UK/ Canada
David Crook (14 August 1910 – 1 November 2000) was a British-born Communist ideologue, activist, long resident in China. A committed Marxist from 1931, he joined the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War (1936–39), then was recruited by the KGB, he was sent to China during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–45). There he met and married his wife, Isabel, a teacher and social activist. The couple stayed in China after 1949 to teach English.
In 1959, the Crooks published Revolution in a Chinese Village, Ten Mile Inn. The British Sinologist Delia Davin wrote that through that "classic study" and other writings and talks, the Crooks "provided a positive picture of China to the outside world at a time when cold war simplifications were the norm."
The Ten Mile Inn was a pilot area during the land-reform movement where Mr. and Mrs. Crook once lived with their team members. These social workers of the Chinese Communist Party arrived at the village and soon they noticed the special issue of women and photographed a series of documentary works. “These works focus on two aims: on the one hand, they were made to encourage women to join the Anti-Japanese War; on the other hand, they aimed to lift women out of the deep oppression in the traditional society. Thus, two major problems of women – liberation and anti-Japanese – were closely connected.”
The working team founded an association of women out of two main purposes – to protect rights and interests of women and to increase production, which were also two key points when they fought against the Japanese enemy. The president of the association was Wang Xuede who was 55 years old then. She was a local and was quite familiar with the situation in the Ten Mile Inn. Besides, she was a skilled weaver who learned the craft when she was young. Since both of her parents were middle peasants, she had extra money to engage in sideline (that was in the beginning of 20th century when the mechanisation of textile industry in cities hadn’t impacted the manual textile industry in the countryside). However, her stormy life never gave her peace. Her father was shot by Japanese because his light blue suit was similar to the Eighth Route Army’s. Then, her husband was arrested by Japanese on a business trip and she never got any information about him from then on. Later, being unable to tolerate the oppression from her mother-in-law and the torment of famine, she became one of the earliest and most active members in the Ten Mile Inn to support the Party. She cried: “The Eighth Route Army will open a new world for us!” Because she knew the village well and had weaving skills, which was nearly lost, she was elected the president of the newly-founded association.
Wang Xuede devoted herself into the organisation of women with great enthusiasm. The association developed quickly with the number of members reaching 200. The main task of the association was to teach skills of weaving to women. The cost of materials and equipment was paid by the local government-- the newly-founded cooperation in the village. Wang Xuede and some of her peers also skilled in weaving were instructors. All women aged from 16 to 50 could join the association and receive remuneration. For instance, the price of a jacket was that of 2.4-jin (1 jin =1/2 kilogram) millet; the price of a pair of trousers was that of 1.75-jin millet. Women in the Ten Mile Inn had given up weaving in the past because of lack of money and competition from mass production in cities. Now, they could start to weave and earn money for their living. The improvement of their economic status turned into the strongest factor in the liberation of women in Ten Mile Inn.
