Secret Societies

Secret Societies Opening remarks at the XVII Congress of Junior Sinologues at Leeds Paucity of material, partly due to malevolent persecution and partly due to deliberate concealment for the sake of respectability, romanticism and bias, and linguistic mysticism all contribute to make this, the secret societies (SS)1 a difficult subject. To overcome these difficulties, one must compile a Hat of books and articles (I have just done one of Chinese and Japanese source materials of more than 100 items, excluding auch uprisings as the T* alp1 ing, Nlen, and the Boxers), authenticate the documents and recorde, establish facts, relate them to their historical and social background, and then assess the role of the SS In each historical event and each aspect of the evolution of Chínese society. I do not think the traditional division of northern chiao (religious sects) and the southern hui (societies) a valid one. This geographic categorization by T'ao Ch'eng-chang, Hsiao I' shan, and Hslung Te-chi implies that the former was lees politically conscious and more superstitious than the latter, Hslung (Li-shih lun-ts'una. Peking, 1964, I, 91) carries the division a step further by pointing that (1) socially, the chiao. from the Five Peck Sect to the Boxers, led a following of peasants, whereas the hui led what may be called the lumpen proletariat ; (2) ideologically, the chiao was based on popular religions whereas the hui ties of sworn brotherhood and friendship, often reinforced with the Water Margin type of military discipline; (3) because of the second characteristic, the chiao was more 'other-worldly* in its outlook, hence politically more pliable In the hope of achieving the right of open dessiminatlon, whereas the hui was 'this worldly', politically less tolerant and more secretive. Hslung la of the opinion that when one talks about the SS one should leave out the chiao - a veiled attack on Schlegel and Hirayama. There is no doubt that Hslung used the southern hui, especially Ko-lao-hui, -13- as his model, ignoring the secretiveness and rebelliousness of some of the northern chiao, notably the White Lotus. The secretiveness, it must be borne in mind, was not chosen or desired but forced upon the societies. The common desire, on the contrary, was to achieve legitimacy either through recognition by the authorities or through the overthrow of the existing authorities. The moderate wing, as it were, of the societies chose the former method while the radical wing the latter. Even the most moderate, such as the Lo-chiao and Limen but not the Boxers, did not give open support to the Manchu Government, It seems to me that here the difference between the chiao and hui Is a matter of degree, of methods, rather than of political aims. It is true that the chiao was more superstitious; it is equally true that the hui had its gods and religious rituals and belief. To say that religion and superstition, consequently *other-worldly* outlook, replaced or dulled political awareness of the chiao is to over-simplify the issue and to attribute the phenomenon to a wrong reason. The chiao, spreading near the seat of imperial power, was constantly under the threat of swift and harsh suppression, therefore the need to adulterate its hostility to the Government. Even among the hui there were shades of political views. Immediately south of Shantung, In the Huai River region, the Ch' ing-pang (Green Gang) concentrated. Although It was the most efficiently organized, it was also the most moderate towards the Manchu Government. Further south, along the Yangtze, there was the Ko-lao-hul, decidedly more belligerent to the Ch'lng than the Green Gang but less so than the Triad still further south. The most belligerent of them all were the members of the overseas branches of the Triad(the Chih-kung-t'ang, later and now Chih-kung-tang, the party). The degree of their belligerence depended on their distance from the imperial capital and provincial capitals. The shade of their political colour darkened gradually as one moves away from such seats of power; the geographic division maintained by T'ao, Hsiao, and Hslung is arbitrary. Also arbitrary is...