| Abstract |
This article takes the February 1950 uprising of the Dadaohui in Pingtan County, Fujian Province, as a point of departure to examine several issues. What was the significance of the confrontation between the Dadaohui and the People’s Liberation Army in 1950? What roles did local armed organizations such as the Dadaohui play in the development of Fujian during the twentieth century? Why did newly established Communist authorities claim a direct causal link between these easily suppressed peasant collective actions and the residual forces of the Nationalist government? If we understand the Dadaohui uprising as part of a longer history of political interaction between local society and successive regimes in Fujian, what changes in discourse and power structures does this allow us to identify? How should we understand the interaction between various regimes in Fujian and mass organizations that have been active there since the early Republican period, particularly the relationship between the Dadaohui and redemptive societies such as the Tongshanshe? This study adopts a bottom-up approach and a micro-historical perspective that seeks to illuminate the broader dynamics through close analysis of local detail. By reconstructing specific local historical contexts, it challenges earlier one-sided, top-down political condemnations and reconsiders the historical development of the Dadaohui as a grassroots mass organization in northern and eastern Fujian, tracing its evolution from a social-bandit group defending local interests to what was later labeled a “reactionary heterodox organization.” |
