Engendering the Chinese Revolution: Radical Women, Communist Politics, and Mass Movements in the 1920s.

Recent studies have provided insightful perspectives on the ideological origins of the Chinese Communist Party (e.g., A. Dirlik, The Origins of Chinese Communism, NY: Oxford University Press, 1989) as well as on the process whereby the CCP evolved from a collection of informal study societies into a mass-based and centralized political organization (e.g., H. Van De Ven, From Friend to Comrade, Berkeley: University of California, 1991). Christina Gilmartin's study fills in a crucial gap by analyzing gender discourse and the roles of women activists during the early years of the CCP from its founding in the wake of the May Fourth Movement to the breakup of the United Front in 1927. In a well-written book Gilmartin draws our attention to the fact that the politics of gender and the mass mobilization of women were integral components of the Chinese revolution, mainly because feminist ideals first promoted at the turn of the century (and which flourished during the May Fourth Movement) had a significant influence on early CCP leaders and their policies.

Unlike European socialist parties, she argues, the early CCP was less troubled by the potential tension between class and gender issues, allowing greater scope for a women's emancipatory agenda (over which Communist women had decisive leadership) to be integrated into the party's political programme. Early CCP support for a women's programme was also facilitated by the fact that from its origins in the early years of the twentieth century Chinese feminism had always been linked to the issue of nationalism; this meant that the party was able to reach out to a wide variety of women's groups espousing anti-imperialism, regardless of their class composition. Gilmartin does not consider, however, that nationalism itself can be a site of contention (who defines the content and priorities of a nationalist agenda?) and thus does not pursue further the potential tension between nationalism and feminism (which might parallel that between Marxism and feminism). After all, recent developments in Algeria show that the meaning of Islam itself is a source of contention between feminists and Islamic fundamentalists.

Gilmartin's study is divided into two parts. The first (chapters 1-4) analyzes gender discourse amongst male Communists and the experiences of the first women activists in the party, and the second (chapters 5-7) discusses the emergence of women's mass organizations in the wake of the May Thirtieth Movement in 1925; the contribution of women's mobilization campaigns during the Northern Expedition; and the gender policies of the left-wing Guomindang government in Wuhan. Admitting that participants in early Communist gender discourse were overwhelmingly male, Gilmartin makes the crucial point that commitment to women's emancipation (as part of the party's overall programme of social transformation), one result of which was to give the party the image of a haven for those wishing to escape the shackles of traditional family life, was often undercut by patriarchal assumptions and gender hierarchy within the party itself. Gilmartin's assertion, however, that women themselves participated in the defining of their second class status because they "could not break through the psychological and tangible barriers to their assuming more egalitarian political roles inside the party" (p. 113) is unconvincing. Since so few female voices were heard in this early gender discourse we simply do not know definitively whether this was true or not. Despite these handicaps Gilmartin convincingly demonstrates the growing importance of mass mobilization efforts amongst women after May Thirtieth, beginning in Guangdong and culminating during the period of the left-wing GMD government at Wuhan. During its brief period of existence the Wuhan government pursued "gender transformatory policies" (p. 183) that included the granting of extensive marriage, inheritance and legal rights. The end of the United Front brought with it a ferocious and barbaric backlash against activist women, now perceived as the symbols of a world "turned upside down." Henceforth the GMD would promote traditional virtues of"feminine" gentility and submissiveness, while the CCP would increasingly downplay the importance of gender exploitation in favour of the class revolution. As Gilmartin notes in her conclusion, the revolution of the mid-1920s represented the most comprehensive attempt to alter gender relations in the twentieth century, and her study is thus a significant contribution to a key aspect of early Communist history often overlooked in the past.

PAUL BAILEY University of Edinburgh, Scotland