Taiping Rebellion

 Taiping Rebellion

• The Taiping Rebellion (1851  1864), which erupted over most of South and Central China in the middle of the 19th century, 

• It was the biggest peasant uprising in Chinese history and one of the greatest peasant rebellions in world history. 

• The Taiping Rebellion was mainly against the two powers :

• Firstly, it was against the feudal rule of the Manchu dynasty. 

• Secondarily it was against foreign capitalism (Foreign capitalism had been making steady inroads into the economy, society, and politics of China). 

Chinese Historian

1. Contemporary

2. Conservative

3. Nationalist

4. Non Nationalist

5. Object 

Nature

1.Transitional phase

• The Taiping Rebellion took place at a time when Chinese society was under transition.

• It was in the process of transition from a feudal society to a semi-feudal and semi-colonial one. 

• The process of transition started from the time of the Opium Wars when Britain and other foreign powers had already begun making active encroachments on Chinese soil.

• A number of scholars, both Chinese and western, have written on the nature and significance of the Taiping Rebellion.

2.National, social and religious movement

• According to Jean Chesneaux, the Taiping Movement was characterised by its triple content. 

• National: Anti Manchu, for it attacked the ruling dynasty as "foreign and barbarous"

• Religion: it vehemently attacked Confucianism; combined popular Chinese cults and borrowed ideas from Christianity.

• Social: It was a social protest movement because it not only shook the edifice of feudalism in China by offering a programme of changing the agrarian relations but also stood for emancipation of women.

3.Struggle b/w peasant and feudal forces

• Mao Zedong (1939) pointed out that peasant uprisings and wars included a unique feature of Chinese history. 

• According to him, class struggles between peasants and feudal forces constituted the dynamic element in the progress of China amidst the changing fortunes of ruling dynasties. 

• He argued that in the absence of leadership by the Communist Party, peasant wars of the past were unable to liberate the peasantry from the feudal yoke. 

• While speaking about the Taiping Rebellion, Mao said that it was one of the eight major events. 

• It occurred in the formative period of China's bourgeois- democratic revolution.

4.Democratic fight

• According to Epstein (1956), the rebellion was simultaneously the last of China's old-style peasant wars. 

• It was the first great democratic fight of its people in the modern period.

5.Peasants attacked regime

• A different view was that the peasants attacked the regime, not feudalism as a class system. 

• Hou Wailu described the Taiping revolt as the highest form of peasant war and a very good beginning for modern revolution. 

• Another writer, Wu Shimo, asserted that Taiping stood for political equality, economic equality, and equality among nations.

6.Terrifying Revolt

• Karl Marx and The Times (August 30, 1853) hailed the event in identical language. 

• Marx called it a formidable revolution and The Times described it as the greatest revolution the world had ever seen.

7.Rebellion not revolution

• Barrington Moore (1993) and Kung-chuan Hsiao (1979) maintain that it was a rebellion, not a revolution, as it did not alter the basic structure of society.

8.wanted to bring Christianity

• Vincent Shih holds that the Taipings had genuine revolutionary possibilities in borrowing Christian and western ideas. 

• However, these possibilities were revoked because the Taipings were only able to perceive Christian ideas through the glass of traditional concepts.

9.Agrarian Rebellion

• The Taiping Rebellion was an agrarian revolution, which formed part of the democratic revolution.

Contemporary 

Nationalist 

They embodied economic policies in taiping nationalism.  

1.Sun

• Sun was influenced by the stories of Hung and Yang.

• He considered himself a "second Hung Hsiu-ch'iian."

• He later interpreted Hung's ideas to be Min-sheng chu-in (the principle of the people's livelihood) and also as communism. 

• Weakness:  According to Sun, the chief cause of the Taipings' failure was the fact that "Hung knew only of the ethnic issue and knew nothing of the rights of the people; he knew only of monarchy and knew nothing of democracy."

2.Chiang Kai- Shek

• Chiang Kai-shek reiterated the thought and speaks of the Taiping army as "restoration troops"  and a "revolutionary army,.

• He also mentioned Hung and Yang, though they failed to overthrow the Qing dynasty but their ethnic awareness has flourished and became a great monument. 

3.Chein Yu- Wen

• According to Chien the aim of the revolution was to create a new society and destroy the old one.

• For him Taiping was an ideological rebellion. 

• This desire of Taipings brought up unprecedented destruction. 

• Chien defends the Taipings undemocratic ways. 

• Mainly peasants participated in the Taiping rebellion. 

• They welcome the communal ownership of land but they were practiced landlordism from a long time. 

• They started asking for private land which led to the failure of the rebellion. 

• Although it was a ethnic and ideological rebellion but the time was not accurate for this. 

• Results of Taiping rebellion:

• Military changes 

• Political changes

• Financial changes

• Great social and economic destruction

Non- Nationalist

Objective 

1.Hsiao Kung Chuan

• He emphasizes the political aspects of taiping ideas.

• According to him, there were two political ideals of the taiping army.

• They wanted to overthrow the Manchus and revive Hans.

• The movement also adopted elements of Christianity which worked towards the destruction of traditional social mores.

• It also contains the idea of national autonomy and international equality. .

• Also wanted to worship tien and love universally. 

• This results in religious equality ( implying great harmony and universal love) and economic equality.

2.Chou kuch'eng 

• He described taiping as a movement characterized by ethnic and social consciousness. 

• He Stated that the character of rebellion was dual. 

• First it was a revolt against Manchus from the standpoint of the Chinese.

• Second it was a revolt of poor peasants against the bureaucratic landlords under the regime of Manchus.

• Success of the Taipings in winning a big following because poor peasants at the moment had no means of livelihood because of famine and hence they were moved by the ideology of the Taipings.

• This wide mass of people was unified by Christianity which gave them spiritual ties.

3.Lo Erh- Kang

• According to him, the Taiping rebellion was a peasant revolution. 

• Peasants include poor farmers, unemployed people, minors and charcoal workers.

• They were being influenced by the ideas of the west that were a perverted form of Christianity.

• Its system and institution contain democratic and socialist ideas.

• It failed because peasants still have their heretic beliefs and their self interest. 

• It failed also because of its feudalistic society and because of the corruption of its leaders.