1. Most notably, Moore, Barrington, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966)Google Scholar, and Wolf, Eric, Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century (New York: Harper and Row, 1969).Google Scholar

2. Chen, Yung-Fa, Making Revolution: The Communist Revolution in Eastern and Central China, 1937–1945 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), p. 162.Google Scholar

3. Levine, Stevine I., Anvil of Victory: The Communist Revolution in Manchuria 1945–1948 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987), pp. 13, 243.Google Scholar Levine's organizational explanation of the Chinese revolution is presaged in Kataoka, Tetsuya, Resistance and Revolution in China: The Communists and the Second United Front (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974)Google Scholar, and Hofheinz, Roy Jr., The Broken Wave: The Chinese Communist Peasant Movement, 1922–1928 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which argues that “the Communist party… was a device to impose solutions on and extract power from the countryside” (p. 303).

4. See especially Race, Jeffrey, “Toward an exchange theory of revolution,” in Lewis, John W. (ed.), Peasant Rebellion and Communist Revolution in Asia (Stanford: Stanford University Press: 1974)Google Scholar, and Migdal, Joel S., Peasants, Politics, and Revolution: Pressures toward Political and Social Change in the Third World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974).Google Scholar With respect to China, see Levine, Anvil of Victory.

5. Skocpol, Theda, States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), p. 279.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6. Johnson, Chalmers A., Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power: The Emergence of Revolutionary China, 1937–1945 (Stanford: Stanford University Press: 1962), p. 49.Google Scholar For correctives to Johnson's path-breaking study, see, in addition toYung-Fa, Chen and Kataoka, , the essays in Kathleen Hartford and Goldstein, Steven M. (eds.), Single Sparks: China's Rural Revolutions (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1989).Google Scholar

7. Selden, Mark, The Yenan Way in Revolutionary China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), p. 278.Google Scholar

8. It should be noted that Johnson's early work (pp. 11–12, 72) presented cogent reasons for rejecting “organizational weapons” explanations of Communist revolution.

9. It goes without saying that in this article, I am reviewing much of the ground explored in Mark Selden's seminal study of The Yenan Way. Although new sources provide a different perspective on this history, The Yenan Way could be cited for comparative data and insight on every page of this essay. I have not done so only because endless notes of confirmation and dissent seem unnecessary and petty for Selden's path-breaking work.

10. Yanchang xianzhi (1988 draft), renkouzhi. Gulin was renamed in 1948 and abolished in 1949, its territory incorporated into Yanchang and Yan'an counties. Surviving Gulin documents are held in the Yanchang County Archives, and Yanchang records are often cited here to illustrate the Gulin case.

11. Yanchang xianzhi (1988 draft), shehuizhi, p. 43.

12. Yanchang xianzhi (1988 draft), xiangzhen qiyezhi.

13. Zhonggong xibei zhongyangju xuanchuanbu, Gulin diaocha (Gulin Survey) ([Yan'an?]: April 1942), pp. 98–99; Keating, Pauline, Two Revolutions: Village Reconstruction and Cooperativisation in North Shaanxi, 1934–1945 (Ph.D. dissertation, Australian National University, 1989), pp. 63–64.Google Scholar

14. Yanchang xianzhi (1988), renkouzhi; Tongji cailiao yuekan 2.5 (1937.11), pp. 2–11. Judging from the population densities of 1964 and 1982, the areas of eastern Yanchang which included the former Gulin county probably had even lower population densities than the 15/km² indicated here.

15. “Shaanbei daibiao baogao” (“Report of the Shaanbei representative”), No. 1 (10 December 1932) in Shaanxi dangshi tongxun (hereafter SXDSTX) 1985.13, p. 17; Gulin diaocha, pp. 2–3, 98–99; Gulin interviews, No. 16.

16. Yanchang xianzhi (1988 draft) shehuizhi.

17. Yanchang xianzhi (1988 draft), tudigaige, p. 1.

18. Gulin interviews, Nos. 1, 3.

19. Gulin interviews, Nos. 9, 10, 18.

20. Gulin interviews, Nos. 1, 10.

21. This term is borrowed from Billingsley, Phil, Bandits in Republican China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988).Google Scholar

22. See the discussion and maps of environmental illness in Shaanxi, Shifan Daxue Dili Xi (ed.), Shaanxi sheng Yan'an diqu dili zhi (A Geography ofYan'an Prefecture in Shaanxi) (Xi'an: Shaanxi People's Press, 1983), pp. 196–210.Google Scholar The severity of the problem is indicated by mortality rates of 31 % within two years suffered by migrants into forested areas of Ganquan under policies sponsored by the SGN Border Region (“Shaan-Gan-Ning bianqu diquan wenti” (“Property rights in the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region”), October 1946, in Shaan-Gan-Ning bianqu zhengfu wenxian xuanbian (Selected Documents of the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region Government) (hereafter WXXB), Vol. 10 (Beijing: Archives Press, 1991), p. 294).

23. Gulin interviews, Nos. 8 (whose mother-in-law was kidnapped) and 17 (who was himself kidnapped).

24. Gulin diaocha, p. 101; Gulin interviews, Nos. 15, 18.

25. I have explored this issue in more detail in “The Chinese Communist revolution from the bottom up,” paper presented to the 1989 meeting of the American Historical Association. See also Keating, Two Revolutions, p. 80; Snow, Edgar, Red Star Over China (New York: Grove Press, 1961), pp. 221–22.Google Scholar For an early but still useful overview of the revolutionary movement in Shaanbei, see Selden, Mark, “The guerrilla movement in northwest China: the origins of the Shensi-Kansu-Ninghsia Border Region,” The China Quarterly, Nos. 28 (December 1966), pp. 63–81Google Scholar, and 29 (March 1967), pp. 61–81.

26. “Shaanbei daibiao baogao,” No. 2 (13 December 1932), in SXDSTX 1985.13, pp. 24–25. “Shaanbei tewei gongzuo baogao” (20 October 1933), ibid pp. 38^2, lists no branches or members from this area.

27. Yanchang Party History Office, “Yanchang xian dangshi dashiji” (“A chronology of Yanchang party history”) (discussion draft, 1986), p. 13. The Gulin diaocha reveals this pattern at the village level: of 14 Party members in one administrative village, none had joined before 1935 (p. 23, cf. p. 183.)

28. “Yanchang xian dangshi dashiji”; Yanchang county briefing (20 June 1989); Gulin interviews, Nos. 2, 17.

29. Wang Hua in SXDSTX 1985.12 (15 September 1985), pp. 18–21.

30. “Luohechuan ershiwu wei hongjun zhanshi, jiceng ganbu he qunzhong de huiyi diaocha” (“A survey of the recollections of 25 Red Army soldiers, local cadres and masses from the Luo River valley”) (15 May 1959) in SXDSTX 1985.12, p. 30. Gulin interviews, No. 8.

31. Gulin interviews, Nos. 1, 5, 8.

32. “Yanchang xian dangshi dashiji,” p. 5.

33. Gulin interviews, No. 4.

34. Gulin interviews, No. 1. Cf. Chen Yung-fa, Making Revolution, pp. 299, 300, 302.

35. Gulin interviews, No. 10. A former yamen secretary similarly reported deep hatred of the local functionaries: “Why did the people hang officials from the trees and let them die during the Red period of the revolution? Because they really hated them to their very bones!” (Gulin diaocha, p. 99.)

36. Gulin interviews, No. 19. Another elderly peasant (No. 15), when asked why a particular bankrupt, opium-addicted landlord had been killed, replied ”1935 was like that. If somebody said something against you, you were taken out and shot. No investigation was done.”

37. Gulin interviews, No. 19.

38. Yanchang xianzhi (1988 draft) 1:1 tudi gaige. Comparable figures for smaller areas are found in Gulin diaocha, pp. 17, 30, 106, which also includes references (p. 29) to redistribution of middle peasant land. Party historians speak of a correct land reform in the area just west of Gulin, followed by a radical and incorrect “land investigation movement” often blamed on the 25th Army of Xu Haidong arriving from the Eyuwan Soviet. (See, for example, Zhang Wenhua's recollections in SXDSTX 1985.12, pp. 16–17.) However, no peasants that I interviewed spoke of such a two-stage movement. They recalled a quite uniformly leftist line.

39. Gulin diaocha, pp. 2–3, 7–8, 18–19, 29, 31.

40. Ibid. pp. 2–3, 19–20, 35, 112–15, 205.

41. Ibid. pp. 24, 48–50, 86–90, 113, 133; Feng Junde, “Gulin xian si'er [1942] nian gongzuo zongjie baogao” (“Summary report of work in Gulin in 1942”) (30 January 1943), Shaanxi Provincial Archives (hereafter SA) 2–1–216; Gulin xian zhengfu (Zhao Jianguo), “Cheng wei yi zhi liuyue shengchan dongyuan kangzhan dongyuan tongyi zhanxian xingzheng quyu renkou tudi ganbu deng gongzuo baogao” (“Report on mobilization for production and the War of Resistance, the United Front, administrative subdivisions, population, land, cadres and other work between January and June”) (27 June 1939), SA 2–1–141–11. Western scholars have also been disappointed by the CCP's more conservative record on women's issues in the Yan'an period: see Johnson, Kay Ann, Women, Family and Peasant Revolution in China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), pp. 63–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Delia Davin, Woman-Work: Women and the Party in Revolutionary China (Oxford: Clarendon Press), pp. 32–52.

42. Gulin diaocha, pp. 118–19.

43. FengJunde,“Gulinxian si'er[1942]nian gongzuo zongjie baogao,”(30January 1943), SA 2–1–216.

44. Gulin diaocha, p. 26. The distribution of the departees is probably typical: 19 to the army, ten to government work, five fleeing conscription and one divorced.

45. Li Jingrui report (21 October [sic in catalogue, but from context probably 21 December 1939]), SA 2–1–292–15.

46. Gulin diaocha, p. 116.

47. Feng Zhengming, “Qiantan Kang Ri Zhanzheng shiqi Shaan-Gan-Ning bianqu cong ban zigei zizu xiang quan zigei zizu de zhuanbian” (“A brief discussion of the Shaan-Ning Border Region's transition from semi-self-sufficiency to self-sufficiency during the Anti-Japanese War of Resistance”) SXDSTX 1985.10, p. 16.

48. Chen Yongfa [Ch'en Yung-fa], Yan'an de yinying (Yan'an's Shadow) (Taipei: Academia Sinica, 1990), p. 92.

49. Gulin diaocha, p. 35.

50. “Gulin xian zhengfu gongzuo baogao (sanshiyi nian yiyue zhi jiuyue)” (“Work report of the Gulin county government (January to September 1942)”) (18 October 1941 [sic: 1942?]), SA 2–1–215–1.

51. A number of documents in the SGN archives reflect this competition. For examples, see Zhao Jianguo, “Gulin xian dui tongyi zhanxian gongzuo baogao” (“Gulin county report on united front work”) (4 February [1939]), SA 2–1–274–27; “Cheng wei yi zhi liuyue shengchan… ” (27 June 1939), SA 2–1–141–11; Tan Shengbin to BR government (11 May [1939]), SA 2–1–293–3.

52. “Cheng wei yi zhi liuyue shengchan…,” SA 2–1–141–11; Liu Jingrui report, SA 2–1–292–15.

53. Jacobson, Gary, Brotherhood and Society: The Shaanxi Gelaogui, 1867–1912. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, 1993Google Scholar

54. See Schram, Stuart, “Mao Tse-tung and secret societies,” The China Quarterly, No. 27 (September 1966).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

55. Liu Jingrui report, SA 2–1–292–15; Liu Jingrui and Chang Deyi report (10 November [1939]), SA 2–1–292–16. For a report on the Gelaohui in Gulin, see 27 June 1939 report cited above (SA 2–1–141–11).

56. Gulin diaocha, p. 131; see also pp. 43, 120, 185.

57. Ibid. p. 187. I would suggest that in fact, this shift began even before the revolution. My reading of the work of Prasenjit Duara is that the shift he sees from old village elites with “face” to the new style entrepreneurial broker in fact reflects this same shift from a concern for status and “face” to a concern for ability to get the job done – especially in relation to the new state (Culture, Power, and the State: Rural North China, 1900–1942 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988), pp. 217–243; “Elites and the structures of authority in the villages of North China, 1900–1949,” in Esherick, Joseph W. and Rankin, Mary Backus (eds.), Chinese Local Elites and Patterns of Dominance (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), pp. 261–281).Google Scholar

58. This list of tasks can be found in almost any of the routine reports from county magistrates in the Shaan-Gan-Ning archives.

59. “Gulin xian zhengfu gongzuo baogao (sanshiyi man yiyue zhijiuyue),” SA 2–1–215–1.

60. Gulin diaocha, p. 126. The people up above did understand. As Gao Gang put it: “We must remember that among lower level cadres and common folks, there are few who can read. They are busy with production during the day, and at night they need to sleep. If they are given too many tasks, what are they to do besides go through the motions of conforming?” (Speech to North-west Bureau on work style problems, 9 January 1945, WXXB, Vol. 9, p. 344.)

61. Gulin xian zhengfu, “Cheng wei yiyue zhi liuyue…,” SA 2–1–141–11.

62. Gulin diaocha, p. 122. Odoric Wou, Y.K., Mobilizing the Masses: Building Revolution in Henan (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994), pp. 135–37Google Scholar, presents an interesting analysis of patriarchal authority relations within the party.

63. Gulin diaocha, p. 121.

64. Ibid. pp. 43, 65, 134.

65. Ibid. pp. 81–82, 144, 149, 186.

66. Ibid. p. 189.

67. The best discussion of Rectification in SGN, including both its Yan'an and rural phases, is Yongfa, Chen [Ch'en Yung-fa], Yan'an de yinying (Taipei: Academia Sinica, 1990).Google Scholar For accounts of the campaign against secret agents, see, inter alia, Jiefang ribao, 29 July, 31 August, 15, 21, 22 September, 1, 2 October, 27 December 1943.

68. The most dramatic plots were uncovered at Matian, in the Jin-Cha-Ji Border Region (Jiefang ribao, 31 August 1943), and in Suide in SGN (ibid 15,22 September, 1, 2 October 1943; Chen Yongfa, Yan'an de yinying, pp. 111–14.

69. I have treated this stage of the revolution in Mizhi county, based upon interview and archival sources, in “Revolution in the hinterland,” delivered as the Hume Memorial Lecture, Yale University, 1992.

70. For a wonderful colloquial account of the effect this had on one rural cadre, see Shao Yunshan, “Wo zai zhengfeng xuexi zhong” (“My experiences in rectification study”), Jiefang ribao, 16 November 1943.

71. Gulin interviews, No. 11; WXXB, Vol. 11, pp. 135–37.

72. “Yanchang renmin zhiyuan jiefang zhanzheng” (“The people of Yanchang support the war of liberation”) (Yanchang archives).

73. Gulin interviews, No. 6 (a village head in 1947).

74. Yanchang xianzhi (1988 draft) junshizhi.

75. “Gulin xian Qingyuan qu Baihu xiang dianxing diaocha” (“A survey of typical cases in Baihu township of Qingyuan district in Gulin county”), YC x–5–24–x [1948].

76. Ibid.

77. “Gulin xian Gengluo qu Baofa xiang Xiabanshi cun 1946 zhi 1948 nian bingyuan qingkuang diaocha” (“A survey of conscription campaigns in Xiabanshi village of Baofa township, Gengluo district, Gulin county from 1946 to 1948”) (Yanchang archives).

78. “Shaan-Gan-Ning bianqu minbing jianshe youguan qingkuang tongji biao” (“Statistics on militia organizing in the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region”) [n.d.] (Yanchang archives).

79. “Gulin xian Zhangjia xiang 1947 nian zhiqian gongzuo qingkuang” (“Support for the front lines in 1947 in Zhangjia township of Gulin county”) (Yanchang archives).

80. See “Linzhen qu zhengfu quannian gongzuo baogao” (“Annual work report of the Linzhen district government”) (6th day of the 12th lunar month, 1947), YC x–5–24—x, for examples of stretcher teams and conscripts fleeing back to their villages.

81. “Shaan-Gan-Ning bianqu diquan wenti,” pp. 284–85.

82. Yanchang county government, “Liangge qu de tudi gongzuo baogao” (“Report on land work in two districts”) (20 November 1949), YC x–x–2–1.

83. Unless otherwise noted, all the discussion below is based on these forms, called ganbu dengji biao (cadre registration forms). Available to me were registers with the following archive numbers: YC x–x–43–l, YC x–x–43–2 and YC x–x–43–4 (all 23 November 1948); YC x–x–60–2 (5 July 1949); YC x–x–60–3 (January 1951); YC x–x–60–5 (24 April 1949); YC x–x–60–6 (16 December 1949); YC x–x–60–8 (n.d.).

84. Gulin diaocha (p. 183) reveals the same pattern: of 25 party members in one township, 19 (76%) joined in 1935–36 (16 in 1935 alone).

85. Gulin diaocha, p. 153.

86. For this calculation, “joined the revolution” means either joined the party or “entered the ranks,” whichever occurred first. Note also that “age” on these forms is probably recorded in sui, so biological age is probably one year less.

87. Friedman, Edward, Pickowicz, Paul and Selden, Mark conclude in their study of the revolution in Central Hebei that the Party “rooted its state power in the cultural expressions of tough, parochial young males.” (Chinese Village, Socialist State (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), p. xiv.)Google Scholar

88. Making Revolution, p. 250. See also Mark Selden on “councillors” elected in SGN (Yenan Way, p. 133).

89. For examples, see WXXB, Vol. 9, pp. 102–105 on property seizure in Gulin; Vol. 9, pp. 306–311 on land policy in 1945; Vol. 10, pp. 291–92 on land policy in 1946.

90. From YC x–x–60–6 (16 December 1949).

91. Gao Gang speech on work style, 5 February 1945, in WXXB, Vol. 9, p. 345.

92. Van De Ven, Hans J., From Friend to Comrade: The Founding of the Chinese Communist Party, 1920–1927 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991)Google Scholar; Dirlik, Arif, The Origins of Chinese Communism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).Google Scholar

93. Lin Boqu speech on work style problems, 1945.6–7, WXXB, Vol. 9, p. 353.