Choosing Revolution: Chinese Women Soldiers on the Long March

5. Why We Joined

5. Why We Joined The women soldiers on the Long March whom I interviewed told stories of leaving children behind with peasant families,crossing glacier mountains in the third trimester of pregnancy, leaving babies where they were born, or carrying them along a day or two after birth. They described the work they did as soldiers,carrying stretchers,doing propaganda work,recruiting laborers and soldiers, and carrying gold for the army. Rich as these stories are, the greatest wealth of material came in response to the question, “Why did you join the party and the army?” Their answers, framed by their understanding of Marxist ideology at the time of the interview, contain details from their childhood, their family situations, how they perceived their future, how and when they were politicized, and how they understood their own decision to join the revolution.From the responses of these women, it is possible to find ways to understand what motivates women anywhere to become revolutionaries and go to war. All the women, those who joined Communist organizations before entering the army as well as those who enlisted in the Red Army directly, spoke not of joining the army but of “participating in the revolution.” What “becoming revolutionary” meant was as varied as the women themselves. To some it meant freedom from exploitation and abuse at home, the hope of escape from the chaos of poverty into the safety of a secure, regimented environment with enough food to eat; for those whose future was unsettled it was a way to avoid marrying into a strange family or remaining an unmarried , unpaid worker on the lowest rung of the family ladder; for the educated and educable, it was an exciting way to fight for social justice and work for national sovereignty.For almost all,participating in the revolution meant The women featured in this chapter: (row 1, left to right) Chen Zongying, Deng Liujin, He Manqiu, Jian Xianfo, Jian Xianren; (row 2) Kang Keqing, Li Guiying, Li Jianzhen, Liao Siguang; (row 3) Lin Yueqin, Liu Jian, Liu Ying, Ma Yixiang, Qian Xijun; (row 4) Wei Xiuying, Xie Xiaomei, Zhang Wen, Zhong Yuelin. (He Manqiu and Zhang Wen photos by the author; remaining photos courtesy of Liaowang Zhoukang She [Outlook Weekly Press]) Why We Joined 133 finding a place to belong.One,echoed by several others,said,“The Party was my family.” However, the revolution, unlike their families, offered them opportunity to allow their unsubmissive, independent traits to surface. When asked, “Why did you join?” the women spoke about the social and economic situations in their families, their family relationships, and the level of education they received. They described the geographic setting of their home cities or villages, including proximity of home to the Chinese Soviet Base Areas or the path of the Red Armies. They emphasized the opportunities they had to learn about the revolution from Communist underground workers in the village, by joining revolutionary organizations in the village, in listening to progressive teachers in school,and from family members,usually men, already in the revolution. From the founding of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1921, the male party members had been serious about equality of the sexes, although they interpreted equality within the boundaries of their own cultural consciousness .1 They organized schools for their sisters, wives, and mothers, established literacy classes for women workers and peasants, and wrote sexual equality into their documents, advocating emancipation of women and an end to child marriages of all kinds.They guaranteed protection for women and offered them access to the economic and cultural life of the society.2 The CCP has continued this top-down policy of liberation of women within the patriarchal society.3 During the first three decades of the twentieth century, there was little institutional support for girls and women in China. In the poorest families, baby girls were unaffordable luxuries, to be disposed of as quickly as possible by death, sale, or marriage. Unlike sons, daughters were part of the birth family only until they married and joined their husband’s family, giving rise to the common Chinese saying, “When a girl is married, it is like throwing water on the ground” (jia chuqude nu, po chuqude shui); once water is poured away,it can never be returned to the jar. In the same way, a daughter was lost to her birth family once she married. In those harsh...