【Text/Observer Network Columnist Wang Xiaodi】
[This year marks the eightieth anniversary of the July 7 Incident, and when the Chinese mainland began an all-out war of resistance, Taiwan, as a Japanese colony, has been struggling for more than forty years, and a group of people with lofty ideals have gone forward to fight against the Japanese colonizers in order to fight for the rights and interests of the people of the island. On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the July 7 Incident, let's relive the struggle path of Taiwanese intellectuals in the Japanese occupation era. 】
The rise of the intellectual elite and the establishment of cultural associations
Talking about the anti-Japanese movement in Taiwan during the Japanese occupation era, it is undeniable that intellectuals play an important role. As a key organization of Taiwan's ideological enlightenment, the "Cultural Association" is the base camp of intellectuals. After the 1920s, various social movements in Taiwan were more or less shadowed by cultural associations, and their conception and birth could not be separated from the background of the times at that time.
After the first afternoon, the taiwan people's resistance to the Japanese colonists never stopped. During the first two decades of Japan's occupation of Taiwan, the anti-Japanese movement of the Taiwanese people was mainly in the form of armed resistance. However, since the brutal suppression of the "Xilai'an Incident" in 1915, Taiwan's social vitality has been greatly damaged, and people of insight in Taiwan have begun to think about the way of the next stage of the resistance movement.
Mr. Jiang Weishui
At this very moment, the international situation was changing. Influenced by the post-World War I colonial liberation movement and the Russian Revolution, liberalism, communism, national self-determination, and the women's movement flourished in Japan. Affected by this, Japan's social liberal and democratic atmosphere is strong, politically more open, and more open to the colonies.
At this time, Taiwanese students who were negative in Japan were the first to be baptized by new ideas. They actively explored the current situation and the way out in Taiwan, and successively established a number of progressive organizations and societies in Japan, such as the Tokyo Taiwan Youth Association and the Xinmin Association, which opened the prelude to the organization of Taiwanese students' resistance activities in Japan. In addition, in July 1920, with the assistance of Cai Huiru, the first Taiwanese journal, Taiwanese Youth, was published, covering both Japanese students and some Taiwanese students, and its contents had a profound impact on the later New Culture Movement.
The new trend of thought also affected the main island of Taiwan, and soon formed a group of intellectual elites under the new trend, such as Li Yingzhang, an important initiator of the Erlin Incident, who came into contact with many Japanese leftist books and periodicals during his study and accepted Marxist ideas. The local intellectual elite grew up with a background similar to Li Yingzhang, and although they did not have the experience of staying in Japan, they did not lag behind in contact with new ideas, such as Jiang Weishui and Jian Ji. In addition to these educated young people, many of the Taiwanese gentry were also influenced by new ideas, such as Cai Huiru and Lin Xiantang, who were not only enthusiastic about public affairs, but also supported various organizations and associations financially.
The First Council of the Taiwan Cultural Association
With the growth of the intellectual community, the idea of forming a larger group is about to come out. The idea of establishing a cultural association first came from Lin Zhongshu, a founding member of Taiwan Youth. The idea came from his own experience, and in the "Congratulatory Speech" of the inaugural issue of Taiwan Youth in 1920, Yoshino Sakuzaku, who was known as the "standard-bearer of Taisho Democracy", proposed that Taiwanese people should become a culturally independent nation and form an independent personality, and welcomed their future plans. Lin Zhongshu put this in his heart. Unfortunately, Lin Zhongshu died young at the age of 25, and the practice of establishing a cultural association passed into the hands of his friend Jiang Weishui.
In November 1920, Taiwan's first aviator Xie Wenda returned to Taiwan for a visit to Taiwan, and Jiang Weishui and others successfully gathered students from all schools in Taiwan at the Taipei Medical School in the Governor's Office in the name of the welcome party, so that the students of various schools could exchange ideas and connect. In April 1921, when Li Yingzhang, Wu Haihai, He Lidong, and others graduated from the medical school organized the All-Taiwan Youth Association in Taipei to solicit funds from Lin Xiantang and Lin Xiong, they met Jiang Weishui and Cai Peihuo, and Jiang Weishui believed that "if you don't stop doing it, if you want to do it, you must be a group with a large scope", so he decided to form the Taiwan Cultural Association.
Taiwan's first aviator Hsieh Wen-ta
In order to gain official trust, in July 1921, Jiang Weishui and his friends visited the then governor of the Governor's Office, Kawasaki Takayoshi, and assured him that he would not be involved in political activities. On October 17, 1921, the Taiwan Cultural Association was formally established in the Taipei Ashram With 103 members, and the purpose of its establishment was set as "to seek the development of Taiwanese culture".
In the early days, the form of cultural association activities was to hold activities limited to the intellectual level, such as newspaper reading and lectures, and the scope of influence was limited, and this situation did not change until cultural speeches appeared. Since 1923, cultural lectures have penetrated deep into the masses and carried out cultural enlightenment throughout the island, which has been warmly welcomed by local fathers and villagers. Cultural lectures are all-encompassing and accompanied by critiques of realpolitik. Because of the enlightenment and encouragement of the Cultural Association, the people overcame their fears and played a positive role in understanding the current situation of society among the people at the bottom of the time.
As a comprehensive intellectual class organization throughout Taiwan, the Cultural Association included the main intellectuals in Taiwan at that time, became an important platform for them to settle down and establish their lives, and also became the matrix of various anti-Japanese social movements in the new stage. Even the Japanese felt that the "cultural movement" was only a superficial act of the Cultural Association, and that its real intention was a movement of national self-determination against the Japanese authorities. The Taiwan people's anti-Japanese movement has also entered a new stage.
Taiwan's parliament set up a petition campaign
The "Police Management Incident" and the "Erlin Incident" are hailed as two monuments in the history of Taiwan's social movements. The former corresponds to the "Taiwan Parliamentary Set-up Petition Movement", the main members of the Taiwan Cultural Association are the leaders of this movement, and an important purpose of the establishment of the Cultural Association is to support the parliamentary setting movement.
In 1919, when Gojong Lee Hee of Joseon died, on March 1 of the same year, the Korean people took Gojong's funeral as an opportunity to read the Declaration of Independence, and the Korean independence movement broke out, with more than 2 million people participating in demonstrations and armed uprisings. The movement that swept across the peninsula was soon bloodily suppressed by the Japanese colonists, and the price of blood also brought enlightenment to Taiwanese intellectuals. In the earlier controversy surrounding the abolition of the June 3rd Law, which abolished the differential treatment between Japan and Taiwan, Taiwanese intellectuals were torn between the two choices of independence and assimilation, with independence facing bloodshed and assimilation losing themselves.
In 1920, Lin Chenglu, a Taiwanese intellectual who had long studied colonial politics, proposed a third way in his article "The Origin of the June 3rd Question" - to strengthen the colonial suffragette, to elect a parliament by the colonies, and to counter the executive power of the governor through budgetary and legislative powers, in other words, to achieve Taiwan's autonomy without separating from Japan. With the financial support of celebrities such as Lin Xiantang, a "petition campaign set up in Taiwan's parliament" was in full swing.
From 1921 to 1922, Taiwanese intellectuals launched two petition campaigns and sent delegations to the Japanese Diet to express their wishes, but both Houses of Japan responded with "no adoption." Although the petition movement failed, it attracted the great attention of the Japanese Governor's Office, and in the case of persuading Lin Xiantang, Jiang Weishui, Cai Peihuo and others to abandon the movement without success, the Governor's Office used coercion, rumor-mongering and other means to exert pressure on the main members, causing some members to waver, such as Lin Xiantang, who was forced to abandon the leader of the third petition movement because of the "Eight Horse Incident".
On February 22, 1923, the Third Taiwan Parliament set up a petition committee Lin Xiantang, Jiang Weishui, Cai Huiru, Cai Peihuo, Chen Fengyuan and others arrived at the Tokyo Railway Station, which was warmly welcomed by Taiwanese students in Tokyo
In response to pressure from the Governor's Office, intellectuals realized the need for association. In preparation for the third petition campaign, Jiang Weishui and Tsai Pei-hsu began to organize the "Taiwan Parliament Period Formation Alliance", but the Governor's Office rejected the report on the grounds of violating the Public Security Police Law. As a last resort, the League was transferred from Taipei to Tokyo, where it was formally established with approval. This made the Governor's Office of Taiwan very angry, and soon launched a "violation of the Public Security Police Law" (the police incident) to arrest intellectuals throughout the island. Jiang Weishui, Cai Peihuo, Cai Huiru, Lin Chenglu, Shi Huanchang, Lin Youchun and Chen Fengyuan were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 3 to 4 months.
Beginning in 1921 and lasting fourteen years, the "Taiwan Parliament Set Up Petition Movement" was launched 15 times, making it the largest and longest-spanning social movement during the Japanese occupation period. The movement adopted moderate "petitions" and "lobbying" methods, and aimed to enter the system to achieve the elevation of the status of Taiwanese, which is characteristic of the modern political movement model. This movement not only popularized the concept of constitutionalism and the rule of law, but also demonstrated the determination of the people of Taiwan to fight for their own power from the colonialists. However, the "Police Incident" of 1923 caused political terror, caused panic throughout the island, and for a time led to a significant decline in the number of people in the fourth and fifth petition campaigns. The setbacks of the parliamentary set-up movement also made the moderate and reformed anti-Japanese methods questioned by left-wing intellectuals, leaving room for practical practice in the same period such as the Erlin Incident.
Two forest events
Sugarcane is an important cash crop in Taiwan. Before Japan occupied Taiwan, Japan's sugar consumption relied on imports, and its main import object was Taiwan, dating back to the Hideyoshi Ieyasu era. In 1898, when Taiwan entered the era of Kodama Gentaro Ren and Goto Shinpei, the Japanese colonists began to focus on taiwan, and the sugar industry was the focus of development. In 1901, Shintoto Rice Manufacturing became the director of the Taiwan Bureau of Breeding, and according to his suggestion, the colonial authorities promulgated the "Sugar Industry Incentive Rules", which supported the development of the sugar industry from three principles: financial subsidies, ensuring raw materials and market protection.
Since then, the development of Taiwan's sugar industry has been growing day by day, and in its heyday, 19% of Taiwan's arable land is planted with sugarcane, 15% of the population is cane farmers, the sugar industry accounts for 48% of industrial production, and sugar export accounts for 43% of Taiwan's total output.
Map of the distribution of sugar mills during the Japanese occupation period
As a colony, Taiwan's economy is bound to be subordinated to the economic division of labor system of the mother country, the economic structure is single, it has a greater dependence, and the people of Taiwan bear heavy economic exploitation. Specific to the island, in order to fully extract the surplus value of Taiwanese laborers, Japan has promulgated many provisions that benefit the capital, such as the "harvesting regional system" in the "Sugar Industry Incentive Rules", which divides Taiwan into the exclusive area of each sugar factory, and cane farmers cannot sell sugarcane across borders, but can only accept the harvest price of local sugar mills. The sugarcane weighing and harvesting price are determined by the factory, and the cane farmers have no right to ask questions, so the lack of pounds and short two things occurs from time to time. Legend has it that at that time, some cane farmers did not believe in the weighing of the trolley, and the three Baozheng (mile long) jumped on the trolley to weigh it, and only increased by eighty kilograms. During the Japanese occupation period, three slang phrases circulated among taiwanese cane farmers: "The first one, eat the tobacco (blow) wind; the second, eat the betel nut and spit red; the third, insert sugar cane to give the club pounds." The third of these refers to this, and therefore there is a later sentence describing the merchant stealing two pounds short, "three Baozheng eighty pounds".
The outbreak of the "Erlin Incident" is inextricably linked to the local intellectual Li Yingzhang. Li Yingzhang, also a member of the Cultural Association, was born in 1897 in Erlin County, Changhua, Taiwan. When he was young, he often heard his grandmother talk about the cruelty of the Japanese, and his father was often humiliated and harassed by the Japanese police, and the experience of his youth planted in his heart the thoughts and feelings of resistance to Japan. During his studies, due to his exposure to a large number of left-wing books, he was ideologically inclined to Marxism. After graduation, Li Yingzhang joined the Cultural Association and became an officer in the Erlin district. He returned to his hometown to open a clinic, and during his medical practice, he often witnessed the exploitation of cane farmers, sympathized with their plight, and began to organize a peasant movement.
At that time, more than 4,000 of the 6,000 households in the Erlin area were engaged in harvesting work. It belongs to the harvesting area of the Hayashi Ben Sugar Society, but its harvest price is much lower than that of the nearby Meiji Sugar Society's Xihu Factory and the New High Sugar Society's Social Exhibition, and the purchase price is determined by the factory after the acquisition, and the cane farmers are greatly exploited.
In 1923, Li Yingzhang and the comrades of the Erlin Regional Cultural Association began to study the exploitation of cane farmers, calculating the cost of cane cultivation, fertilizer prices, comparison of cane prices, profits of the sugar society, etc., as evidence of negotiations with the factory. In addition, he personally held lectures, wrote sugarcane songs, mobilized the grass-roots cane growing masses, stimulated the emotions of the same enemy, and awakened their courage to fight for their rights and interests.
Taiwanese cane farmers farming
In order to better negotiate with the factory, in January 1925, Li Yingzhang convened a meeting of farmers in front of the Erlin Renhe Palace and decided to form a peasant group. In April of the same year, Lin Xiantang and other members of the cultural association came to Erlin to give a speech, which greatly encouraged the enthusiasm of local farmers. Two months later, the Erlin Farmers Group was established, with 404 farmers involved, with Li Yingzhang as the chairman. This is the first peasant group in Taiwan's history and the predecessor of the current Taiwan Farmers' Association. On September 27, the farmers' group decided to make five demands on the sugar society:
1. The purchase price is announced before the purchase of sugarcane
2. Fertilizer is available for cane farmers to buy
3. The Society and the cane farmers agree on the purchase price of sugarcane
4. Sugarcane weighing shall be accompanied by representatives of cane farmers
5. The company shall publish the fertilizer analysis table
But the cane farmer's request did not receive serious attention from the factory. On October 22, 1925, while the cane farmers and the factory were still negotiating, the factory, under the protection of the police, began to forcibly harvest sugarcane, which was strongly opposed by the cane farmers and clashes broke out. Two patrol swords were snatched by cane farmers, and a total of five patrols were injured in the clashes.
At the time of the incident, Li Yingzhang was not present at the scene. After the incident, the cane farmers were agitated and demanded to surround the police station and carry out an armed uprising, but they were dissuaded by Li Yingzhang and other cadres. However, Li Yingzhang's restraint did not exchange the kindness of the colonists, and in the early morning of the 23rd, the police launched a "big whistle-blow", and Li Yingzhang, Liu Songfu and other members of the Erlin Association, as well as 93 cane farmers, were arrested. Li Yingzhang was sentenced to eight months in prison, during which his home was on fire and his father died of illness, making great sacrifices for the peasant movement.
The Erlin Incident kicked off the proletarian movement in Taiwan. Beginning with the Erlin Incident, the peasant and communist classes, encouraged by the awakening, began to take the initiative to demand their rights and interests, and various peasant movements surged up. The Erlin Incident also had an impact on Jian Ji, an important figure in taiwan's left wing, who was originally a teacher, and after the incident, he quit his job to join the peasant movement in the Fengshan area and established the "Fengshan Peasant Group". After successfully helping the sharecroppers in the Fengshan area win the struggle, Jian Ji began a lecture tour to awaken the people's consciousness, successively established a group of peasant groups, and further developed into an island-wide "Taiwan peasant group".
Comrades-in-arms of the Erlin Incident, Jian Ji and Li Yingzhang (Jian Ji and the Japanese Taiwan Peasant Movement Special Exhibition Official Website)
Helpless perseverance
The "Taiwan Parliamentary Setup Movement" and the "Erlin Incident," two iconic social movements of the Japanese occupation era, reflected in practice the differences within Taiwan's intellectual class and revealed the fragility of such an all-encompassing think tank as the Cultural Association. Since the Erlin Incident, the cultural association's disagreements on the methods of resistance have become increasingly acute.
In January 1927, in the midst of a long period of infighting, the left-wing camp represented by Lian Wenqing and Wang Minchuan took the leadership of the Cultural Association. After the formation of the New Literary Association, with the workers' and peasants' mass movement as its development direction, the enthusiasm for participating in the political movement has also become even higher. Support the struggle of the Taiwanese peasant group and develop the workers' movement. In March 1927, Lian Wenqing assisted in the establishment of the "Taipei Machinery Trade Union", which opened a wave of Taiwanese workers' movement. Thereafter, with the decline of support from the Comintern, the suppression of the colonial authorities, and competition from the Taiwan People's Party, the influence of the New Literary Association gradually declined, and eventually became a peripheral organization of the Taiwan Communist Party.
On the other hand, the moderates who had lost the battle between the left and the right fled from the cultural associations and eventually formed the Taiwan People's Party, continuing the "Taiwan Parliamentary Establishment Movement" . As the Attitude of the Japanese Colonists toward Taiwan tightened, the parliamentary movement was terminated in 1934 after the Taiwan People's Party was dissolved and forced to disband, due to lack of organizational support.
To some extent, the split of the Cultural Association is related to the immaturity of Taiwan's intellectual class. On the one hand, the first group of intellectuals in modern and modern Taiwan, after Japan occupied Taiwan, although they experienced the period of Taiwan's armed anti-Japanese movement at a young age, they generally received modern education in their youth and completed value shaping under the nourishment of new trends of thought. When they began to directly lead the anti-Japanese movement in Taiwan, the overall situation of resistance underwent a completely new change. They had the intention of changing the situation in Taiwan, but they had no experience in non-violent struggle, nor did they have the experience of organizing and defending and uniting comrades, which made them suffer repeated setbacks in front of the Japanese colonialists. Many people chose to come to Chinese mainland in order to realize their enthusiasm, such as Li Yingzhang, the leader of the "Erlin Incident", who came to the mainland after being released from prison, joined the Communist Party of China, participated in the Chinese revolution, and established the Taiwan Democratic Self-Government League.
On the other hand, as colonial intellectuals, they themselves have also suffered from the suppression and encirclement and suppression of the colonial authorities, have limited space for growth and experience, and have long been influenced by the differentiation strategy of the Governor-General's Office of Taiwan during the activities of cultural associations. In the "Countermeasures of the Taiwan Cultural Association", the means of dividing the Cultural Association by the Police Bureau of the Governor's Office are recorded in detail, such as prompting Lin Xiantang to leave Taiwan, indirectly supporting moderates, deepening factional differences, and intensifying factional contradictions.
With the end of the Taisho era and the rise of fascism in Japan, by the mid-1930s, Taiwan's original social movement resistance method was forced to shift to the form of literary struggle with "local culture" as the core, in order to resist the increasingly fierce imperialization. This is the insistence of Taiwanese intellectuals in the Japanese occupation era, and it is also their helplessness, but at least what they have done is enough to make some of the current Taiwan elites feel ashamed.