#title Anarchism, Ethnicity and Culture: The Oriental Anarch
#author Phil Dickens
#SORTauthors Phil Dickens
#SORTtopics China, Japan, Japanese anarchism, Chinese Anarchism, Korea, history
#date 1/31/2010
#source [[https://web.archive.org/web/20190509031302/https://propertyistheft.wordpress.com/2010/01/31/the-oriental-anarch/][propertyistheft.wordpress.com]]
#lang en
#pubdate 2021-09-16T06:09:18
#notes <strong>Part five in a series of articles discussing the anarchist movement as it relates to non-European peoples and cultures.</strong>


Asia is home to over half of the world’s population, with 1,338,612,968
people in the People’s Republic of China alone. As such, it represents a
vital demographic of the global working class, and one which cannot be
ignored when contemplating the history of anarchist thought and action.

*Workers Solidarity 58* provides a thorough history, reproduced
at [[https://web.archive.org/web/20190509031302/http://libcom.org/history/articles/anarchism-in-japan][LibCom]],
of the origins of anarchism in Japan;

<quote>
Today Japan brings to mind to mind high tech corporations, stressed out
primary school students and a gruelling work ethic that demands loyalty
to the company. One hundred and thirty years ago it was a very different
place, predominantly agricultural and ruled over by a feudal elite. In
1868, these rulers decided to industrialise the country and create a
highly centralised state. For this reason, the Japanese experience of
capitalism is different from that in many European countries.Here,
aristocrats were replaced (either gradually or by revolution) by a
rising class of businessmen. There, the aristocrats became the new
businessmen. The culture of feudalism wasn’t rejected and replaced,
rather it was remained and provided the background to the new society.
This meant that Japan at the turn of the century was a country that was
becoming more industrial and yet remained extremely conformist. It was
in these difficult conditions that anarchism ideas first took hold in
Japan.

The movement was to be dramatically influenced by the world wars in
which Japan played a leading part. Three phases are evident: from
1906–1911, from 1911–1936, from 1944-present day.

Ideas have to come from somewhere. In Japan anarchist ideas were first
popularised
by [[https://web.archive.org/web/20190509031302/http://libcom.org/history/articles/1871-1911-kotoko-shusui][Kotoku
Shusui]]. Born in a provincial town in 1871, he moved to Tokyo in his
teens. His political ideas developed on the pages of a number of papers
he wrote and edited. Though these early newspapers weren’t anarchist,
they were liberal enough to bring him to the notice of the authorities.
He was imprisoned in 1904 for breaking one of the many draconian press
laws. As it is for many, prison was to be his school.

There he read anarchist
communist [[https://web.archive.org/web/20190509031302/http://libcom.org/library/peter-kropotkin][Peter
Kropotkin]]‘s ‘Fields, Factories and Workshops’. In prison he also began
to consider the role of the Emperor in Japanese society. Many socialists
at the time, avoided criticising the Emperor, in contrast Kotoku began
to see how the Emperor was at the centre of both capitalism and the
power of the state in Japan.

Following his release from prison he emigrated to the USA. There he
joined the newly
formed [[https://web.archive.org/web/20190509031302/http://libcom.org/history/articles/iww-usa][Industrial
Workers of the World]] (the IWW, also known as the Wobblies), a
syndicalist trade union, strongly influenced by anarchist ideas. In the
US he had access to more anarchist literature, reading Kropotkin’s
‘[[https://web.archive.org/web/20190509031302/http://libcom.org/library/the-conquest-of-bread-peter-kropotkin][The
Conquest of Bread]]‘.

On his returned to Japan in 1906 he spoke to a large public meeting on
the ideas he had developed while in the US. A number of articles then
followed. “I hope” he wrote “that from now on the socialist movement
will abandon its commitment to a parliamentary party and will adapt its
method and policy to the direct action of the workers united as one”.
</quote>

As Shusui was familiarising himself with Kropotkin’s work, the aftermath
of
the [[https://web.archive.org/web/20190509031302/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_Rebellion][Boxer
Rebellion]] saw anarchist thought take hold in China. As Jason Adams
explains
in [[https://web.archive.org/web/20190509031302/http://raforum.info/spip.php?article3225&lang=fr][*Non-Western
Anarchisms: Rethinking the Global Context*]];

<quote>
When speaking of “Chinese anarchism” one might be tempted to think of it
as simply that which developed within the actual borders of the country.
But to do so would be to disregard the important influence migration has
had on the movement, which was quite internationalist in scope. On the
mainland, Chinese anarchist activity was concentrated primarily in the
Guangzhou region of southern China, as well as in Beijing. In Guangzhou,
Shifu was the most active and influential of the anarchists, helping to
organize some of the first unions in the country. Students from
Guangzhou formed the Truth Society, the first anarchist organization in
the city of Beijing amongst many other projects. But like other
nation-states around the world at this time, China was quickly becoming
a more dynamic, diverse nation marked deeply by the repeated invasions
of foreign powers as well as by the global migrations of it’s own
peoples. Anarchists lived and organized in Chinese communities the world
over, including Japan, France, the Philippines, Singapore, Canada and
the United States ; of these, the two most significant locations were
the diaspora communities in Tokyo and Paris.
</quote>

<quote>
Of the two, the Paris anarchists were ultimately the more influential on
a global level. Heavily influenced by their European surroundings (as
well as whatever other personal reasons brought them there), they came
to see much of China as backwards, rejecting most aspects of traditional
culture. Turning towards modernism as the answer to China’s problems,
they embraced what they saw as the universal power of science, embodied
largely in the ideas of Kropotkin. In this spirit, Li Shizeng and Wu
Zhihui formed an organization with a strong internationalist bent,
called “the World Society” in 1906 (Dirlik p. 15). In contrast the
Chinese anarchists in Tokyo were such as Liu Shipei were blatantly
anti-modernist, embracing traditional Chinese thought and customs.
Living in a different social context, for many different reasons, they
were far more heavily influenced by anarchism as it had developed in
Japan.
</quote>

Although “anarchism enjoyed a nearly universal hegemony over the
[Chinese] movement from 1905–1930,” the influence of Comintern and
neighbouring Russia meant that doctrines which espoused “the need for
centralized, absolute authority” would soon
dominate. [[https://web.archive.org/web/20190509031302/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maoism][Maoism]] quicklyestablished
itself as the dominant political force in China, and under the
authoritarianism of the “People’s Republic,” anarchism was forced
underground. A similar situation prevailed
in [[https://web.archive.org/web/20190509031302/http://libcom.org/history/1894-1931-anarchism-in-korea][Korea]].

In Japan, anarchists faced successive repressions by the state. Shusui
was one of twelve executed in 1910 after the state used the discovery of
bomb-making equipment as a pretext to suppress dissent. Japanese
imperialism in Manchuria offered the reasoning to shut down two
nationwide and highly active anarchist federations. And as a US client
after World War II, suppression of the left in general followed a
familiar format.

In India, something else entirely occurred. As Adams explains;

<quote>
Though India is located on the Western border of China, connection and
communication between the anarchisms of both are relatively unknown
since in India anarchism never really took on much of a formally named
“anarchist” nature. In India, the relevance of anarchism is primarily in
the deep influence major aspects of it had on important movements for
national and social liberation.

…

Anarchism finds its first and most well-known expression in India with
Mahatma Gandhi’s statement “the state evil is not the cause but the
effect of social evil, just as the sea-waves are the effect not the
cause of the storm. The only way of curing the disease is by removing
the cause itself” (p. 36). In other words, Gandhi saw violence as the
root of all social problems, and the state as a clear manifestation of
this violence since its authority depends on a monopoly of its
legitimate use. Therefore he held that “that state is perfect and
non-violent where the people are governed the least. The nearest
approach to purest anarchy would be a democracy based on nonviolence”
(p. 37). For Gandhi, the process of attaining such a state of total
non-violence (ahimsa) involved a changing of the hearts and minds of
people rather than changing the state which governed them. Self-rule
(swaraj) is the underlying principle that runs throughout his theory of
satyagraha. This did not mean, as many have interpreted it, just the
attainment of political independence for the Indian nation-state, but
actually, just the opposite. Instead, swaraj starts first from the
individual, then moves outward to the village level, outward further to
the national level ; the basic principal is that of the moral autonomy
of the individual above all other considerations (p. 38).

…

Gandhi’s notions of a pacifist path to swaraj were not without
opposition, even within the ranks of those influenced by anarchism.
Before 1920 a parallel, more explicitly anarchist movement was
represented by India’s anarchist-syndicalists and the seminal
independence leader, Bhagat Singh. Singh was influenced by an array of
Western anarchisms and communisms and became a vocal atheist in a
country where such attitudes were extremely unpopular. Interestingly, he
studied Bakunin intensely but though he was markedly less interested in
Marx, he was very interested in the writings of Lenin and Trotsky who
“had succeeded in bringing about a revolution in their country.” So
overall, Singh can be remembered as something of an Anarchist-Leninist,
if such a term merits use. In the history of Indian politics, Singh is
today remembered as fitting somewhere between Gandhian pacifism and
terrorism, as he actively engaged in the organization of popular
anti-colonial organizations with which to fight for the freedom of India
from British rule. However, he was also part of a milieu which Gandhi
referred to as “the cult of the bomb” — which of course he declared was
based upon Western notions of using violence as a means to attain
liberation. In response, Indian revolutionaries countered that Gandhi’s
nonviolence ideas were also of Western origin, originating from Leo
Tolstoy and therefore not authentically Indian either (Rao, 2002). It is
in fact likely that Singh was influenced by Western notions of social
change : like his Japanese counterpart Kotoku Shusui, Singh’s comrade
and mentor Kartar Singh Sarabha organized South Asian workers in San
Francisco, leading both of them to eventually commit their lives to the
liberation of Indians the world over.
</quote>

So, although “anarchist ideas (if not anarchist ideology as a whole)
played a major role in both Gandhian and Singhian movements,” there was
never any formal movement towards stateless communism. Instead, there we
saw [[https://web.archive.org/web/20190509031302/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India][partition]] between
an explicitly Islamic state (Pakistan) and an Indian state in which the
oppressive [[https://web.archive.org/web/20190509031302/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_system_in_India][caste
system]] would make hierarchy and servitude even more explicitly
hereditary than it is in the West.

In Asia, then, modern anarchist movements are hard to find. Pakistan,
riven with factionalism and caught up in a struggle between Islamism and
US imperialism, has no considerable socialist movements, let alone ones
based in anarchism. In India, even reformism is hard to come by and
struggles to make significant gains. Elsewhere, however, there are
reasons for (very) cautious optimism.

Although there still exists a Korean Anarchist Communist Federation
(KACF), it remains obscure. That Korea is split between an authoritarian
capitalist state in the south and an oppressive form of
Stalinist-feudalism in the north leaves little scope for the development
of movements seeking freedom and autonomy. This is not to say, however,
that resistance never occurs. The
recent [[https://web.archive.org/web/20190509031302/http://libcom.org/tags/ssangyong-occupation][occupation]] of
the Ssangyong car factory by workers facing redundancy shows a high
degree of worker militancy in South Korea, even if it remains tied to a
union
leadership [[https://web.archive.org/web/20190509031302/http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/aug2009/skor-a07.shtml][willing
to sell out its members]] in the name of self-interest. The existence of
a [[https://web.archive.org/web/20190509031302/http://mtuintlnews.blogspot.com/][Migrants’
Trade Union]] which is challenging the oppression of migrant labour in
the country is also a significant development. Such movements can and
should be fostered with international solidarity, but they remain a long
way from any form of open revolutionary movement.

In North Korea, we know little to nothing even of workers’ conditions,
let alone efforts to fight back. With such an absolute blackout, it is
hard to know how anarchist currents might even *begin* to take form.
Moreover, with continual pressure from the United States only furthering
the country’s aggressive isolationism, the slightest in-road even
towards basic reforms seems impossible. Nonetheless, we can be sure that
Kim Jong-Il’s “communist” monarchy is not a beneficient one, and that
solidarity with those trapped within it is vital.

LibCom adequately sums up the present situation of anarchism in Japan;

<quote>
The movement today is much smaller than before, and from the UK it is
difficult to find much English language information about them. There
are a few websites around by anarcho-syndicalists and -communists, and
some small collectives active in Kyoto, Osaka and Tokyo that we at
libcom.org know of. No doubt they face many of the same problems that we
do; how to show people that they don’t have to just make do, how to
convince people that an alternative is possible and that they have power
to create it.

Perhaps the economic turmoil that Japan is now experiencing will lead
people to criticise and reject the current system. If that happens,
hopefully Japanese anarchists will be able provide a vision of society
based on freedom and equality, begin to rebuild the movement, so once
more anarchist ideas have mass influence.
</quote>

In China, anarchism remains influential as an underground resistance
movement. Particularly, a significant underground labour movement has
developed in opposition to state repression, with one such orgainsation
being Autonomous Beijing. They, along with others, were responsible for
the short-lived uprising
in [[https://web.archive.org/web/20190509031302/http://libcom.org/library/meaning-tiananmen][Tianamen
Square]]. By neccesity, little is known of their existence and
membership, but the existence of
a [[https://web.archive.org/web/20190509031302/http://libcom.org/blog/workers-struggles-china-january-2010-16012010][continuing
run of strikes and acts of resistance]] show that they are far from
crushed. Indeed, the
recent [[https://web.archive.org/web/20190509031302/http://libcom.org/blog/update-pollution-protests-china-07092009][anti-pollution
protests]] and even
the [[https://web.archive.org/web/20190509031302/http://libcom.org/news/uyghur-commoners-against-new-enclosures-xinjiang-china-21072009][Uyghur
riots]] show that the Chinese people have the will to rise up against
the state capitalist bureaucracy which has them under its bootheel. Let
it not be said that working class resistance in China is dead and
buried.

There are other places on the Asian continent that I have not covered in
depth, such as Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, and Indonesia. The reason for
this is that little to nothing is known about the state of anarchist
movements there.

The entire Indochina region, of course, has suffered extreme violence in
the latter half of the twentieth century which makes its situation
unique. The US, of course, devestated Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos during
the [[https://web.archive.org/web/20190509031302/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indochina_Wars][Indochina
wars]] and engendered considerable political upheaval. Vietnam remains
under the grip, as China, of an authoritarian Communist government with
a [[https://web.archive.org/web/20190509031302/http://www.vietnamhumanrights.net/English/aboutus.htm][poor
human rights record]]. Laos is also a single-party Communist state.
Released from the attrocities and brutal repression of the Khmer
Rouge regime by Vietnamese intervention, Cambodia now has a
representative democracy under a constitutional monarchy. Recovery from
first US devestation then Khmer Rouge despotism has been slow but
steady, and we can but hope that as it goes on more libertarian currents
will develop in the region. Indonesia is a US client state which has
barely begun to reform since the outcry over the East Timor genocide and
the resignation of military dictator Suharto, though
the [[https://web.archive.org/web/20190509031302/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/events/indonesia/latest_news/97848.stm][popular
protests that forced his resignation]] are one sign that positive
rebellious currents may yet emerge there.

Ultimately, we can say that the future of anarchism in Asia is likely to
be as checkered as its past. However, we can hope that with
international solidarity and burgeoning recognition of the injustices
that exist across the region, some moentum can be gained by those
wishing to challenge the system and strive for liberty and equality
across the continent.