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The Role of Intellectuals in Rural Development in China:
A Case Study of Pingzhou County in Shanxi Province[1]
By Zhidong Hao
University of Macau
Abstract
With the government’s call on “building a new socialist countryside,” rural development in China has acquired a new momentum. But who is behind this momentum, and what roles do intellectuals play in this movement? This paper examines the organic, professional, and critical roles of intellectuals in historical contexts. And it focuses on these roles in contemporary China. I emphasize that these roles are ideal types: although different intellectuals do seem to play different roles most of the times, they also transit between these roles. They follow different ethics while playing these roles: organic intellectuals follow the ethic of responsibility, and professional and critical intellectuals follow the ethic of ultimate ends. Their elitism also indicates the limitations of these roles: they may look down upon the peasants they study and upon each other. Intellectuals are instrumental in rural development, so it is important for us to understand their capabilities and limitations. I have used the historical-comparative and ethnographic methods in my research. In other words, I have examined the historical development of the role of intellectuals, comparing the national with the local scenes. And I have used my field research data in a county in Shanxi to support my arguments.
Key words: rural development in China, Shanxi, role of intellectuals, ethics, elitism
In Chongqing, Sichuan, a middle school girl was crushed to death in a traffic accident along with two of her friends. Her family received compensation only about a third of her friends’ families. The reason: Her parents were migrant workers in the city, while the other two families had hukou there (Yardley 2006).[2]
With the call of the state on “building a new socialist countryside,” there seems to be a new momentum for rural development. But the problems in the countryside seem so deep-rooted that the actual building of the new countryside will be much more difficult than shouting the slogan itself.[3] There can be many reasons why the countryside is, in general, lagging very far behind the cities. Some of them include the state’s historically imbalanced policies toward the peasants, such as the fixed lower prices for agricultural products and higher prices for manufactured ones (see Cui Xiaohui 2002:134-5), as well as other discriminatory practices, such as the disparity between the distribution of social services to city dwellers (excluding migrant workers from the countryside, as shown in the above example) and the distribution of social services to the peasant farmers in the countryside (Qin Hui 2004).[4] The peasant issue is then what many call an issue of the lack of “national citizenship status” on their part (see Lu Xueyi 2002:6).
This project, however, looks at an important factor in dealing with those problems affecting the building of the new countryside, or bridging the gap between the city and the countryside, that is, the role of intellectuals in rural development. What have intellectuals done in the midst of the problems in the countryside? What roles do they play? That is our research question.
Specifically, this paper will discuss the following issues: 1) The historical background of the role of intellectuals in the countryside; 2) A theoretical framework in analyzing intellectuals: organic, professional, and critical; 3) The role of organic intellectuals in rural development; 4) The role of professional intellectuals in rural development; 5) The role of critical intellectuals in rural development, and 6) An evaluation of the role of intellectuals in general.
The methods I use will be historical-comparative and ethnographic. In other words, I will trace the role of intellectuals in history. Meanwhile, I will compare the role of intellectuals in this particular county, which we will call Pingzhou, in the middle part of Shanxi province, with the role of intellectuals elsewhere and see what similarities and differences we may find and how they explain our analytical framework of organic, professional, and critical intellectuals. In addition, I will use my field work data in this county to illustrate the various roles of intellectuals in the countryside. I will especially use the field research data from a village in the county, which we shall call Xicun.[5]
1. The historical background of the role of intellectuals in China’s countryside in general and in Xicun in particular
The relationship between intellectuals and the countryside has undergone many transformations. We will discuss the role of intellectuals in traditional and modern societies before we talk about their contemporary roles. Xicun village of Pingzou county will be our case study.
The role of intellectuals in the traditional society (in the Ming and Qing dynasties)
As many scholars have noted, in the major part of the traditional Chinese history, the state only appointed officials down to the county level（王权止于县）, while the landed gentry served as the bridge between the government and the people in villages (see Fei Xiaotong 2006:48; Wu Tao 2003; Yu Jianrong 2005:7-8, 88-133). By 1850, while the upper gentry who received a jinshi (metropolitan) degree would be assured of administrative posts in the government, juren (provincial) or shengyuan (prefectural) degree holders would be more likely to serve as lower-level functionaries (see Wakeman 1975:31). They would mediate legal disputes between peasants; supervise local schools, academies, and irrigation works; recruit and train local militia; and help collect taxes (see also Zhang Zhongli’s 1991 work on the role of the local gentry, cited in Zhang Ming 2001:41-2).
This functionary role of intellectuals can also be seen in the village of Xicun in Pingzhou county. Xicun’s history can be traced to the Han dynasty.[6] Some events, most likely wars,[7] seemed to have caused at one time the desertion of the entire village, so the current population in Xicun can trace back to at most 21 generations, which would bring us to around 1503, or the middle of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644).[8] By the Republican era, the largest clans of the village were the three branches of the Hao family, (each with about 60 to 100 households), two branches of the Zhao clan (each with about 50 households), and the Yang and Li clans, each with about 50 households. The other families had fewer than 50 households, including Bai, Mu, Gu, Jin, Wang, Wei, Jia, Bi, Ren, Meng, Zhang, Shi, Fan, and Jin，etc. Typically in each household, there were four to five people.
Two features characterize these families, especially the larger ones. First, they had produced a large number scholar-officials or aspirants to government offices, including xiucai, juren, and jinshi. For example, by 1644, or by the sixth generation of the Big Hao family, one of the three branches of the Hao clan, the branch already had six xiangsheng (degree holders at the county level) and one gongsheng (degree holders at the state level). The later generations had two more gongsheng, and two military juren (wu ju, at the provincial level). Some of them held government offices around the country.
Second, the same branch of the clan also went into commercial businesses. The twelfth generation of the family started the first salt shop in the county in the years of Daoguang emperor (around 1821). The fifteenth generation started a piao hao (a virtual bank) in Taiyuan in the years of Guangxu (around 1875), and the next generation started another one in Lanzhou, Gansu.
Several other families also had similar achievements.[9] In this background of political and economic success, the various clans and families in the village also took an active part in the development of the village. For example, by the end of the Qing dynasty, the village already had the following cultural and religious buildings: Long Wang Miao; Da Wang Miao; three archlike passage ways on which there were also temples worshiping various deities of heaven, earth, water, Wenchang Jun, Guanyin, and Guan Gong; a temple of Confucius along with some school buildings and a village meeting hall; Wudao Miao; Xianshen Miao; Heshen (the river god) Miao; Shanshen (the mountain god) Miao; the Temple of Han Xin we mentioned above, and a large scale temple called Cang Yan Xing Ci, with over 10 rooms housing various deities.
The stone tablets describing the organizers of and contributors to these constructions show that these buildings were most of the times sponsored by the local gentry from these families, although other people in Xicun and surrounding villages also contributed either money or labor. For example, in the ninth year of Emperor Kangxi (1662-1723), Hao Shangzhi from one of the Hao families organized the fund-raising and the building of the Temple of Confucius. Some contributed money to buy trees, food, building materials like earth, etc., and others contributed their labor for the project. These people were from other families as well, such as the Li, Zhao, Jia, and Yang. Two members of the Yang family worked as skilled labor as volunteers. The same applies to the conduction of other public works I mentioned above, involving these and other families in the village. In addition to the public works, of course, there is the tradition of building schools by large families, especially those who retired to the village from government offices.[10]
The role of intellectuals in the modern society (roughly after the May 4 Movement in 1919 and before the reform era of the 1980s)
If the role of intellectuals in the traditional society was played mainly by the rural gentry, the role of intellectuals in the modern society was dominated by intellectuals from outside the village. The rural gentry declined partly because of the abolishment of the state examination system and partly because of the development of the cities that attracted intellectuals there. Both are part of China’s modernization efforts. Along with the declination of the gentry, we see the rise of modern intellectuals, revolutionary or otherwise. We will now review the national scene first before we come to the village of Xicun.
One of the examples of modern intellectuals’ involvement in rural development is folk literature movement in the 1920s. Inspired by or as part of the May 4 Movement, some intellectuals wanted to help revive the cultural heritages of ordinary people. The movement was led by such men from the city as Liu Fu (Bannong, 1891–1934), Zhou Zuoren (1885–1967), and Gu Jiegang (1893–1934). The folklorists were to collect folk-songs, proverbs, dialect literature, legends, and children’s literature, and to publish them in newspapers and journals in the cities (see Hung 1985).[11]
But the best example of city intellectuals involving themselves in the development in the countryside may be James Yen (Yan Yangchu), Liang Shumin, and others in the rural transformation movement in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s (see Zhang Dahua 2000). Yen set up schools to teach peasants to read and write, clinics to improve the health of peasants and the hygiene in the countryside, peasant associations to organize life and teach new ways of doing agriculture there, financial institutions (xin yong she) to regulate money borrowing and lending, and institutes to train personnel for the countryside. The experiment first started in Dingxian county, Hebei province, and then spread to several other provinces (Wu Xiangxiang 2001).[12]
The government of Yan Xishan in Shanxi province also started what is known as cun ben zhengzhi movement in 1917. Politically, he institutionalized the village governance structure by adding various levels of cadres at and below the village level. Economically, he wanted to build irrigation works, develop animal husbandry, plant trees, grow cotton, and raise silkworms. Socially, he advocated the abolishment of opium and foot-binding, and wearing short hair. To help with these policies, he also wanted villages to establish various organizations like the mediation committee (xi song hui), the supervisory committee (jiancha hui), the village assembly (cunmin huiyi), and the school board (xuedong hui). The heads of the organizations had to be elected. In the years between 1920 to 1927, Yan was quite successful in his reforms, and Shanxi became what was know as the “model province.” A successful military industry was built up on the growth of the economy. We also understand that Yan made an effort for intellectuals to play a role in the rural development, including, but not limited to, the scholars who attended his seminars on rural management. (For the above, see Meng Lingmei and Xiao Lihui 2002; Zhang Ming 2001:76-88).
In the village of Xicun, the most successful cunzhang, or village head, was Li Linshu at the time. He received a bian’e (a horizontal inscribed board) in 1928 from Yan Xishan, praising him as ji gong hao yi, or “eager to do public good and willing to help the disadvantaged.” It was to commend him for his service to the Yan government regarding taxes, choosing people to serve in his army, etc. Li also made great efforts enforcing rules and regulations in the village. He punished those who were engaged in gambling and smoked opium. Those who were caught doing these things would have to pay a fine, or do public work for the village. The money and the labor for paving many of the streets in the village were from this source. Li was praised by the county governor, Liu Guangrong, as a model of hard work and good village governance. Liu reported his deeds to Yan Xishan, who awarded Li another medal for his work in the village.[13]
But if those examples above of intellectuals getting involved in rural development are more reformist in nature, representing efforts originated either from the government, as in Xicun, or from city intellectuals, as in the case of folklorists and Yan Yangchu (James Yen), there were also revolutionary movements in the modern village. Both the reformist and revolutionary movements were led mainly by intellectuals from the outside and of various kinds. We will now again take Xicun as an example of the historical development of this kind.