In this Book
- A Tibetan Revolutionary: The Political Life and Times of Bapa Phüntso Wangye
- Book
- 2004
- Published by: University of California Press
summary
This is the as-told-to political autobiography of Phüntso Wangye (Phünwang), one of the most important Tibetan revolutionary figures of the twentieth century. Phünwang began his activism in school, where he founded a secret Tibetan Communist Party. He was expelled in 1940, and for the next nine years he worked to organize a guerrilla uprising against the Chinese who controlled his homeland. In 1949, he merged his Tibetan Communist Party with Mao's Chinese Communist Party. He played an important role in the party's administrative organization in Lhasa and was the translator for the young Dalai Lama during his famous 1954-55 meetings with Mao Zedong. In the 1950s, Phünwang was the highest-ranking Tibetan official within the Communist Party in Tibet. Though he was fluent in Chinese, comfortable with Chinese culture, and devoted to socialism and the Communist Party, Phünwang's deep commitment to the welfare of Tibetans made him suspect to powerful Han colleagues. In 1958 he was secretly detained; three years later, he was imprisoned in solitary confinement in Beijing's equivalent of the Bastille for the next eighteen years.
Informed by vivid firsthand accounts of the relations between the Dalai Lama, the Nationalist Chinese government, and the People's Republic of China, this absorbing chronicle illuminates one of the world's most tragic and dangerous ethnic conflicts at the same time that it relates the fascinating details of a stormy life spent in the quest for a new Tibet.
Informed by vivid firsthand accounts of the relations between the Dalai Lama, the Nationalist Chinese government, and the People's Republic of China, this absorbing chronicle illuminates one of the world's most tragic and dangerous ethnic conflicts at the same time that it relates the fascinating details of a stormy life spent in the quest for a new Tibet.
Table of Contents
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- Title Page, Copyright, Quote
- pp. i-vi
- List of Illustrations
- pp. ix-x
- Acknowledgments
- pp. xv-xvi
- Note on Romanization and Abbreviations
- pp. xvii-xviii
- List of Key Persons
- pp. xix-xxviii
- PART I: Growing Up in Kham and China
- 1. Childhood in Batang
- pp. 7-14
- 2. The Coup of Lobsang Thundrup
- pp. 15-21
- 3. School Years
- pp. 22-38
- PART II: The Tibetan Communist Party Era
- 4. Planning Revolution
- pp. 41-49
- 5. Returning to Kham
- pp. 50-60
- 6. To Lhasa
- pp. 61-78
- 7. The Indian Communist Party
- pp. 79-89
- 8. On the Verge of Revolt
- pp. 90-102
- 9. Escape to Tibet
- pp. 103-112
- 10. From Lhasa to Yunnan
- pp. 113-126
- PART III: The People’s Republic of China
- 11. The Return to Batang
- pp. 129-139
- 12. The Seventeen-Point Agreement
- pp. 140-153
- 13. To Lhasa Again
- pp. 154-163
- 14. With the PLA in Lhasa
- pp. 164-172
- 15. A Year of Problems
- pp. 173-184
- 16. An Interlude in Beijing
- pp. 185-203
- 17. Beginning Reforms
- pp. 204-212
- PART IV: Incarceration
- 18. Tension in Lhasa
- pp. 215-225
- 19. Labeled a Local Nationalist
- pp. 226-235
- 20. To Prison
- pp. 236-244
- 21. Solitary Confinement
- pp. 245-256
- 22. A Vow of Silence
- pp. 257-268
- PART V: After Prison
- 23. Release from Prison
- pp. 271-284
- 24. A New Struggle
- pp. 285-293
- 25. Nationalities Policy
- pp. 294-310
- Epilogue. A Comment
- pp. 311-318
- Glossary of Correct Tibetan Spellings
- pp. 351-358
Additional Information
ISBN
9780520940307
Related ISBN(s)
9780520240896
MARC Record
OCLC
56713875
Pages
395
Launched on MUSE
2014-01-01
Language
English
Open Access
No