A Tibetan revolutionary : the political life and times of Bapa Phüntso Wangye / Melvyn C. Goldstein, Dawei Sherap, and William R. Siebenschuh.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Goldstein, Melvyn C.

Contributor:

Sherap, Dawei, 1922-

Siebenschuh, William R.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Phun-tshogs-dbaṅ-rgyal, Sgo-ra-naṅ-pa.

Tibet Autonomous Region (China)--History--Autonomy and independence movements.

Tibet Autonomous Region (China).

Tibet Autonomous Region (China)--Politics and government--1951-.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (400 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley, CA : University of California Press, c 2004.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This is the as-told-to political autobiography of Phüntso Wangye (Phünwang), one of the most important Tibetan revolutionary figures of the twentieth century. Phünwang began his activism in school, where he founded a secret Tibetan Communist Party. He was expelled in 1940, and for the next nine years he worked to organize a guerrilla uprising against the Chinese who controlled his homeland. In 1949, he merged his Tibetan Communist Party with Mao's Chinese Communist Party. He played an important role in the party's administrative organization in Lhasa and was the translator for the young Dalai Lama during his famous 1954-55 meetings with Mao Zedong. In the 1950's, Phünwang was the highest-ranking Tibetan official within the Communist Party in Tibet. Though he was fluent in Chinese, comfortable with Chinese culture, and devoted to socialism and the Communist Party, Phünwang's deep commitment to the welfare of Tibetans made him suspect to powerful Han colleagues. In 1958 he was secretly detained; three years later, he was imprisoned in solitary confinement in Beijing's equivalent of the Bastille for the next eighteen years. Informed by vivid firsthand accounts of the relations between the Dalai Lama, the Nationalist Chinese government, and the People's Republic of China, this absorbing chronicle illuminates one of the world's most tragic and dangerous ethnic conflicts at the same time that it relates the fascinating details of a stormy life spent in the quest for a new Tibet.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Illustrations

Preface

Acknowledgments

Note on Romanization and Abbreviations

Key Persons

Introduction. A Brief Historical Context

1. Childhood in Batang

2. The Coup of Lobsang Thundrup

3. School Years

4. Planning Revolution

5. Returning to Kham

6. To Lhasa

7. The Indian Communist Party

8. On the Verge of Revolt

9. Escape to Tibet

10. From Lhasa to Yunnan

11. The Return to Batang

12. The Seventeen-Point Agreement

13. To Lhasa Again

14. With the PLA in Lhasa

15. A Year of Problems

16. An Interlude in Beijing

17. Beginning Reforms

18. Tension in Lhasa

19. Labeled a Local Nationalist

20. To Prison

21. Solitary Confinement

22. A Vow of Silence

23. Release from Prison

24. A New Struggle

25. Nationalities Policy

Epilogue. A Comment by Phünwang

Appendix A. Original Charter of the Eastern Tibet People's Autonomous Alliance

Appendix B. Summary of Talks with Tibetan Exile Delegations

Appendix C. Some Opinions on Amending the Constitution with Regard to Nationalities

Glossary of Correct Tibetan Spellings

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

ISBN:

9786612358753

9781282358751

1282358758

9780520940307

052094030X

9781597349567

1597349569

OCLC:

475931301