Abstract
In the early years of the Republic of China, Chinese society was undergoing great changes that had been unparalleled within a millennium. China’s politics, economy, culture, and other aspects all underwent great changes. Along with the development trend in modern China, Shanghai rose to its fame and became prosperous. As the most active commercial metropolis in modern Chinese history, Shanghai vividly deduce the dynamic and vivid scenes on its stage, which make up a historical picture scroll, condensing the epitome of social development in modern China and also deeply affecting every aspect of social development in modern China. Among them, Shanghai Road Business Federation emerged in the May Fourth Movement. Although it’s a small and weak social organization, it always affected the development of history. As a matter of fact, the research on the Shanghai Road Business Federation has always been a weak link in the field of Shanghai urban history and has not been paid close attention to by the academic circles. Professor Nansheng Peng has been focusing on the research of Shanghai Road Business Federation for more than two decades. By exploring the history, following the unique path, conducting repeated studies, searching, and combing, he finally connected the history and made it clear. His new book, The Merchant Society in the Block: Shanghai Road Business Federation (1919-1929), is a masterpiece of ‘what has not been demonstrated and what has not been narrated’.
In the book, it sets Shanghai Road Business Federation of 1919–1929 under the background of modern Shanghai urban history and evolution of modern merchant groups. It mainly takes historical materials of modern newspapers and periodicals, local literature, and oral historical materials as the important information source; adopts the research method of empirical study of history; and draws lessons from the theoretical methods of sociology, political science, and other related disciplines. It’s the first time to conduct in-depth and systematic study of the rise of the group, and its formation and construction, operation, organization form, and development, as well as major activities in the political, economic, diplomatic, social, philanthropic, and other fields of the twentieth century, trying to break through the research paradigm of simple community history, and set the Federation in the general environment of modern Shanghai urban history to make the narration, thus forming some new ideas. Through the research, this book comprehensively discusses the whole process of the emergence, development, and decline of Shanghai Road Business Federation in the period of the Republic of China, as well as the major historical activities, nature, and influence of Shanghai Road Business Federation, which further enriches the research contents of the history of modern merchant groups and the history of Shanghai in the Republic of China.
First, focusing on inheritance and innovation in terms of topic selection and concept demonstration, the author deeply recognizes that there are many problems in the study of the history of Chinese modern merchant groups, such as the difficulty of theoretical innovation; the difficulty of collecting, sorting out, and sharing the historical data of Chinese merchant groups; and the difficulty of broadening the research scope. Comparatively, how to make the innovation in the process of inheritance and expand the research of the history of modern merchant groups is a big problem. As for the Shanghai Road Business Federation, road business associations constitute a huge system. Since the May Fourth Movement, there have been 75 road business associations in Shanghai, which are uneven and crisscross; hence, there are certain commonalities and many differences among them. Among them, Nanjing Road Commerce Association is a business group mainly made up of middle and lower class businessmen, organized on the basis of safeguarding the common rights and interests of Chinese businessmen in the block, with reasonable organization, clear responsibility, and standard system, which is a model of the establishment, construction, and operation among various commerce associations, and occupies an important position in the civil rights movement in the foreign settlement. Actually, a federation of business associations formed by various road business associations is also a quite active group of businessmen with great social influence and plays an important role in the campaign for rights and protection of rights. However, due to the political radicalism and immaturity of the middle and lower class businessmen, the internal factions are constantly dissented, which even resulted in splitting and reorganizing, which to some extent caused a negative impact on the merchant society. Although Shanghai Road Business Federation is a grassroots social organization of small and medium-sized businessmen and taking commercial blocks as the field of activity, it actually contains huge social power and continues to participate in all kinds of national and regional major historical events. Its social influence even exceeds that of Shanghai General Chamber of Commerce. In terms of present research status of Shanghai Road Business Federation in academic circles, relevant thematic studies and specialized historical studies mainly focus on the academic observational orientation of political science or sociology and pay attention to specific perspectives and case studies, some of which are vague and in a nutshell and some of which are content with superficial understanding and satisfied with a smattering of knowledge, so that the research conclusions are inevitably one-sided and subjective. As a result, the research of Shanghai Road Business Federation is still in the state of fragmentation and marginality. By inheriting predecessors’ excellent academic achievements and breakthroughs in the previous studies, the author breaks through the previous research tendency or single perspective, or case study path, trying to carry out the systematic study of Shanghai Road Federation comprehensively and deeply; reveal the operation state, nature, and function of Shanghai Road Business Association; and then promote the study of merchants’ groups to ‘come to life’.
Second, striving to be comprehensive and complete in terms of research methods and structure, the book is mainly based on the empirical research methods of history and combines the theoretical methods of sociology, political science, economics, and other disciplines to describe the social associations in the context of the modern urban history of Shanghai. In fact, it is the first time to conduct a comprehensive and systematic study on the rise, establishment and development, operation process, organizational form, social participation, social influence, and historical evolution of this organization in the fields of society, politics, economy, diplomacy, and philanthropy in the twentieth century and to give a comprehensive and objective evaluation. It has truly broken through the research path and paradigm of ‘established-nature-function-role’ that the simple history of social associations has followed. It has not only mentioned the whole but also highlighted the key points and tried to make the research systematic and detailed, thus forming many new understandings and conclusions. The establishment of the Shanghai road business associations in succession was the result of the movement of Chinese businessmen in the foreign settlements to fight for civil rights. Shanghai Road Business Federation serves as a rich political color. Although it’s a small businessmen group, it plays an extremely important influence, especially when fighting with the authorities, in ‘Qiao, Yang case’ and ‘Chen, Atang case’, which are organized and initiated by the General Chamber of Commerce and various commercial associations, and then united with and led other organizations to coordinate and echo each other, forming a resultant force to further promote the development of the civil rights movement. The Road Business Federation gave full play to the function of safeguarding the economic interests of small and medium-sized businessmen in coping with the copper dollar crisis, refusing to post stamp duty, raising prices by telephone, and supporting tenants. It’s political attitude, expression, and participation in the Washington Conference, Anti-Bribery Campaign, Jiangsu and Zhejiang War, May 30th Movement, and the Political Confrontation between the North and the South reflect the national responsibility consciousness, social responsibility consciousness, charity and public welfare concept and the spirit of cooperation, as well as the positive attitude of political participation and strong political color of the Federation. Started with charity and relief work within the block, the Road Business Federation gradually expanded its function to domestic relief work outside the block, and even to international aid. Although its enthusiasm and intensity decreased significantly with the expansion of its ‘neighborhood’, on the whole, the Road Business Federation has played an active role in social welfare undertakings and has actually become an integral part of Shanghai’s social management. Generally, the author integrates multidisciplinary theories and methods. By interdisciplinary research, the author profoundly demonstrates the image of Shanghai Road Business Federation. Although it’s a grassroots community group made up of small and medium-sized merchants, it has regional, modernity, and national colors and plays an important and special historical role on the historical stage of Shanghai in the 1920s and even on the historical stage of modern China. ‘Shanghai, the largest industrial and commercial city in modern China, gave rise to the Road Business Association, which as a special group of merchants, wrote the history of Shanghai in the 1920s with its own practice and logic’ (p. 377).
Third, emphasizing details and careful examination in terms of searching and arranging historical materials, the author has made long-term commitment to the historical data collecting, sorting, study, and comparison of Shanghai Road Business Federation, especially by digging up the newspaper and periodicals like the Declaration, the Republic of China Daily, and the News of the Press. Among them, the data searched in the Declaration total up to more than 3 million words, which shows the author’s great courage and glorious will. In addition to the newspaper and periodicals, the author pays special attention to the extensive collection and gathering of information, such as the information collection and analysis from the police stations of the Shanghai Public Foreign Settlements. It includes ‘The Report of Judge Fei Tang on the Study of the Shanghai Public Concession’, which was formed by the independent investigation of the South African Judge Fei Tang; Communist Party documents and work reports in Shanghai, Jiangsu, and other places; and the analysis or recollection by the early leaders of the Communist Party of China of the Shanghai Road Business Federation, which are involved with the original documents such as the investigation by people at that time, and the oral narration and the recollection of the parties concerned. On the basis of careful collection and collation of historical materials, the book truly reappears and represents the vivid and objective historical appearance of Shanghai Road Business Federation in the 1920s by vivid and objective interpretation and analysis.
In the meanwhile, the valuable part of the book is its richness in problem consciousness and pioneering spirit. Problem consciousness plays an important role in the process of academic research and innovation, which serves as the basis of research and the driving force of innovation. The book originated from the author’s early commitment to the study of modern trade organizations and gradually expanded into the new field of Road Business Federation. ‘How can a self-organized group made up of block merchants dominate the storm in a historical period?’ (p. 4). ‘What kind of organization is the Road Business Federation? In Shanghai, where there are many organizations, why do a number of non-governmental businessmen groups emerge spontaneously with street blocks as their scope of activity? What kind of historical role did the association play?’ (p. 8). ‘Under the concession system, how did the Federation handle its relationship with the concession authorities? How does the Federation interact with each other in the network of Shanghai merchants made up of Chambers of Commerce, Trade Associations, and Local Associations?’ (p. 15). ‘Why did Declaration not spare any ink or space, to follow up the report of the Road Business Federation? Is the political orientation of Declaration changed, or is the huge news value of the activities of Road Business Federation leading to the significant increase in the sales of the newspaper so that the newspaper is so interested?’ (p. 17). The author’s questioning, pondering, and studying on these questions not only become the breakthrough point of the research but also serves as the important impetus to explore the research. The author makes full use of the ‘telescope’ and ‘microscope’ in academic research, to expand the vision to the field of urban history and focus on the formation and development of the Road Business Association, by integrating history, sociology, political science, economics, culture, and many other disciplines. Through a comprehensive and profound review of the cross-disciplinary research, the author explored the internal theory and research path for the study of history of China’s modern merchants group.
In addition, another highlight of the book lies in the organic unity of macro narration and micro expression. With broad academic vision, theoretical concern, and ingenuity, based on the background of modern time and space, the author makes great efforts to collect, grind, and reconstruct the details of historical materials and makes an in-depth analysis of the historical connotation of relevant documents. Besides, the author pays special attention to the comprehensive and holistic academic perspective, by making the interpretation and re-interpretation of Road Business Federation through putting it in the urban history of Shanghai as well as the modern history of China: This group should be placed in a specific spatial and temporal pattern, related to the ‘big history’ of the May 4th Movement period, and also closely combined with the ‘little history’ of Shanghai, namely, the local history of politics, economy and culture of Shanghai. (p. 15)
Under the background of grand narrative, the author strengthens and highlights the detailed research on the internal operation mechanism, external communication, social participation, and so on of Shanghai Road Business Federation, as well as the comparative research on the commonness and individuality between it and various types of business groups. For example, it has the detailed presentation of the ‘top student’ in the Road Business Federation: the Nanjing Road Business Association and its establishment, organizational structure, operational mechanism and so on; vivid discussion of the role played by the Road Business Association in the ‘Qiao, Yang case’ and ‘Chen, Atang case’ and the relationship between it and other groups; and the dynamic narration of the Road Business Federation in the process of safeguarding the interests of businessmen, before and after the Washington Conference, the Anti-Bribery Struggle, the Jiangsu and Zhejiang War, the May 30th Movement, and the social charity cause. Through the scientific and systematic combination of grand narrative and detailed description, the author not only diachronically elaborates the development and evolution of the Road Business Federation but also synchronically shows the interactive relationship and social influence between the Road Business Federation and other social forces and deeply expands the research vision and space of the history of merchant groups.
On the whole, the book has not only sparse and detailed narration but also full and accurate information and careful examination, with detailed elaboration and pertinent evaluation, inheritance, and innovation. It pays attention to the truth and seeking for reality, forming a unique style and characteristics of its own. It can be said that ‘it takes ten years to sharpen a sword, and a hundred years to sharpen a needle’. Through this book, people can understand the research context and shortcomings of the history of merchant groups, and also appreciate the new trends and dynamics of modern history research. Its problem consciousness and academic practice in the process is of important reference value and enlightening significance.
Footnotes
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.