A Glance at the Underground Reading Movement during the Cultural Revolution

This paper examines the underground reading movement during the Cultural Revolution, which is a long-overlooked theme of the journey to spiritual awakening of the young generation in the field. It attempts to make the following points: (1) numerous underground reading groups emerged across China from 1966 to 1976; (2) the disastrous consequences of the Revolution drove the young explorers to seek out truth through all kinds of books, especially the writings of the ‘enemies of the revolution’; (3) the sent-down movement further promoted the readings; and (4) despite the limitations, the underground reading movement represented the greatest challenge to Mao and the Party establishment.     

An Examination of the Goals of the Rustication Program in the People's Republic of China

Through an examination of the rustication movement in its four stages from 1953 to 1980, this article contends that while the various goals of the rustication movement intermingled, and while they varied in importance at different times, a consistent and fundamental goal was the reduction of urban unemployment pressure, which was caused by China's large increase in population born during the late 1940s through the 1950s as well as by its rigid centrally-planned economic system. While Mao Zedong and his radical supporters intended the rustication more as a social revolution, especially during the Cultural Revolution, the economic planners and administrators, who may have been sincere in promoting such theories, were driven in reality also by practical considerations and economic pressures.     

Ideological and political tendencies of factions in the red guard movement

This paper observes the most important ideological and political tendencies of the Red Guard Movement during the first three years of China's Cultural Revolution. This paper focuses on the differences between them—the Old Red Guards, conservative Red Guards, rebel Red Guards and ultraleft Red Guards. The Old Red Guards were the initiators of the Red Guard movement. They mainly attacked the intellectuals, overthrown ‘class enemies’ and some leaders in the educational and cultural fields. The core members of the Old Red Guards were children of leaders. They stressed their red family background and strove for political and social superiority and privilege. The conservative Red Guards followed the example of the Old Red Guards but depended on and defended the local Party's leadership. The rebel Red Guards mainly attacked the power holders and the organs of the Party and government. They came from the social groups that had been out of power. In politics, they relied on the support of Mao and the left wing of the Party. The ultraleft Red Guards negated and criticized the political leadership and the existing system as a whole. They were in small groups and suppressed by Mao and his headquarters but they left independent thinking on Chinese politics and society.     

A dangerous game: Deng and the intellectuals

This article examines one aspect of China's “second revolution” led by Deng Xiaoping: the relationship between the post‐Mao leadership and the intellectuals, who were the most persecuted during the “Cultural Revolution.” When Deng took power in 1978, one tough challenge was to mobilize China's well‐educated men and women for the nation's modernization. New policies toward them were introduced to rekindle their enthusiasm in creative and critical academic activities. The anticipation of a new period of cooperation between the authorities and the intellectuals was, however, dashed by the bloodshed in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989. Why did Deng, who sought the support of Chinese intellectuals for his modernization program, side with the Party's hard‐liners to order the military crackdown on pro‐democracy demonstrations? Will China's post‐Mao leadership no longer need the intellectuals’ help? This article argues that the Communist Party of China has been playing “a dangerous game of cooperation” with the intellectuals. Despite the tragic events, the game is likely to continue as long as the CCP proceeds with its modernization program and the intellectuals maintain their sense of mission. What remains uncertain is how the next round of game will be played out and who will emerge as the winner.     

Dispelling misconceptions about the red guard movement: The necessity to re‐examine cultural revolution factionalism and periodization

This paper argues that the Chinese Communist Party's 1981 official definition of the “Cultural Revolution” was a gross distortion of historical reality. In presenting the “Cultural Revolution” mainly as one of power struggle among the ruling elite, the official version denies that there were serious conflicts within society. It also covers up the fact that a main thrust of the violence in 1966–69 was directed against what the Rebel Red Guards called “the bureaucratic class” or the “red capitalist class”. The re‐periodization of the “Cultural Revolution” from three years (1966–69) to ten years (1966–76) was a conscious attempt to try to obfuscate what actually happened in the years from 1966 to 1969.

By manipulating historical facts, even today the CCP is able to continue to suppress members of the Rebel Faction, who had led in challenging the ruling authorities in the Sixties. The last major suppression of rebels took place in the mid‐Eighties in the political campaign to “Weed Out the Three Types of People”. The Party was able to do so with ease because Chinese society has accepted its distorted version of Chinese history.

The article ends by poiting out how this distorted history of the Cultural Revolution has had a pernicious effect on the democracy movement in China.     

土地革命时期毛泽东信念观探析——重温《井冈山的斗争》与《星星之火， 可以燎原》

1927年大革命失败后,中国革命进入了十年土地革命时期。期间党与红军内部出现了"右"倾悲观思潮,并几度提出"红旗到底打得多久"的疑问。对此,毛泽东在《井冈山的斗争》与《星星之火,可以燎原》等著作中给予了科学回答,形成了毛泽东信念观:坚定信念创建农村革命根据地;坚信红色政权的发生、存在与发展既是可能的,也是必然的;坚信星火必燎原,中国革命高潮必将到来。毛泽东信念观的形成是大革命失败后时局变化的产物,是实行正确政策的必然结果。     

刘少奇对中国共产党从革命党向执政党转变的探索

新中国成立后,刘少奇对中国共产党从革命党转向执政党问题,进行了艰辛的探索并取得了一些有益的认识:他提出党政分工以完善党的领导方式和执政方式;对权力加强制约,以防止个人集权、官僚主义和腐败现象的出现;加快法制建设,强调党员必须带头遵守宪法和法律,把实行法治作为共产党的基本执政方略。刘少奇对中国共产党从革命党转向执政党的艰辛探索,为新时期实行全面改革提供了宝贵的经验。     

The maid of Chinese politics: Mao Zedong and his philosophy of struggle

The basic law of dialectics is the unity of opposites. It is natural for Marxists to stress opposites rather than unity, for it advances the doctrine of class struggle. Mao adopted Lenin's proposition that the unity of opposites is transitory, while the struggle of opposites is absolute. However, both Lenin and Mao failed to see the logical inconsistencies between this proposition and the law of the unity of opposites.

Stalin, who disagreed with the concept of “identity of contradiction,” asserted that the process of development is achieved through combat rather than harmony. Mao at first disagreed with this philosophy and advocated the unity of opposites. This accounted for the polemic of “the identity of thinking and being” in China, from 1959 to 1962.

However, in 1964, Mao launched a campaign to criticize “two combined into one “ and to propagate his own idea of “one divided into two.” The chief reason for this was that Mao needed an ideological legitimization for the schism with the USSR. This was a turning point in Mao's philosophy, for it implied the abandonment of the “unity of opposites” and a retreat towards Stalin's viewpoint. Ultimately Mao devised his “philosophy of struggle” to serve as the guiding philosophy for the Cultural Revolution.     

Lost in revolution and reform: The socioeconomic pains of China's red guards generation, 1966–1996

This paper examines why the socioeconomic life of China's Red Guards generation has been difficult in both Mao's time and in the post‐Mao reform era. It shows that Mao's Cultural Revolution destroyed the normalcy of society and prevented this generation from securing the life they expected. When reform moved China toward a market economy, their past misfortunes produced their present disadvantages. Their limited education disqualified them from the opportunities of employment and career promotion; their protracted sent‐down to the countryside postponed their marriage and normal social life; and their longtime economic hardships debilitated their market competitiveness. Mao's revolution made them ill‐prepared for the coming economic liberty, yet the post‐Mao reform, instead of compensating them for their distress, left them behind when it pursued market efficiency.     

The reappraisal of the cultural revolution

Especially in the wake of the June 4 incident, some scholars have called for a second look at the “Rebel” activism of the Cultural Revolution. They identify the Rebel movement as a quest for self‐liberation from oppression and criticize the Deng regime's confounding Rebel opposition to totalitarian domination with the Gang of Four's totalitarian terror. This essay questions the reappraisal, arguing that while Rebel ideology may have been a step toward democracy, it was not itself fully democratic, and that it has lost much of its democratic relevance.     

哲学视阈中的“文革”发生学探析

关于"文革"起因的研究是总结、反思"文革"经验教训的一个重要方面。作为中国历史上复杂且重大的一个历史事件,其得以发生的原因是错综复杂的。对此,应采取辩证的态度,既要注重分析主要原因,也要顾及次要因素,力求能够对"文革"产生的原因进行多方面、深层次、全方位的认识和反思。     

康克清与全国妇联的拨乱反正

在"文革"后徘徊中前进的特殊时期,康克清临危受命主持全国妇联工作,首先以果敢的政治勇气整建组织机构、处理"文革"遗留问题、澄清路线是非,初步纠正了机关工作中的"左"倾错误,促进了"揭、批、查"运动的深入开展,进而召开一系列会议和组织调查研究,推动中国妇女"四大"顺利召开,在中共十一届三中全会召开后引领妇女工作重心的转移,从而完成了全国妇联拨乱反正的任务。     

Globalizing Chinese literature: toward a rewriting of contemporary Chinese literary culture

In the age of globalization, intellectuals, writers, critics and literary and cultural studies scholars cannot but take pains to conceive or picture the future orientation of elite literature since elite literature is being challenged by popular literature and culture, and literary studies by Cultural Studies. The present essay tries to describe a new orientation of Chinese literature studies, or more specifically, to observe modern Chinese literature in a broad context of world literature and reach a rewriting of contemporary Chinese literary culture from an international and comparative point of view. In reperiodizing modern Chinese literature, the author points out that in the global age, the new framework of world culture in the twenty-first century is characterized by different cultures coming to dialogue and merging to some degree rather than ‘cultural conflict’. With this broad background, twentieth century Chinese literature should be re-examined from an international and comparative perspective. The paper also points out that rewriting literary history must be associated with issues of canon formation and reformation, that is, to offer new interpretations from theoretical perspectives of canonical literary works. The author discusses several considerations involved in canon selection: reception and market success, recognition of critical circles, and inclusion in university curriculum.     

The cultural revolution and modernity: The contradictory political implications of postmodernism in China

In order to understand the modern‐postmodern controversy in China, it is important to understand the contradictory political implications of postmodernism in that special context. Emerging in China as a post‐Cultural Revolution discourse, postmodernism has elicited both anticipation and distrust. The former comes from the promise of being liberated from the dogmas of modernity; the latter from concern about postmodern disregard of different orientations of modernity, especially conflicting totalitarian and democratic modes of modernity. While attacking modernity in general, Chinese postmodernism has so far failed to address the particular mode of modernity crystallized in the violence and brutality of the Cultural Revolution and the Tiananmen massacre. To undermine the modernist notions of universality, subject and grand narratives without acknowledging and accenting the oppressive deeds done under the aegis of these notions is to practice a politically conservative postmodernism which endorses the existing order while pretending to be theoretically radical and avant‐garde.     

'New trends of thought’ on the cultural revolution

Most rebels of the Cultural Revolution were rebels, but not revolutionaries. Although they might have long been discontented with the establishment, few ever seriously thought about structural ways to overcome the social maladies that existed in pre‐CR China. They never questioned whether an old power structure with new power holders would be able to make any fundamental changes; and they had no idea about what they would do with their power. Instead, they were interested simply in power as such. The events of 1967 and 1968 clearly demonstrate that the primary concern of most rebel organizations was merely to maximize their own share of power. There were, however, a handful of clairvoyants who were trying not only to reshuffle the bureaucracy but also to create a new society, a society that was modeled after the Paris Commune of 1871. What they represented then was called ‘new trends of thought’ (xinshichao). By tracing the rise and evolution of xinshichao over the 10 years between 1966 and 1976, this essay attempts to identify the main contributions made by xinshichao theorists and to assess their impact on the course of the CR.     

A marginal return?—The problematic in Zhang Chengzhi's reinvention of ethnic identity

Amidst frantic economic and social changes in China today, Zhang Chengzhi, like most other humanists, must redefine the humanist role and reconfigure his individual identity accordingly. What he does is to rediscover his ethnic identity as a Muslim Chinese, which rehearses a problematic shared by other humanists: self‐reinvention must be contested and negotiated via social contingency and acculturation; one cannot renew a cultural entity without recourse to ‘the other‘—an allegorical subject, a suppressed ethnicity or a transcendental self. Zhang overcomes the void of a disoriented self by first recounting the muted history of Jahriyya Muslims (in his book History of the Soul) from the narrative stance of ‘a defamiliarized self and then engaging the primordial with the circumstantial in his effort to evoke the obscured awareness of his ethnic root. In his next book The Heroes’ Paths in Wilderness, Zhang recaptures key moments of his recuperation from the disoriented self through his psychoanalytic diagnosis of Lu Xun, his mirror image. The dialogic probing at the other in fact locates himself in the paradox between the historicity of the ethnic identity and the spirituality of a transcendent self. But his ambiguity toward a self/other reversal leaves us in question about his readiness to continue this fluid, open‐ended interaction and his ability to avert possible pitfalls of ethnocentrism.     

Complete autonomy: The best approach to peaceful resolution of the Tibet problem

Political, economic, cultural, and ethnic conflicts exist in Tibet and its surrounding areas. Peaceful resolution of the Tibet Problem will rely upon rationality of each side involved. The Tibet Problem has roots in the British invasion and in Mao Ze‐dong's historical mistake of replacing the Tibetan serfdom system with Communism. The welfare/carrot‐and‐stick policy used to govern Tibet since the 1980s has been proved ineffective for the social development in Tibet. The Dalai Lama's ‘Great Tibet’ claim will cause civil and ethnic wars among the Tibetans and between them and other Chinese ethnic groups. However, the Dalai Lama's ‘one country with two systems’ proposal that follows the Hong Kong model seems to be a realistic approach to a peaceful resolution of the Tibet Problem.     

The Democracy Wall Movement,Marxist Revisionism,and the Variations on Socialist Democracy

This article analyses the Beijing Democracy Wall Movement's argumentation on democratic reforms in 1978–1981 from the perspective of the larger genre of international revisionist Marxism critical of Leninist/Stalinist political systems at the time of the movement. The movement's argumentation contained three distinct variations on the same theme of socialist democracy, which the author calls classical Marxist, eclectic Marxist and non-Marxist lines of argument. They differed in the content of proposed institutional reforms and their intellectual sources, but shared the perception of democracy as an institutional solution to the conflict between the people and a bureaucratic class that the Stalinist political system had produced in China. All lines also accepted the socialist economic system. As discussed in the article, these ideas were heavily influenced by the Radical Red Guard criticism against the Maoist New Establishment created and popularized during the Cultural Revolution, and the need to find ideological means to refute the official Maoist ideology of the Party Left at the time through a return to the original sources in Marxism. East-European revisionist Marxism also influenced these arguments directly and indirectly.     

Useful Opium? ‘Adapted religion’ and ‘harmony’ in contemporary China

Pragmatism has been a leading feature of Communist Party policies since Mao Zedong's death. The attitude to religion has been something of an exception with many restrictions to the freedom of religion stipulated in the constitution. In recent years, while stressing the ‘harmonious society’, there has been a change in the view of religion. Recognizing the ‘spiritual vacuum’ in China after Mao, the party has seen the need for a controlled spiritual development that could also support the economic development. However, in this process the party has tried to control not only religious activity but also religious content and to use it for its own purposes. This is in direct opposition to Marx and Lenin's views on ‘religion as opium’ and indicates that the party is de facto using ‘a reversed opium theory’.