Thanks for posting the article on the Falun Gong movement and the thumbnail
sketch of anti-Confucianist rebellions. Like many articles in English on
the subject of the history of rebellion and revolution in China, it
belittles any revolt which weakened the Authoritarian systems, especially
those systems which the West has traditionally like to see fortified in
China. The article vividly illustrates the thesis of Edward Said in his
book, Orientalism. Namely, that the historical, cultural, and journalistic
explication of the "EAST" by Western scholars follows a narrowly defined
pattern, almost always in keeping with Western imperial interests. Some
additional information might be useful for clarifying the record regarding
rebellion in China, especially as it is connected with the works of Ezra
Pound. The main point in what follows is not to prove conclusively that one
interpretation of Chinese history is the right one, but to show how Pound
deliberately excludes certain facts and interpretations of Chinese history
which fall out side of his ideological purview.
Scholars may disagree on the reasons for the failure of the T'ai P'ing
government of 1851-1864. Among these are listed 1) China's insufficient
economic development, 2) the direct intervention of European military
forces, 3) the inexperience and corruption of various T'ai P'ing leaders.
Yet, all are agreed that, whatever its causes, the uprising was one of the
most significant events in Chinese history during the last several
centuries.
Pound's use of the phrase T'ai P'ing to evoke a Confucian maxim ("The Peace
of the Empire depends entirely upon the existence of good manners and
customs") must have unintended consequences. It is virtually impossible for
the scholar of Chinese history to see the phrase without reflecting on the
massive mid-19th century rebellion. When Pound admonishes readers to "get a
dictionary and/learn the meaning of words" he encourages them, whether or
not he has such an intention, to discover the events of the T'ai P'ing
rebellion. For instance, in Mathews' Chinese-English Dictionary, mention is
made of "the Taiping rebels" under the entry for T'ai (M 6020, 20). A more
modern dictionary, such as The Pinyin Chinese-English Dictionary, edited by
Beijing Foreign Languages Institute professor Wu Jingrong, notes under the
entry Taiping, "the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (1851-1864), established by
Hong Xiuquan during the Taiping Revolution, the largest of peasant uprisings
in China's history." Sample sentences are provided in this dictonary such
as, "Only when imperialism is eliminated can peace [Taiping] prevail." But
certainly the overall historical meaning of the rebellion was something
Pound did not wish to allude to, given the Taiping's opposition both to
imperialism and to Confucianism. The rebels denounced the unequal treaties
which the Ching government had been forced, at gunpoint, to sign with the
Western Powers and Japan. Also, as Wu Tien-wei explains,
At the very beginning, the Great Peace move-
ment assumed an anti-Confucian stand, attacking the
twin authorities of divine power and the Confucian
way, the cornerstones of feudal society. When the
revolutionary army swept north it burned Confucian
temples and destroyed all idols . . . Judging from
their iconoclastic spirit and their practice of
discarding Chinese tradition, the Tai-pings probably
did more to destroy the Confucian social order than
any other group and movement, either before or after
them.
(Wu Tien-wei, 72-73).
Such a heavy blow to Confucian society and thought was something that Pound
ignored at his peril, since it rendered his whole view of Confucius
socio-politically anachronistic. The T'ai P'ing rebellion was not an
isolated anti-Confucian moment, but the culmination of a historical trend
which served to pave the way for the successful anti-Confucian campaigns of
the 20th century. The writings of the movement's founder, Hong Xiuquan, were
an indirect negation of monarchical dictatorship,
opposition to which became a key point in the
bourgeois democratic revolution in 1911. The
Taipings had the courage to depose Confucius, the
spiritual idol eulogized as "Ultimate Sage and
Foremost Teacher" by the feudal ruling class in
the past dynasties. They said that the Confucian
code was worth nothing, and condemned the "Four
Books" and the "Five Classics" of the Confucian
school as "books of sorcery." They condemned
feudal literature on the teachings of the "sages"
and so, in a sense heralded the new culture
movement in the May 4th period (1919) with its
slogan of "Down with the Confucian Shop."
(Compilation Group, Taiping Revolution, 174-175).
Pound refuses to take such movements seriously, and in fact, ignores all
post-18th century Chinese historical events, because they cast doubt on his
assumptions concerning Chinese social stability. He likewise virtually
ignored the peasant rebellions which occurred throughout the periods of
Chinese history covered in the Cantos. Whereas Mao Tse-tung1 saw peasant
revolts
as a manifestation of class struggle which,
together with the peasant wars "constituted
the real motive force of historical develop-
ment in Chinese feudal society," the Confu-
cianists viewed the peasant revolts as
reflecting moral decay and the loss of social
equilibrium and harmony in the cyclical process
of decline and regeneration in history
(Wu Tien-wei, 63).
It is useful to contrast Pound's view of Chinese history with Mao's. Mao
held that successful peasant revolts became revolutions which were, in turn,
followed by newly established dynasties. Since the dynastic changes usually
sprang up in response to such revolts, Mao maintained that mass movements,
and not the actions of individual monarchs and their advisors, should be the
subject of history.
There were hundreds of uprisings, great and
small, all of them peasant revolts or revolutionary
wars -- from the uprisings of Chen Sheng, Wu Guang,
Xiang Yu and Liu Bang in the Qin dynasty, those of
Xinshi, Pinglin, the Red Eyebrows, the Bronze Horses,
and the Yellow Turbans in the Han Dynasty, those of Li
Mi and Dou Jian-de in the Sui dynasty, those of Song
Jiang and Fang La in the Song dynasty, that of Zhu
Yuan-zhang in the Yuan dynasty, and that of Li Zi-Cheng
in the Ming dynasty, down to the uprising known as the
War of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in the Qing
dynasty. The scale of peasant uprisings and peasant
wars in Chinese history has no parallel anywhere else
(Mao, Works, 2:308).
Pound mentions none of these rebels or revolutionary movements. He takes the
Confucian stand, refusing to dignify any anti-Confucian movements by
including them in the Cantos. Thus, his technique of treating Chinese
history would seem to be non-dialectical, certainly in the Marxist sense,
because he ignores the "motive force" of class contradiction.
[continued in next post]
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