The Institute for Qing History at People's University

- 110 The Institute for Qing History at People's University Edward J. M. Rhoads University of Texas at Austin From September 1982 until May 1983, I had the good fortune, ae a grantee of the Committee for Scholarly Communication with the People's Republic of China, to be affiliated with the Institute for Qing History (Qineshi yan.llu suo) of the Chinese People's University (Zhongguo remain daxue. or Renda for short) in Beijing. The Institute seems to be the largest and the most active unit in the Chinese academic world that is engaged in the study of the Qing. It has, I was told, three or four times the personnel of the Section for Qing History (Qingshi yan.liu shl) in the Institute of History, CASS. Furthermore, unlike the Academy of Social Sciences, where research on the Qing is divided at the Opium war between the Institute of History and the Institute of Modern History, the Institute at Renda covers the entire dynasty. The following account of the history, organization, personnel, and activities of this key institution is based largely on information, oral and printed, given to me by members of the Institute. Although the main campus of Renda is in the northwestern suburbs, the Institute itself is looated in downtown Beijing, northeast of the Forbidden City, at Ko. 3 Zhang Zlzhong Road 5fe_ê^-^-3^- (also known as Di'armen East Avenue and, in earlier tines, as Tie shizi hutong or Iron Lion lane) . For a research center that focuses on both the early and - Ill the late Qing, its setting is oddly appropriate. The grounds are those of an old princely estate, and the entrance is a monumental gateway of the traditional type, flanked by two large stone (not iron) lions. On the other hand, the building itself is a fortress-like stone-and-brick structure of Western design erected around the turn of the present century to house the Naval Yamen. Later on, in the 1920' s , it was the headquarters of the warlord Duan Qirui, in front of which occurred the "March 18th massacre" of 1926, when forty-seven unarmed nationalist demonstrators were gunned down by Duan's troops. The Institute as such dates only from 1978, but its antecedents can be traced back to the early 1950' s and the "teaching and research office" (.liaoyan shl) for Chinese history at the then newly-established People's University. The veteran historian (and party member) Shang Yue & Çfy was the head of the office until around 1958, when he was removed for having championed the view that China in the late Ming and early Qing was already a proto-capitalist economy (see Albert Feuerwerker and S. Cheng, Chinese Communist Studies of Modern Chinese History, pp. 181184 ·). Shang was sucoeeded by his younger colleague Dai Yi JPl^ , under whose leadership the "teaching and research office" was in about I960 upgraded into a "department" of Chinese history. Five years later, in I965, the central authorities, reportedly at the urging of Zhou Enlal and Dong Blwu, decided that a separate organization for research into Qing history should be created and that, furthermore, it should be set up at People's University. The Cultural Revolution, however, broke out before the decision could be implemented. Meanwhile, at Renda not only did academic activities cone to a halt, but 112 the university itself was completely disbanded and its faculty sent away. Dai Yi and most of the people in the Chinese history department were reassigned to Beijing Normal University (Beijing shifan daxue) . When soholarly work resumed in about 1972, tentative steps were taken to revive Zhou Enlai's and Dong Biwu's proposal of seven years earlier. Some of the Renda contingent at Beijing Normal University formed a "Small Group for Research in Qing History" (Qingshl van.iiu xlaozu) . Later on, in rald-1978, after their university had been resurrected , the Renda Qing historians at Beijing Normal University returned to their old oampus. Their "small group" was then reorganized, enlarged, and given its present identity as the Institute for Research in Qing History. The director of the Institute now is the former head of the Chinese history department, Dai Yi. A native of Jiangsu...