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Title: Li Shizeng (1881–1973) Author: Daniel Cairns Date: 2011 Language: en Topics: anarchist biography, biography, Chinese Anarchism, China Source: *The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest*, Edited by Immanuel Ness. DOI: 10.1002/9781405198073.wbierp1790
Li Shizeng was a Chinese anarchist, educator, and Guomindang
(Kuomintang) member. He spent the most notable years of his life
publishing anarchist materials in France and initiating the Work-Study
Movement. Born into a wealthy and respected family, he was son to an
advisor to the Tongzhi emperor; prestigious careers beckoned. En route
to study biology at the Pasteur Institute in Paris in 1902, Li met Wu
Zhihui, henceforth his lifelong comrade. In 1906 they founded the first
Chinese anarchist organization, the New World Society. Soon afterwards
this group began publication of Xin Shiji (New Era), which ran for three
years, an exceptional span for a Chinese periodical of the time. The
journal, to which Li contributed his gifts as a writer, translator, and
editor, focused on translating anarchist texts and criticizing Manchu
rule. This led the editorship to become involved with other anti-Manchu
groups such as the Revolutionary Alliance and Guomindang. Despite other
anarchists’ criticism, Li suspended his suspicions of political parties
when working with the Guomindang.
The most notable product of anarchist–Guomindang cooperation, the
National Labor University, was a project with a distinctly
working-class, anti-authoritarian, even subversive bent. Other
innovative syntheses of anarchism and education in which Li participated
included the Frugal Study Society of 1912, the Diligent Work-Frugal
Study Society of 1915, and the Sino-French Educational Association of
1916. These formed part of the Work-Study Movement, a scheme to bring
gifted Chinese students to France where they would study science and
humanism, support themselves through hard work and anarchist
conviviality, and ultimately become the next generation of revolutionary
leaders. Indeed, when hard times hit the students in Paris – as in 1921,
when the formal organizations could not support them all – students
spontaneously banded together in “mutual aid groups” inspired by Li’s
teachings.
For Li, anarchism was a moral philosophy linked to western scientific
and humanistic principles. Trained as a biologist, he showed great
interest in Darwin and the anarchist Kropotkin, whose Mutual Aid offered
a corollary and supplement to Darwinism. It was Jacques Reclus,
grand-nephew of anarchist scientist Elisée Reclus, who introduced Li to
anarchism. Li’s anarchist revolutionary writings, therefore, emphasized
modern ideas against traditional Chinese beliefs. Furthermore, he
despised drawing parallels between Daoism and anarchism. Anarchism for
him was scientific, Daoism obscurantist; they were polar opposites. He
opposed the Confucian tradition of the patriarchal family as sexist,
authoritarian, and unhealthy.
Li’s contributions to anarchist literature were inspiring to a
generation of Chinese radicals. As examples, the novelist Ba Jin decided
to dedicate his life to the anarchist movement after reading Kropotkin’s
“An Appeal to the Young,” which Li translated into Chinese, and Shifu,
China’s revolutionary paragon, converted to anarchism after reading New
Era while in prison.
In the 1920s, Li became a member of the Central Supervisory Committee of
the Guomindang, seemingly abandoning anti-parliamentarism. In his later
years, he retired to Taiwan and Uruguay.
Bailey, P. (1988) The Chinese Work-Study Movement in France. China
Quarterly 115: 441–61.
Chan, M. K., & Dirlik, A. (1992) Schools into Fields and Factories:
Anarchists, the Guomindang, and the National Labor University in
Shanghai, 1927–1932. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Dirlik, A. (1991) Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Levine, M. (1993) The Found Generation. Seattle: University of
Washington Press.
Li S., & Chu M. (1907) Geming [Revolution]. Paris: Xin shiji congshu.
Zarrow, P. (1990) Anarchism and Chinese Political Culture. New York:
Columbia University Press.