Marxist maternalism, memory, and the mobilization of women in the great leap forward

China Review

Volumn 5, Issue 1, 2005, Pages 83-110

  Manning, Kimberley Ens ^a  

^a Gina Cody School of Engineering and Computer Science   (Canada)

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EID: 33645740450     PISSN: 16802012     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (80)

1. See, for example, Thomas P. Bernstein, "Stalinism, Famine and Chinese Peasants," Theory and Society, Vol. 13, No. 3 (May 1984), pp. 339-77;
2. Alfred Chan, "The Campaign for Agricultural Development in the Great Leap Forward," China Quarterly, No. 129 (March 1992), pp. 52-71;
3. and Dali Yang, Calamity and Reform in China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996).
4. For a review of some of the most important scholarly discussions of the Great Leap Forward in the 1980s and 1990s in China see Xie Chuntao, "'Da yuejin' yundong yanjiu shuping" (A Research Commentary about the "Great Leap Forward" Movement), Dangdai Zhongguo yanjiu (Research of Contemporary Chinese History), No. 2 (1995), pp. 25-34;
5. and Qi Ji, "'Da yuejin' yundong yanjiu ruogan wenti shuping" (Commentary on Some Questions Concerning Research on the Great Leap Forward Movement), Yanjiu zongshu (Research Summary), No. 6 (1999), pp. 39-42.
6. Li Rui, Mao Zedong's former secretary, has been a particularly outspoken critic of the politics involved in the Great Leap Forward. See, for example, Li Rui, Lushan huiyi shilu (A Record of the Lushan Meetings) (Beijing: Chunqiu chubanshe, 1989)
7. and Li Rui, "Xinyang shijian" (The Xinyang Incident), Yanhuang chunqiu (China Chronicle), No. 4 (2002), pp. 19-22.
8. For two discussions of scholarship on the famine see Penny Kane, Famine in China (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1988)
9. and Carl Riskin, "Seven Questions about the Chinese Famine of 1959-61," China Economic Review, Vol. 9, No. 2 (1998), pp. 111-24.
10. See David Bachman, Bureaucracy, Economy, and Leadership in China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991);
11. Roderick Macfarquhar, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution, 2: The Great Leap Forward, 1958-1960 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983);
12. Frederick C. Tiewes with Warren Sun, China's Road to Disaster (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1999);
13. Yang (Note 1).
14. One important exception is Phyllis Andors, The Unfinished Liberation of Chinese Women (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983). Andors was the first scholar to discuss the mobilization of rural women during the Great Leap Forward at some length. Insofar as Andors' study drew on the official documentary sources available in the late 1970s and early 1980s, however, she was limited in her ability to assess some of the origins of conflict over gender in the Great Leap Forward.
15. In order to protect the identities of interviewees all family, village, and county names are pseudonyms.
16. Huoyue xianzhi (Huoyue County Annals) (Zhengzhou: Zhengzhou guji chubanshe, 1993), p. 404.
17. Gaoshan xianzhi (Gaoshan County Annals) (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexueyuan chubanshe, 1994), p. 177.
18. I included a preliminary discussion of some of these regional differences in my dissertation, "Sexual Equality and State-Building: Gender Conflict in the Great Leap Forward" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Washington, 2003).
19. Translated summaries of Friedrich Engels' The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State circulated in the party throughout the 1920s, although a complete translation was not available until 1929. See Christina Gilmartin, Engendering the Chinese Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995) pp. 25, 30-34.
20. See, "Zhongguo zhengfu baohu funü de zhengce yu shishi" (The Chinese Government's Policy and Implementation of the Protection of Women), E8-27, 10 October 1950. Reprinted in Zhongguo funü wushi nian (Fifty Years of Chinese Women). CD-ROM. (Beijing: Zhongguo funü chubanshe, 1995).
21. Women's participation in the agricultural labour force varied throughout China before and after 1949. Whereas in Northern China in 1949 more than 80% of all women of working age were engaged in agricultural production, in Jiangsu only 40% of all women of working age were engaged in agricultural production. By 1959, however, 90-95% of all Jiangsu women of working age were engaged in agricultural production. See Marina Thorborg, "Chinese Employment Policy in 1949-1978 with Special Emphasis on Women in Rural Production," in Chinese Economy Post-Mao (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1979), p. 576.
22. Friedrich Engels, "The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State," in The Marx Engels Reader, edited by Robert C. Tucker, 2nd ed. (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1978), pp. 750-51.
23. Harriet Evans, Women and Sexuality in China (New York: Continuum Publishing Company, 1997).
24. "Baohu nongcun funü ertong de jiankang" (Protect the Health of Rural Women and Children), Renmin ribao (People's Daily), 16 May 1956.
25. See Cai Chang, "Tigao juewu xue hao benling wei jianshe shehui zhuyi fenyong qianjin" (Raise Consciousness and Study Skills Well in order to Forge Ahead Courageously in the Construction of Socialism), Zhongguo funü (Chinese Women), No. 18 (1958), pp. 6-11
26. and Mao Zedong "Talks at the Wuchang Conference" (21-23 November 1958),
27. in The Secret Speeches of Mao Zedong, translated and edited by Roderick Macfarquhar, Timothy Cheek, and Eugene Wu (Cambridge: The Council of East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1989), pp. 481-517.
28. Tani Barlow translates funü as "national woman under a Maoist-communist state inscription," Tani Barlow, "Politics and Protocols of funü: (Un)Making National Woman," in Engendering China: Women, Culture, and the State, edited by Christina Gilmartin, Gail Hershatter, Lisa Rofel and Tyrene White (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994), p. 345.
29. See "Zhonggong zhongyang dui sheng, shi, qu danwei de zhibiao" (Central Committee Goals for the Province, City, and District), reprinted in Nongye jitihua zhongyao wenjian huibian (A Compilation of Important Documents from Agricultural Collectivization) (Beijing: Zhonggong zhongyang dangxiao chubanshe, 1982), p. 391.
30. See, for example, Luo Qiong, "Guanyu guanche yi shengchan wei zhongxin de funü gongzuo fangzhen wenti [zhaiyao] (Problems Concerning the Implementation of Making Production the Centre of Women-work [summary])," Funü gongzuo (Women-work), 1980. Reprinted in Zhongguo funü yundong wenxian ziliao huibian (Compilation of Documents from the Chinese Women's Movement) (Beijing: Zhongguo funü chubanshe, 1988), pp. 554-64,
31. and Jin Feng, Deng Yingchao zhuan (Biography of Deng Yingchao), Vols. I and II (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1993), pp. 552-70.
32. I employed a translator in each of the locales where I conducted research, to assist me with navigating regional dialects.
33. As a consequence of Chu's arrival toward the end of the interview I was not able to gather biographical details about her life.
34. Lisa Rofel has suggested that socialist nostalgia in China endeavours to "capture a protected and pure essence of socialism that precedes the history of its degradation" (p. 136). A strategy of representation, nostalgia enables individuals such as Huang to hark back to an era ostensibly free of corruption and market-place tensions.
35. Lisa Rofel, Other Modernities (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), pp. 128-49.
36. See also, Kevin J. O'Brien and Lianjiang Li, "Campaign Nostalgia in the Chinese Countryside," Asian Survey, Vol. 39, No. 3 (1999), pp. 375-93.
37. See Jan Myrdal, Report from a Chinese Village (New York: Pantheon, 1965);
38. Edward Friedman, Paul Pickowicz and Mark Selden, Chinese Village, Socialist State (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991);
39. Peter Seyholt, Throwing the Emperor from His Horse (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996);
40. and Gregory Ruf, Cadres and Kin (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998).
41. Interviewee 30.
42. I discuss this incident, and the politics of grassroots women's heads more generally, in a paper currently under review with Modern China.
43. "Zai guanche zhongyang shi'er tiao zhishi guocheng zhong, you guan fulian ganbu he funü qunzhong de qingkuang he wenti" (Problems Regarding Women Cadres and Women Masses in Implementing the Twelve Points Issued by the Central Committee), E19-11, 10 October 1961. Reprinted in Zhongguo funü wushi nian. CD-ROM (Note 9).
44. Helen Siu, Agents and Victims in South China (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989).
45. Cadres on cooperatives in Henan province, for example, were criticized for abusing and beating peasants and for enjoying privileges such as low-interest loans that were never repaid. Jean-Luc Domenach, The Origins of the Great Leap Forward, trans. by A. M. Berrett (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995), p. 61.
46. It is important to note that family ties to the local leadership did not necessarily translate into special treatment. Despite the fact that Zhang was related to Li's mother-in-law by marriage, for example, she nonetheless treated the family quite cruelly. In this case it might be that the higher-class status of Li's husband's family black-listed them among all of the leaders in the village.
47. Two interviewees (Li and interviewee 30) ran away from their work sites. Both were forbidden to eat in the village cafeterias, however, and Li was immediately sent back out to work on another site.
48. Interviewee 52.
49. Interviewee 39.
50. Interviewee 52.
51. Interviewee 43.
52. Interviewee 17.
53. Many considered it inappropriate for women to speak publicly prior to this period in time.
54. Interviewee 51.
55. Du Shanshan found that emotional attachments and sexual liaisons developed among young Lahu people, some of whom were already married, while they worked on construction sites during the Great Leap Forward. Du Shanshan, Chopsticks Only Work in Pairs (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002) p. 173.
56. Indeed, Deng concluded our second talk together by speaking at some length about her satisfaction with the state (guojia). Given Deng's complex personal history, including a conversion to Christianity in the late 1970s, her direct comments about the state (a word I never used in interviews myself) warrants further analysis.
57. Neil Diamant, Revolutionizing the Family (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000).
58. Interviewee 80.
59. Interviewee 91.
60. See, for example, "Chongfen fahui funü zai shehui zhuyi jianshe zhong de weida zuoyong" (Fully Give Play to the Great Function of Women in the Construction of Socialism), Renmin ribao, 8 March 1956 and Huoyue County Archives (Women's Federation Documents), Untitled, 9 January 1957. The Huoyue County Women's Federation specifically criticizes the commune in which I was interviewing for underpaying women and thus harming their enthusiasm.
61. Thorborg (Note 10), pp. 535-604
62. and Andors (Note 3).
63. Interviewee 81.
64. Interviewees 84, 91, 94.
65. Interviewee 91.
66. Interviewee 94.
67. Interviewee 45.
68. Interviewees 51, 45, 42.
69. Interviewee 16.
70. Interviewee 49.
71. Interviewee 45.
72. Interviewee 91.
73. County-level reports suggest that this was the case in Wenhe, Huoyue, and Gaoshan. See Gaoshan County Archives (Women's Federation Documents), "Gaoshan xian funü gongzuo qingkuang jianbao" (A Report on the Situation of Women-work in Gaoshan County), 9 June 1958;
74. Huoyue County Archives (Women's Federation Documents), "Huoyue xian 1957 man zuohao you fuli weisheng gongzuo yijian (Huoyue County Suggestions on Improving Work on the Living Conditions and Health of Children), 7 May 1957;
75. and Wenhe County Archives (Women's Federation Documents), "Minzhu funü lianhehui guanche zhuanqu fugong huiyi zongjie, Wenhe xian fulian hui guanyu guanche zhuanqu fugong huiyi mingque qingkuang zongjie huibao" (Summary of the Democratic Women's Federation's Implementation of the Women-work Prefecture Meeting, Wenhe County Women's Federation's Clarified Summary Report on the Implementation of the Women-work Meeting), 7 April 1957.
76. Huoyue County Archives (Women's Federation Documents), "Huoyue xian di san jidu funü gongzuo zongjie" (Third Quarter Summary of Huoyue Women-work), 19 November 1957.
77. Interviewees 27, 79, 94, 113. Of the thirty-two village women I asked in 2001, seventeen were illiterate, seven had participated in some form of literacy training, two had some primary school education, five were primary school graduates, and one had graduated from middle school.
78. Gail Hershatter also found this to be the case in Shaanxi. See Gail Hershatter, "The Gender of Memory: Rural Chinese Women and the 1950s," Signs, Vol. 28, No. 1 (2002), pp. 43-70.
79. Interviewee 39. Another woman from the same village, 41, reiterated this view in a separate interview.
80. Susanne Weigelin-Schwiedrzik, "Trauma and Memory: The Case of the Great Famine in the People's Republic of China (1959-1961)," Historiography East and West, Vol. 1, No. 1 (March 2003), pp. 40-67.