Tag: shifu

Shifu: Can We Consider the Views of China’s Famous Anarchist ‘True’ Anarchy?

Born to an upper-class family as Liu Shaobin, Shifu (1884-1915) lived through the collapse of the Qing dynasty and converted to anarchism while studying in Japan.1 Known for his commitment to living anarchist principles, Shifu’s purist example and devotion to promoting the common good through his educational reforms influenced subsequent generations of Chinese anarchists, attracting others to the anarchist movement which reached its peak in the early 1920s.2 While Shifu’s early career mirrors other anarchists of the time in his support of assassination and revolution-driven violence, some argue that, because his later efforts depart somewhat and are marked by a renunciation of violence, he fell away from anarchy. Furthermore, in his book, Shifu, Soul of Chinese Anarchism, Krebs argues that Shifu’s later career has a conservative moral quality, because it is inspired by traditional Chinese literature, despite the radical reforms he espoused. So, can Shifu be considered an anarchist given his departure from a violent past and tendency toward cultural conservatism? And does it matter?

The current, popular view of anarchy often mistakenly reduces anarchism to terrorism and violence. According to political theorist John P. Clark, there are many ways to define anarchy and reaching a consensus on a singular definition is difficult. He argues that we should consider classical anarchist theory, history of anarchy movements, and the scholarly debate around anarchy when attempting to define ‘anarchism’.3

Greek for ‘without rule’, in theory, anarchy could apply to anyone who advocates for the necessary abolishment of government.4 For example, Shifu was familiar with Kropotkin and Bakunin’s ideas of anarchy, which Kropotkin defines as ‘a principle or theory of life and conduct in which society is conceived without government’ and Bakunin as the aim of abolishing the state.5 Other scholars define anarchism as the opposition of authority, or even society, itself—which Shifu also advocated for.6 Clark argues that to be a ‘true anarchist’ one must meet four criteria: ‘(1) a view of an ideal, noncoercive, nonauthoritarian society; (2) a criticism of existing society and its institutions, based on this antiauthoritarian ideal; (3) a view of human nature that justifies the hope for significant progress toward the ideal; and (4) a strategy for change, involving immediate institution of noncoercive, nonauthoritarian, and decentralist alternatives’.7 This definition allows for some flexibility in classifying anarchists (i.e. people that meet some but not all four of the criteria can be considered ‘weak’ anarchists).7

According to Clark, Shifu can be considered a true anarchist because he meets all four criteria, although his later views on anarchism just before his death might be better described as anarcho-communism due to their anti-capitalist rhetoric and communal nature.8 First, Shifu advocated for a classless society in which resources were held in common without government involvement.9 Second, Shifu criticised state socialism and Confucianism for encouraging idealogues to preach an empty ‘fake morality’ while advancing their own self-interest.10 Third, he believed in the capacity for human beings to change, which he argued could only be achieved through educating the masses. Lastly, Shifu developed a comprehensive, twelve-point plan for moral reform across China at a societal level. ((Ibid, 6.)) His solution for the eventual abolition of government (partly inspired by Tolstoy and Kropotkin’s philosophies) included the abstention of the following: partaking of meat, liquor, smoke, marriage, using family names, using servants, riding in rickshaws, serving in the government or military, joining political parties, and religion.11 Another way he hoped to implement his ideal society was through communal living and Esperanto projects.

Although Shifu failed to bring about his ideal society, his critiques of existing social institutions and politics were influential in shaping China’s transition into a modern republic, and he inspired hope in following generations of intellectuals for a brighter future.

  1. Edward S. Krebs, Shifu, Soul of Chinese Anarchism, (Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), 1-2, https://www.vlebooks.com/Product/Index/336439?page=0&startBookmarkId=-1. [↩]
  2. Krebs, Shifu, 13. [↩]
  3. John P. Clark, “What is Anarchism?” in Nomos, vol. 19, (1978), 3, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24219036. [↩]
  4. Clark, “What is Anarchism?” 4. [↩]
  5. Ibid, 4. [↩]
  6. Ibid, 5. [↩]
  7. Ibid, 13. [↩] [↩]
  8. Krebs, Shifu, 83. [↩]
  9. Ibid. [↩]
  10. Ibid, 102. [↩]
  11. Ibid, 8, 103. [↩]

‘National Spirit’ in the revolutionary agendas of Liu Shifu and the Guomindang.

 

As argued by Maggie Clinton in Revolutionary Nativism, nationalism can be a ‘Janus-faced’ phenomenon[1]. In the early twentieth century, Chinese revolutionaries looked to their nation’s past to ‘remap’ the present by invoking the idea of a ‘national spirit’[2]. Apparently existing from time immemorial, ‘national spirit’ would be the source of China’s modernisation, facilitating the social, political and cultural revolutions necessary for China’s national rejuvenation. This article examines two somewhat contradictory notions of ‘national spirit’- the Guomindang’s (GMD) invocation of Confucianism and Shifu’s appeal to Buddhism- arguing that such notions were imagined to support specific revolutionary agendas and to create a unified sense of Chinese identity in the face of foreign imperialism.

Liu Shifu was an anarchist of the early twentieth century who, disgusted by the moral decline and subservience of China to foreign powers, endeavoured to initiate moral reform for the purposes of strengthening the Chinese nation. In 1908, after being sent to prison for a failed assassination attempt, Shifu wrote his ‘prison essays’ which contained his thoughts on the ‘national essence’ of China[3]. Shifu blamed Confucianism for the supposed moral decline of China, arguing that it legitimized the self-serving Manchu government[4]. Furthermore, he detested the fact that Confucianism claimed sole heritage of the classics and that it was regarded as the fount of all wisdom in China[5]. For Shifu, the ‘national essence’ or spirit of China could be found in the precepts of Buddhism, from which one could discern universal values that would aid social reform[6]. One such value was gender equality, which Buddhist scriptures supposedly buttressed by arguing that women are more in tune with their spirituality than men and can thus more easily acquire the Buddha-nature[7].

This invocation of Buddhism as exemplifying the ‘national spirit’ of China is the antithesis to the GMD’s notion that it should reflect Confucian ideals. The GMD, who ruled China from 1927 until the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945, sought to revive Confucianism from the attacks levelled against it by revolutionaries such as Shifu, but also from the New Culture and May Fourth movements which sought wholesale cultural and social revolution[8]. They viewed Confucian principles such as filial piety and interpersonal obligation as necessary to cultivate citizens who would devote their lives to the nation[9]. Confucianism also fostered social harmony, thereby uniting China’s myriad ethnic groups together under a singular national spirit[10]. According to Clinton, this idea of social harmony also sanctioned violence against those people who threatened national cohesion, thereby legitimizing the militarist regime that the GMD were seeking to create[11].

The social harmony indicative of the ‘national spirit’ therefore gave the GMD a prism through which to oppose western encroachment on Chinese culture and identity. Hence, a key similarity between the GMD and Shifu’s conceptualization of a singular Chinese spirit is that they saw it as necessary to revitalize the Chinese civilization after a period of marked decline. For example, Shifu idolized Buddhist monks such as Yuekong of the Shaolin monastery who fought with 3,000 soldiers against the Japanese at Songjiang, thereby exemplifying the ideal of ‘daring to die’ for the nation: a key principle if China was going to truly withstand foreign interference[12].

Ultimately, the contradictory contents of these ideas of ‘national spirit’ are indicative of its malleability as a concept. Both the GMD and Shifu cherry-picked aspects of China’s past in order to support their respective revolutionary agendas. The expediency of the idea of a ‘national spirit’ is particularly true if we consider that Buddhism was a foreign import to China, which is an irony that anarchists such as Shifu were willing to ignore[13]. Nonetheless, despite the artificial nature of such an idea as ‘national spirit’, its utility is evident as a rhetorical device to help unify the Chinese nation, and more importantly, to construct an independent essence of Chinese identity that stood in opposition to foreign intervention.

[1] Maggie Clinton, Revolutionary Nativism: fascism and culture in China, 1925-1937, (Durham, 2017), p. 64.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Edward Krebs, Shifu, Soul of Chinese Anarchism, (Lanham, 1998), p.47.

[4] Ibid., pp.47-50.

[5] Ibid., p.50.

[6] Ibid., p.51.

[7] Ibid., pp.51-52.

[8] Clinton, Revolutionary Nativism, p.67.

[9] Ibid., p.73.

[10] Ibid., p.10.

[11] Ibid., p.11.

[12] Krebs, Shifu, pp.57-58.

[13] Ibid., p.49