North China at War The Social Ecology of Revolution, 1937–1945

by Chongyi, Feng; Goodman, David S. G.; Benton, Gregor; DeVido, Elise A.; Esherick, Joseph W.; G. Goodman, David S.; Hongyun, Wei; Keating, Pauline; Youru, Tian

• ISBN13: 9780847699384
• ISBN10: 0847699382
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-05-24
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Summary

During the War of Resistance to Japan from 1937 to 1945, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) grew from a marginalized political force on the geographical periphery of Chinese society to a position of national leadership. Explaining this transformation has long been a major point of contestation among scholars. This groundbreaking volume draws on newly available documentary sources to explore key facets of the partyOs move to power. Leading scholars from China and the West compare the varied experiences of the CCP_and its interactions with local society_in all the border regions and base areas of resistance to the Japanese invasion on the North China battlefront. Eschewing grand theory, the authors develop a Osocial ecology of revolutionO that traces the relationship between local conditions and patterns of social and political change. By individualizing the experience of the party by locality, period of the war, and stage in the development of mobilization and rule, the book highlights the importance of the military situation, CCP internal control mechanisms, peasant resistance, as well as the roles played by the Nationalist Party and intellectuals in the development of the border regions and base areas.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	vii
Preface	ix
Terminology and Language: A Note to the Reader	xi
Maps of North China Broder Regions and Base Areas	xv
Introduction: Explaining Revolution	1	(24)
Feng Chongyi
David S.G. Goodman
Getting Peasonts Organized: Village Organizations and the Party-State in the Shaan Gan Ning Border Region, 1934-1945	25	(34)
Pauline Keating
Revolution in a ``Feudal Fortress'': Yangjiagou, Mizhi Country, Shaanxi, 1937-1948	59	(34)
Joseph W. Esherick
Social Reform and Value Change in the Jin Cha Ji Anti-Japanese Border Region	93	(22)
Wei Hongyun
Socical and Political in the Villages of the Taihang Anti-Japanese Base Area	115	(16)
Tian Youru
Resistance and Revolution, Religion, and Rebellion: The Sixth Trigram Movement in Licheng, 1939-1942	131	(24)
David S.G. Goodman
The Making of the Jin Sui Base Area: Peasants, Intellectuals, and Democratization	155	(18)
Feng Chongyi
The Survival of the Shandong Base Area, 1937-1943: External Influences and Internal Conflicts	173	(16)
Elise A. DeVido
Comparative Perspectives: North and Central China in the Anti-Japanese Resistance	189	(36)
Gregor Benton
Index	225	(10)
About the Contributors	235