Rewi Alley
| Rewi Alley | |
|---|---|
| Born |
December 2, 1897 Springfield, Canterbury, New Zealand |
| Died | December 27, 1987 (aged 90) |
Rewi Alley, 路易•艾黎, Lùyì Àilí, QSO, MM (2 December 1897 – 27 December 1987), was a New Zealand-born writer, educator, political activist, revolutionary, social reformer, potter, and member of the Communist Party of China.
Rewi Alley was a prolific western writer about 20th century China, and especially about the Communist revolution. He dedicated 60 years of his life to the cause of the Communist Party of China, and was a key figure in the establishment of Chinese Industrial Cooperatives, and technical training schools, including the Peili Vocational Institute (also known as the Bailie Vocational Institute or the Beijing Bailie University).
Rewi was born in the small town of Springfield in inland Canterbury, New Zealand. He was named after Rewi Maniapoto, a Māori chief famous for his resistance to the British military during the New Zealand Wars of the 1860s. Alley's father was a teacher, and Rewi attended primary school at Amberley; then Wharenui School in Christchurch, where his father was appointed headmaster in 1905; and finally Christchurch Boys' High School. His mother, Clara, was a leader of the New Zealand women's suffrage movement.
The parents' keen interest in social reform and education influenced all their children:
In 1916, Alley joined the New Zealand Army and was sent to serve in France where he won the Military Medal. While there he met some Chinese men who had been sent to work for the Allied armies. During the war, he was injured and caught in no man's land. Lyall McCallum and another man rescued him and took him back to safety. After the war, Alley tried farming in New Zealand. In 1927, he decided to go to China. He moved to Shanghai with thoughts of joining the Shanghai Municipal Police, but instead he became a fireman. During this period he gradually became aware of the poverty in the Chinese community and the racism in the Western communities. He joined a political study group whose members included himself, Alec Camplin, George Hatem, Ruth Weiss, Trude Rosenberg, Heinz Schippe, Irene Wiedemeyer, Talitha Gerlach, Maud Russell, Lily Haass, Cora Deng and Cao Liang. His politics turned from fairly conventional right-wing pro-Empire sentiments to thoughts of social reform. In particular, a famine in 1929 made him aware of the plight of China's peasants. Using his holidays and taking time off work, Alley toured rural China helping with relief efforts. He adopted a 14-year-old Chinese boy, Duan Si Mou, whom he named Alan, in 1929.
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