Recently, as patriotism has been intentionally stigmatized and smeared by certain media and groups, and as the so-called “populism” and “anti-nationalism” labels have been flying around online, the great Boxer Rebellion has once again been taken out by certain people and groups to slander and attack.
For example, a poet and writer, after labeling Chinese netizens as “fascists” and “Nazis”, then specifically put on a so-called “Boxer” hat.
The meaning of this poet and writer is actually quite clear, which is to try to shape the Boxer Rebellion into an evil and reactionary image, and use this to slander and vilify netizens.
Today, let’s talk to this poet and writer about the Boxer Rebellion, and give the Boxer Rebellion a fair and just evaluation, and set the record straight.
First of all, let’s look at the official website of the Central People’s Government of the Republic of China’s definition and evaluation of the Boxer Rebellion: The Boxer Rebellion was a patriotic anti-imperialist movement. This movement shattered the arrogant plan of imperialist powers to carve up China, severely打击了清政府的反动统治, and accelerated its demise.
Secondly, let’s look at the definition and evaluation of the Boxer Rebellion by our Party on the website of the Communist Party of China News.
The definition of the Boxer Rebellion is: the awakening of national consciousness – the Boxer Rebellion, an anti-imperialist and patriotic movement.
The evaluation of the Boxer Rebellion: Due to foreign invasion, the Boxer Rebellion, spontaneously formed by the people, demonstrated the determination of the Chinese people to unite and resist foreign aggression a hundred years ago.
Although the initiation process and organization of the Boxer Rebellion had a general xenophobic color, the mutual contact, mutual support, and the spirit of daring to fight and not fear sacrifice shown by the Boxers in resisting the Eight-Nation Alliance still reflect the determination and courage of the Chinese people in resisting foreign aggression, and wrote a glorious page in the history of the Chinese people’s anti-aggression struggle.
On the 100-year history of our Party, the content about the Boxer Rebellion is described as follows: After 1840, due to the invasion of Western powers and the corruption of feudal rule, China gradually became a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society. Realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation has become the greatest dream of the whole nation; striving for national independence, people’s liberation, and realizing national prosperity and people’s happiness have become the historical tasks of the Chinese people. Many patriotic pioneers who dedicated themselves to the cause of national progress, have followed one another and explored unremittingly. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, the Westernization Movement, the Hundred Days’ Reform, and the Boxer Rebellion, failed again and again.
Very clear, very clear, although the Boxer Rebellion is not perfect, and even has defects, but it is still a great and vigorous anti-imperialist patriotic movement!
Let’s take a look at the evaluation of the Boxer Rebellion by our country’s people of insight and the first generation of leaders after the Boxer Rebellion.
1. In 1901, the magazine “Kai Zhi Lu” of Japanese students published an article “The Boxer Rebellion is meritorious to China”, which for the first time positively affirmed the historical achievements of the Boxer Rebellion. The article said: “This action of the Boxers is indeed the representative of the Chinese people’s spirit and the precursor of expelling foreigners. … With several achievements, the spirit of our people will be refreshed from then on.”
2. The great revolutionary pioneer Mr. Sun Yat-sen, in 1908, saw the spirit of daring to die in the Chinese people from the Boxer Rebellion.
In 1924, Sun Yat-sen delivered a speech on “Three Principles of the People” in Guangzhou, highly praising the Boxer Rebellion, saying that the “courageous spirit of the Boxers is truly irresistible, which is really amazing and admirable. Therefore, after that bloody battle, foreigners knew that China still had a national thought, and this nation is indestructible”.
Sun Yat-sen also clearly stated at the time: “We can answer the question of ‘why the Boxer Rebellion happened’ without any doubt: ‘It was because imperialism forced it to happen!'”
Sun Yat-sen also strongly attacked the remarks that slandered the Boxer Rebellion: “The character of the Boxers, compared with the group of flattering officials and traitorous traitors after the Gengzi-Xinchou period, is truly a world of difference. It’s strange that they still laugh at the Boxers as barbaric. Humph! If the Boxers are barbaric, they can’t even catch up with monkeys“.
3. Chen Duxiu, one of the main founders of our Party, published “Our Two Wrong Concepts about the Boxer Rebellion” in the “Guide” weekly on September 3, 1924, believing that: “Hating the Boxer Rebellion’s barbarous xenophobia” is a wrong concept, because “the Boxer Rebellion is a tragic prelude in the history of the Chinese national revolution”.
4. Regarding the Boxer Rebellion, Mao Zedong’s evaluation is: “Is it the Chinese people who organized the Boxers to go to the imperialist countries of Europe, America, and Japan to rebel and ‘kill and set fire’? Or is it the imperialist countries that came to China to invade China and oppress and exploit the Chinese people… This is a major issue of right and wrong, and it cannot be debated unclearly.“
5. In December 1955, the Prime Minister of East Germany, Grotewohl, led a delegation to visit China and returned the Boxer flag captured that year to the Premier. Zhou Enlai highly praised the historical achievements of the Boxer Rebellion: “The Boxer Rebellion was a manifestation of the Chinese people’s tenacious resistance to imperialist aggression, and their heroic struggle was one of the cornerstones of the great victory of the Chinese people 50 years later.”
In fact, foreigners and even the Eight-Nation Alliance themselves have a high evaluation of the Boxer Rebellion.
1. The commander of the Eight-Nation Alliance, Waldersee, said that through the resistance of the Boxers, it can be seen that the Chinese “in reality, still contain infinite vitality”, so he concluded that “China cannot be carved up”.
2. The British man, Hart, was the Inspector General of Customs appointed by the Qing government. He realized the vitality of the Chinese people through the Boxer Rebellion. He believed that: “If China is carved up, the whole country will unite to oppose the foreign rulers who participate in the carving up.”
Hart said in “China’s Actual Theory”: “…… The Boxer Rebellion was actually initiated by its patriotism, with the purpose of strengthening China and resisting foreigners… From now on, this spirit will surely penetrate deeper into the hearts of the people and spread throughout the country. In the future, there will be descendants of the Boxers who will carry the cannons of the Green and shoulder the guns of the Mauser to carry out the unfinished aspirations of the Boxers.“
3. The Japanese scholar Kotoku Shusui, a participant in the Boxer Rebellion, published the anti-war statement “Criticizing Imperialism” in the “Mancho Daily”. Japanese friend Miyazaki Toten pointed out: Missionaries waved the banner of universal love and humanity, but they were doing the work of middlemen for thieves, which is really unimaginable. If you were born in China at this time, you would definitely join the Boxers and fight the Eight-Nation Alliance to the death.
4. The British scholar John Hobson believes that the Boxer Rebellion was a turning point in world history and East Asian history for imperialism.
5. The American writer Mark Twain’s evaluation of the Boxer Rebellion is: “I am a Boxer. The Boxers are patriotic, and I wish them victory.” “Why don’t the powers withdraw from China and let China handle its own affairs freely? Things are all caused by foreigners. As long as they can get out, what a great thing it is.” (“World Literature” No. 10, 1960, p. 128.)
6. Lenin believed that the Boxer Rebellion “was caused by the colonial plunder policy pursued by the capitalist powers in the entire East, especially in China“. Lenin also denounced: “Those who came to China only to make a fortune, those who used their so-called civilization to deceive, plunder, and suppress, those who fought against China in order to obtain the right to sell the poison that harms the people, those who used the ghost stories of missionaries to cover up the policy of plunder, don’t the Chinese hate them?“
Then the question comes, why are there so many people and groups in our country who occasionally and frequently stigmatize the Boxer Rebellion, slander and insult the Boxer Rebellion?
First of all, they are fighting an ideological war with our Party and the Chinese people. They are trying to dissolve the grand historical view and deconstruct the “grand narrative”, completely denying the historical significance of the Chinese people’s anti-imperialist and anti-feudal patriotic movement.
Secondly, they are clearly standing on the opposite side of the people and blatantly engaging in historical nihilism, stigmatizing patriotism.
Thirdly, because if we did not have the Boxer Rebellion in history, our country would very likely have been carved up by the Western powers and really become a Western colony. And these people and these groups dream of Western colonization of China, and they have a deep-rooted colonial complex.
These people and these groups have always regarded themselves as the Chinese elite, and have always fantasized about so-called “enlightening” the Chinese people and turning the Chinese people into colonialists like them. However, they have forgotten that the reason why the Boxer Rebellion broke out at that time was precisely because the elite class at that time, especially the so-called masters, were weak, short-sighted, stupid, and servile, and could not lead the people to drive away foreign aggression.
Therefore, those who often attack and stigmatize the Boxer Rebellion and consider themselves elites, are people whose braids have never been cut off, are people who are obsessed with Western colonial rule, and are people who are still kneeling and unable to get up to the West.
Finally, we must seriously understand the words of the old squad leader: “Why did the Soviet Union disintegrate? Why did the CPSU collapse? An important reason is that the struggle in the ideological field was very fierce, completely denying the history of the Soviet Union and the history of the CPSU, denying Lenin, denying Stalin, engaging in historical nihilism, and the ideology was messed up. Almost no role was played by the party organizations at all levels, and the army was no longer under the leadership of the party. In the end, the Soviet Communist Party, a huge party, collapsed, and the Soviet Union, a huge socialist country, disintegrated. This is a lesson from the past!”
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