The Communist aim of proletarian hegemony in the Chinese revolution was given concrete expression through the Canton Commune—reflected in the policies and strategies that led to the uprising, in the makeup and program of the Soviet setup in Canton, and in the subsequent assessment of the revolt by the Comintern and the Chinese Communist Party. “Proletarian Hegemony” in the Chinese Revolution and the Canton Commune of 1927 describes these developments and, with the further ideological treatment given the Commune serving as a backdrop, will then examine the continuing evolution and ultimate transformation of the proletarian line and the concept of proletarian leadership in the post-1927 history of Chinese Communism. [3]

Based mainly on Russian and Chinese archival sources that have become available only since the early 1990s, the authors of this collection explore the main aspects of the Chinese Revolution in the crucial period of the 1920s, such as the United Front policy, the development of communism, the Guomindang perspective, institutional issues and social movements. The various approaches and interpretative methods employed by the contributors from seven countries have resulted in a collection of articles representing four very different and until now almost independent discourses: the European, the American, the Chinese, and the Russian.

This work studies the city of Canton (Guangzhou), the cradle of the Chinese revolution. It argues that modernist politics as practiced by the Nationalists and Communists represented a specific political rationality embedded in the context of a novel conception of the social realm.

In the two-decade period from 1928 to 1948, the proletarian themes and issues underlying the Chinese Communist Party’s ideological utterances were shrouded in rhetoric designed, perhaps, as much to disguise as to chart actual class strategies. Rhetoric notwithstanding, a careful analysis of such pronouncements is vitally important in following and evaluating the party’s changing lines during this key revolutionary period. The function of the “proletariat” in the complex of policy issues and leadership struggles which developed under the precarious circumstances of those years had an importance out of all proportion to labor’s relatively minor role in the post-1927 Communist led revolution. [1, 2]

By studying six different aspects of culture in Canton in the period between the two World Wars, this book helps broaden our limited knowledge of the social and cultural lives of the common people in this largest city of South China. The author examines how the Cantonese in this periodindulged in their imagined cultural superiority as "modern" citizens, ushering in a cult of the modern city. During this period, Cantonese opera was also emerging and evolving into a widely accepted form of commercialised mass entertainment. The process of social and cultural change and its impacton the development of this city and its people are revealed throughout the book. This book also aims to redress some major misconceptions of the socio-cultural realities as seen in official rhetoric or academic discourse on the matters of patriotism and anti-foreignism, gambling, prostitution, and opium consumption. Contemporary non-official and folk materials reveal that thecommon people were much more pro-Western than xenophobic in attitude, and the alleged social and political "calamities" of gambling, opium consumption and prostitution were more rhetorical than real. Understanding Canton provides us with, not only a fuller and more comprehensive picture of city lifeand popular mentalities, but also an important clue to understand how and why the social history of this city was distorted and constructed in ways that suited the political ideology and nation-building agenda of the ruling regimes.

This lively history of China's Nationalist revolution tells the story of a small group of Chinese patriots headed by Sun Yat-sen until his death in 1925. They mobilised men, money, and propaganda to create a provincial base from which they launched a revolutionary military campaign to unify the country, end imperialist privilege, and bring the Kuomintang to power. Soviet Russia induced the fledgling Chinese Communist Party to join the effort, and sent money, arms, military and political experts to guide the revolution. But there was a fatal flaw in this co-operation, and when the fighting was over, the remnant Communist Party had been driven underground, the Russian experts had been expelled, and a faction-riven Nationalist Party led by Chiang Kai-shek could claim to be China's new government. This study of a key period in China's history, reprinted from Volume 12 of The Cambridge History of China, is solidly based in Chinese, Russian, and Western languages sources.

Through the history of rickshaw pullers in Hong Kong and Canton, Reluctant Heroes provides a rich portrait of the urban milieu and life in two contrasting yet interrelated cities in South China. Fung Chi Ming explains the dynamics between the rickshaw pullers' participation in collective action and the intervention of the British colonial and Chinese authorities, and traces the pullers' emergence and eclipse as a political force. Reluctant Heroes is a fascinating study of rickshaw pullers in Hong Kong and Canton. The author reconstructs the daily lives and social environments of rickshaw pullers, the majority of whom were emigrants who differed in the loyalties of dialect, place of origin and kinship. Low- skilled yet partially self-employed, rickshaw pullers relied on entrepreneurial flair, in addition to physical stamina, to tout for fares, thus bridging the culture of petty traders and physical laborers. In the volatile urban environment, they were subjected not just to patron-client problems, but also the directives and regulations of the state, and to interventions of the police, and the British colonial and Chinese authorities. Rickshaw pullers struggled with their adversities and became a political force to be reckoned with. Fung argues that they are "reluctant heroes," since their collective outbursts were authentic protests against encroachments on their livelihood. They were spurred into collective actions that were at times cheered by the public, or embroiled in city politics, thus suffering great losses in political storms, when they would have preferred to lead quiet, anonymous lives. Set against the backdrop of two contrasting yet interrelated cities in South China, Reluctant Heroes brings a richer understanding of urban living through a comparative study of the historic pattern of adaptation in the urban workplace, the powers of the state, and the repertoire of mass activism.

During the 1920s, China's intellectuals called for a new literature, a new system of thought and new orientation towards modern life. Commonly known as the May Fourth Movement or the New Culture Movement, this intellectual momentum spilled beyond China into the overseas Chinese communities. This work analyzes the New Culture Movement from a diaspora perspective, namely that of the overseas Chinese in Singapore. Because they were members of a diaspora, the Chinese in Singapore first had to imagine themselves as part of the Chinese nation before they could fully participate in the movement. Also, Singapore's new culture advocates adopted then amended the movement's basic ideas to fit their situation. This work furthers our understanding of transnationalism and reminds us that in our rush to deconstruct the nation we should remember the discursive power of nationalism as it both enhances and restricts the authority of its advocates.