Zhang Ji

Chinese revolutionist against the Qing dynasty and early Chinese anarchist.

In 1907, created the Society for the Study of Socialism in Tokyo. Two of the Society’s founders,  and wwith another founder Liu Shipei (1884-1919), maintained contact with Kôtoku Shûsui, who introduced them to the ideas of Kropotkin and the anarcho-syndicalists. Liu, Zhang and Kôtoku all spoke about anarchism at the Society’s founding meeting (Scalapino & Yu). Zhang contributed to Balance, a Chinese anarchist journal published in Tokyo, which in 1908 ran a series of articles calling for a peasant revolution in China and “the combination of agriculture and industry,” as proposed by Kropotkin in Fields, Factories and Workshops. Following Kôtoku’s example, Zhang also translated Nacht’s pamphlet on The Social General Strike into Chinese. Zhang spent the years from 1908 to 1911 in Paris, Geneva, and London. In Paris he was introduced to Li Shizeng and Wu Zhihui, heads of a group of anarchists. He spent the summer of 1908 in a rural anarchist commune in the north of France, the Colonie d'Aiglemont, where he milked cows and discussed anarchism with activists from many nations.

Returning to China in when news of the 1911Revolution broke, he would ultimately join the Koumintang, becoming director of party affairs for North China in 1920. In 1925, Zhang was elected to the State Council, and became associated with the group known as the Western Hills clique which convened in November 1925 to oppose communist influence.