Liu Ssu-fu (1884-March 1915), founder and leader of the first anarchist societies to be established in China and publisher of the Minsheng [voice of the people] .

Born into a well-to-do family in Hsiangshan, Kwangtung, Liu Ssu-fu received a conventional education in the Chinese classics and became a sheng-yuan at the age of 15 sui. He then decided to study philology, mathematics, and the writings of the ancient Chinese philosophers. At the turn of the century, he and a group of friends organized a society to discuss the ideas of the reform leaders of the time. In 1904 he went to Japan to continue his studies, and the following year he became one of the founding members of the T'ung-meng-hui, headed by Sun Yat-sen.

Liu Ssu-fu returned to China in the summer of 1906 with a group of fellow revolutionaries and began to work on the staff of a Hong Kong newspaper, the Tung-fang pao. Liu also participated in the activities of a secret terrorist group organized by the T'ung-meng-hui which manufactured explosives for use in assassinating high Manchu officials in Canton. In the spring of 1907 plans were made to kill Li Chun, the naval commander in chief of Kwangtung, and Liu volunteered for the assignment. He went to Canton in June with a supply of explosives, but before he was able to complete his mission, the bomb he was carrying exploded, blowing off all the fingers of his left hand. While being treated at a nearby hospital, he was arrested by the government authoriti'es on suspicion of being a member of the revolutionary party. When the authorities finally established his identity, he was transferred from Canton to the prison in his native district of Hsiangshan. During his imprisonment he was able to read extensively and to write a number of books, including a study of Cantonese dialects, prison memoirs, and a tract on prison reform which made a favorable impression on the local authorities and was said to have caused the mitigation of his sentence. After being released in 1909, he went to Hong Kong, where he reestablished contact with his revolutionary associates.

Liu Ssu-fu is believed to have been attracted to the anarchist-communist movement when he was in prison. During that period two small Chinese anarchist groups had been formed abroad: one, organized by Chang Chi and Liu Shih-p'ei (qq.v.) in Tokyo, issued a propaganda periodical named T'ien-i pao in 1907-8; the other, established in Paris by Li Shih-tseng, Wu Chih-hui, and Chang Jen-chieh (qq.v.) as the Shih-chieh she [world society], published the Hsin shih-chi [new century] from 1907 to 1910. Although they were little known in China at that time, it was probably through issues of these publications, particularly the Hsin shih-chi, that Liu Ssu-fu was introduced to the ideas of Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin, and other European anarchist leaders. In Hong Kong he studied the anarchist literature then available and became a convert to the anarchist faith in the ultimate freedom and equality of mankind through the destruction of such repressive institutions as government, property, the family, and religion. Translating these ideals into action, Liu organized an independent terrorist group in Hong Kong, the immediate aim of which was to eliminate the ruling class in China by assassinating its most prominent members. In August 1911 another unsuccessful attempt was made on the life of Li Chun, which was followed two months later by the assassination of the Manchu general at Canton, Feng-shan. Other intended victims included the Manchu regent, whom Wang Ching-wei (q.v.) had attempted to assassinate in 1910. Liu was on his way to Peking to carry out this project when the October revolt at Wuchang, resulting in the overthrow of the Manchus, rendered his task unnecessary.

Having proceeded as far as Shanghai, Liu Ssu-fu spent a month in Hangchow. While lodging at a small Buddhist temple on West Lake, he worked out plans for a full-fledged anarchist movement in China. After his return to Canton early in 1912, he and a group of comrades, as harbingers of brighter days to come, formed the Cock-Crow Society (Huiming hsueh-she) to propagate anarchism among the people. Some years earlier, several essays on anarchism and translations of the writings of European anarchists had appeared in Chinese in the Hsin shih-chi of Paris, but, because of rigid censorship under the Ch'ing dynasty, issues of this magazine had been extremely difficult to obtain in China at that time. To make these writings better known, Liu and his colleagues republished articles and translations from Hsin shih-chi, first as separate pamphlets and then, beginning in August 1913, in the pages of the Cock-Crow Society's periodical, Hui-ming lu. This magazine soon was renamed the Alin-sheng [the voice of the people].

Liu Ssu fu was concerned with the importance of individual regeneration in the reformation of society along anarchist lines. Lifluenced, perhaps, by his studies of Tolstoy, he concluded that modern urban life was too complex and planned With a group of friends to retire to a rural area north of Hong Kong, where they could lead a simple, austere life of study and farming. Although this project soon was abandoned, it resulted in the formation of the Conscience Society (Hsin-she), founded by Liu and others in Canton in 1913. This anarchist association probably was modeled on the Society to Advance Morality (Chin-te hui), which had been organized in January 1912 by Li Shih-tseng, Wu Chih-hui, and other members of the earlier anarchist group in Paris. Membership in the Conscience Society required adherence to 12 rules of personal conduct which prohibited the consumption of meat, liquor, and tobacco, the employment of servants, riding in sedan chairs and rickshaws, marriage, family surnames, and participation in government, the parliament, political parties, the armed forces, or any religious organization. Another aspect of Liu's activities on behalf of anarchism at this time was his promotion of Esperanto as a universal language. He believed the establishing of a universal language to be the first step in attaining a world brotherhood of man. Accordingly, he organized the Association for the Study of Esperanto (Shih-chieh-yü yen-chiuhui), which claimed about 300 members, and became the Canton representative of the Universal Union of Esperantists.

Liu and his group were able to carry on their activities with little hindrance from the Canton authorities, and through their publications the anarchist movement attracted the attention of Chinese intellectuals. During the summer of 1913, however, as the struggle between the Kuomintang and Yuan Shih-k'ai (q.v.) erupted into the open warfare of the so-called second revolution, the anarchists ran into political difficulties. Liu Ssu-fu refused to support the Kuomintang, which he viewed as but one governmental organization seeking to overthrow another. Nevertheless, with the defeat of the Kuomintang in Canton by Yuan's adherent Lung Chi-kuang (q.v.), the Cock-Crow Society and its magazine were suppressed at Yuan's order; and when Liu moved the periodical to Macao, Yuan was able to secure its prohibition by the Portuguese authorities there. After several months of fugitive existence, Liu moved to the safety of the International Settlement in Shanghai, where he resumed publication of the Min-sheng in April 1914 and founded the Society of Anarchist-Communist Comrades (W'u-cheng-fu kung-ch'an chu-i t'ungchih she) in July. To establish connections with the world anarchist movement, he sent a letter to the International Anarchist Congress reporting on the progress of anarchism in China, and he published news of foreign anarchist activities in the Min-sheng. The ideals and aims of the new Society of Anarchist-Communist Comrades, drawn largely from the writings of Kropotkin, were set forth in a manifesto issued soon after the society came into being and thereafter in the pages of the Min-sheng. The purpose of the new society was to work toward the complete freedom of the people from political authority and economic exploitation. Of the existing forms of authority, the most powerful was that of the state, and thus it was the task of anarchists to overthrow all types of government. The major form of economic exploitation was capitalism, and hence anarchists were dedicated to the opposing principles of socialism. Liu distinguished between two types of socialism: collectivism, which called for state ownership of the means of production but private ownership of consumer products; and communism, which demanded communal ownership o^ all products as 'well as of the means of production. Anarchists favored socialism of the communist variety. To eliminate these existing forms of oppression, Liu recommended the propagation of anarchist ideas in the press, in public addresses, and in the schools, and resistance, both passive and active, to all forms of authority : refusal to pay taxes or to submit to military conscription and participation in strikes and assassinations. The final result of the ensuing world revolution, as outlined in the society's manifesto, would be a world "without landowners, capitalists, parasites, political leaders, officials, heads of families, armies, prisons, police, courts of justice, laws, and religion." It would be a classless society with public nurseries, schools, hospitals, and old-age homes. All the people would work together and share equally in the product of their labor.

Liu Ssu-fu made every effort to preserve the integrity of the anarchist doctrines. He castigated Chang Chi and other of the Hsin shih-chi group, saying that they had compromised their anarchist principles by belonging to the Kuomintang and by taking office in the Peking government. In emphasizing the revolutionary character of anarchist socialism, he took issue with "moderates" who, he said confused socialism with social reform. Thus he criticized Sun Yat-sen for adhering to the single- tax theory of Henry George, which, to Liu, was no more than a proposal for social reform. Liu's most bitter attacks, however, were reserved for Chiang K'ang-hu (q.v.), the founder of the Chinese Socialist party. He sharply contested Chiang's assertions that Marxist collectivism was the only form of socialism and claimed that the Socialist party leader had, in fact, only a limited understanding of socialism, particularly that of the anarchist-communist variety. Furthermore, Liu pointed to the political platform of the Socialist party, which called for nothing more than a few relatively moderate reforms of the existing system, to show that Chiang K'ang-hu, like Sun Yat-sen, could not be considered an authentic socialist.

Liu Ssu-fu continued to lead the anarchist movement in China until his untimelv death from tuberculosis in March 1915, at the age of 30. From all accounts, he was a personally attractive man, completely dedicated to his ideals. Despite the wasting illness that kept him bed-ridden during his final years and despite his mangled left hand, he not only served as chief editor of the Min-sheng, but also acted as proofreader and typesetter for the magazine. Although he lived in dire poverty, he stubbornly refused to heed his comrades' suggestions that he sell the hand press used to print the Minsheng in order to obtain funds for medical treatment. Although they eventually persuaded him to enter a hospital, he declined to follow medical instructions to build up his strength by eating meat, because that action would violate the code he had drawn up for the Conscience Society. According to his friends, Liu adhered strictly to the rules of this code, severing his ties with his family and adopting the simple pseudonym Shih-fu, and refusing to marry. However, some sources state that in 1906, before he became an anarchist, he had become engaged to Ting Hsiang-t'ien, a teacher in a Hong Kong school for girls, and that she shared his life during his early revolutionary years. In 1927 Liu's friends published a collection of his writings, the Shih-fu wen-ts'un.

The death of Liu Ssu-fu was a severe blow to the anarchist movement in China. The Minsheng survived only until November 1916. Nevertheless, during the next few years, particularly at the time of the May Fourth Movement, anarchist thought enjoyed a considerable vogue among students and young intellectuals in Peking, Shanghai, and other cities. Such magazines as Chin-hua [progress], Min-chung [people's tocsin], and Tzu-yu-jen [freeman] continued to carry the message of anarchism, and anarchists were prominent during the 1920's in the labor movement in Canton, Changsha, and Shanghai.

In many ways the anarchist movement prepared the ground for the advent of Marxism- Leninism in China, and in 1920-21 several anarchist sympathizers were to be found among the organizers of the Chinese Communist party. But with the establishment and expansion of the Communist organization in the early 1920's, cooperation between anarchists and Communists changed to antagonism that was reflected in the protracted literary controversy between the anarchist Ou Sheng-pai and the head of the Chinese Communist party, Ch'enTu-hsiu (q.v.). Thereafter, these two wings of the radical socialist movement began to vie with one another for the allegiance of intellectuals and labor unionists—a competition in which the anarchists were rapidly losing ground to the Communist party by the mid-1920's. The anarchist movement in China was on the decline, and in the 1930"s its influence in political and intellectual circles dwindled into insignificance, although scattered anarchist groups and publications remained in existence until 1949.