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192 6 Redefining the Manzu, Remapping Ethnic Autonomy State and Scholars in the PRC They used Han script, changed their Manchu style of dress, and some changed their [Manchu] family names [to Han]. Looking at their appearance, there is no difference between the Manzu and the Han. But the Manzu still have their own ethnic consciousness (minzu ganqing Ẹ᪘ឤ᝟). —Zhou Enlai 19571 Those Han banner people who had been demilitarized or returned to their [ancestral] original registrations [with local civilian governments] should be identified as Hanzu members; otherwise, [those who remained in the banners] should be regarded as Manzu members. —Wang Zhonghan ⋤摇侘 1981 My ethnic group is Manzu. —Guan Shanfu යᒣኞ 19872 The CCP and Manchuria Before 1949 As a minor—and sometimes illegal—political party in the ROC, the CCP could not conduct nationwide ethnological surveys or research projects. The CCP did, however, make efforts to win sympathy and support from minority peoples during its bitter struggles with the GMD.3 The CCP developed general policies for the border regions in its development strategies as early as its Second National Congress in 1922. Under the influence and directorship of the Comintern, the CCP defined its task in the frontier regions as “respecting the autonomy of borderlanders ” and establishing “self-governing states (zizhibang ⮬἞㑥) in Mongolia, Tibet, and the Hui regions.” In the early 1920s, the CCP aimed to unify China by fighting both foreign imperialist powers and Chinese warlords. The statement of the Second National Congress argued that while a federal system was not appropriate in China Proper, it was in borderlands because of “fundamental differences” in the economic structures of the two. Interestingly, the CCP identified Mongolia, Redefining the Manzu, Remapping Ethnic Autonomy | 193 Tibet, and the Hui area as frontiers where ethnic federal states could be established, but included Manchuria within China Proper.4 The CCP’s policies toward non-Han peoples in general, and toward the Mongols and the Hui in particular, varied at different times before 1949 due to changes in the CCP’s political agenda. During its cooperation with the GMD in the years of the First United Front (1922–1927), the CCP did not highlight the issues of ethnic autonomy or borderlands in their resolutions and statements. Instead, nationalism was defined as part of the proletarian revolution because the CCP was recognizing the leadership of the GMD and their common main struggle was against foreign imperialism and domestic warlords. But tension between the two parties still existed because of the fundamental difference in their political ideologies: the CCP aimed at a proletarian revolution against capitalism and saw communism its final goal; while the GMD represented capitalist ideals and would not allow a communist society in its own version of China’s future. At the Third National Congress in 1923, the CCP allowed its members to join the GMD, but at the Fourth National Congress in 1925 the CCP instructed them that their cooperation with the GMD should still be based on the CCP’s proletarian ideologies. Such a tension was also reflected in the CCP’s adjustment of its ethnic policies. In a statement titled “Resolution on the Nationalist Revolution Movement,” the CCP briefly criticized the GMD for “assimilating the Mongols, Tibetans, and other minority groups with the slogan of ‘Great Zhonghua minzu.’”5 During these years, some of the CCP’s attention was devoted to Manchuria, as the warlord Zhang Zuolin and his relationship with Japan fell squarely into the stated goal of the revolution: to diminish domestic warlords and foreign imperialism for national unification. Since the CCP and GMD had already split by the Sixth National Congress in 1928, the CCP’s leaders brought ethnic issues back to their discussions. “A Resolution on Ethnic Problems” stated that “problems of ethnic minorities within China’s territory...are of great importance to the revolution”; a list of non-Han peoples for whom they had concerns included “the Mongols in the North, Hui, Koreans of Manchuria, Taiwanese of Fujian, primary peoples of Miao, Li and others in the South, Xinjiang, and Tibet.”6 However, neither the Manchus nor Manzu were mentioned. In the 1930s and 1940s, the CCP examined the GMD’s exploitation and oppression of non-Han peoples and assigned itself the internationalist task of helping all the oppressed to reach ethnic autonomy or independence through revolution. Specifically, the CCP returned to promoting the ethnic autonomy and self-determination of non-Han peoples. In its 1934 “An Outline for the Constitution of the Chinese Soviet Republic...

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