Ten Year Plan prepared for Yan Xishan, and quoted in Zhonggong JinJiYu qudangwei Licheng kaochatuan, Li Gua Dao shijian diaocha baogao (Report of the Investigation into the Sixth Trigram Movement Incident), April 1942, p. 3.

55. "Licheng xian" ("Licheng county"), in Xu Guosheng and Chen Ninghua (eds.), Shanxi xian qujingjifazhan shilue (Historical Outline of the Economic Development of Counties and Regions in Shanxi) (Taiyuan: Shanxi jingji chubanshe, 1992), p. 231.


Licheng's wealth had not led to either industrial or commercial development, possibly because of the distances and difficulties involved in reaching external markets. Instead, during the 1920s and 1930s money had been invested in education. By 1934, some 60 per cent of the eligible year cohorts were attending primary school in the county.56 At least one school, the First High School in the county town, had more than 1,000 students in 1937, and there were 187 established primary schools.57 Some 1,600 teachers were employed in the county, and studying to become a teacher in Changzhi, Taiyuan and Beiping was a well-established career path.

In 1928 a number of students who were back in Licheng for the Spring Festival, and several teachers, formed the Licheng Returned Students Federation. It was led by a group who were later to be active in the Anti-Japanese movement at the start of the war, and included Yang Jiaopu, the female deputy head of the First High School. It rapidly became politically active, against the more conservative members of the local elite,58 and in 1937 established the local branch of the Sacrifice League. In mid-1937 it also took the lead in establishing the Licheng CCP with the First High School playing a central organizational role. Until the end of 1939 the Sacrifice League, with the former members of the Returned Students Federation at its core, led the Anti-Japanese Resistance activities in Licheng, and formed the county government.

However, in January 1940 - at the height of the civil war that had developed between Yan Xishan and the CCP - the Licheng CCP turned on both the Sacrifice League and its own original social constituency. It moved decisively to replace the Sacrifice League-led government, and completely closed its local organization. It replaced most of the leading positions, including several of the founders of the Sacrifice League in Licheng, who were all dismissed. In the process, the Licheng CCP also dramatically restructured itself. The essence of both changes was that with the exception of just over a dozen people who had originated with the Returned Students Federation, all its teachers and students who had joined the Sacrifice League, established the resistance government and later joined the CCP, as well as almost all other intellectuals, were excluded from politics. As a result, there was a dramatic decrease in the membership of the Licheng CCP - from 2,206 to 802.59

The CCP's seizure of power and expulsion of so many intellectuals

56. Licheng xianzhi bianxi weiyuanhui (ed.), Licheng xianzhi (The Record of Licheng County) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1994), p. 499.

57. Ibid. p. 501; Li Bu'an (ed.), Licheng zhilue (Licheng Chronicle) (Beijing: Renwen chubanshe, 1993), pp. 477 and 485.

58. Liu Huan "Licheng jiandang chuqide yidian qingkuang" ("A view of the early establishment of the Party in Licheng"), 4 January 1987, in Taihang geming genjudishi zongbian weihui (ed.), Dang dejianshe (Party Development) Taihang geming genjudi shiliao congshu No. 2 (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1989), pp. 644 ff.

59. Zhonggong Shanxisheng Licheng xianwei zuzhibu, Zhonggong Shanxisheng Licheng xianwei dangshi yanjiushi, Shanxisheng Licheng xian danganju (ed.), Zhongguo gongchandang Shanxi sheng Licheng xian zuzhishi ziliao 1937-1987 (Organizational History of Licheng County, Shanxi Province CCP, 1937-1987) (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1993), p. 56.


seriously alienated support from a number of social groups. It also drew a more definite line between the CCP and the local elite than was usual in the Taihang Base Area, or indeed generally in the CCP's practice during the War of Resistance.60 The CCP's changed perspectives became a major contributory factor in the development of armed opposition to the resistance government in 1941, which succeeded in creating a coalition of a number of alienated groups, including the politically dispossessed and those who resisted the CCP's views on women's participation.

The Licheng Rebellion of 1941 is remarkable for a number of different reasons, not the least of which was that it occurred at all, and that the major thrust of the CCP's response was to send work teams of investiga- tors to live with its participants and develop a report through ethno- graphic techniques.61 Its organizational base was the Sixth Trigram Movement, a local religious sect led by Li Yongxiang, which developed in Licheng during 1940-41 until it more than rivalled the local CCP in size. Little is known about its religious dimensions, though it clearly shared some common beliefs and organizational traits with the early 19th century Eight Trigrams or White Lotus sects, notably its accessibility to women.62 By 12 October 1941, when an armed attack was launched on the offices of the Licheng county government, it had 3,321 members compared to the county CCP's membership of 1,764.63 Whilst there was certainly a class base to the activities of the Sixth Trigram Movement, it was also particularly attractive to women.

Table 3 provides comparative data on the social composition of the Licheng CCP membership, the Sixth Trigram Movement membership, and Licheng as a whole. In brief, the Sixth Trigram Movement was formed from rich and middle peasants, the CCP from middle and poor peasants. However, even clearer distinctions emerge from a comparison of age structure and gender. As Table 3 indicates, the Sixth Trigram Movement was not only more of a movement of the young, it was also far more of a movement of women. The extent to which women joined was really quite remarkable. By comparison less than 4 per cent of members of the CCP in Licheng were women at that time. Even if

comparison is widened to include all CCP-led Anti-Japanese mass organizations in the county, the proportion of women was only 20 per cent, and one of those organizations was the Women's Federation.

There were several religious organizations in Licheng, with mem-

60. Chen Yung-fa, Making Revolution: The Communist Movement in Eastern and Central China, 1937-1945 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986).

61. The report on the incident was produced for the Taihang Base Area CCP as Zhonggong JinJiYu qudangwei Licheng kaochatuan, Report of the Investigation into the Sixth Trigram Movement Incident.

62. A fuller account of the Licheng Rebellion, including discussion of its religious aspects, may be found in David S. G. Goodman "The Licheng Rebellion of 1941," Moder China, Vol.23, No.2 (April 1997), p. 216. For discussion of its possible antecedents, see Susan Naquin, Millenarian Rebellion in China: The Eight Trigrams Uprising of 1813 (Yale: Yale University Press, 1976), especially pp. 38 ff.

63. Zhonggong Shanxisheng Licheng xianwei zuzhibu, Zhonggong Shanxisheng Licheng xianwei dangshi yanjiushi, Shanxisheng Licheng xian danganju, Organizational History of Licheng County, p. 56.


Table 3: Comparative Social Structure of CCP and Sixth Trigram Movement, Licheng County, Shanxi, 1941, percentage

CCP Sixth Trigram Movement Licheng County

Gender Male 96.6 53.0 Female 3.4 47.0 Social Category Rich peasants and landlords 4.6 21.0 13.4 Middle peasants 49.2 53.0 57.3 Poor peasants 42.1 26.0 29.3 Others 4.1 - -

Age Category Under 25 39.8 52.7 26-35 37.4 24.1 - 36-45 19.2 9.5 46-55 - 8.5 46-60 3.6 - 46-80 - 5.2

Sources: Zhonggong Shanxisheng Licheng xianwei zuzhibu, Zhonggong Shanxisheng Licheng

xianwei dangshi yanjiushi, Shanxisheng Licheng xian danganju (ed.), Organizational History of Licheng County, p. 56; Zhonggong JinJiYu qudangwei Licheng kaochatuan, Li Gua Dao shijian diaocha baogao (Report of the Investigation into the Sixth Trigram Movement Incident) April 1942, p. 8, p. 26; and Taihangqu shehui jingji diaocha (dierji) (Social and Economic Survey of the Taihang Region - Second Collection) 1945, in JinJiLuYu Bianqu caizheng jingji shi bianjizu and Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong, Henan sheng danganguan (ed.), Collection of Materials, Vol.2, p. 1408.

bership of about 20 per cent of the total population.64 Many had large numbers of women members, but on the whole they were considerably older and more likely to be from poor peasant backgrounds. Though the Sixth Trigram Movement also had similar women members, the class and age composition of its female membership reveals some significant differences. Table 4 presents an analysis of the women members of the Sixth Trigram Movement by age and social category.

These figures suggest that the Sixth Trigram Movement was not only a movement of women to a degree not previously experienced in the county, but also one that attracted young women from wealthier, more privileged backgrounds. Just over one-fifth of the female membership of the Sixth Trigram Movement - and hence more than a tenth of its total membership - were young women from rich peasant backgrounds.

When the formal investigation of the Sixth Trigram Movement reported it tried to impugn the sexual propriety of its members, especially the women. The section considering the motivations of women

64. Li Bu'an (ed.), Licheng zhilue (Licheng Chronicle) (Beijing: Renwen chubanshe, 1993), p. 196.


Table 4: Women Members of the Sixth Trigram Movement, Licheng, Shanxi, 1941, Age and Social Class, Percentage

Social category Age category Poor peasant Middle peasant Rich peasant Total

Young 3 11 23 36 Middle-aged 6 17 17 40 Old 9 11 3 23 Total 18 39 43

Source: Zhonggong JinJiYu qudangwei Licheng kaochatuan, Report of the Investigation into the

Sixth Trigram Movement Incident, p. 48.

members makes much of their concerns with "enjoying sex and finding a good husband" as well as of what is described as the "preoccupation with sex" of the younger women.65 Such allegations are unlikely to have been generally correct, and are more likely to be a function of gossip, perhaps leading questions after the event or interviewees who were eager to please their interviewers. The Sixth Trigram Movement was after all a secret organization and so inherently a topic of speculation, especially since half the membership being women was unusual enough in itself for that time and place. Though there may have been a difference between theory and practice, far from free love, the standing orders of the Sixth Trigram Movement explicitly required sexual abstinence in order to preserve energy, for women as well as men; there were even strictures against loose sexual mores amongst members.

On the other hand, the Sixth Trigram Movement did deliberately cultivate women's support, and their desire for greater freedom and even to some extent for self-expression emerges clearly from the investigation teams' interviews with former women participants. Whilst the former members had little to say about political participation and gender equality in that sense, they had plenty to say about the social roles of women

particularly in marriage and the family. These concerns included protests over arranged marriages, lack of choice in marriage, physical abuse in

marriage, the claustrophobic control of mothers-in-law within the family home, and the inconveniences of living at home with one's parents.

The two most frequently cited goals of former women members of the Sixth Trigram Movement were to have freedom of choice in marriage, and the ability to move freely beyond the confines of either the parental or the family home. "Going out" was of particular concern: of one Li

Naiting, for example, it was said that she had objected that "she was the

only child of her parents and (so) not allowed to go out for public activities." The pressures for this kind of freedom were so intense that it

65. Zhonggong JinJiYu qudangwei Licheng kaochatuan, Report of the Investigation into the Sixth Trigram Movement Incident, p. 59.


appears that some women even joined the Sixth Trigram Movement just because the compulsory attendance at meetings presented an opportunity to move around outside the home without the permission of parents, husbands or mothers-in-law.

Unlike the CCP, the Sixth Trigram Movement actively recruited women. It even accepted them as equal, if sometimes different, members. Women were accepted as front-line line fighters, and the armed attack on the county government offices included women as well as men, though how many is not recorded.66 Male members were formally called dazhong and female members erzhong, and addressed as "brothers and sisters." The near-equality of gender distribution in the membership as a whole was reflected in its leadership. In addition, of the six superior ranks, the top two were reserved for the senior male member and the senior female member: Li Yongxiang and Li Lianfeng, the wife of Li Yongxiang's brother Li Yonggui. Two senior women members were given responsi- bility for looking after female members within the organization.

Once the dust had settled on the Sixth Trigram Movement the Licheng CCP did make determined moves to redress its low level of female participation by recruiting more women members. It doubled the number in the county Party during 1942, and by 1945 they amounted to 10.3 per cent of the membership.67 For its part the Licheng Women's Federation also attempted to address some of the issues raised by the women participants in the Sixth Trigram Movement, and encouraged attempts to reform marriage practices and to increase women's participation rates in politics.68

Liaoxian: Women in Politics

Liaoxian, in complete contrast to both Wuxiang and Licheng, not only had an organized women's movement, but managed to maintain a relatively successful reform agenda around women's mobilization. Particu- larly in contrast to other parts of the Taihang Base Area, women's participation in politics was relatively high, both in leadership positions and generally. Moreover, even though here too the cause of women's mobilization during the later part of the war was subordinated to the goals of economic production and military support, other programmes and goals did not disappear completely from sight.

During the last five years of the war the southern part of Liaoxian (the area of the CCP's greatest influence) became the location for so many

66. Ibid. includes details of interviews with three armed women participants, p. 67, p. 72, p. 81.

67. Zhonggong Shanxisheng Licheng xianwei zuzhibu, Zhonggong Shanxisheng Licheng xianwei dangshi yanjiushi, Shanxisheng Licheng xian danganju, Organizational History of Licheng County, p. 56.

68. JinJiYu qu funu qiuguo lianhe zonghui "Guanyu 'Fandui maimaihun zhengqu zizhuhun' de chubu zongjie" ("Preliminary summary on 'opposing the trade in brides and striving to ensure freedom of choice in marriage' "), 31 August 1942, Taihang geming genjudishi zongbian weihui (ed.), Qunzhong yundong (The Mass Movement), Taihang geming genjudi shiliao congshu No. 7 (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1989), p. 419.


base area, border region and Eighth Route Army activities that it became familiarly known to its inhabitants as "Little Yan'an," in emulation of the national CCP headquarters in North Shaanxi. This could be one explanation for the different treatment of women's mobilization in Liaoxian, compared to other parts of the Taihang Base Area where the CCP was also organizationally strong, such as Wuxiang. Whilst leading cadres could generally argue the need to maintain a healthy distance between the rhetoric and practice of gender equality,69 at the centre of the Taihang Base Area words were more likely to be taken seriously. There may be something to be said for such arguments, but the role of the Liaoxian Patriotic Women's Association, a predecessor organization of the Liaox- ian CCP, was at least as equally important.

During 1921-31 Liaoxian experienced an economic boom, followed by a serious depression starting in 1931 which had a varied effect on different parts of the county. The poorer northern part had enjoyed much less prosperity during the 1920s. There had been almost no change in land use, and as a result traditional relations between landowners and tenants remained for the most part in place under depression. In the richer, southern portion of the county, the situation was more mixed. In some villages landowners and tenant farmers had not over-extended themselves in producing for markets beyond the county. However, in other villages commercialization proved to be dangerous once the economy turned down, and led to a similar situation as in Wuxiang: a cycle of rural immiseration, the concentration of land-holdings, and an increase in absentee landlords. This was particularly the case in the southern part of Liaoxian, where the county government ended up in the middle of 1939, and at least partly explained the CCP's ability to develop such strong local support there after 1940.70

With the economic prosperity of the 1920s the county town expanded dramatically and became a considerable commercial centre for trade in coal and sheep. Migrants were attracted in large numbers from Hebei and Henan,71 as were for the first time Protestant missionaries (the Catholic church had already been established there for some time). The newly established American Presbyterian Church unwittingly played a central role in the development of the Chinese Communist movement in Liao- xian. In 1923 it established a women's literacy class, and though it was attended almost exclusively by young women from more privileged backgrounds, a number went on to further education, and then to play a central role in the organization of the Liaoxian Patriotic Women's Association and later the CCP.72 One of these was Zhai Ying, whose

family had recently moved from Hebei. She studied English literature at Shanxi University, where she joined the CCP, and subsequently met her

69. Johnson, Women, the Family, and Peasant Revolution, pp. 68-69. 70. Zhonggong JinJiYu qudangwei, Liaoxian diaocha baogao (Report of an Investigation

into Liaoxian), May 1942, pp. 27-33. 71. "Zuoquan xian" ("Zuoquan county"), in Xu Guosheng and Chen Ninghua, Historical

Outline, p. 557. 72. Zhonggong JinJiYu qudangwei, Report of an Investigation into Liaoxian, pp. 19-20.


husband, Li Xuefeng. She returned to her native Liaoxian as head of the

county CCP's Organization Department in 1939, and by the end of the war had become the senior CCP official in the county. Li Xuefeng had

already become, and remained for most of the war, the leading cadre of the Taihang Base Area Committee of the CCP (and its predecessor organizations).73

The early history of Anti-Japanese mobilization in Liaoxian belongs not so much to the CCP as to the Sacrifice League, which had developed a county organization well before the outbreak of war. It was established in December 1936, and by February 1937 had 3,500 members, drawing largely on students, teachers and graduates. Many of the teachers were women, and in May 1937 the county committee of the Sacrifice League established the Liaoxian Patriotic Women's Association. Its first meeting attracted 100 people, almost all primary school teachers. The Patriotic Women's Association grew steadily throughout the war, even after the Sacrifice League itself closed, and came to work closely with the CCP. By the beginning of 1943 it had 5,179 members, many of whom lived in Japanese-occupied areas of the county, especially the former county town, and so were necessarily working underground.74

From the outbreak of war until the end of 1939 the Sacrifice League ran the county government, with increasing CCP involvement, but also with much more support from the local organization of the Nationalist Party, local notables and other organizations, including the Chamber of Commerce. The Liaoxian Patriotic Women's Association played a central role both in the development of government programmes and in the organization and development of the Liaoxian CCP. The new county government placed great emphasis on training in general and improving literacy, especially for women. Under the leadership of the League's women teachers the educational system was overhauled in the early part of the war. The goal of universal primary education was taken seriously, new primary schools were established all over the county and considerable efforts went into encouraging girls to attend. By 1939 there were 171 junior primary schools with a total enrolment of 7,054, and six senior primary schools with 330 pupils.75

The CCP had absolutely no exposure in Liaoxian before the war, and as a result was organized initially from within the local Sacrifice League. Like the Sacrifice League it too was based largely on teachers at its

73. Li Xuefeng was promoted after the war to become secretary of the North China Bureau of the CCP Central Committee, and then to the CCP Politburo at the start of the Cultural Revolution. He was removed from office in disgrace along with Chen Boda in 1969. Zhai Ying worked in the national Women's Federation after 1949. She died in July 1999.

74. Zhonggong Shanxisheng Zuoquan xianwei zuzhibu, Zhonggong Shanxisheng Zuo- quan xianwei dangshi yanjiushi, Shanxisheng Zuoquan xian danganju (ed.), Zhongguo gongchandang Shanxisheng Zuoquan xian zuzhishi ziliao 1937.10-1987.10 (Organizational History of the CCP in Zuoquan County, Shanxi, 1937-1987) (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1992), p. 89.

75. Zhongguo gongchandang Zuoquan xianwei dangshi yanjiushi, Zhongguo gongchandang Zuoquan xian jianshi 1937-1949 (A Brief History of the CCP in Zuoquan County 1937-1949) Taihang geming genjudi shiliao congshu (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1995), pp. 54-56.


inception, and included the headmaster of the Liaoxian First High School and Wang Shanling, its senior mistress.76 In early 1938, the Taihang Base Area CCP Committee realized the organizational problems it faced in Liaoxian and drafted in a number of experienced CCP cadres to assist. They included two women, Chen Shunying and Jia Tingxiu, who were originally from Fujian and had served in the Jiangxi Soviet. Chen was the head of the county Party committee's Organization Department, and then later became the senior cadre of the Liaoxian CCP; Jia was the first head of the county Party committee's Propaganda Department. One of their central tasks was to work with the women teachers of the Patriotic Women's Association to establish a Peasant Training Institute. Its goal was to harness the energy of the teachers and educated youth involved in the county's resistance activities, as well as the students and graduates from colleges and universities elsewhere in North China who had returned home to Liaoxian with the start of the war, to prepare cadres for mobilization activities. By the end of the year the programme had managed to organize a CCP network across the county, and had recruited 240 new CCP members.77

This initial group of recruits became the core of the CCP's local organization and set the tone for much of the local leadership throughout the war. Largely through the involvement of the Patriotic Women's Association, there was a sizeable group of women involved in the establishment of the local CCP, and this remained a characteristic throughout the war. About 10-12 per cent of the membership of the Liaoxian CCP were women, where a more usual proportion was less than 5 per cent elsewhere in the Taihang Base Area.78 Even more unusually, the leading cadre of the Liaoxian CCP was a women on no fewer than four separate occasions during the war: Chen Shunying (twice,) Yang Yunyu and Zhai Ying.79 During the course of the war, 19 of the 55 appointments to the Liaoxian CCP Committee were women. Moreover, in the later period of the war, from 1941 to 1945, when elsewhere women's participation in politics was clearly not on the CCP's agenda, half of all the members of the Liaoxian county Party committee were women.80

During late 1939 and early 1940 Liaoxian experienced the same kind

76. Li Xiuren "Wo liaojiede Liaoxian (Zuoquan) Heshun dangde jianshe he fazhan" ("Comments on the establishment and development of the Party in Liaoxian (Zuoquan) and Heshun"), in Taihang geming genjudishi zongbian weihui (ed.), Dang de jianshe (Party Development), Taihang geming genjudi shiliao congshu No. 2 (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1989), p. 573.

77. Zhang Shufan "Zai Zuoquan gongzuode huiyi" ("Memoir of work in Zuoquan"), in Taihang geming genjudishi zongbian weihui, Party Development, p. 584; and Zhonggong Shanxisheng Zuoquan xianwei zuzhibu, Zhonggong Shanxisheng Zuoquan xianwei dangshi yanjiushi, Shanxisheng Zuoquan xian danganju, Organizational History of the CCP in Zuoquan County, p. 13.

78. Ibid. after p. 95 and p. 122. 79. Zhonggong Shanxisheng Zuoquanxian dangshi yanjiushi (ed.), Zhonggong Zuoquan-

xian lishi dashijishu 1937.7-1949.9 (Historical Chronology of the CCP in Zuoquan County 1937-1949) (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1993), p. 211.

80. Ibid. p. 34; Zhonggong Shanxisheng Zuoquan xianwei zuzhibu, Zhonggong Shanxisheng Zuoquan xianwei dangshi yanjiushi, Shanxisheng Zuoquan xian danganju, Organizational History of the CCP in Zuoquan County, pp. 17-21.


of internal problems within the Anti-Japanese resistance that bedevilled

Licheng, but with somewhat less long-term adverse consequences. In 1939 the Japanese forces returned, captured the county town and split Liaoxian into two: West Liaoxian, the northern and poorer part, became a new separate county in the administrative system of the resistance. The Sacrifice League government and most of the industry that could move headed south. However, the tension rapidly mounted between the CCP and other local power brokers, notably in the Chamber of Commerce. In November, the Liaoxian CCP called for a radical land reform,81 Yan Xishan sent troops to the county to deal with the situation, and the CCP sent in several thousand troops under Nie Rongzhen to enforce its control.82 Presumably "in order to encourage the others" the Liaoxian CCP executed the leaders of the local Nationalist Party with whom it had been co-operating, as well as other leading members within the Sacrifice League, and at least one prominent leader of its own organization.83

Although the industry that had accompanied the government on its mid-1939 move to the south of the county fled back to the north,84 the larger part of the Sacrifice League coalition held in its support for the new CCP-led government. Notably this included the Patriotic Women's Association. In return, it was able to continue its activities, where elsewhere in the Taihang Base Area branches of the Women's Federation were restructured along with those of the Peasant's, Worker's and Youth Associations.85

It was certainly the case in Liaoxian, as elsewhere, that during 1942-45 the emphasis was on women's mobilization in economic production, and support for the war effort and CCP activities. Local industries were suffering labour shortages because of the numbers of men who had joined the resistance military. One obvious solution was to encourage the mobilization of women into the work force.86 In addition, a new textile

81. The Liaoxian CCP's instructions exhorted the poor and the landless to implement "a complete and utter land reform ... and to determinedly exterminate the landlords and rich peasants." See "Liaoxian shiyanxiande dongyuan baogao" ("Report on mobilization in Liaoxian experimental county"), October 1939, in Shanxisheng danganguan, Collection of Materials, Vol. 2, 1939, p. 666.

82. Yu Yongbo (ed.),Nie Rongzhen zhuan (Biography ofNie Rongzhen) (Beijing: Dangdai Zhongguo chubanshe, 1994), p. 264.

83. Zhonggong JinJiYu qudangwei, Liaoxian diaocha baogao (Report of an Investigation into Liaoxian), May 1942, pp. 5-8.

84. Ibid. pp. 140-41. 85. Zhonggong JinJiYu qudangwei, "Guanyu jiaqiang qunzhong gongzuode jueding"

("Decision on strengthening mass work"), 15 February 1941, in Taihang geming genjudishi zongbian weihui (ed.), Qunzhong yundong (The Mass Movement), Taihang geming genjudi shiliao congshu No. 7 (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1989), p. 162.

86. Zuoquanxian gongshangke "Yijiusisinian shangbannian gongye yu shougongye zongjie" ("Summary of heavy and handicraft industry in Zuoquan during the first half of 1944"), 2 July 1944, in JinJiLu Yu Bianqu caizheng jingji shi bianjizu and Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong, Henan sheng danganguan (ed.), KangRi zhanzheng shiqi JinJiLuYu Bianqu caizheng jingjishi ziliao xuanbian (Collection of Materials on the Economic and Financial History of the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Border Region during the War of Resistance to Japan) (Beijing: Caizheng jingji chubanshe, 1990), Vol. 2, p. 268; Zhongguo gongchandang Zuoquan xianwei dangshi yanjiushi, A Brief History of the CCP in Zuoquan County, p. 243.


industry (modelled on Wuxiang) was developed which employed 2,467 women workers, and another 432 women weavers engaged in domestic out-work.87 In agriculture, Liu Ailian became an instant role model for the local CCP by organizing an all-women's mutual aid team.88 Women and young girls were organized into rural drama troupes, that took the newly remodelled forms of song and dance around the county.89

At the same time, the momentum of the earlier years was also maintained to some extent. As already noted, women's participation rate in politics remained relatively high, even at the highest leadership levels within the Liaoxian CCP. There had clearly been compromise between the women activists from the earlier part of the war and the CCP. Nevertheless, the senior women in the county CCP lost few chances to make their points about the need for reform. For example, men who had discriminated overly against women and been publicly exposed were sent to work in all-women work teams during the 1943 Great Production Campaign.90 The reminders of the need for further reform even applied to opportunities that arose within the decision-making process. On one occasion, at a Taihang Base Area CCP discussion of Party branch organization, the director of the county CCP committee Organization Department in accepting the corruption of the cadre force freely admitted that

Cadres do enjoy more privileges. They can raise bank-loans, borrow grain from the army, and beat their wives. Cadres who engage in these kinds of behaviour are mostly capable and experienced cadres but they act this way because of social influences, poor class status, and through their own weaknesses.91

Moreover, the earlier attempts at social engineering in Liaoxian were sustained particularly through the support of its women teachers. By the end of the war every village had its own junior primary school with a total enrolment of 11,000. In addition, the governments of both West Liaoxian and Zuoquan (as Liaoxian had become in 1942) encouraged part-time winter study and mass education programmes in which 31,825 people were participating by the start of 1945. These were particularly targeted at women. According to one participant, they responded not only by cutting their hair - a sure sign of rebellion before marriage - but also by "demanding freedom of choice in marriage."92 Already by the end of

87. Ibid. pp. 242-44. 88. Ibid. pp. 247-48; Taihang Fuwei, "Funu gongzuo chubu yanjiu" ("Preliminary

research on women's work"), 4 October 1945, in Taihang geming genjudishi zongbian weihui, The Mass Movement, p. 434.

89. Zhongguo gongchandang Zuoquan xianwei dangshi yanjiushi, A Brief History of the CCP in Zuoquan County, pp. 265-67.

90. Ibid. pp. 247-48. 91. Zhai Ying's comments at CCP Shanxi-Hebei-Henan Regional Committee, 5

September 1943, in Zhonggong JinJiYu qudangwei, Guanyu zhibu jianshe yanjiu de jige wenti (Several Questionsfrom Research into Development of Party Branches), 30 September 1943, Minutes of the CCP Shanxi-Hebei-Henan Regional Committee, 5 September 1943, p. 54.

92. Li Zikang "Taihang lao jiefangqu jiaoyu gongzuo huiyi" ("Remembering education work in the early-liberated parts of the Taihang Region"), in Taihang geming genjudishi zongbian weihui (ed.), Wenhua shiye (Cultural Affairs), Taihang geming genjudi shiliao congshu No. 8 (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin chubanshe, 1989), p. 475.


1941 there was some evidence that these various programmes were having some influence: of the 2,211 village representatives elected in that year, 21 per cent were women, as were just over 9 per cent of the village leaders.93

Women in the War of Resistance

A note of caution before concluding: a study of three counties in South-east Shanxi during the War of Resistance to Japan is necessarily limited, particularly given the extent and nature of the available information on women. The total population of Wuxiang, Licheng and Liao- xian at this time was only about 300,000, and that figure greatly overstates the numbers whose experience is reflected here, since it is based largely on CCP sources. The number of people under direct CCP influence during the war varied. Before 1940, in Wuxiang the CCP was influential, but it was considerably less central to politics in Licheng and Liaoxian. From 1940 on, in Wuxiang and Liaoxian the CCP's direction of government did not extend to the whole territory of the county until the very end of the war. For most of the time beforehand in both those counties the CCP was restricted to only part, and in each case was opposed by a Japanese- supported and supporting "puppet" local government. These comments are not designed to minimize the importance of an examination of Wuxiang, Licheng and Liaoxian, but rather to emphasize the need for still more micro-political studies in other counties if the full spectrum of women's experiences during the war is to be better understood. With the greater access to sources of information that has accompanied reform, and especially the opening of archives, a less CCP-directed and more "bottom- up" perspective on social change becomes increasingly possible.

The history of the War of Resistance to Japan is presented as the history of revolution, and specifically the revolution of the CCP, and its triumph. The history of women's mobilization for economic production and war support is very much part of that perspective. This was the context in which Wuxiang produced the revolutionary models of Bao Lianzi and Wang Haicheng; Liaoxian had Liu Ailian.

However, there are other histories, in particular in this case those of women mobilized by the climate of social change in which they lived. This was a climate for which the CCP was partly - particularly through its call for gender equality and women's emancipation at the start of the war - but only partly, responsible. For the most part these energized women were young and from privileged backgrounds. This was not a case of "We want the world and we want it now!" but it was the consequence of an increasing awareness that women did not have to accept the roles of their mothers or grandmothers in either society or the family. Neither the CCP nor the war, either alone or in combination, exclusively created the opportunities for women's participation - the

93. Zhonggong Shanxisheng Zuoquan xianwei zuzhibu, Zhonggong Shanxisheng Zuoquan xianwei dangshi yanjiushi, Shanxisheng Zuoquan xian danganju, Organizational History of the CCP in Zuoquan County, p. 40.


trends had started well before 1937 - but they did act as further catalysts. That is clearly not to say that the ways in which women attempted to articulate their demands for reform were always acceptable to the CCP: they were not, and as in Wuxiang and Licheng conflict resulted.

Necessarily the opportunities open to women both at the start of the war and later varied with class and locality. Those from better-off backgrounds were often educated, and particularly where they had been away to study - in Changzhi, Taiyuan or even some cases Beiping or Tianjin - would have been extremely frustrated when returning home to find that they were no longer such free agents. Political activity would then have seemed like a convenient vehicle to a number of ends, just as it was when the young and privileged women of Licheng joined the effective opposition to the CCP.

However, class is not a sufficient explanation of women's role in the war. Certainly, the most celebrated cases of those mobilized by the CCP to support the war effort are from poorer backgrounds. Though it would seem likely on occasions that women from poorer backgrounds did come into conflict with the CCP, not least over the latter's constant need for military recruits, there is very little evidence of such friction. Certainly too, the opposition to the CCP, mild (as in the case of Wuxiang) or extreme (as in the case of Licheng), came from young women from richer backgrounds. However, the case of Liaoxian suggests that women from higher socio-economic strata were also able to influence and even work closely with and within the CCP.

Local conditions were clearly important in determining the course of women's participation in public life. In particular, circumstances sur- rounding both the development of Anti-Japanese resistance activities and the genesis of the local CCP organization appear crucial. In Wuxiang, where the local CCP organization had a peasant background and organizational strength, women were virtually excluded from political participation, but encouraged to mobilize in support of their men and the war effort. In Licheng, women appear to have become alienated from the CCP, and much of the momentum for popular mobilization of all kind lost, when the local CCP turned its back on significant parts of local society as well as its own original organizational strength. In Liaoxian, the role of an organized women's movement, particularly through the Patriotic Women's Association, in the development of the local CCP ensured a high level of political participation, as well as more than a lip-service appreciation of the need for sustained reform.

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