New York: Columbia University Press, 2020, 416 pp. US$35.00, paper, ISBN 978-0-231-19527-0.
Though the concluding chapter of To the End of Revolution focuses on the escape of the Dalai Lama from Lhasa in 1959, the book represents an important contribution to understanding the current and pending crises of autonomous governance in Tibet. By extension, the book will help us better understand the even more serious impasse in neighbouring Xinjiang. Readers should not get the wrong impression from the introduction, which contrasts the “Sinocentric approach” of the author to the “Tibetocentric approach” of Melwyn Goldstein’s multivolume History of Modern Tibet. Along with Tsering Shakya’s The Dragon in the Land of Snows, also pointedly referenced, the analysis of Liu’s study is in all respects compatible with these two authoritative histories, truly an example of training converging lenses on this great turning point. The three works should be read together, in parallel. The “Sinocentric approach” that we will consider in this review stems from the analysis of primary sources that the field research focused on: government and party archives recently opened and still available.
A major theme turns on the agrarian question. In explaining the widespread resistance to the revolutionary land distribution programs, in many sections of the book, the word “reform” is placed in quotes, suggesting that landless peasants and serfs may have viewed “land reform” differently from what we might expect. We assume, correctly, that the dire conditions of their pre-capitalist oppression should have rallied them to a campaign to relieve unpayable debt and receive title. But the official government version of overriding commitment to their faith and loyalty to the monastery doesn’t appear as a convincing explanation to account for the scale of the resistance. The brutal 1957–1958 “reform war” (the author’s term) in the Tibetan prefectures of Sichuan, Qinghai, and Gansu Provinces coincided with the Anti-Rightist Campaign, prelude to the all-out collectivization of the Great Leap Forward/Great Famine. Thus, there is a hint, aside from the extraordinarily high casualty rate (115–118, 248–252), of what the defining features of the Tibetan “reform war” east of the Jinsha River might have consisted of. In addition, future studies might be able to shed more light on the exact nature of the transition from so-called “democratic reform” (distribution to landless peasants and serfs, a capitalist-democratic revolution stage) to collectivization (socialist revolution stage). Was there in practice an actual separation between the former and the latter? Were there reports that circulated of the violent land reform/collectivization of 1949–1953 carried out in the eastern provinces, then becoming part of both elite classes’ and common peoples’ expectations in the Tibetan areas? When the turn of the national minorities came, did party cadres, in effect, implement land redistribution in the Tibetan prefectures that utilized methods similar to the radical class-war campaigns of the initial revolutionary years? The stark depictions in chapters 3 and 6 suggests that there is more to the story than meets the eye, and it will require difficult research to reconstruct and complete based on accessible archival data.
For this reviewer, the account of the fast-moving events culminates in chapter 4, which presents evidence showing how the CCP distorted the historical record on the Dalai Lama’s efforts throughout the 1950s to achieve genuine collaboration between the central government and Tibetan society in line with the Seventeen Point Agreement of 1951 recognizing Chinese sovereignty. The most telling distortion appears in the official version of the return journey of the Tibetan delegation from Beijing in 1955, in which the delegation is accused of inciting rebellion in western Sichuan Province. Close examination of the available documents (150–164) shows how preposterous the claim reveals itself to be, having taken shape after 1959 and in direct contradiction to on-the-ground reports at the time from CCP observers who accompanied the delegation. A careful representation of events during the entire decade can point to few other Tibetan leaders who worked more consistently in favour of reform, cooperation, and integration up through to the days of the Lhasa uprising, to his last day at the Norbulingka Palace, March 17, 1959, when the decision was made to flee into exile. The falsification of history on this point of fact finds its counterpart in the Chinese government’s current denial of the Dalai Lama’s public stance in favour of autonomy, its actual implementation, and dialogue (the so-called “Third Way” proposal). The CCP continues to misrepresent the Tibetan proposal as “splitist” (favouring independence), effectively blocking discussion on questions of autonomous region culture and language.
Chapter 6 and the epilogue present the problem of explaining how the final breakdown between Beijing and Lhasa occurred in March of 1959. It remains largely unrepaired to this day. From the regime’s perspective, all appearances suggested that it was willing to postpone radical transformation within the autonomous-region-to-be. For their part, most of the central religious authorities, followers of both the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama, and the majority of their allies among the political and social elites, had shown a willingness to fully cooperate with a gradual reform. In fact, far from leasing a struggle for independence, they not only distanced themselves from the mass rebellions in the provinces but actively worked to prevent similar uprisings in central Tibet. It is as if the inexorable logic of socialist revolution (not coincidentally, in sharp display that year), and its consequences foreseen—somehow—by the broad layers of Tibetan society, hastened the confrontation that the leaders on both sides could not forestall. In addition, for Beijing, an aspect of the inescapable logic and calculation of consolidating revolutionary power in Asia resided along its border with India (298–301).
This study offers new historical evidence for us to consider as we think of a pathway for solving the very hard problem of democratization in China in the coming years. The strong suggestion is that the part that corresponds to the Tibetan people cannot be conceived of as separate from the rest of China.
Norbert Francis
Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff