William H. Hinton

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Bill and Joan Hinton (1993)

William Howard Hinton (born February 2, 1919 in Chicago , † May 15, 2004 in Concord , Massachusetts ) was an American agronomist and writer. He has authored numerous books on the social and economic transformations that took place in China after the Communist Party came to power . He became known worldwide through his book Fanshen , published in 1966 . In the book, he described in detail the changes in agricultural ownership using the example of Long Bow, a village in Shanxi Province .

Life

William H. Hinton was born in 1919 to lawyer Sebastian Hinton and his wife Carmelita (née Chase). He grew up with his sisters, Jean (1917 - 2002) and Joan (October 20, 1921 - June 8, 2010). Carmelita Hinton (Chase) was a professional teacher and founder of The Putney School in Vermont . In addition to the normal subjects, emphasis was placed on the musical and handicraft training of the pupils - the school had a farm of around 2 km², which was managed jointly by teachers and pupils.

William H. Hinton was one of the first students at this school and graduated from here in 1936. He was then accepted by Harvard College , Cambridge, Massachusetts. But he left the university after a short time. Hitchhiking or on freight trains, he traveled all over the United States, making a living doing odd jobs.

In the spring of 1937 he was hired in San Francisco as an auxiliary seaman on a ship that took him to Tokyo , Japan . He worked briefly for an English-language newspaper in Tokyo, then continued his journey, exploring the then- Japanese-occupied Korea , then the northeastern provinces of China . Finally he crossed the Soviet Union on the Trans-Siberian Railway . He came back to the USA by ship via Poland and Germany . The description of the experiences on his journey appeared in 1938 as a series in The Globe under the title "Around the World an Nothing A Day". After returning to the USA, he began studying agricultural science at Harvard University , but after just a few semesters switched to Cornell University in Ithaca , New York City .

When asked in later years the reasons for his choice, Hinton said: "I wanted to learn about agriculture, and Harvard wanted to teach me about the sociologie of agriculture." ("I wanted to learn about agricultural science, but Harvard wanted me (only Teaching the Sociology of Agriculture. ”In 1941 he graduated from Cornell University with a degree in Agricultural Science. In 1942 he read Red Star Over China by Edgar Snow . According to Hinton's own admission, this book radically changed his understanding of what went on in this world. In the following years he changed from a pacifist to a staunch Marxist .

In 1945 he returned to China on behalf of the US government as a member of the United States Office of War Information (OWI) and was an observer of the Chongqing peace talks between the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party. During this conference, Hinton met Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong . In 1946 he returned to the USA for a short time, only to return to China in 1947, this time on behalf of the UN . The ( United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration ) (UNRRA) sent him to Hebei Province to instruct the population on modern farming methods. Hinton was appalled by the extent of the corruption in Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang government, which was still in power at the time . He left the Kuomintang territory and secretly moved to the so-called (already) "liberated" area of ​​the communists . Soon after, he was teaching English at a university near Changzhi in Shanxi Province . When his students joined the land reform movement, Hinton insisted on taking part. And he meticulously noted on hundreds of pages what he experienced in Long Bow, a village near Changzhi, in the period that followed. The fight against the previous landowners, including the disputes between the farmers. Much later he remembered: “The lice, the fleas and the hardships, and eating the terrible gruel out of an unwashed bowl, while a young girl lay dying of tuberculosis ...” (“Lice, fleas and all the troubles ; then eat this terrible gruel from a dirty bowl while a young girl right next to it was just dying of tuberculosis ... ")

When Hinton returned to the United States in mid-1953, the McCarthy hysteria (the so-called “Second Red Scare”) was just at its height. As at the end of his very first stay in China in 1937, this time he traveled across the Soviet Union on the Trans-Siberian Railway. At the American consulate in Prague , Czechoslovakia , he applied for a new passport because his old one had expired. The consulate official there introduced Hinton to what to expect in the United States when he asked: “Are you or were you ever a member of the Communist Party?” (“Are you, or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party Party? ”) We went on to England by plane . He finally reached Québec , Canada by ship and traveled from there to the USA.

Here all of his written records were confiscated and given to the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS) (full title: United States Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security). This committee was chaired at the time by James Eastland , Senator from Mississippi . In one of Hinton's subsequent hearings, committee member Herman Welker went so far as to claim that Hinton's records contained “a mass of material out to destroy the United States.” ( “... a large amount of material that is intended to United States. ” ) And the chairman, Senator James Eastland, referred to Hinton's notes as “ the autobiography of a traitor ” ( “ the autobiography of a traitor ” ). Hinton's passport was confiscated, he was forbidden to teach and so he worked as a mechanic until he turn to the numerous so-called a "blacklists" ( "blacklists" ) has been set and so even such work has been made impossible for him. Fortunately, he had inherited land from his mother and worked as a farmer in Pennsylvania for the next 15 years .

He fought constantly to get his confiscated documents back, but it wasn't until 5 years later, in 1958, that they were finally returned to him. It would take another eight years before "Fanshen" was finished (1966). But that didn't mean the book was in the bookstores. All publishers refused to publish the book until it was eventually printed by Monthly Review Press . Then, however, fan marriage became a resounding success. Hundreds of thousands of copies were sold. The book has been translated into numerous other languages. It was translated into Chinese at Zhou Enlai's initiative.

Martin Bernal wrote in the New Statesman that Hinton's book Fanshen “... gives details of the changing social and economic structure of this village ... The descriptions alone make this book one of the two classics of the Chinese revolution, the other being Edgar Snow's 'Red Star over China'. " ( " ... describes in detail the change in the social and economic structure of this village ... These descriptions alone make the book one of the two classics of the Chinese revolution. The other is Edgar Snows 'Red Star over China'. " )

Private

William H. Hinton was married three times. In 1945 he married the publisher Bertha Sneck . From this marriage, which was divorced again in 1954, the daughter Carma Hinton was born. In 1959, Hinton married the technician Joanne Raiford. This marriage had three children: the son Michael Howard and the two daughters Alyssa Anne and Catherine Jean. After Joanne Hinton (Raiford) died in 1986, Hinton married UNICEF employee Katherine Chiu in 1987.

Works

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personal data
SURNAME Hinton, William H.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hinton, William Howard (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American agronomist and non-fiction author on the Chinese revolution
DATE OF BIRTH February 2, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Chicago
DATE OF DEATH May 15, 2004
Place of death Concord , Massachusetts