Communist revolutionaries faced an interesting problem following their acquisition of power. Weaponizing the very real class debate won them the civil war, but family and marriage would, like it so often has in Chinese history, get in the way of their vision of progress.
Susan Glosser in her successful work “Chinese Visions of Family and State” provides a unifying narrative that illuminates a common thread running through successive Chinese policy thinkers and makers. Balancing a changing nation in an increasingly globalised world with internal pressures grasping onto tradition would prove difficult for most post-imperial attempts at governance.[1]
The New Culture Movement was perhaps the first attempt at family reform following the collapse of imperial power. What was an ambitious movement seemingly overestimated its support, as a series of surveys revealed the reluctance of the youth population to adopt reforms that would threaten the centralised family model.[2] In fact, 72% of respondents voiced their desire to maintain the family model that ties to them to their parents. Surveys are of course to be taken with a pinch of salt, but it wouldn’t be farfetched if these views were held, as we see opposition to reform crop up in subsequent contexts. Veneration for one’s elders is a matter of morality in this case, as Alan Chan argues.[3]
CCP attempts at family reform faced similar obstacles, revealing a level of continuity and persistence of traditional standpoints. Rural communities, which it ought to be pointed out constituted over 95% of China’s population, appeared to pose a consistent threat to any hopes of family reform. The result of this unwillingness to adopt the entirety of what revolution truly meant had very real impacts on the direction of communist policy in China. Kay Ann Johnson notes the reluctance of the CCP in pushing their family reform agenda in rural communities, and how this reluctance even birthed a system of penalties for those who attempted to raise such issues in these areas.[4] Even a revolutionary movement, hellbent on uprooting much of what China had formed itself around for millennia, seemed to cower away from the prospect of challenging one of the most fundamental structures in society.
This persistence of thought among much of Chinese society throughout a politically turbulent time illuminates a key aspect of Chinese intellectual history. The separation of family and state as matters of different historical fields, or at least as themes that can be discussed independently, would come relatively easily in western historiography. The same cannot be said for the Chinese example, and it is here where the idea of a revolution at the mercy of tradition, I would argue, can be seen. Maurice Freedman notes the importance of filial relationships in their position as a foundation for public and state relationships, specifically in their establishment of the duty of a man.[5] Reading this within the framework given to us in Glosser’s work, we see an interesting conflict between how emerging forms of state view themselves and how the public view them. Paradoxically, regimes with an interest in dismantling family structures face off against an often rural population that believes their existing family situation is necessary to the existence of the state.
Utilising the examples of the New Culture Movement and the CCP, we have outlined a society that is both exposed to the prospect of revolutionary change, yet inherently tied to the Confucian traditions on which its built. Infiltrating this bastion of tradition, the family, is an ongoing battle, and ground has only been won when private spheres are continuously intruded upon. A common thread running through early attempts at reform in early to mid-century China, despite the stark ideological differences, was the inability to completely reform the family.
[1] Susan Glosser, ‘Chinese visions of family and state, 1915-1953’, (California, 2003), p.167.
[2] Ibid. p.59.
[3] Alan Chan, Sor-Hoon Tan, Filial piety in Chinese thought and history’, Psychology Press, (London, 2004), pp.1-11.
[4] Kay Ann Johnson, ‘Women, the family, and peasant revolution in China’, (Chicago, 1983), p.63.
[5] Maurice Freedman, The Family in China, Past and Present’, Pacific Affairs, 34:4, (1962) p.324.