The Chinese cultural revolution revisited: The role of the nemesis

This paper takes issue with the tendency to ‘reduce’ the Cultural Revolution to elite conflict, specifically the ‘two‐line struggle’ between Mao and his erstwhile heir apparent, Liu Shaoqi. There was elite conflict before the Cultural Revolution but the basic reason for the elite split was the Cultural Revolution itself, which Liu Shaoqi and most other members of his generation of senior officials strongly opposed until Mao reprimanded them. Liu was subsequently made the focal ‘human target’ as an expedient designed to unify the movement against a common adversary. Although unsuccessful in coordinating the movement, his role as nemesis infused the movement with negative meaning as its more positive goal of reviving a revolutionary ‘spirit’ was discredited by Red Guard excesses. Liu Shaoqi leaves an ambiguous legacy, consisting on the one hand of a pragmatic endorsement of economic and social reform that has since become extremely successful, and on the other hand of a classic defense of Confucian‐Leninist ideals of organizational rectitude that have proved difficult to resuscitate.