Fighting Nature and History: The CCP and Disputes over Weishan Lake in Socialist China

• In Event: Negotiating Revolution: The Party and the People in the Early Mao Period

Abstract

Under the leadership of Mao Zedong the Chinese Communist Party claimed to fight against nature and disdain history, but nature and history proved difficult to conquer. This paper explores how Communist rhetoric, which tended to deny the problems of nature and history, in turn created ever more social tensions at the local level. Such was the case with Weishan Lake, lying between the border of Shandong and Jiangsu provinces. Weishan Lake suffered from endemic flooding after the Yellow River changed its course in the 1850s. The lake’s ecology changed constantly, in accordance with not only flooding from the Yellow River but the movements of people as well, creating complicated problems for the local administrations before and after the establishment of the PRC state. Most notably, Hakka and Jiangsu natives engaged in bloody feuds over control of the lake and its resources. This essay discusses the major changes that occurred to the Weishan Lake ecosystem during Mao's era, while also exploring how ecological changes translated into social anxieties. As I argue, the party’s willful ignorance of the realities of nature and history seriously hampered its attempt to find an equitable solution the Weishan Lake problem.

Author

• Xiaojia Hou, San Jose State University