In its simplest terms, anarchism is the belief in the abolition of all government, and that society should be run on a voluntary basis void of any coercion. Such a utopian ideal seems highly unrealistic and impossible to implement as it would drastically alter the way in which a society works.
However, in the early twentieth century a group of Chinese anarchists named the Tokyo Anarchists believed China was more likely than any other nation to achieve an anarchist state. Their leader, Lie Shipei, argued, ‘advocacy by the major ideologies of China, Confucianism and Daoism, of laissez-fair government had helped curtail government intervention in society’.[1] Therefore, he was claiming that strong tradition and loyalty within the family structure meant the population had less ties and involvement with politics. This fit in nicely with anarchists’ anti-despotic views.
The problem lay with Confucianism. On the whole, anarchists were quite anti-Confucian as it was not just government they were against – they were against any system that jeopardised an individual’s free will. At the heart of Confucianism lay loyalty to the family, which involved people putting their family members above all else, including themselves. So, Shipei supposed, ‘that if only Chinese could be purged of their habits of obedience, anarchism could be achieved in China in the very near future’.[2]
Was this possible? It would involve a complete cultural revolution in China to re-educate the masses on centuries worth of tradition. This was the main objective of many anarchist groups across China, not just the Tokyo Anarchists. Such a feat would not be easy, but most anarchists were not naïve. What Shipei meant by ‘near future’ was likely centuries away, as it would take this long for a cultural shift to take effect. Arif Dirlik explains in his book, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution, that anarchists believed ‘revolutionary society could only be as good as revolutionary process that produced it’. [3] Followers that really wished for an ideal anarchist society would have to be patient if they ever wished to achieve such a radicalised culture from the norm.
In the end, to the answer the question, was the anarchist dream ever possible in China? The answer is probably not. The sheer scale of cultural revolution needed to change the population’s mindset seemed unlikely due to the dispersion of Chinese anarchists across the country. This anti-centralisation of the anarchists worked against their goals as they went without a larger organisational structure.[4] They soon lost out to the Chinese Communist Party in the 1920s, as they advocated for social revolution just as much as the anarchists but had the advantage of being a defined political organisation. Eventually the CCP would attempt their own cultural revolution that lasted ten years, from 1966-1976. Yet their brutal methods of coercion during this time were far from what the anarchists had ever dreamed of.
[1] Arif Dirlik, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution (University of California Press: Berkeley, 1991), p.77
[2] Ibid. p.77
[3] Ibid. p.133
[4] Ibid. p.171