Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2022. xviii, 186 pp. (Maps.) US$60.00, cloth; US$60.00, ebook. ISBN 9781503632363.
Brian DeMare’s newest book, Tiger, Tyrant, Bandit, Businessman: Echoes of Counterrevolution from New China, tells a story of how the power of the newly established state of the People’s Republic of China (PRC, 1949–present) reached an unremarkable rural area, Poyang, Jiangxi Province, in the immediate wake of its founding. To crack down on all manner of enemies of the new regime—the “tiger,” the “tyrant,” and the “bandit”—the PRC state launched various grassroots-level political campaigns and created a “dual-track legal system”: the “People’s Court” for common criminals and the “People’s Tribunal” for political foes (18, author’s italics). In this small but quite ambitious book, DeMare attempts to address a series of issues of great significance in the opening years of the PRC, such as land reform, changing patterns of local governance, the labelling of Chinese citizens based on their class backgrounds, and the legal system, to present a vivid picture of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) strenuous state-building effort.
To illustrate the PRC state’s penetration of the local society in midcentury China, the book pieces together four legal cases the author gleaned from archival sources. Case file 1 is about a violent clash between Big Swords, a local secret society, and the work team of the CCP. Though labelled as “a reactionary secret society” (29) by the Communist government, Big Swords was a typical local organization that functioned “as a form of mutual aid” (28) for a long while and had played a vital role in the governance of rural China before 1949. Case file 2 centres on Big Tiger, a highly influential and reputable figure who contributed to maintaining the “old order”—the sociopolitical order in pre-1949 China—at the local level. The activism of Big Tiger, an important member of “the extended Li family” (57), before the CCP’s arrival, sheds light on the local elites’ mode of control over rural society. People like Big Tiger played a role as the agents of the local, non-governmental authorities. However, the CCP authorities sought to annihilate the agents of the old elites by categorizing them as landlords or “true class enemies” (69). As a consequence of the suppression of Big Tiger and his like, the old order “[was] rapidly losing power” (66).
The third case file confirms that it was land reform that “truly cemented Communist power in the countryside” (86). Before the coming of the Communists, the rural area of Poyang was by and large in the hands of powerful clans (84). However, the CCP managed to bring its state power “to the grassroots in a manner unimaginable in earlier regimes” via mass participation political campaigns (86). The struggle between the old order and the “new order”—the sociopolitical order in the PRC—was waged not only militarily but also culturally. Both the anti-CCP activists and the Communists resorted to performing arts as a means of mobilizing the local population (93). The final case file revolves around Merchant Zha, who possessed multiple identities, such as banker, military liaison man, and comrade of the Party. Merchant Zha’s checkered history reveals that the new Communist regime was in dire need of “literate citizens to help manage New China” despite their untidy backgrounds (112).
The four stories supplied by the author result from his meticulous research of archival documents. More importantly, DeMare provides reflexive thoughts on the use of archives to write history on various occasions in this book. In his words, “[t]he way from archive to history is not a fixed path” (131). Throughout the book, the author is puzzled and troubled by the inaccuracies, inconsistency, and incompletion of such documents. Thus, DeMare’s effort to construct a narrative about the interactions between the aggressive PRC state and the local society enables those who are interested in archival research to arrive at a deeper understanding of the advantage as well as limitations of archives in historical studies. In my view, the self-contradictory and fragmented information provided by the archival documents the author has to cope with can be remedied by further investigation into local publications and oral historical research. It seems to me that the limited scope of the author’s research restrains him from adopting other methodologies. Also, some of the author’s observations are not completely accurate. For example, when discussing the arbitrariness of the class label of Big Tiger in the third case file, the author emphasizes that categorizing Big Tiger as a landlord was not justifiable because “[b]y definition, landlords didn’t engage in any labor,” whereas Big Tiger had been a labouring farmer (58). While I agree that boundaries of various classes were highly fluid and artificially drawn under the CCP’s rule in the early years of the PRC, it is worth mentioning that class categorization was mainly based on the possession of means of production but not labour.
Although I have raised some questions, Tiger, Tyrant, Bandit, Businessman is an exemplary work of microhistory. By highlighting ordinary people’s lived experiences in an insignificant place in southern China, the book provides a gripping account of the new PRC state’s success in creating a new order at a critical juncture of modern Chinese history. As a well-written and thought-provoking book with a great deal of interesting and intriguing details, it will certainly appeal to any readers interested in Chinese history or trying to understand the seismic change in twentieth-century China. In particular, it can be assigned as supplementary reading for undergraduate students taking Chinese or East Asian history courses.
Qiliang He
Hong Kong Shue Yan University, Hong Kong