William H. Hinton
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William Howard Hinton (; February 2, 1919 – May 15, 2004) was an American Maoist intellectual, best known for his work on Communism in China. A Marxist, he is best known for his book ''
Fanshen ''Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village'' is a 1966 book by William H. Hinton that describes the land-reform campaign during the Chinese Civil War conducted from 1945 to 1948 by the Chinese Communist Party in "Long Bow Villag ...
'', published in 1966, a "documentary of revolution" which chronicled the
land reform Land reform is a form of agrarian reform involving the changing of laws, regulations, or customs regarding land ownership. Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution, generally of agricultural ...
program of the
Chinese Communist Party The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil ...
(CCP) in the 1940s in Zhangzhuangcun (张庄村, pinyin: Zhāngzhuāngcūn), sometimes translated as Long Bow Village, a village in
Shanxi Province Shanxi (; ; formerly romanised as Shansi) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the North China region. The capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-level ...
in northern China. Sequels (''Shenfan'') followed the experience of the village during the 1950s and
Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goa ...
. Hinton wrote and lectured extensively to explain the Maoist approach and later to criticize
Deng Xiaoping Deng Xiaoping (22 August 1904 – 19 February 1997) was a Chinese revolutionary leader, military commander and statesman who served as the paramount leader of the People's Republic of China (PRC) from December 1978 to November 1989. After CCP ...
's market-orient reforms.


Early life and education

Hinton was born on February 2, 1919, in
Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...
. His great-grandfather was the mathematician
George Boole George Boole (; 2 November 1815 – 8 December 1864) was a largely self-taught English mathematician, philosopher, and logician, most of whose short career was spent as the first professor of mathematics at Queen's College, Cork in ...
, his grandfather was the mathematician Charles Howard Hinton, and his father, Sebastian Hinton, was a lawyer who invented the playground jungle gym before later committing suicide. His mother, Carmelita Hinton, was an educator and the founder of
The Putney School The Putney School is an independent high school in Putney, Vermont. The school was founded in 1935 by Carmelita Hinton on the principles of the Progressive Education movement and the teachings of its principal exponent, John Dewey. It is a co-e ...
, an independent progressive school in
Vermont Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...
. His great-aunt was novelist
Ethel Lilian Voynich Ethel Lilian Voynich, ''née'' Boole (11 May 1864 – 27 July 1960) was an Irish-born British novelist and musician, and a supporter of several revolutionary causes. She was born in Cork, but grew up in Lancashire, England. Voynich was a signifi ...
(1864–1960), whose 1897 book ''The Gadfly'' sold over a million copies and became the number one American bestseller in the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Hinton's sister, Joan Hinton, was a physicist who worked on the
Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...
in
Los Alamos, New Mexico Los Alamos is an census-designated place in Los Alamos County, New Mexico, United States, that is recognized as the development and creation place of the atomic bomb—the primary objective of the Manhattan Project by Los Alamos National Labo ...
before moving to
Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
and becoming a
Maoist Maoism, officially called Mao Zedong Thought by the Chinese Communist Party, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed to realise a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of Ch ...
. Hinton attended
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
for two years, where he was captain of the ski team. In 1939, he raced the famous Inferno race from the summit of
Mount Washington Mount Washington is the highest peak in the Northeastern United States at and the most topographically prominent mountain east of the Mississippi River. The mountain is notorious for its erratic weather. On the afternoon of April 12, 1934 ...
, skiing behind Toni Matt, who famously schussed the
headwall In physical geography and geology the headwall of a glacial cirque is its highest cliff. The term has been more broadly used to describe similar geomorphic features of non-glacial origin consisting of a concave depression with convergent slopes ty ...
. Hinton commented in 1996 that "he knew Matt did something special, as a huge roar came up from the crowd." Hinton earned a Bachelor of Science degree in agronomy and dairy husbandry from
Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...
in 1941.


Career


Experiences in China

Hinton first visited China in 1937. At the time, prevailing U.S. views of the Chinese Communist Party since the 1920s had alternated between uncertainty and hostility. Most U.S. "experts" on
communism Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a ...
were baffled by the appeal of a Marxist-Leninist party to Asian
peasant A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasant ...
s. Some diplomats considered the Chinese Communist Party "agrarian reformers" who labeled themselves revolutionaries. They were uncertain whether or how closely the Communists were tied to the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
. Given the attention lavished on the
Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...
(KMT) by both U.S. President
Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
and the media, especially Henry Luce's ''
Time Magazine ''Time'' (stylized in all caps) is an American news magazine based in New York City. For nearly a century, it was published weekly, but starting in March 2020 it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York City on Ma ...
'', the U.S. public was slow to take notice of the Communists' rise in importance in China. When the U.S. joined China and the other Allied Powers of the
Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
in the War against Japan, there had been little contact between U.S. diplomats and the CCP, even though the KMT-led
United Front A united front is an alliance of groups against their common enemies, figuratively evoking unification of previously separate geographic fronts and/or unification of previously separate armies into a front. The name often refers to a political ...
against Japan made the Communists an implicit ally. At the time of Hinton's first visit to China in the mid-1930s, a handful of U.S journalists, such as
Edgar Snow Edgar Parks Snow (19 July 1905 – 15 February 1972) was an American journalist known for his books and articles on Communism in China and the Chinese Communist revolution. He was the first Western journalist to give an account of the history of t ...
,
Helen Foster Snow Helen Foster Snow (September 21, 1907 – January 11, 1997) was an American journalist who reported from China in the 1930s under the name Nym Wales on the developing Chinese Civil War, the Korean independence movement and the Second Sino-Japan ...
, and
Owen Lattimore Owen Lattimore (July 29, 1900 – May 31, 1989) was an American Orientalist and writer. He was an influential scholar of China and Central Asia, especially Mongolia. Although he never earned a college degree, in the 1930s he was editor of ''Pacif ...
, had sneaked through the KMT blockade into communist territory. All praised the high morale, social reform, and commitment to fighting Japan that they observed. Along with academic colleagues, Hinton made similar observations when he served from 1945 to 1953 during his subsequent visit to China. Hinton was a staff member of the U.S.
Office of War Information The United States Office of War Information (OWI) was a United States government agency created during World War II. The OWI operated from June 1942 until September 1945. Through radio broadcasts, newspapers, posters, photographs, films and other ...
and was present at the Chongqing peace talks between the
Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...
and the Chinese Communist Party, where he met
Zhou Enlai Zhou Enlai (; 5 March 1898 – 8 January 1976) was a Chinese statesman and military officer who served as the first premier of the People's Republic of China from 1 October 1949 until his death on 8 January 1976. Zhou served under Chairman Ma ...
and
Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...
. Hinton later accepted a post as an English teacher at the Northern University in Southeast Shanxi province, near
Changzhi Changzhi () is a prefecture-level city in the southeast of Shanxi Province, China, bordering the provinces of Hebei and Henan to the northeast and east, respectively. Historically, the city was one of the 36 administrative areas (see Adminis ...
City, in a liberated district. Hinton then worked for the
United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...
as a tractor-technician, providing training in modern agricultural methods in rural China. When the communist party liberated the province in which he was working in 1948, he asked to join the university-staffed land reform work team in the village of Long Bow on the outskirts of Changzhi. By 1948, his then-wife Bertha Sneck had also joined him in China. Hinton spent eight months working in the fields in the day and attending land reform meetings both day and night, and during this time he took careful notes on the land reform process. He assisted in the development of mechanized agriculture and education, and mainly stayed in the CCP-ruled northern Chinese village of Changzhi, forging close bonds with the inhabitants. Hinton aided the locals with complicated CCP initiatives, especially literacy projects, the breaking up of the feudal estates, ensuring the equality of women, and the replacement of the imperial-era magistrates that governed the village with councils in a symbiotic relationship with the landed gentry class. Hinton took more than one thousand pages of notes during his time in China.


Return to the United States

On his return to the United States after the conclusion of the
Korean War , date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...
in 1953, Hinton wanted to chronicle his observations of the revolutionary process in Long Bow. But on his return, at the height of McCarthyism, customs officials seized his papers, and turned them over to the Senate Committee on Internal Security (chaired by Senator James Eastland). Hinton was subjected to continual harassment by the
FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, t ...
, his passport was confiscated, and he was barred from all teaching jobs. At first permitted to work as a truck mechanic, he was later blacklisted and denied all employment. He then took up farming on some land inherited from his mother, and farmed for a living for some fifteen years. During this period Hinton continued to speak out about the successes of the Chinese Revolution and waged a long (and eventually successful) legal battle to recover his notes and papers from the Eastland Committee. After the government returned his notes and papers, Hinton set to writing ''Fanshen'', a documentary account of the land reform in Long Bow village in which he had been both observer and participant. After many mainstream U.S. publishers had turned it down, it was published in 1966 by '' Monthly Review'' and was a success, selling hundreds of thousands of copies, with translations in ten languages. In the book, Hinton examines the revolutionary experience of the Long Bow village, painting a complex picture of conflict, contradiction and cooperation in rural China. After the death of
Edgar Snow Edgar Parks Snow (19 July 1905 – 15 February 1972) was an American journalist known for his books and articles on Communism in China and the Chinese Communist revolution. He was the first Western journalist to give an account of the history of t ...
, Hinton became the most famous of Americans sympathetic to the People's Republic of China, and he served as the first national chairman of the US–China Peoples Friendship Association from 1974 to 1976. The association published his controversial interviews with Chinese premier
Zhou Enlai Zhou Enlai (; 5 March 1898 – 8 January 1976) was a Chinese statesman and military officer who served as the first premier of the People's Republic of China from 1 October 1949 until his death on 8 January 1976. Zhou served under Chairman Ma ...
. Hinton cooled toward official policy as market reforms under
Deng Xiaoping Deng Xiaoping (22 August 1904 – 19 February 1997) was a Chinese revolutionary leader, military commander and statesman who served as the paramount leader of the People's Republic of China (PRC) from December 1978 to November 1989. After CCP ...
moved away from the type of socialism originally associated with Mao Zedong. Eventually, he wrote ''Shenfan'' (read as the opposite of ''Fanshen'') and ''The Great Reversal'', and became an outspoken opponent of the
socialist market economy The socialist market economy (SME) is the economic system and model of economic development employed in the People's Republic of China. The system is a market economy with the predominance of public ownership and state-owned enterprises. The ...
("socialism with Chinese characteristics") and
Chinese economic reform The Chinese economic reform or reform and opening-up (), known in the West as the opening of China, is the program of economic reforms termed " Socialism with Chinese characteristics" and " socialist market economy" in the People's Republic of ...
that the CCP continues today.


Personal life

In 1945, Hinton married Bertha Sneck, a writer and translator. They had one daughter,
Carma Hinton Carma Hinton (, born 1949) is a documentary film, documentary filmmaker and Clarence J. Robinson Professor of Visual Culture and Chinese Studies at George Mason University. She worked with Richard Gordon in directing thirteen documentary films ...
, an academic and documentary filmmaker. Hinton and Sneck divorced in 1954. In 1958, Hinton married Joanne Raiford, a metallurgical technician, and had three more children. Raiford died in 1986, and Hinton married Katherine Chiu, an employee of
UNICEF UNICEF (), originally called the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund in full, now officially United Nations Children's Fund, is an agency of the United Nations responsible for providing humanitarian and developmental aid to ...
, in 1987. In 2004, Hinton died in
Concord, Massachusetts Concord () is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in the United States. At the 2020 census, the town population was 18,491. The United States Census Bureau considers Concord part of Greater Boston. The town center is near where the confl ...
at the age of 85.


Works

*1966, ''Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village'', Monthly Review Press, , , , . * * *1972, ''Hundred Day War: The Cultural Revolution at Tsinghua University'', Monthly Review Press, , . *1972, ''Turning Point in China: An Essay on the Cultural Revolution'', Monthly Review Press, . *1984, ''Shenfan'', Vintage, , , . *1989, ''The Great Reversal: The Privatization of China, 1978-1989'', Monthly Review Press, , . *1995, ''Ninth Heaven to Ninth Hell: The History of a Noble Chinese Experiment'' (with Qin Huailu and Dusanka Miscevic), Barricade Books, . About
Chen Yonggui Chen Yonggui (; circa 1915 – 26 March 1986) was a Chinese politician. Though he was an illiterate peasant, he became a member of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party and Vice Premier of the People's Republic of China because of Mao Z ...
and Dazhai. * *2006, ''Through a Glass Darkly: American Views of the Chinese Revolution'', Monthly Review Press, . A critique of Edward Friedman, Paul G. Pickowicz, Mark Selden, ''Chinese Village, Socialist State'', Yale University Press 1991, .


See also

* Joan Hinton *
Carma Hinton Carma Hinton (, born 1949) is a documentary film, documentary filmmaker and Clarence J. Robinson Professor of Visual Culture and Chinese Studies at George Mason University. She worked with Richard Gordon in directing thirteen documentary films ...
* Bertha Sneck


Notes


References

* Article critical of Hinton. * * *


Further reading

* . {{DEFAULTSORT:Hinton, William H. 1919 births 2004 deaths American communists American Maoists Anti-revisionists American expatriates in China Cornell University alumni Harvard Crimson skiers Marxist theorists Marxist writers American sinologists China–United States relations People of the United States Office of War Information Hinton family