Ding Ling (; 12 October 1904 – 4 March 1986), formerly romanized as Ting Ling, was the pen name of Jiang Bingzhi (), also known as Bin Zhi (彬芷 Bīn Zhǐ), one of the most celebrated Chinese women authors of the 20th century. She is known for her feminist and socialist realist literature.

Ding was active in leftist literary circles connected to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and was imprisoned by the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang or "KMT") for her politics. She later became a leader in the literary community in the CCP revolutionary base area of Yan'an, and held high literature and culture positions in the early government of the People's Republic of China. She was awarded the Soviet Union's Stalin second prize for Literature in 1951 for her socialist-realist work The Sun Shines Over Sanggan River.

Ding's political loyalties were questioned over time because of a note she had written while being held captive by the KMT and because of her relationship with Feng Da, who had betrayed her to the KMT, during this period. After the Anti-Rightist Campaign in 1958, Ding was denounced, expelled from the CCP, and sent in exile to Manchuria. She was rehabilitated only in 1979 and a 1984 CCP resolution formally affirmed that the initial 1940 investigation concluding that she had remained loyal to the party while in KMT custody was correct. Ding died in Beijing in 1986.

Early life

thumb|left|Ding Ling and husband [[Hu Yepin in 1926]]

Ding Ling was born as Jiang Bingzhi into a gentry family in Linli, Hunan province. Her father, Jiang Baoqian, was a scholar in the late Qing Dynasty and died when Ding Ling was 3 years old.

Ding Ling's mother, Yu Manzhen, studied at the Hunan Provincial No. 1 Normal School for Girls where she was a classmate of Xiang Jingyu, an early pioneer in Chinese feminism. She later became an elementary school educator who raised her children as a single mother. Ding Ling's mother was Ding's role model, and she would later write an unfinished novel, titled Mother, describing her mother's experiences. As time passed after the death of Ding's father, Ding's mother became a revolutionary.

During the 1911 Revolution, Ding's uncle was executed by Qing soldiers because he was a revolutionary. In 1925, Ding Ling and Hu Yepin lived together in Beijing, but as she said, "but we had no husband and wife relationship", because "I, Ding Ling, did not want to use love or marriage to fetter me; I am a person who wants to be free".

Literature and politics

In December 1927, Ding Ling wrote and published her first novel Meng Ke in Beijing, which was published in the magazine Fiction Monthly, describing the struggle of a young woman born in a declining bureaucratic family in Shanghai. The initial concern for women's issues was appreciated by editor-in-chief of Ye Shengtao.

In February 1928, Ding Ling published Miss Sophia's Diary in the Fiction Monthly. The book, in which a young woman describes her unhappiness with her life and confused romantic and sexual feelings, caused a sensation in the literary world. Miss Sophia's Diary highlights Ding Ling's close association and belief in the New Woman movement which was occurring in China during the 1920s. At this time, Ding Ling and Hu Yepin frequently traveled from Beijing to Shanghai. They lived briefly in Hangzhou from March to July of the same year, and then returned to Shanghai.

Around this time Ding Ling met the CCP member, writer, and activist Feng Xuefeng, who unlike Hu Yepin was active in politics. Ding Ling fell in love with Feng, and at the end of February, the three had a long talk in Hangzhou, after which Feng Xuefeng backed out and Ding Ling and Hu Yebin got married and lived in Shanghai. Ding Ling later recalled: "I had lived with Hu Yepin for two and a half years, and I'd never said that I would agree to marry them, but I also did not reject his feelings for me. He gave me many things; I did not reject them. Although the two of us had an arrangement, we could have broken it off at any time. We were not husband and wife, but other people saw us as husband and wife. When I talked about these feelings, and about reason, all I could do was lose Xuefeng."

In 1927, the Kuomintang began a purge of Communists and their supporters, which was known as the White Terror.

In February 1930, Hu Yepin went to Jinan to teach at the Shandong Provincial Senior High School, and Ding Ling joined him soon after. In Jinan, Hu Yepin accepted and began to actively promote Marxism–Leninism, which attracted the attention of the Kuomintang (KMT). In May 1930, Ding and Hu joined the League of Left-Wing Writers.

Political imprisonment in Nanjing

thumb|Ding Ling, 1930s

On 14 May 1933, Ding was kidnapped from her residence in the Shanghai international settlement along with Pan Zinian, a leftist intellectual who was visiting Ding.</blockquote>Ding thought that the note would help her regain her freedom but to no avail. (Later, under political investigation by the CCP, this note be used to criticize Ding. Some critics would use the note to accuse her of "losing integrity" in 1945, and of "renegade behavior, lack of loyalty and honesty to the party" in 1956 to 1975. In 1979, the conclusion of 1975 was revoked, but the conclusion of 1956 was maintained. Only in 1984 was she fully rehabilitated.)

Under house arrest by the KMT, Ding lived with her then-husband Feng Da, who was suspected of betraying her to the KMT. It criticized the treatment of women within the party and challenged the supposed 'equality' between men and women that it failed to uphold. Ding Ling said that the heroine Zhenzhen "entrusted her own feelings" because she was "lonely", "proud" and "tough".

  • The short story "In the Hospital", published in the "Gu Yu" magazine on November 15, 1941, and was also adapted from a true story. The short story criticized the hardships of a Yan'an hospital from the perspective of a new nurse. Ding was later criticized for this story for "having the standpoint of a petty-bourgeois intellectual".
  • The essay <u>Thoughts on March 8</u>, published in CCP newspaper Jiefang Daily on March 9, 1942, questioning the party's commitment to change popular attitudes towards women. Here, Ding satirized male double standards concerning women, saying they were ridiculed if they focused on household duties, but also became the target of gossip and rumors if they remained unmarried and worked in the public sphere. She also criticized male cadres use of divorce provisions to rid themselves of unwanted wives.

The Yan'an Rectification Movement

In February 1942, the Yan'an Rectification Movement started and intellectuals were attacked. The literary and art circles responded immediately. At that time, Ding Ling was the editor of the literature and art column of "Liberation Daily". This column published a series of defensive articles around March, arguing that there were hierarchical systems and suppression of speech in Yan'an at that time. These included "The March 8th Festival" (March 9), Ai Qing's "Understanding Writers, Respecting Writers" (March 11), Luo Feng's "The Age of Essays" (March 12), Wang Shiwei's "Age" Wild Lily " (March 13, 23), and Xiao Jun's "On the "Love" and "Endurance" of Comrades (April 8). These articles were later criticized, and although Ding Ling had resigned by March 12, she was also implicated.

In 1942, Ding wrote the essay Commemorating Xiao Hong in Wind and Rain, in which she grieved for the premature death of Xiao Hong, the execution by the KMT of early CCP leader Qu Qiubai, and the political suspicion against her friends Feng Xuefeng and Hu Feng.

In February 1942, Ding Ling married Chen Ming, the president of Yan'an Fenghuo Opera Club. Ding Ling was 13 years older than Chen Ming, and the relationship was the source of much discussion.

In Spring 1943, the Yan'an Rectification Movement intensified. Before Ding left Yan'an later that year, and not yet knowing of the preliminary conclusion, she spoke with Ren Bishi regarding her concerns about the pending investigation. and is considered one of the best examples of socialist-realist fiction. It depicts class struggle and land reform with poor peasant protagonists. She called for the rejection of "the vulgar and outmoded butterfly literature style," but also emphasized that it was necessary to "do research on the interests of readers" in order to "keep[] the masses in mind."

Purge and exile

In 1955, Ding's former League of Left-Wing Writers colleague Hu Feng, who helped her escape from Nanjing to Shanghai in 1936, underwent a massive purge, with claims that he was leading a "Hu Feng Counter-Revolutionary Clique". Under the political climate, Ding criticized Hu in a critical article "Where Do Enemies Come From", which was published in the People's Daily on May 23, 1955, No. 3. Hu was later sentenced to prison for 14 years and would not be rehabilitated until 1979.

Ding was criticized during the Sufan Movement for allegedly forming an anti-party clique with Chen Qixia. and Geoff Hancock; and even Canada's first female Lieutenant Governor, Pearl McGonigal for the province of Manitoba.

On 14 July 1984, the CCP issued The Notification Regarding the Restoration of Comrade Ding Ling's Reputation.

In her introduction to Miss Sophie's Diary And Other Stories, Ding Ling explains her indebtedness to the writers of other cultures:<blockquote>I can say that if I had not been influenced by Western literature I would probably not have been able to write fiction, or at any rate not the kind of fiction in this collection. It is obvious that my earliest stories followed the path of Western realism... A little later, as the Chinese revolution developed, my fiction changed with the needs of the age and of the Chinese people... Literature ought to join minds together... turning ignorance into mutual understanding. Time, place and institutions cannot separate it from the friends it wins... And in 1957, a time of spiritual suffering for me, I found consolation in reading much Latin American and African literature.</blockquote>On 14 July 1984, the Organization Department of the Chinese Communist Party issued The Notification Regarding the Restoration of Comrade Ding's Reputation.

Works

Collections

  • Zai hei’an zhong [In the Darkness]. 1928.
  • Zisha riji [Diary of a Suicide]. 1928.
  • Yige nüren [A Woman]. 1928.
  • Shujia zhong [During the Summer Holidays]. 1928.
  • Awei guniang [The Girl Awei]. 1928.
  • Shui [Water]. 1930.
  • Yehui [Night Meeting]. 1930.
  • Zai yiyuan zhong [In the Hospital]. 1941.
  • Ding Ling wenji [Works of Ding Ling], Hunan Renmin Chubanshe. 6 vols. 1982.
  • Ding Ling xuanji [Selected Works of Ding Ling], Sichuan Renmin Chubanshe. 3 vols. 1984.

Fiction

  • Meng Ke. 1927.
  • Shafei nüshi riji. February 1928, Xiaoshuo yuebao (short story magazine); as Miss Sophia's Diary, translated by Gary Bjorge, 1981.
  • Weihu. 1930.
  • Muqin. 1930; as Mother, translated by Tani Barlow, 1989.
  • 1930 Chun Shanghai. 1930; as Shanghai, Spring, 1930, translated by Tani Barlow, 1989.
  • Zai yiyuan zhong. 1941; as In the Hospital, translated by Gary Bjorge, 1981.
  • Wo zai Xia cun de shihou. 1941; as When I Was in Xia Village, translated by Gary Bjorge, 1981.
  • Taiyang zhao zai Sanggan he shang. Guanghua shudian. September 1948; as The Sun Shines Over Sanggan River, translated by Gladys Yang and Yang Xianyi, Panda Books, 1984.
  • Du Wanxiang. 1978;