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2018
ВЕСТНИК САНКТ-ПЕТЕРБУРГСКОГО УНИВЕРСИТЕТА ВОСТОКОВЕДЕНИЕ И АФРИКАНИСТИКА
Т. 10. Вып. 2
ИСТОРИЯ НАУКИ
UDC 94(510)
Life and scientific work of outstanding Chinese sociologist Fei Xiaotong
L. S. Veselova1, N. Liu2
1 St. Petersburg State University, 7-9, Universitetskaya nab., St. Petersburg, 199034, Russian Federation
2 Peking University, Yiheyuan Road No. 5, Haidian District, Beijing Municipality, 100871, P. R. C.
For citation: Veselova L. S., Liu N. Life and scientific work of outstanding Chinese sociologist Fei Xiaotong. Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Asian and African Studies, 2018, vol. 10, issue 2, pp. 269-284. https://doi.org/10.21638/11701/spbu13.2018.210
Fei Xiaotong (ШФШ) (2 November 1910 — 24 April 2005) was the prominent anthropologist and sociologist of China. He was one of the first sociologists and anthropologists who
conducted anthropological studies of the life of Chinese society. He was a political journalist
and a "cultural intermediary" who published articles about the West in Chinese in China, and about China in English in the West. Fei Xiaotong's career was full of ups and downs that were associated with the political situation in the country. Finally, after 1978 and starting of the period of Economic Reform and Openness he could re-enter public and scientific life, and officially became a respected academic and a public intellectual which dedicated all his life to the investigation of Chinese society and social problems. For many people, Fei Xiaotong's works became the first sources, from which it was possible to obtain various information about the Chinese village. His works made us think about the laws of social development and on what methods they should be studied. He believed that it was necessary not only to develop sociology but to go its way, to strive to develop Chinese sociology with all its specifics. Fei Xiaotong devoted his entire life to studying Chinese society and the changes taking place in it. The main stimulus that inspired him all his life was the hope that the Chinese peasants will live better and better, and with them, China will become stronger and more prosperous state. Keywords: Fei Xiaotong, Chinese sociology, History of China, prominent persons of the PRC.
Since the 1890's the Chinese had been actively studying foreign philosophy to understand which forces endorsed the power of foreign countries. In 1905 Chinese imperial examinations were cancelled, which caused serious changes to the Chinese system
of education. China initiated an active period of translating foreign literature, many Chinese had a chance to study abroad, new foreign subjects began to open in schools and colleges. In 1911, after the Xinhai Revolution and the overthrow of the last imperial
© Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет, 2018
Qing dynasty, political, social and economic changes began. In 1912-1949 the intellectual climate had sharply intensified and there appeared a tendency to use Western ideas and study Western philosophy. It was also stimulated by the activity of foreigners in China, whose number sharply increased after the defeat of China in the Opium Wars (1840-1842, 1856-1860). Unequal treaties concluded at the end of the Opium Wars made foreigners into a privileged class. In the 1930s most of the population of China was represented by peasants, and yet annually from a population of 400-500 million only 10 000 people could receive higher education. Those who received education abroad and then returned to China were considered to be the most influential elite. Undoubtedly, most of these students were children of Chinese gentry, officials who had received education before the abolition of state examinations.
In 1919, in China, in Beijing, a mass anti-imperialist activity started, called the "May 4 Movement", which arose in the aftermath of the October Revolution in Russia. The reason was the decision of the Paris Peace Conference not to return to China the former German concessions in Shandong Province, which had been previously seized by the Japanese. Many Chinese regarded this as a betrayal of China's national interests by corrupt figures in the Beijing government. The students' movement began to enjoy influx of workers, urban middle class, as well as petty bourgeoisie. The centre of the movement moved from Beijing to Shanghai, where it was joined by 50-70 thousand workers and almost all traders. The Beijing government was forced to declare their non-recognition of the Treaty of Versailles and dismiss the most compromised public officials. The "May 4 Movement" accelerated the spread of Marxism in China and marked a turn in the views of the Chinese intellectuals. A mass reorientation from traditional Chinese culture to that of the West began. Due to the "May 4 Movement" the spoken "baihua" language started to spread in China, the Confucian ethical norms were revised; traditional historiography came in for a lot of criticism, new requirements for education appeared, etc. The facts mentioned above give an idea of the internal situation in China when Fei Xiaotong was born. It is important to understand that he was born in time, when the country experienced profound political, economic and social changes.
The purpose of the article is to identify Fei's contribution to Chinese sociology and social anthropology. Fei Xiaotong's scientific works were devoted to the three most important tasks of social science in China. They closely connected with the most important directions of the development of Chinese society. The first group of ideas was associated with the formulation of tasks and the definitions of possible ways to modernize China. The second group had everything to do with the study of the processes taking place amongst rural population, including members of Chinese rural communities, in economic and social relations between communities, kinship relations, as well as in other new forms of social organization amongst rural population. The third was devoted to the study of national minorities. These three areas of research on the development of society and culture determined the main directions of social science growth in China, which have remained relevant in Chinese sociology until today.
Early years of Fei Xiaotong
Fei Xiaotong was born in a family of an official in a small town in Jiangsu Province. His great-grandfather owned a large plot of land in Wujiang (^tt^), which he inherited,
but because of mismanagement, he soon went bankrupt and in 1900 sold the land. His grandfather was an educated man and the first member of the family who received the degree of civil service official j§). He lived in the small town of Tonglizhen M®) in Wujiang County [1, p. 2-4].
Fei Xiaotong's father Fei Puan was born in 1879, he received good educa-
tion and like his father before him passed the exams and became a civil service degree holder. After the father's death Puan married Yang Renlan who was a daughter
of his father's friend Yang Dunyi Yang Dunyi, likewise, was an educated person
and an official of higher rank, eligible for office. He worked as a deputy director of schools in the Dantu district, as well as in a commercial publication in Shanghai. He had 11 children, each of whom could get a good education. Yang Dunyi died in 1928, when Xiaotong was 18 years old [2, p. 2-12].
Xiaotong's mother was an educated woman, she taught Chinese in a modern school, which her father had opened. Moreover, under the influence of her sisters and because of her communication with an American Presbyterian missionary doctor J. R. Wilkinson, she adopted Christianity. The wedding of Puan and Renlan took place in 1900, they had 5 children: 4 sons and 1 daughter. Xiaotong was the youngest of the sons. All their children could achieve a high position, many graduated abroad. In 1905 after the state examinations were abolished in China, Puan received a chance to study in Japan, which he fulfilled by going there with his wife. After their return, he left with his family in Wujiang County, where he taught at school, while his wife had opened a kindergarten and worked there [1, p. 4-5].
Xiaotong was born November 2, 1910, a year before the Xinhai Revolution, which overthrew the last Chinese emperor of the Qing dynasty. He spent the first 10 years of his life in the county seat of Wujiang. From 1916-1920 Xiaotong went to the local elementary school (^ff^^J^ [2, p. 17]. In that period the schedule of an elementary school in China included the 8-14 hours a week curriculum of the Chinese language, composition and calligraphy, 4-6 hours of arithmetic, and 2-3 hours of ethics. Other subjects taught at school comprised history of China, geography, physics, drawing, singing, etc. In the 6-7th grade they began to teach a foreign language, most often English. Xiaotong's most favourite subject was history of the county; according to Fei, it was then that that lesson had made such a strong impression on him that later he wanted to return and study the history of his region [1, p. 6].
In 1920 Xiaotong's family moved to Suzhou. Xiaotong's mother did not want him to attend an ordinary school so he started to study in a well-known Zhenhua Girl's School for the upper primary grades (tt^^ft). It is very unusual that Xiaotong studied at a girls' school. However, the explanation is quite simple: his grandfather was a good friend of school principals, the Wang sisters. Moreover, when the grandfather and his family moved to Shanghai, he donated all his library to their school. That is why as a token of gratitude, Xiaotong was admitted to this school. He graduated in 1923 and from 1924 to 1928 he studied in a middle school attached to the Suzhou University ffijM^^^^M—PftM [2, p. 19-23]. All these years, Fei studied in schools and institutes that were founded by American Protestant missionaries. It should be noted right away that despite the alien religious affiliation of his mother, neither Xiaotong's father, nor he himself was a Christian. Xiaotong studied in missionary schools and universities not for religious reasons. In the 1920s the main task of these educational institutions was furtherance of European
science and Western subjects in the curriculum, while special emphasis was also placed on learning English.
University education and the formation of individual scholarly views
At the beginning Fei Xiaotong determined to study medicine but changed his dedication when in 1930 he was enrolled at Yenching University in Beijing, to the Faculty of Sociology [1, p. 7-10]. The Faculty of Sociology at the Yenching University was one of the best in China. The University was established in 1916 by the Methodists, the Congregational and Presbyterian schools and the London Missionary Society [1, p. 10].
The President of the University was a Chinese missionary educator John Leighton Stuart (1876-1962). The university was "very American": the campus itself was designed by an American architect, most of the teachers were Americans, most of the courses were in English. It is no wonder that Fei Xiaotong chose sociology as a specialty, because at that time Chinese students tried to concentrate more on Western science and new ideas.
Chinese sociologist, anthropologist and ethnologist Wu Wenzao was Fei's principal mentor at Yenching University. Wu Wenzao was a prominent scientist in 1928 he got his PhD at Columbia University. Having studied abroad, in 1929 he came back to China and started to teach courses on principles of sociology, evolution and social theory, a course on the family, etc. Fei Xiaotong attended all the lectures of Wu Wenzao, and despite the fact, that the Wu was only 9 years older than Fei and wrote very little, Fei Xiatong found him an inspiring teacher. Wu taught Fei Xiaotong Western sociological theory [1, p. 30].
At that time, the University employed a famous Chicago sociologist Robert Park (1864-1944), who had a great influence on Fei's ideology [2, p. 45-49]. In China Park taught collective behaviour and conducted seminars on social research. Park was famous for his course entitled "Introduction to the Science of Sociology", which was published in 1921 and was well known both in China and in the United States. He influenced Fei, forcing him to abandon the library-based historical research on which he concentrated in college. While Park did encourage Xiaotong to study society, it was not based on quantitative research methods, but through live communication. Park considered truth to exist outside the library and only in the field. Society is a living organism, which has a tendency to change and develop, and it is impossible to receive updated information only reading the books and exploring old materials in the library. With his own example Park showed how to make research and surveys, he personally visited Beijing prisons and the red-light districts [1, p. 31-36].
In the early articles of Fei Xiayong one will detect the influence of Park's urban sociologist's interests and the theory of "social roles". For example, in the article "City and country in the study of social change" [3] which was published in 1933, Fei, reflecting Park's ideas, argues that it is important to study cities, not the countryside, to understand the social changes. He considers that villagers adopt all new ideas from the city — after visiting it for a while, they come back home with a new attitude. Theory of "social roles" put forward by Parsons also found reflection in Fei's article "Social organization" [4], which was published in 1934. The idea of "social roles" seems similar to Confucius's ideas of social morality, which means that the social role of every person is fixed by tradition, by the shared history of the society. Fei considered that we know the behaviour of oth-
er people and we can know what they will do, because all people live in one society and it is impossible to live apart from others, so it is necessary to set a form of behaviour for oneself.
In 1933 Fei graduated from Yenching University, his BA thesis dedicated to the old Chinese wedding custom, when the groom goes to fetch the bride, a tradition being practiced in some areas of China only. The title of the thesis was "^^Mf&^W^", of which a translation is «An examination of qin-ying custom" [1, p. 36]. After graduation, he began to actively publish articles, for example, he published a translation into Chinese of an American article written by F. H. Hakins "Franklin Henry Giddings,1885-1931; some aspects of his sociological theory" [5]. He also wrote the essay «Basic differences in the sociological theories of Park and Giddings» [6], in which he compared the sociological theories of Park and Giddings.
While at Yenching University Fei started to develop an interested to anthropology, but at that time in China, there were no anthropology faculties except Tsinghua University in Beijing. Therefore, after graduation, Xiaotong passed the exams and entered the Tsinghua University. His mentor was a Russian anthropologist Sergei Mikhailovich Shirokogorov. Shirokogorov for a long time worked in St. Petersburg, from 1912-1917 he made several trips to Siberia, Mongolia and Manchuria, where he conducted field research. After the revolution of 1917, he left Russia and went to China, where he began to conduct courses in English. Shirokogorov studied the social structures of various societies, believing that a social organization is the result of adaptation to surrounding conditions that allows a society to survive. Shirokogorov directed Fei in a slightly different direction from the study of culture, namely, to the anthropological tradition of studying races and physical anthropology. For example, under his influence for his master's work, Fei conducted physical measurements of criminals in Beijing prisons, trying to understand what type of appearance is more criminally suggestive [1, p. 36-40].
In 1935, Fei Xiaotong received his master's degree in sociological anthropology; his final work was done in English and was called «Anthropology of Korea (An Analysis based on T. Kubo's Anthropometric Material and a Preliminary Analysis of the Anthropology of Hopei Criminals» [2, p. 67]. It was the first time somebody received Master's Degree in Anthropology at the Faculty of Sociology of Tsinghua University, and in the same year, after a big contest, he won the Boxer Indemnity Scholarship Program for further study abroad, because Chinese universities could not award the Doctors of Science degree. According to the scholarship's conditions he had to spend a year of field research before leaving China [1, p. 40]. 1 August 1935 Fei Xiaotong married a third-year student of the Faculty of Sociology of Yenching University Wang Tonghui (I ^ ¡8).
In the same year another project was launched, namely, a project sponsored by the Education Department of the Guanxi provincial government, to study the Yao minority. The Yao is a non-Han people, and a large number of them lived in Guanxi province. Government needed to understand the situation of major minorities, for it should have helped in developing minority educational program. Fei, together with his wife, went to investigate the Yao aborigines and their physical parameters into remote mountains in Guangxi Province. However, because of the accident, Fei Xiaotong's wife died in the mountains, and he himself was seriously injured.
Fei Xiaotong suffered a heavy loss of his wife and blamed himself for her death. To recover from this tragedy physically and mentally, to cope with grief, he decided to immerse himself in work and went to the second field study to the village of Kaixiangong (^ ^
^) in his native Wujiang county, where at that time his sister Dasheng resided. The sister drew Xiaotong's attention to the problems of the Chinese village. Under her influence, he moved from Aboriginal studies to investigating the problems of Chinese peasantry.
His sister was a specialist from a sericulture school outside Suzhou. Dasheng passed an annual internship in Japan and knew the methods of unwinding the silk thread efficiently, so she taught these methods during practical courses in this girls' school. She tried to insert new modern method to silk industry and explain to the local silk-producing industry all the benefits of a silk co-operative. In the late period of the Qing dynasty, China lost the monopoly on production of silk, as masters from Japan and Italy found the technology of how to winnow out the eggs of diseased silkworms. If in the 1890's more than 60 % of the supply of silk to European countries was from China, in the early 1900's this figure dropped to 10 % [1, p. 69-70]. Dasheng supported the idea of Xiaotong that educated and rich people have a responsibility to develop economic welfare of peasants.
While conducting research on the village of Kaixiangong Fei used the "community study" method he believed that it is better to investigate small groups of peo-
ple, for example, residents of one village or region. However, he did not trust the statistical information, believing that it does not reflect the real state. He believed that it is better to study not certain aspects of the life of society, such as rituals, beliefs, education, etc but to study everything together, considering your subject a single system [1, p. 58-59].
The population of the village was 1458 people, most were farmers, who during the summer season grew rice, and in winter wheat and rape. The other part of population were fishermen, and women who didn't grow crops were engaged in rearing silkworms. 70 % of the peasants were tenants, they paid more than 40 % of their rice crop as rent to their landlords. Landlords didn't live in the village and didn't care about the farmers, but they regularly sent their people to receive the rent. The results received during the field work, became the base for his PhD thesis and the book "Peasant Life in China: A Field Study of Country Life in the Yangtze Valley". The main purpose of the work is to show the relationship between the economic system and specific geographical settings, as well as to outline the social structure of Chinese rural society [1, p. 77-79]. Fei understood the rural economic decline, he appealed to discontinue the land rent or to reduce its burden, also explaining that the land reform was necessary for Chinese peasantry. This study was the first attempt of an anthropological and sociological research of Chinese peasants' life. Fei was the first Chinese scientist who applied anthropological field techniques to complex societies, in his analyses always relying on field work or observations.
Fei Xiaotong decided to use the Boxer Indemnity Scholarship Program and from October 1936 to June 1938 he began to study at the London School of Economics and Political Sciences, where his scientific advisor was a famous British anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski. It should be mentioned, that it was professor Wu Wenzao who helped Fei connect with Malinowski. Wu Wenzao was responsible for inviting the famous foreign sociologist to come with lectures to the Yenching University. For example, he had invited Park to teach in China. In 1935 Wu Wenzao met Malinowski and told him about his talented student Fei Xiaotong. Malinowski was interested in Fei's sociological work, so he agreed to supervise him during the time of fellowship.
Fei considered that the works of Malinowski were significant for sociology, so later in 1987 he translated into Chinese the main work of Malinowski's "Scientific Theory of Culture" [7].
In 1938 Xiatong returned to China, where at that time the war with Japan was raging. He went to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province, where he joined his old teacher Wu Wenzao. At that time, Kunming was the intellectual centre of free China. Beijing was occupied by the Japanese, so Wu Wenzao with the help of Rockefeller funds decided to create a sociological research centre at the Yunnan National Library. This centre was called Yenching-Yunnan Station for Sociological Research. Professor Wu started it with several young sociologists from Yenching University. He invited Xiaotong to work as assistant professor in the sociology department of Yunnan University.
In 1939 Fei Xiaotong was married again, his wife's name was Meng Yin. One year after his only daughter Zhonghui was born. His second wife was of rural background and less educated, but what he appreciated in her most of all were simplicity and "near to the soil" [1, p. 98]. In 1941 Fei became a full-time professor and a chairman in the Yunnan University. At the same time, Fei Xiaotong became field director of the Yenching-Yunnan Station for the Sociological Research when Wu Wenzao went to Chongqing.
In the Yunnan Fei continued his field work and undertook another study of the village. This time it was an isolated village in Lufeng county, which was not far from Kunming. He wrote about it under the fictional name Lucun. He went to this village several times. In 1939 another Chinese sociologist Zhang Ziyi also assisted him. As
Zhang Ziyi was also interested in village studies, he supported ideas of Fei Xiaotong. Two of his village studies were later translated by Fei Xiaotong and published in "Earthbound China". It was Fei who encouraged Zhang to study the relationship between the rural industry and tenancy. In Lucun village studied by Fei there was no handicraft industry, so he proposed to Zhang to study Yicun village and Yucun village [1, p. 84]. Fei Xiaotong believed that for the country it is important to revive and develop rural industry, accordingly, he proclaimed that all handicrafts needed modernization. He considered that new machines and devices should be implemented, for rural industry to become competitive.
In January 1940, he published his new study, which received the prize of the Ministry of Education of China, and soon it was printed an English version of the study [1, p. 80]. In Lucun village he realized that the main problem of Chinese village is overpopulation, there were too many people for such land size. One of the reasons was the habit of the wealthy to have a lot of sons, which led to the situation that in several generations the population was too big for the land which can be used for agriculture. At the same time, as research showed, because of primitive technologies the Chinese village needed this big amount of population, because in the busiest period in spring when it was needed to harvest and at the same time to prepare field for the new harvest, villagers could use more labour force. In 1940, he published an article "Villages of the interior" (^ffi^^i) about the problem of overpopulation, for which he was criticized by the Nationalist's government (government encouraged births as a way to strengthen China), and a magazine which published the article was banned [1, p. 163]. In that article he considered that the biggest problem was the cultural border, because rural workers with their habits and attitude didn't understand the changing economy. For example, he suggested that factory work was not efficient, because they do not rest in a proper way [1, p. 131]. In "Villages of the interior" Fei wrote that urbanization could help to reveal the village, because it would provide additional jobs for the peasants. But later in 1946 in his article "Human nature and the machine — the future of China's handicraft industries" (AttfP^^-^H^I which he wrote together with Zhang Ziyi, Zhang Luoqun and Yuan Fang wrote
that it would not solve the problem, because for the population of China big cities would be needed, construction of would take years. Urbanization also could lead to decline of handicraft and peasants' welfare [1, p. 164].
In 1942 Fei together with some other outstanding Chinese scholars was invited to visit the USA, as part of the scientific program of the State Department's Division of Cultural Relations. The main purpose of the visit was to make institutional contacts with American colleagues. During his visit of the USA from June 1943 to July 1944 Fei spent time translating his works into English and cooperating with American sociologists, for example, Ralph Linton (1893-1953), Robert Redfield (1897-1958), William Ogburn (1886-1959) and others. During this period, Fei translated into English his and Zhang Ziyi's research of the Yunnan villages, and published it at University of Chicago Press and the name "Earth-bound China". He did his best to receive financial help to Zhang Ziyi research of rural economics, and wanted Zhang to come to the USA.
Fei Xiaotong made everything for prominent American sociologist Robert Redfield to come to China. He solved all the issues with sponsors to receive money for his Research Station and helped to arrange all the documents so Chinese government let Redfield to come to China for research. Also, he himself raised money for his Research Station, helped University of Chicago to receive grant for studying Chinatowns and make research of Chinese students who study abroad etc [1, p. 107-109]. His impression and his thoughts of America were then published in series of publications named "Human feelings and international relations — letters from America" (AfW^^^-^^^is) in The Kunming Weekly. Because of his publications in newspapers and magazines he became famous among the educated public. The most important was that Fei realized that China needed its own way of modernization but could not follow in the footsteps of the USA.
After returning to China in 1944, he had no time to do the fieldwork. Later Fei with his family moved to the Yunnan University campus, having taken the post of a full professor of social anthropology and the head of sociology department. After the end of the Sino-Japanese war in 1945 Fei Xiatong received a position in the Tsinghua University, where he taught several courses. He was really interested in exploring rural life of Chinese peasants, and at that time he published "Villages inside the country" («^ffi^^i») (1946), "Fertility system" («^Wt'Jfi») (1947), "From the Soil" «^±^0» (1948), "Village reconstruction" («^±MS») (1948) and some more articles on this topic [8, p. 4].
It should be mentioned that Fei Xiaotong was not the member of the CCP, but was a pro-CCP intellectual. Fei was a member of the Democratic League. In 1944, Fei refused to join the League, whose branch in Kunming included more than 200 members, most of whom were academics. The reason was his dislike of the branch leader Luo Longji. Fei Xiatong decided to join the League because of his friendship with a famous Chinese sociologist and eugenicist Pan Guangdan (S^M) (1898-1967). Pan was 12 years elder ten Fei, he graduated from Dartmouth College in the USA and took an MA from Columbia. In 1930 he worked in Tsinghua University, where he taught sociology. During this time Fei cooperated with him, and Pan helped him with the BA thesis. Pan Guang-dan was a member of the League's Central Executive Committee. Also the incident in November 1945 coloured Fei's attitude towards the Guomindang. In 1944 Fei had just returned from the USA, so he would often take part in conferences and make speeches. 25 November 1945 he was one of the four key-note speakers at the meeting, organized by student organization Lianda (Yunnan University) and two small Kunming colleges.
Because of Nationalist Party's prohibition of mass meeting, school authorities refused to hold the meeting inside the Yunnan University. It was decided to hold the meeting outside the Lianda campus, which several thousand people attended. After the meeting soldiers stopped the students trying to return home, some of them were killed and injured, others were arrested. In official press, it was said the soldiers fought with armed bandits, who wanted to rob the houses. The accident had wide public resonance. Mass protests took place all over the country. Despite the danger of being a leader in this movement, Fei was active in this democratic activities; he was the editor of an anti-Guomindang periodical " Bi^Wii". Unfortunately, the same year two prominent leaders of Democratic Leagues were killed — Professor Li Gongpu and Professor Wen Yiduo (B—They
both had studied in the USA and they both were convinced that the Chinese government was corrupt and that people needed to fight for democracy. Some people considered, that it was the secret police that killed them, so it was evident, that lives of other leaders of the democratic movement were also in danger. Fei Xiaotong, Pan Guandong and 9 other Democratic League members took sanctuary in the US Consulate General and they spent 11 days under its protection. Later, they moved to Nanjing and then spent several months in Suzhou, trying to avoid the publicity. Understanding the danger, Fei decided to leave the country for a while. There having been no possibility to take his wife and daughter along, he went to England alone from November 1946 to February 1947 [1, p. 187-191].
In 1947-1948 he wrote from five to eight articles a month, and so was famous in scientific circles. 1948 saw publication of his book "From the Soil" (^i^S), which included several articles for non-specialist audience about the rural society in China. The edition of the book comprised 3000 pcs and it was all sold out. Its main idea was to show that Chinese cultural patterns took its roots from Chinese agriculture and rural life. He also showed that rural society paid a lot of attention to the custom and traditions, farmers were really tied to the land and spend most of their lifetimes in one place. Rural society was paternalistic and elder generation played a very important role in it. He considered that social relations in China, in contrast to the West, were individual-cantered and particularistic; also he mentioned that the Chinese more than the Americans valued family, mostly because Chinese women were not as independent as those in the West [1, p. 141-148].
Fei Xiaotong life and research after the foundation of the PRC
On the 1st of October 1949 the People's Republic of China was founded. It was a difficult situation between the new authorities and intellectuals. Communists started to control the press and the education system, at the same time trying to narrow the gap between urban intellectuals and rural revolutionaries. They needed Fei Xiaotong, because he was a famous writer and a prominent scholar. He could become the bridge between rural revolutionaries and urban intellectuals. In 1949-1950 Fei was appointed to several important posts, such as, a member of the University Affair Committee, a member of the Congress of Representatives of Various Circles and a delegate (from the Democratic League) to the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference etc.
After the event of 1945-1946, when several intellectuals and students were killed by the Nationalist government, Fei Xiaotong and some other intellectuals started to cooperate with the Communist Party. It should be mentioned, Fei wrote little about Communism and the CCP, but he was interested in foreign policy of the Soviet Union and published
several articles on this topic. Fei hoped that Communists would need a specialist in sociology to improve the life quality of people and help Chinese peasantry. From the middle of 1949 Fei started to publish again, that time his favourite themes were the university reform and the thought reform for the intellectuals.
In the early 1950s, the central government of the PRC required detailed information about all the minorities (^^K^) living in China. In the 1950s more than 35 million people in China were of minority nationalities, most of them living in inhabited border areas, which were of strategic importance to the CCP. In 1951 Central Institute of Nationalities (^^K^^l) was established in Beijing. Its main purpose was to make research on minority nationalities and to train cadres for service in minority areas. Fei became one of three vice presidents of that Institute. The same year he became a member of Nationalities Affairs Commission of the Central Government Administration (1951-1954) [1, p. 276].
The government in cooperation with scientists developed the National Ethnic Classification Project (K^iiSJ). For this purpose, working groups were made consisting of historians, ethnographers, linguists, archaeologists and anthropologists. Fei Xiaotong was the most prominent leader of these groups. For several reasons, it was difficult to identify the real ethnic composition of the population: first and foremost, because of the long historical period during which people settled, migrated, merged and lost their ethnic identity. Scientists had to act within the framework of the official theory of Marxism and the Stalinist theory of the nation, the main role being played by scientists who were forced to combine the communist ideology with the real situation in the PRC and assumed responsibility for the identification of peoples. As a result, most of the population (more than 90 %) were Han with a handful of 55 small nations [9, p. 62].
Fei Xiatong considered sociology to be a science which could help the new government to make successful reforms and changes in the Chinese society. However, since 1952 for ideological reasons sociology had been officially banned from being taught in all institutions of higher education in China. This subject was excluded from the training process, and the scientific teams stopped research. Disciplines that had a close connection with sociology, for example, social psychology, cultural anthropology, demography and others were also proscribed. Many teachers changed universities and "old sociologists" began to lecture in other disciplines. Fei Xiatong and his teacher Wu Wenzao were transferred to national minorities work.
In 1956 he became the Deputy Director of the Experts Bureau of the State Council (S^l^^M). In 1956-1957 the Hundred Flowers Period started, which should have encouraged people to speak freely, to debate and criticize the actions of the new government. In fact, it grew in the Anti-Rightist movement (1957-1958) when a lot of intellectuals were criticized, discredited and removed from responsible positions. In 1957 Fei's works started to be criticized because of the class bias problem, Fei's opponents reckoned that because Fei Xiatong was not a peasant he could not make research from a peasant's point of view. Also, he was accused of not using the Marxist class analysis, but rather functionalist anthropology, which was anti-Marxist. He was also criticized for his abundant foreign ties. He was forgotten for several years, didn't make any research, was not able to teach, maintained no foreign contacts being practically isolated from the entire world. His national and international reputation kept him safe from jail, considering the fact that, according to statistics, more than 110 000 people we arrested and put in jails during the Anti-Rightist Movement.
In the years of Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) Fei Xiaotong suffered the same as most of the intellectuals. There is not much information about Fei's life during the Cultural Revolution. It is known that he still worked with Wu Wenzao, as a member of the Academy of Sciences national minorities research team, but there were no materials printed under their names during this period. From 1969-1972 he worked in the countryside as a physical labourer. And when he had returned to Beijing in 1972 it appeared that a lot of foreign visitors would like to contact him.
After Mao's death and arrest of the Gang of Four in 1976 a modernization period in China started. New life for sociology unfurled. In May 1977 the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) was established. In 1978, at the third plenum
of the 11th CPC Central Committee, Fei Xiaotong was instructed to restore sociology in China. It was difficult, because for many decades sociology, as a science, had been banned. However, Fei Xiaotong began to work actively, he called on scientific teams to publish sociological studies and monographs, conduct lectures on sociology, he invited foreign scholars to lecture, and he himself investigated the now changed Chinese society.
Fei's influence on China's Developmental Policy since 1979
In 1979 the president of the CASS Hu Qiaomu invited Fei Xiaotong to par-
ticipate in restoration of sociology in China. Even though now Fei was more than 70 years old, he agreed to work with other Beijing's scientists in National Planning Office of Philosophy and Social Science On the 18th of March 1979 the Society of Sociology was officially established and Fei was elected as its president [8, p. 3]. In 1980, for outstanding research in applied anthropology, Fei was awarded the Malinovsky International Prize.
In 1979 after 25 years of silence Fei Xiatong's articles about his trips to Sichuan and Guangxi were published in the foreign-language magazine China Reconstruction. It was Fei's re-emergency as the mediator between the two cultures [1, p. 280-281]. In the 1980s, Fei Xiaotong opened a new stage in understanding the concept of a single Chinese nation and proposed his model of the Chinese nation as a multiple unity (^ X—#). He studied the Yellow River Delta up and mid-stream, wanting to explore the ethnic regions of China. According to Fei Xiaotong, the Chinese nation as a self-realized ethnic substance appeared in the last 100 years, but as an unrealized substance, it was formed over several millennia. Putting forward his concept, Fei Xiaotong thus intensified the work on studying the problem of a single nation by raising it to the academic level, and this is the high significance of his theory. Fei Xiaotong is one of the first to compare the process of formation and growth of the Han nation with an increasing "snowball". In the early period of history, three thousand years ago, in the middle reaches of the Yellow River there appeared a nucleus of several ethno-cultural communities, which over time formed a community of Huaxia(^M). It was like a rolling snowball, increasing in size and as a result absorbing surrounding people [9, p. 58].
Fei started his international activity and as of 1978 made several trips to different countries, such as Japan (1978), the United States and Canada (1979), the United States (1980), Britain (1981) etc. He wrote several articles about the changes which happened in American society in 20-year period, marking most important social problems [1, p. 282284].
In 1980s Fei started to develop the Small Towns Plan. His research methodology and theories were based on field investigations and typology. He was convinced that Chinese urbanization should take the small-town mode, with rural industries supporting the growth of small towns. In 1983, at the age of 72, he published his "Study of small towns in Jiangsu Province" He travelled a lot around the country, in 1984 he
was in the province of Jiangsu more than 12 times, and he often visited Gansu Province and other areas of China, where he was engaged in field research [10, p. 52]. In 1984 Fei Xiaotong published his famous study "Small Towns, Big Problems" where he concluded that small towns are rural political, cultural and economic centres. If the government builds and develops small towns it will help to develop the rural economy and to provide job opportunities for rural population. From the study of small cities, Fei could make a big-scale study of the whole Southern Jiangsu province [10, p. 55]. Fei Xiaotong considered that community studies could test theories of larger significance. His book entitled "Small towns in China: functions, problems and prospects" was printed in English in 1986 [11]. Fei wrote: "Without small towns, the political, economic and cultural work in the countryside will have no base support.. .The construction of small towns is of utmost importance in developing the rural economy and finding an outlet for our large population" [11, p. 17-18].
At the same time Fei Xiaotong promoted the Pudong Opening Plan. He considered that Pudong region in Shanghai was the first rural region, which had seen a rapid development over a fairly short period of time. Pudong will play a significant role in development of Chinese market economy in XXI century. He thought that it was important to study the social problems, which faced Pudong area while developing, so it could be used for the other regions in China. The construction of the International Airport in Pudong made Shanghai into an important city, which could develop the economic, political and cultural life of the country. Fei considered that development of such cities as Shanghai will help China to join WTO, which will help to solve the social problems [12, p. 74-75].
Fei provided several developmental models, such as South-Jiangsu Model, Wenzhou Model, Pearl River Delta Model, etc. Fei considered that it was important to develop cities; for example in his Wenzhou Model, he considered that the big city must become the big commodity trading hub. City Wenzhou is a coastal port city located in the south-eastern part of China in Zhejiang Province. Traditionally this area was inhabited by craftsmen who were engaged in stone carving, weaving products made of bamboo, making clothes, etc. In addition, many of the artisans sold consumer goods in various regions of the country, but the proceeds from the sale they moved back home. During the period of the policy of Reform and Openness government motivated the legalization of individual entrepreneurs. During this period, there was a noticeable increase in the number of traders and artisans, who developed their activities from the accumulation of capital from the sale of goods outside the range of their habitat. At the same time, merchants in this case relied on information channels and networks of communications that had been developed during commercial activity. The above-described way of development is a model of Wenzhou.
Pearl River Delta Model is an external model. The Pearl River Delta is adjacent to Hong Kong, and because of its excellent geographic position, it possesses many import production facilities. Its location attracted the modern industry of Hong Kong, foreign capital, advanced technologies and management methods, which stimulated businessper-sons to create joint ventures with a socialist specificity to them. The most important is that
not only did this model develop the local economy, it also reinforced the overall strength of the country.
During his life Fei Xiaotong occupied a lot of important posts in different Committees and Commissions. Some of the most outstanding were council member of Institute of Foreign Affairs (1949), member of Government Affairs Council's Culture and Education Commission (1949), member of Nationalities Affairs Commission of the Central Government Administration (1951-1954), executive secretary of the Sino-Soviet Friendship Association (1951-1954), council member of Political Science and Law Society (1953), Jiangsu deputy, First NPC (1954), Central Committee member, China Democratic League (1956-1958), deputy Director of State Bureau of Experts Administration (1956), vice-chairman of Nationalities Affairs Commission (1957-1958), adviser of State Nationalities Affairs Commission (1979-1983), chairman of China Democratic League (1987), vice-president of Association of International Understanding (1988) etc. [13, p. 80].
Fei Xiaotong has always been interested in the emergence, formation and development of a specific Chinese culture. In 1997, he formulated the concept of "cultural self-awareness" and wrote several articles about it. For example, "Thoughts
about cultural "historicism" and sociality" "About
acknowledgement of "cultural self-awareness""" "Ret-
rospective and understanding of the reconstruction of sociology and anthropology" ("M
etc. Fei believed that someone living in a particular culture can only know themselves through comparison with another culture. Interaction with another culture, understanding its origins, the process of formation, features and stages of development, allow to increase the level of cultural awareness and expand the boundaries of cultural self-confidence. Fei noted that cultural self-awareness is a very difficult process [14, p. 12].
Speaking about the contribution of Fei Xiaotong, it should be mentioned that Fei introduced new methods of anthropological research, having moved away from the rule of investigating another culture, he moved directly to studying his own. He adapted Western social anthropology to Chinese realities, developed applied anthropology and sociology. Based on his concept of the development of small cities in China, he created a model of economic and social development of the regions, which greatly contributed to Chinese modernization.
The ethnic classification created by Fei Xiaotong allowed making regionalization of China's national autonomies. Contemporary cross-border cooperation between China and the neighbouring countries are also being carried out according to Fei's principles.
Fei stressed the unity of history and reality (tradition and modernity), he believed that the present is the continuation of the past, so in his research he paid much attention to the historical and cultural tradition, and translated it into the main argument for analysing the realities and predicting prospects, which in practice evolved into "historical functionalism". In the community study, he put forward a method of type comparison that allowed researchers to gradually expand the field of their research, based on existing types, to find specific communities with different conditions for comparison, and then transfer the research from the micro-level (private level) to the macro-level (holistic level).
Fei paid attention not only to economic development of China, but also considered environmental issues. He believed that measures to preserve the ecological environment were the basis for the development of Western China. In his opinion, only after improving
the quality of the environment will it be possible to attract investments and then effectively master local resources and, as a result, improve the standard of living. Fei's new research problems put forward in community and ethnic studies, for example, humanitarian ecology, national solidarity, a combination of modernity and traditional culture opened the way for further research.
In his late years, Fei Xiatong became interested in culture, and understanding of other traditions and cultures. Fei Xiatong put forward the concept of "cultural self-awareness", which stated that people living in a particular culture should understand its significance, history, process of education, role of culture in all spheres of life and the development of culture.
On his monument, which is located in the Sociology Faculty of the Beijing University one of the Fei Xiaotong's poems runs as follows:
This poem could be translated as:
"In every culture they appreciate the culture of their own, before they can appreciate the
culture of another;
Appreciate the culture/values of others as you do your own, and the world will become
a harmonious whole"
Fei Xiaotong passed away in 2005. He wrote about himself that from the very beginning he had set himself a goal of studying and changing the Chinese society, since his life was inseparable from the Chinese village and the Chinese peasantry. The main stimulus that inspired him all his life was the hope that the peasantry in China would prosper, people would live better, and China would become a strong country. He believed that it was necessary not just to develop sociology, but to go their own way, to develop a Chinese type of sociology. It is necessary to explore the Chinese society, as well as to seek ways to improve the material and spiritual culture of China [8, p. 4-5]. The famous Chinese sociologist Lu Xueyi wrote the following lines: "His death is a state loss, a national loss, a loss for the whole scientific world, especially for sociology. The Chinese sociological society will forever remember his outstanding contribution to science, to which he devoted more than 70 years of his life" [8, p. 3].
References
1. Arkush R. D. Fei Xiaotong and sociology in Revolutionary China. Cambridge, London, Harvard University Press, 1981. xviii+376 p.
2. Zhang Guansheng. Fei Xiaotong [Fei Xiaotong]. Beijing, Qunyan chubanshe, 2011. 630 p. (In Chinese)
3. Fei Xiaotong. Shehui bianqian yanjiu zhong dushi he xiangcun [Investigation of social changes in city and village]. Shehui yanjiu, 1933, no. 11. (In Chinese)
4. Fei Xiaotong. Lun shehui zuzhi [Discussing the social structure]. Shehui yanjiu, 1934, no. 22. (In Chinese)
5. Fei Xiaotong. Jiting shehuixue lilun zhailun [Giddings' sociological theory and doctrine]. Shehuixue kan, 1933. (In Chinese)
6. Fei Xiaotong. Pake jiji tingshi er jia shehuixue xueshuo jige genbende fenqidian [Several directions of sociological theories of Park and Giddings]. 1933. (In Chinese)
7. Malinowski, translation Fei Xiatong. Wenlunhua [A Scientific Theory of Culture]. Zhongguo minjian wenyi chubensh, 1987, no. 1. (In Chinese)
8. Lu Xueyi. Fei Xiaotong yu zhongguo shehuixuede zhongjian [Fei Xiaotong and reconstruction of Chinese sociology]. Fei Xiaotong yu zhongguo shehuixue. Li Peilin zhubian. Beijing, Dhehuikexue wenxian chubanshe, 2011, pp. 3-7. (In Chinese)
9. Kochukova E. A. Osobennosti etnicheskoi klassificatsii narodov v KNR (po materialam rabot Fei Xiaotonga) [перевод]. Vestnik Kostromskogogosudarstvennogo universiteta, 2016, vol. 22. (In Russian).
10. Zhang Yulin. Fei Xiaotongde yanjiusilu he fangfa. Fei Xiaotong yu zhongguo shehuixue [Scientific way and methods of Fei Xiaotong]. Li Peilin zhubian. Beijing, Dhehuikexue wenxian chubanshe, 2011, pp. 52-61. (In Chinese)
11. Small towns in China: functions, problems and prospects by Fei Xiaotong and other. Beijing, New Worls Press, 1986.
12. Zhang baozheng. Shanghai yingwei quanguo xiaochengzhen tigong yangban shifan — Fei Xiaotong kaocha Pudong jichangzheng suixingji [Shanghai should become the model for all small towns in China — Fei Xiaotong explore the Pudong airport]. Xiaochengzhenjishe, 2001/2, pp. 74-75. (In Chinese)
13. Mackerras C., Yorke A. The Cambridge Handbook of Contemporary China. New York, Cambridge University Press, 1991. 266 p.
14. Zheng Hangsheng. Fei xiaotong dui dangdai zhonguo shehuixue gongxiande zai renshi Fei Xiaotongyu zhongguo shehuixue [Re-thinking of Fei Xiaotong's contribution to the modern Chinese sociology]. Li Peilin zhubian. Beijing, Dhehuikexue wenxian chubanshe, 2011, pp. 8-13. (In Chinese)
Received: 07.11.2017 Accepted: 27.02.2018
Author's information:
Liudmila S. Veselova — PhD in History; [email protected]
Neng Liu — [email protected]
Жизнь и научная деятельность выдающегося китайского социолога Фэй Сяотуна
Л. С. Веселова1, Н. Лю2
1 Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет, Российская Федерация, 199034, Санкт-Петербург, Университетская наб., 7-9
2 Пекинский университет, Китайская Народная Республика, 100871, Пекин, район Хайдянь, ул. Ихэюань, 5
Для цитирования: Veselova L. S., Liu N. Life and scientific work of outstanding Chinese sociologist Fei
Xiaotong // Вестник Санкт-Петербургского университета. Востоковедение и африканистика.
2018. Т. 10. Вып. 2. С. 269-284. https://doi.org/10.21638/11701/spbu13.2018.210
Фэй Сяотун (^^й) (2 ноября 1910 — 24 апреля 2005), выдающийся антрополог и социолог Китайской Народной Республики, одним из первых провел антропологические исследования жизни китайского общества. Он был политическим журналистом и «культурным посредником», который публиковал статьи о Западе на китайском языке и о Китае — на английском языке. Карьера Фэй Сяотуна была полна взлетов и падений, которые были связаны с политической ситуацией в стране. Вместе со своей страной и народом он прошел период Республиканского Китая (1911-1949), тяжелую борьбу против японского империализма (1937-1945) и трагические годы «культурной революции» (1966-1976). Наконец, в 1978 г., начиная с периода реформ и открытости, он смог возобновить свою публичную и научную жизнь и официально стал уважаемым академиком и общественным интеллектуалом, который посвятил свою жизнь исследованию китайского общества и его социальных проблем. Для многих работы Фэй Сяотуна стали первыми источниками, из которых можно было почерпнуть различные сведения о китайской деревне. Они заставляли задуматься
о закономерностях общественного развития и о том, какими методами следует их изучать. Он верил, что необходимо не просто развивать социологию, но и идти своим путем, стремиться развивать китайскую социологию с ее спецификой. Фэй Сяотун посвятил свою жизнь изучению китайского общества и изменений, происходящих в нем. Главным стимулом, который вдохновлял его всю жизнь, была надежда на то, что китайские крестьяне будут жить лучше и благополучнее, а вместе с ними и Китай станет еще более сильным и процветающим государством.
Ключевые слова: Фэй Сяотун, Китай, социология, история Китая, известные личности КНР.
Контактная информация:
Веселова Людмила Сергеевна — канд. ист. наук; [email protected] Лю Нэн — [email protected]
