The formal establishment of the People’s Republic of China in Beijing on October 10, 1949 heralded the arrival of what the Chinese Communist Party proudly called “New China.” But what did the establishment of New China look like at the grassroots level? This talk moves the focus of inquiry away from Beijing and down to Poyang, an overwhelmingly rural county far from centers of Maoist power. Discussing his new book Tiger, Tyrant, Bandit, Businessman: Echoes of Counterrevolution from New China, Prof. DeMare uses rare archival sources from rural police investigations to bring four tales of political and criminal intrigue to life. Bandit uprisings, midnight assassinations, prison breaks, and trials of accused spies all underscore the volatile nature of regime change in rural China. Prof. DeMare will also highlight how our understanding of these years of revolutionary upheaval are deeply complicated by the limitations of archival materials.

Prof. Brian DeMare teaches at Tulane University. A specialist in archives and narratives, he has written three books on Maoist revolution. His first book, Mao’s Cultural Army (Cambridge, 2015), explored how the Communists deployed drama troupes to mobilize soldiers and farmers alike. Land Wars (Stanford, 2019), Prof. DeMare’s second book, is the only English language study on the multiple rounds of land reform that brought Communist rule to the countryside between 1946 and 1952. This talk is based on his latest book, Tiger, Tyrant, Bandit, Businessman: Echoes of Counterrevolution from New China (Stanford, 2022).