Hidden History: When Communism and Feminism Came Together in China, 1949

The Socialist Program with Brian Becker

The Socialist Program

Politics, News

4.7 • 587 Ratings

🗓️ 13 April 2023

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Women leaders from all over the Global South came together in China in 1949 to strategize about building an anti-imperialist, anti-colonial women’s movement at The Revolutionary Feminist Conference. The conference worked to overcome the fact that imperialists and colonialists were sharing materials, ideas, and plans among themselves, while working to prevent the people’s movements leaders from communicating.

While the event has long been little known, historian Dr. Lisa Armstrong spent years tracking down documentation and talking to attendees all over the world. Here’s what she found.

Brian is joined by Prof. Armstrong, a professor and department chair of the study of women and gender at Smith College and an author, most recently of the book “Bury the Corpse of Colonialism: The Revolutionary Feminist Conference of 1949,” which you can find here: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520390911/bury-the-corpse-of-colonialism.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The end of World War II coincided with the eruption of social revolutions and national liberation
0:09.3	movements all over Asia, in China, in Vietnam, and Korea, in India, in Indonesia, and in other
0:17.8	parts of the colonized world. It also led to the creation of a new global anti-imperialist women's movement,
0:26.6	a wave of radical feminism that has largely been ignored or forgotten.
0:33.6	We need a new system. We need a new society. We need to demand that which may have sounded impossible even a few weeks ago, but is not only realizable, but an imperative necessity. Welcome to the Socialist Program. I'm your host, Brian Becker. If you enjoy or rely on this show,
1:15.3	please show your support by becoming a patron, by subscribing at patreon.com, forward slash the
1:22.5	socialist program. Today we're talking with Dr. Lisa Armstrong.
1:34.5	Dr. Armstrong is a professor and department chair of the study of women and gender at Smith College,
1:35.7	and she is an author.
1:40.9	Her most recent book, just released on International Women's Day this year,
1:47.8	is called Barry the Corpse of Colonialism, the Revolutionary Feminist Conference of 1949.
1:49.6	Dr. Armstrong, welcome to the Socialist Program.
1:52.5	Thank you very much.
1:53.5	Thank you for having me.
1:54.9	Well, first of all, I'm going to recommend to all of the people watching this show or
1:59.3	listening to this show, go out and
2:02.0	buy this book. This is Barry the Corpse of Colonialism, the Revolutionary Feminist Conference of
2:10.2	1949. Even the first couple pages, Dr. Armstrong, are amazing writing. It draws the reader in.
2:19.4	People who buy this book will continue to read it.
2:21.7	They'll share it with their friends do that.
2:23.9	But what makes this conference in this project, the project that you work so many years on, so interesting,
2:30.9	is that it coincides with this new, the new world, really, the post-World War II world,
	...

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