Solving the "Religious Problem": The Great Leap Forward of "Religious Work" and Protestant Communities in Pingyang, Wenzhou in 1958

Abstract:Chinese Christians have long held that the central government sought to eliminate religion in the Wenzhou region of Zhejiang Province in 1958 and even attempted to promote the Wenzhou experience nationally. Yet, to this day, details of the plight that religious communities endured in Wenzhou during the Great Leap Forward remain obscure. This article examines the origins, development, and after-math of the local campaign to solve the "religious problem" in Wenzhou in 1958, focusing on the experience of Protestant communities in Pingyang County. I argue that the antireligious movement in Wenzhou during the Great Leap Forward was not a central initiative. Instead, what happened was that local state agents seized the opportunity offered by the Great Leap Forward to crush religious communities, especially Christian communities, with which they had long had tensions. The result was an antireligious movement that went far beyond what the central government had originally envisioned.