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Anyuan: Mining China's Revolutionary Tradition . By Elizabeth J. Perry . Berkeley : University of California Press , 2012. xvii, 392 pp. $75.00 (cloth); $34.95 (paper).
Book Reviews--China
In this study of revolutionary tradition in China, Elizabeth Perry successfully "brings the revolution back in" to our studies of both contemporary China and recent history. Taking the case of the famous strike and workers' organization at the Anyuan coalmines in southeast China in the 1920s, Perry articulates mid-level theory to explain the creation and durability of revolutionary tradition in Chinese politics. She offers this as a contribution to social-science explanation of the rise and longevity of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Methodologically, she argues for the centrality and usefulness of "culture" in political analysis and historical explanation. Personally, she articulates her understanding of what is legitimate, enduring, and challenging in the Chinese revolution. Throughout, Perry practices what she preaches (to younger scholars) by connecting CCP party history to social history. This is Elizabeth Perry at her best: the book achieves its aims and is a pleasure to read.
Perry tells the story of the Anyuan revolutionary tradition in two parts. The first is a political history of Communist agitation and organization in Anyuan. It offers a vivid and to some degree revisionist interpretation of the efforts of Mao Zedong (as a social movement manager), Li Lisan (as a charismatic and astonishingly effective agent provocateur), and Liu Shaoqi (as a consummate bureaucratic leader) to mobilize the thousands of lumpen proletariat digging the mines, manning the pumps, and running...