The Fanshen- Colonial Neo-Maoists

A. Kinds of beings in the world

1. Supernaturals

a. relationships to human beings

2. Kinds of humans. List the different roles that people have in your culture and briefly describe
how a good person in each role behaves. For example, a good man is brave, defends his honor,
and supports his family through farming.. Your list must include: men; women; boys; girls;
relevant kinship roles e.g. mother’s brother, fellow lineage member, expected marriage partner;
any specialist – economic, political, or religious; other relevant groups of people, ethnic groups,
classes, etc.

Zizackians are a Neo-Maoist colonial society. Being colonial meaning that their society is based
around scarcity, conservation, and cost-efficiency. Being wasteful is a matter of life and death in a
colonial society. Neo-Maoist in that they are commited to the revival of the ideas of the Chinese
Revolution, and to apply what they have learned through the evolution the Chinese Communist
State to the creation of a new society based on the teachings of Mao. Influenced by
disenfranchised New Left Chinese intellectuals of the First Generation Colonists, this radical
society is usually at odds with the Corporate-Capitalist dominated Inner Systems, and operates
on the fringes of inhabited space. This society attracts dispossesed Corporate Colonists,
Ideological Intellectuals, and Political exiles.

The Male Worker/Proletariat; The Male worker is an equal among his peers, and must be ready
to defend this equality to the death. A Worker is also a Defender of the Revolution. He must fight
every sign of corruption and greed he sees within and without the party. He must defend his
peers from exploitation and extortion. He must be willing to sacrifice for the better of the
community. Every worker must be able to assume a leadership role within his community. When
a worker is not laboring, or taking care of the responsibilities of family, he must be continuing his
education. No matter what level of education a person has, he is expecting to perform manual
labor when necessary by the community. A Male is to treat his partner, a Female, as he would a
peer. They are to share the responsibilities of a household equally, as they would share the
responsibilities of the workplace.

The Female Worker/Proletariat; The Female is given the same expectations of the Male, with the
exception in that a pregnant mother is given precedence over everyone else in the community
when it comes to food, shelter, healthcare, and general well-being. A newly made mother is also
exempt from civic duties while caring for a child. The Female worker is also given the additional
task of defending gender equality, fighting misogynism and gender injustice. Women form a
special commitee within the Party which is tasked with defending the tenets of Feminism, and
rooting out any sexism found within the Party. They are treated equally under the law, and are
equally capable of leadership in the party.

Children;

a. gender relations (relationship between men and women and how characterized in local cultural
terms)

b. kin and non-kin

i. is the culture organized in kin terms?

 ii. relationships between kin and non-kin (both within the society and with other groups)

3. Life cycle: list the stage and describe the expected behavior and associated ceremonies, if
any.

a. birth

b. childhood

c. puberty

d. adulthood

e. marriage

f. old age

g. death

h. afterlife

4. Kinds of groups and what they do

a. kin groups

b. household

c. neighborhood

d. village

e. tribe

f. state
B. Religion and worldview

1. Nature of the universe and how it operates

2. People’s place in the universe

3. Religion

a. division of religious labor

i. who are the religious practitioners (from A2 kinds of people)

how is each one recruited?

what does each one do?

ii. what religious role do the non-experts play?

4. Values

5. Beliefs
IV Living in the World
A. Where do people live

1. Location of culture

2. Climate

3. Setting, e.g. rainforest, mountain valleys, etc.

B. Settlement and population

1. Kinds of settlements e.g. camps, permanent villages, cities

2. Settlement layout, sketch a map if possible, identifying houses, community structures, ritual
structures, etc.

3. Kinds of houses

4. Population

a. whole group, if available

b. particular group studied

C. Economics or how people make their livings.
Note: making a living is more than earning money, it includes producing goods for the household
to consume or exchange.

1. Ways people make their livings. This can include farming, gardening, hunting, fishing,
pastoralism. What crops do they grow; what do they hunt, gather; what kinds of animals do they
raise?

2. Resources needed to make a living. E.g. land, labor, tools, animals.

a. for each resource, how do people gain access to it. E.g., if the group are farmers, how do they
gain access to land? From inheritance, renting, clearing new lands, etc. For labor, use their own
labor, hire others, work as hired laborers?

3. How are products distributed or who gets what and why.

a. system of exchange. E.g. market, generalized reciprocity, barter, redistribution

b. how are these exchanges organized. E.g. within household, kin groups, communities, etc.

c. who is in charge of these exchanges?

d. are there competitive exchanges (like in movie Onka’s Big Moka?)

i. what are the units that participate in these competitive exchanges?

D. Politics

1. Political structure (egalitarian, ranked, state?)

Meritocratic Party Apparatus, Democratic Egalitarian Cooperatives

There are two political structures that work in tandem with one another. One is The Party.
the other is The Union. The Party is charged with adminstering the state. The Union is
responsible for defending the Revolution, and managing the economy.
The Party is divided into two major divisions. The Central Congress, and the Citizens Commitee.
The Central Congress is responsible for social, political, diplomatic, and legislative policy. They
oversee and appoint members to the different Departments which are tasked with specific
functions of the State. They amend changes to the Party Constitution, and mandate projects and
programs to the Union. The Citizens Commitee is an organization of Cadres on a local level.
They are democratically elected represenatives who address the needs of the citizenry,
administer Departments on the local level, and carry out mandates of Central Congress.
The Union is an organization of worker cooperatives, divided by trade and service. The
Union itself is an assembly of represenatives from each cooperative, who are responsible for
representing the vote of their cooperative. The Union is responsible for coordinating the economy,
setting economic policy. Each issue is voted by referendum held by each cooperative, which send
their represenitive to the Union to tally the overall vote. Every cooperative is given equal weight in
every referendum, and every worker given equal weight in every cooperative. There are times
where a vote can be held under certain sectors of the economy, and only relevant cooperatives
are required to vote on these referendums. In summation, the Union is the political arm of the
workers cooperative.
The Union is also given the dual role as the defenders of the Revolution. This means they
are the active militia of the Fanshen, and are tasked with overthrowing the Party appartus if it
strays too far from the principles of the Revolution. Each cooperative is responsible for training
their members for militia duty, and are given a quota for supplying members to the Militia rotation.
Every four years, cooperatives must send a certain percentage of their membership to serve as
part of the standing militia, old members being rotated out of service and back into civilian life.
The Union also elects Political Officers to oversee the Party and it's inner-workings. Every ten
years, the Political Officers make a clandestine report on the state of the Party, and if deemed
necessecary, the Union is tasked with otherthrowing the Party and replacing it's leadership.

2. Kinds of political leaders

a. kinds of leaders. E.g. chiefs, headmen, religious experts, elected leaders

Party leadership(Central Congress): Supreme Chairmen, Party Leader and Executive of the
State
Senior Chairmen, Senior members of the Party, responsible for
overseeing Departments, creating and putting to vote policies,
amending the constitution, voting on policy and amendments
Junior Chairmen, intermediate members of the Party, responsible for
adminstering Departments, voting
on policy and amendments
Chairmen Elect, newly appointed members of the Party, responsible for
voting on policy.
Department Secretary, appointed members of their relative
Departments, carrying out the work of their
specific Department.
Public Liason, Party members who are tasked with maintaining the
relationships between the Central Congress, the Citizens
Commitee, and The Union.
(Citizens Commitee): First Citizen, elected executive of a Cadre, administrator
of Party policy on a municipal level.
Citizen Minister, appointed member of a Cadre,
administers Departments at the
municipal level
Citizen Elect, elected represenitive, votes on municipal
referendums, addresses needs of the citizenry, relays
information to the Central Congress.
Union Leadership(Assembly) : Head Assemblymen, appointed member of the
assembly, calls together assembly and dictates referendums.
Cooperative Assemblymen, elected represenative of a
cooperative, represents their cooperative's referendum
vote.
(Militia): People's General, elected commander of the Militia
Political Officer, appointed member of the Militia,
overseer of the Party.
Officer in Charge, elected commanding officer of militia
cadre.

b. what kinds of things can leaders do? E.g. order people to work for them, put people in jail,
collect taxes, etc.

c. is the leader always a leader or does s/he only lead in a particular context. E.g. war chiefs who
were only in charge during a battle, religious experts only during a ceremony (like in the movie
Feast in Dream Village), etc.

d. how do people become leaders? E.g. elected, inherited because 1st born or last born, etc.

3. Disputes

a. causes of disputes

b. how are disputes resolved

i. who has authority to resolve disputes, if anyone

ii. how are they resolved? E.g. fines, someone moving away, jail, etc.

4. Relationships between groups or foreign policy

a. sorts of political groups. E.g. villages, tribes, states, autonomous bands, etc.

b. what are the relationships between groups? E.g. trade, marriage, warfare, ritual, etc.

c. who is in charge of these relationships?

d. frequency of these interactions.

E. Process and change

1. sources of change. E.g. outside contact, warfare

a. forced change from government or other sources

b. people involved in change

2. kinds of change

a. economic

i. in ways people make their livings

ii. in how goods are distributed

b. political
 i. in political leadership

ii. in relationship with other groups

3. consequences of change