The cradle of revolution: Politics and society in Canton, 1900-1927

In their search for the "origins' of revolutionary movements, historians have often assumed an unmediated causal nexus between the social and the political. Motivations attributed to the populace are regarded as having sprung directly from their social experiences. In the case of the Chinese Nationalist Revolution (ca. 1923-28), the episode has often been depicted as a popular movement in which the masses were methodically and successfully mobilized by a committed political leadership, which articulated the "anti-imperialist" and "class" interests of the participants. The source of such a portrayal can be traced, of course, to the official representation of the revolution. By examining in some detail the history of Canton (Guangzhou), the base of the revolution, in the first quarter of this century, it is argued in this dissertation that the relationships between the social and the political within the movement were protean and ungrounded, and that the dynamics of the revolution itself cannot be fully comprehended in isolation from the formulation of its language.;Much of our current sensibility with regard to twentieth-century Chinese history is still bound to the political language which first gained dominance in this period. By focusing on the specific process through which the notions of "anti-imperialism" and "class" became dominant discourses, it is hoped that this study will create a small opening for reflections on our understanding of modern China's historical trajectory.;Instead of conceding to nationalism and social mobilization the adequate explanatory force needed to sustain the orthodox paradigm, it is asked here what the revolutionary discourses of "anti-imperialism" and "class" actually meant in relation to the social formations of Canton. The socio-economic transformation of early twentieth-century Canton is thus scrutinized. Of particular interest is the current concern among historians regarding the articulation of an autonomous space for "civil society" in late Qing and early republican China. How useful is it to posit a dichotomy between political and civil societies in China during this period? The question is dealt with in further detail in light of the efforts of the Nationalists and the Communists to forge a revolutionary base in Canton in the mid-1920's. It is suggested that their putative success at mobilization has been exaggerated. Rather the revolution had a certain momentum of its own, which was irreducible to any social essence. Indeed, the deployment of political discourses as an instrument of the revolution, that is to say, as a means to define rather than to reflect the revolutionary process, should be seen within the context of the considerable barriers encountered by the political elites in their organizational work.