Amdo, Empire, and the United Front

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Benno Weiner
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
State Building ◽  
Political Community ◽  
National Integration ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Epistemological Obstacles ◽  
United Front

This introductory chapter explains that the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) goal in 1950s Amdo was not just state building but also nation building, which required the construction of narratives and policies capable of convincing Amdo Tibetans of their membership in a wider political community. It argues that Communist Party leaders implicitly understood both the administrative and epistemological obstacles to transforming an expansive, variegated, and vertically organized imperial formation into an integrated, socialist, multinational state. Moreover, the ideological underpinnings of the CCP demanded the active participation of individuals and communities in this new sociopolitical order, albeit in heavily scripted ways and as part of a distinct hierarchy of power. The CCP therefore adopted and adapted imperial strategies of rule, often collectively referred to as the United Front, as means to “gradually,” “voluntarily,” and “organically” bridge the gap between empire and nation. As demonstrated, however, the United Front ultimately lost out to a revolutionary impatience that demanded more immediate paths to national integration and socialist transformation. This led in 1958 to communization, large-scale rebellion, and its brutal pacification. Rather than a voluntary union, Amdo was integrated through the widespread and often indiscriminate use of violence, a violence that lingers in the living memory of Amdo Tibetans and many others.

The Chinese Revolution on the Tibetan Frontier

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benno Weiner
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
State Building ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Chinese Revolution ◽  
National Integration ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Depth Study

This book provides the first in-depth study of an ethnic minority region during the first decade of the People's Republic of China: the Amdo region in the Sino-Tibetan borderland. Employing previously inaccessible local archives as well as other rare primary sources, the book demonstrates that the Communist Party's goal in 1950s Amdo was not just state-building, but also nation-building. Such an objective required the construction of narratives and policies capable of convincing Tibetans of their membership in a wider political community. As the book shows, however, early efforts to gradually and organically transform a vast multiethnic empire into a singular nation-state lost out to a revolutionary impatience, demanding more immediate paths to national integration and socialist transformation. This led in 1958 to communization, then to large-scale rebellion and its brutal pacification. Rather than joining voluntarily, Amdo was integrated through the widespread, often indiscriminate use of violence, a violence that lingers in the living memory of Amdo Tibetans and others.

Communist Revolutions at the Borderland

2019 ◽  
pp. 72-91
Author(s):  
Enze Han
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
State Building ◽  
Border Region ◽  
Strong Sense ◽  
Human Dimension ◽  
Chinese Youth ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Thai Government

Chapter 5 examines China’s support for communist insurgencies in Burma and Thailand. It analyzes the legacies of the insurgency by the Communist Party of Burma and what that insurgency means for Myanmar’s failure in state building and consolidation over the borderland territories. In Thailand, the Communist Party of Thailand insurgency instilled a strong sense of urgency in the Thai government, which led to a counteractive campaign of state and nation building by the Thai government. The Thai nationalist emphasis on nation, king, and religion and the image of royal benevolence was imposed and spread throughout the area as a result. In China’s own case, the initiation of the Cultural Revolution resulted in large numbers of urban Red Guards being sent to the borderland areas in Yunnan. Through the settlement of Han Chinese youth in the borderland area, the Chinese state created a human dimension in its consolidation of the border region.

Why Sovereignty Matters Despite Injustice

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard W. Miller
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Violent Conflict ◽  
Military Interventions ◽  
Support Intervention ◽  
Spheres Of Influence ◽  
Base Of Support ◽  
External Intervention ◽  
Target Country

This chapter argues for greater reluctance to launch humanitarian military interventions, without appealing to any inherent value in sovereignty or autonomous political community. Instead, it appeals to the likely consequences of such intervention—both within the target country and for international relations. Miller considers four types of candidate for intervention: stable tyrannies, unstable tyrannies, popular secessions, and ongoing large-scale killing and displacement. Only in the last of these should we be disposed to support intervention according to Miller, since the likely consequences that plague the other three types are here less challenging. Stable tyrannies are usually maintained because the regime has engineered a wide base of support among elites. External overthrow thus risks unleashing violent conflict between divided groups. In unstable tyrannies internally-driven regime change is preferable. Finally, in popular secession external intervention can stoke Great Power worries about spheres of influence and inspire military build-up.

The Demise of Non-Communist Parties in North Korea (1945–1960)

2001 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrei N. Lankov
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
North Korea ◽  
History Of ◽  
United Front ◽  
The 1950S

This article, based on newly declassified material from the Russian archives, deals with the fate of non-Communist parties in North Korea in the 1950s. Like the “people's democracies” in Eastern Europe, North Korea had (and still technically has) a few non-Communist parties. The ruling Communist party included these parties within the framework of a “united front,” designed to project the facade of a multiparty state, to control domestic dissent, and to establish links with parties in South Korea. The article traces the history of these parties under Soviet and local Communist control from the mid-1940s to their gradual evisceration in the 1950s.

“Forward to David the Builder!” Georgia's (re)turn to language-centered nationalism

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 522-542 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christofer Berglund
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
The State ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
The Past ◽  
Building Project ◽  
The Rose ◽  
State Language

After the Rose Revolution, President Saakashvili tried to move away from the exclusionary nationalism of the past, which had poisoned relations between Georgians and their Armenian and Azerbaijani compatriots. His government instead sought to foster an inclusionary nationalism, wherein belonging was contingent upon speaking the state language and all Georgian speakers, irrespective of origin, were to be equals. This article examines this nation-building project from a top-down and bottom-up lens. I first argue that state officials took rigorous steps to signal that Georgian-speaking minorities were part of the national fabric, but failed to abolish religious and historical barriers to their inclusion. I next utilize a large-scale, matched-guise experiment (n= 792) to explore if adolescent Georgians ostracize Georgian-speaking minorities or embrace them as their peers. I find that the upcoming generation of Georgians harbor attitudes in line with Saakashvili's language-centered nationalism, and that current Georgian nationalism therefore is more inclusionary than previous research, or Georgia's tumultuous past, would lead us to believe.

Gorbachev, ideology, and the fate of Soviet communism

2000 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 457-474
Author(s):  
R. Judson Mitchell ◽  
Randall S. Arrington
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Party Leader ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Democratic Centralism ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Party Elites ◽  
Basic Source ◽  
The Russian Federation

The collapse of the Soviet Union has spurred much scholarly debate about the reasons for the rapid disintegration of this apparently entrenched system. In this article, it is argued that the basic source of ultimate weakness was the obverse of the system’s strengths, especially its form of organization and its relation to Marxist–Leninist ideology. Democratic centralism provided cohesion for the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) but also gave inordinate control over ideology to the party leader. Mikhail Gorbachev carried out an ideological revision that undercut the legitimacy of party elites and his restructuring of the system left the party with no clear functional role in the society. The successor party, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), has made a surprising comeback for communism, utilizing the Leninist model of party organization, which has proved to be highly effective in the Russian political culture. Furthermore, the CPRF, under party leaders like Gennadi Zyuganov, has avoided Gorbachev’s ideological deviations while attempting to broaden the party’s base through the cultivation of Russian nationalism.

Uyghurs

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
David O'Brien
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Group ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Group Living ◽  
The United States ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Complete Control

The Uyghur (alternatively spelled Uighur) are the largest and titular ethnic group living in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, a vast area in northwestern China of over 1.6 million sq. km. According to the 2010 census Uyghurs make up 45.21 percent of the population of Xinjiang, numbering 8,345,622 people. The Han, the largest ethnic group in China, make up 40.58 percent in the region with 7,489,919. A Turkic-speaking largely Muslim ethnic group, the Uyghurs traditionally inhabited a series of oases around the Taklamakan desert. Their complex origin is evidenced by a rich cultural history that can be traced back to various groups that emerged across the steppes of Mongolia and Central Asia. Uyghur communities are also found in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan, with significant diaspora groups in Australia, the United States, Germany, and Turkey. In the first half of the 20th century, Uyghurs briefly declared two short-lived East Turkestan Republics in 1933 and again in 1944, but the region was brought under the complete control of the Chinese state after the Communist Party (CCP) came to power in 1949. Within China they are considered one of the fifty-five officially recognized ethnic minority groups, who, along with the Han who constitute 92 percent of the population, make up the Chinese nation or Zhonghua Minzu中华民族. However, for many Uyghurs the name “Xinjiang,” which literally translates as “New Territory,” indicates that their homeland is a colony of China, and they prefer the term “East Turkestan.” Nevertheless, many scholars use Xinjiang as a natural term even when they are critical of the position of the Communist Party. In this article both terms are used. In the early years of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) Uyghurs numbered about 80 percent of the population of Xinjiang, but large-scale government-sponsored migration has seen the number of Han in the region rise to almost the same as that of the Uyghur. This has led to an increase in ethnic tensions often caused by competition for scarce resources and a perception that the ruling Communist Party favors the Han. In 2009, a major outbreak of violence in the capital Ürümchi saw hundreds die and many more imprisoned. The years 2013 and 2014 were also crucial turning points with deadly attacks on passengers in train stations in Kunming and Yunnan, bombings in Ürümchi, and a suicide attack in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, all blamed on Uyghur terrorists. Since then the Chinese government has introduced a harsh regime of security clampdowns and mass surveillance, which has significantly increased from 2017 and which, by some accounts, has seen over one million Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities imprisoned without trial in “reeducation” camps. The Chinese government insist these camps form part of an education and vocational training program designed to improve the lives of Uyghurs and root out “wrong thinking.” Many Uyghurs believe it is part of a long-term project of assimilation of Uyghur identity and culture.

The Double Task: Nation- and State-Building in Timor-Leste

2006 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andre Borgerhoff
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Public Education ◽  
Foreign Aid ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
State Building ◽  
Official Language ◽  
Arduous Task ◽  
Timor Leste ◽  
Cleavage Lines ◽  
Policy Fields

AbstractTimor-Leste has been facing the arduous task of building a viable nation-state since the country's 2002 restoration of independence. The dual challenge consists of interdependent efforts at nation-building and state-building. The author discusses both terms with regard to their relevance to public education and economic development. He raises the question of why nation-building and state-building experience rather contrary prioritisations in these functionally close policy fields. In the educational sector, government activities demonstrate Fretilin's orientation towards Portuguese-speaking countries. The introduction of Portuguese as an official language has accentuated existing lingual and generational cleavage lines. Economic policy in Timor-Leste, however, tends to be more pragmatic and less ideological. The article aims to make an innovative contribution to the interrelationship of nation-building and economic development by addressing important issues on the agenda such as the exploitation of oil, agriculture, tourism, the economic dependency on the former oppressor Indonesia, and foreign aid. The author argues that economic growth will eventually shape the future format of the East Timorese nation as either a new self-confident political player or a withdrawn peasant nation.

scholarly journals Hooligans, Hippies, and Immature Youth: Negotiating Communist Party Narratives of May 18, 1972 in Kaunas

2012 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 147-165
Author(s):  
Amanda Jeanne Swain
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
The Political ◽  
Public Order ◽  
Motivating Factors ◽  
Political Practice ◽  
Political Dissent ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Cultural Organizations

In the aftermath of the street demonstrations in Kaunas in May 1972, Communist Party leaders developed a narrative of the events that downplayed nationalism or political dissent as motivating factors for the unrest. Initially, Soviet authorities blamed marginal elements in society, specifically hooligans and hippies, for instigating what they called a ‘disturbance of public order’. However, the demographics of participants forced Party leaders to explain why young people who were students, workers and even Komsomol members would take to the streets shouting slogans such as ‘freedom for Lithuania’ and ‘freedom for hippies’. As a result, the Communist Party focused on the failure to inculcate Soviet youth with proper ideological values, making them susceptible to manipulation by ‘hostile elements’. In doing so, Party leaders were able to use the political practice of self-criticism to keep the events of May 1972 within acceptable ideological bounds. However, the recognition of its own weaknesses did not stop the Lithuanian Communist Party from blaming other groups, such as parents, schools and cultural organizations, for failing to provide a proper upbringing for Soviet Lithuanian youth. Although cultural and intellectual organizations were only one of the factors blamed for the political immaturity of youth and their susceptibility to corrupting influences, they were the ones to suffer the consequences of the Soviet authorities’ crackdown after the street demonstrations. Through a process of applying and discarding various discursive options, Lithuanian communist officials were able to use Soviet ideological narratives to protect themselves from criticism and to eliminate disruptive cultural and intellectual leaders in Kaunas.

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