The Communist Takeover of Hangzhou

5. The Korean War and the City

5 The Korean War and the City As it proceeds from the midtown of Hangzhou northward to the Tianshui Bridge or southward to the Song Family Bridge, the Zhongshan Road changes character.1 It gradually loses its bustle and noise and becomes quieter and cleaner. There were two Christian mission compounds at opposite ends of the road. Both the compound grounds included chapels, schools, and clinics. As a child of one missionary family, Eugenia Barnett Schultheis recalls that the front yard of her compound was full of trees and flowers: ‘‘A weigela bush near by bore a shower of pink blossom; there was a scent of mock orange on the air.’’2 The Communist takeover in 1949 did not immediately touch the mission compounds, but it soon changed the peaceful life of their residents, especially when a crusade was staged against the last American ambassador, John Leighton Stuart, who was born and raised in one of the compounds. The missionary undertakings in the city were closely associated with American diplomacy in China. Soon after Mao Zedong published an article, ‘‘Farewell, Leighton Stuart,’’ the religious, educational, and charitable activities of these missions were interrupted . Mao’s article touched off an all-out attack on American imperialism that reached its peak during the Korean War. This attack did not conclude with the takeover of the missions or the forced departure of the missionaries, but brought about a series of campaigns—reorganization of urban neighborhoods, suppression of counterrevolutionaries, and ideological reform of the intellectuals. What provided the southbound cadres with the strongest leverage for mass mobilization in these campaigns was the Korean War. On the one hand, the war induced counterrevolutionary activities and posed a threat to the new republic. On the other hand, it stimulated broad nationalist sentiments, which solidified popular support for the Communist government. For better or worse, this war marked a turning point in the personal lives and professional careers of people who had received a Western education and were fond of American culture. From the White Paper to the Korean War On August 5, 1949, the U.S. State Department published a White Paper, United States Relations with China. The White Paper goes into particular detail about the American China policy in the five years from the last part of the war against Japan to 1949, when the Communists won the Civil War. In August and September 1949, Mao Zedong wrote ‘‘Farewell, Leighton Stuart’’ and five other articles to criticize this document.3 The ccp Central Committee called for a nationwide discussion of the White Paper. Beginning in October 1949, the city leaders of Hangzhou first organized the discussion within the ccp, the Youth League, and the trade union, then made it a major topic for political study meetings for everyone in the city. Why should thousands of Chinese discuss an American diplomatic document? Mao’s articles on the White Paper did not argue with the American government on its China policy, nor did they merely express Mao’s blueprints for the prc’s diplomacy. Instead, these articles were mainly addressed to the Chinese intellectuals who believed in democratic individualism and had good feelings about the United States. Mao intended to reeducate such intellectuals and ‘‘democratic parties’’ who wanted to take a third road between the ccp and the gmd. This ‘‘third road’’ idea, the ccp believed, had basically been generated by American influence. To win its proponents over to the new regime, it was necessary to change their views of America and American culture. 126 The Communist Takeover of Hangzhou As we saw in the previous chapters, the Communists’ strength rested in the rural areas; even in the newly liberated province of Zhejiang they had quickly won political support from the peasants . The ccp had only a flimsy base in Hangzhou. In the later years of China’s Civil War, Western observers noticed that ‘‘disillusioned and repressed by the Kuomintang, intellectuals drifted steadily to the Left.’’4 But these intellectuals had not yet become Communists; they were still wavering and hesitating. In mid-1949, Mao Zedong wrote, ‘‘[Some Chinese intellectuals] think: the Kuomintang is no good and the Communist Party is not necessarily good either. . . . Some support the Communist Party in words, but in their hearts they are waiting to see.’’5 Actually, what the Chinese intellectuals wanted to see was not a Communist state but a democratic society. Mao asserted that the...