scholarly journals On Difficult New Terms: The business of lexicography in Mao Era China

2017 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 622-661 ◽  
Author(s):  
JENNIFER E. ALTEHENGER
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Information Economy ◽  
Complex Processes ◽  
Party Control ◽  
New Knowledge ◽  
The World ◽  
Mao Era

AbstractEntries in Mao Era reference works today serve as windows into the world of words and meanings of a bygone era. Dictionaries and encyclopaedias, though, did not speak with one voice, even under Communist Party control. Lexicography and the question of who would get to publish on and explain the meaning of the ‘new terms’ and ‘new knowledge’ of ‘New China’ were subject to constant debates. Lexicographers, editors, and publishers specialized in the business of setting up categories and, together with readers and state censors, they policed them. Following on their heels, this article examines four moments in Mao Era lexicography, ranging from the early years of transition to Chinese Communist Party rule to the height of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Internal reports and letter exchanges on the production and circulation of single-volume encyclopaedic dictionaries show who contributed to encyclopaedic work, how it was controlled, and why control and censorship were often far from simple. Taking lexicography seriously as a component of the socialist information economy after 1949 sheds light on complex processes of knowledge transmission that defy simple models of socialist state propaganda.

Control and Style: Discipline Inspection Commissions Since the 11th Congress

1984 ◽  
Vol 97 ◽  
pp. 24-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham Young
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Chinese Politics ◽  
Party Organization ◽  
Party Leadership ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

The legacies of the Cultural Revolution have been nowhere more enduring than in the Chinese Communist Party organization. Since late 1967, when the process of rebuilding the shattered Party began, strengthening Party leadership has been a principal theme of Chinese politics; that theme has become even more pronounced in recent years. It is now claimed that earlier efforts achieved nothing, and that during the whole “decade of turmoil” until 1976, disarray in the Party persisted and political authority declined still further. Recent programmes of Party reform, therefore, still seek to overcome the malign effects of the Cultural Revolution in order to achieve the complementary objectives of reviving abandoned Party “traditions” and refashioning the Party according to the new political direction demanded by its present leaders.

The Unique “Blooming and Contending” 1961–62

1969 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 54-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Merle Goldman
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
The Other ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
Main Trend ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
The One ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

From its inception until at least the Cultural Revolution, the Communist regime in China has had a twofold aim for its intellectuals: it has sought to indoctrinate them with the exclusive ideologies of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, and it has tried to utilize their skills to develop an industrialized and modernized society. The Chinese Communist Party has attempted to implement these two policies by an insistence on the strict orthodoxy of thinking individuals, on the one hand, and by the encouragement of intellectuals to work creatively at their jobs on the other. This contradictory approach has resulted in a policy toward the intellectuals that has been alternatively severe and relaxed. Though the main trend is usually in one direction or the other, there have always been counter-currents present which can be revived when necessary.

The Chicoms on the World State

2021 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 130-134
Author(s):  
Glynn Custred
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
World State ◽  
The World ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party

A review of "Hidden Hand: Exposing How the Chinese Communist Party is Reshaping the World," Clive Hamilton, Mareike Ohlberg, One World Publications, 2020, pp. 418, $17.41 hardbound.

The Chinese Communist Party to 1949

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony Saich ◽  
Nancy Hearst
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Chinese Revolution ◽  
The Public ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
The Social ◽  
Economic Transformations ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Historical Periods

There is a vast array of materials available to assist in the study of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) before 1949. In China this is aided by the presence of a large number of officially employed researchers at party research centers and related archives. To earn their keep, these researchers have to put out publications. Availability of materials was boosted by the start of reforms in 1978 and preparations for the 1981 official party history. Given that, especially in the early years of reform, when expression of personal opinions could be dangerous, many of the released publications were documentary collections or chronologies. These came in several different varieties, based on either historical periods, particular events, or the lives of key individuals. These materials were complemented by memoirs of key figures who wanted to ensure that their version of history was in the public eye. This makes selection very difficult. Some of the works that follow are a must for students and scholars; others are personal favorites of the compilers and should be treated as exemplary of the types and varieties of sources that are available for the study of the CCP before 1949. More recently, materials from China have allowed researchers to conduct more detailed research on the social and economic transformations wrought by CCP presence and the difficulties the party had in maintaining local support. This has meant that, in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, we have seen fewer monographs that attempt to paint the broader picture of the sweep of the CCP revolution. Instead, there are many fine-grained analyses of particular events or CCP activities in specific locales that reveal the extremely complex and multifaceted nature of the Chinese revolution.

The Chinese Communist Party in the 1960s: Prelude to the Cultural Revolution

1967 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 3-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Neuhauser
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Commedia Dell'arte ◽  
Great Leap ◽  
Great Leap Forward ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Great Leap Forward ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

The recent events in China are surely drama of the highest order, but at times it has seemed that the actors themselves were not entirely sure who was writing the lines. In fact what we seem to be witnessing is a form of commedia dell'arte: improvisation within a certain tacitly understood framework. The cultural revolution appears to have taken new turns and to have broken into new channels precisely because the actors have been faced with new and unforeseen circumstances as it has run its course. No faction in the struggle has been able to impose its will on the Party or the country by fiat; new devices and stratagems have been brought into play in what has looked like desperate attempts to gain the upper hand. It has clearly been a battle of the utmost seriousness, but there appear to have been limitations on the resultant chaos. Economic disorganisation does not seem to have occurred on the scale of the later stages of the Great Leap Forward. Nor, despite the clashes, confusion and bitter infighting, have new centres of power, totally divorced from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) itself, arisen. The cultural revolution has been pre-eminently a struggle within the Party.

scholarly journals Mummifying the Working Class: The Cultural Revolution and the Fates of the Political Parties of the 20th Century

2016 ◽  
Vol 227 ◽  
pp. 653-673 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandro Russo
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Working Class ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

AbstractA number of prolonged political experiments in Chinese factories during the Cultural Revolution proved that, despite any alleged “historical” connection between the Communist Party and the “working class,” the role of the workers, lacking a deep political reinvention, was framed by a regime of subordination that was ultimately not dissimilar from that under capitalist command. This paper argues that one key point of Deng Xiaoping's reforms derived from taking these experimental results into account accurately but redirecting them towards the opposite aim, an even more stringent disciplining of wage labour. The outcome so far is a governmental discourse which plays an important role in upholding the term “working class” among the emblems of power, while at the same time nailing the workers to an unconditional obedience. The paper discusses the assumption that, while this stratagem is one factor behind the stabilization of the Chinese Communist Party, it has nonetheless affected the decline of the party systems inherited from the 20th century.

Party will reassert control over business in China

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Direct Control ◽  
Business Decisions ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Foreign Companies ◽  
Party Control ◽  
Business In China ◽  
The Government ◽  
Enterprise Reforms

Subject Communist Party control over private businesses. Significance The Chinese Communist Party sees itself as a 'vanguard party'. That is, it governs by leading other social groups, including the government and private enterprise. Reforms over the years have withdrawn the government from direct control of many industries, but the Party is reasserting control behind the scenes. Impacts In the business sector, control by the state is being replaced with control by the Party; enterprise is not an independent sector. Large private sector firms such as China's ICT giants are subject to the influence and occasional control of Party groups. Party infrastructure in foreign companies is growing, and the Party may take a closer look at business decisions.

Reconstructing China: Japanese technicians and industrialization in the early years of the People's Republic of China

2015 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
AMY KING
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Early Years ◽  
People’S Republic Of China ◽  
People's Republic Of China ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Continuity And Change ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Foreign Ministry

AbstractThe Chinese Communist Party was confronted with the pressing challenge of ‘reconstructing’ China's industrial economy when it came to power in 1949. Drawing on recently declassified Chinese Foreign Ministry archives, this article argues that the Party met this challenge by drawing on the expertise of Japanese technicians left behind in Northeast China at the end of the Second World War. Between 1949 and 1953, when they were eventually repatriated, thousands of Japanese technicians were used by the Chinese Communist Party to develop new technology and industrial techniques, train less skilled Chinese workers, and rebuild factories, mines, railways, and other industrial sites in the Northeast. These first four years of the People's Republic of China represent an important moment of both continuity and change in China's history. Like the Chinese Nationalist government before them, the Chinese Communist Party continued to draw on the technological and industrial legacy of the Japanese empire in Asia to rebuild China's war-torn economy. But this four-year period was also a moment of profound change. As the Cold War erupted in Asia, the Chinese Communist Party began a long-term reconceptualization of how national power was intimately connected to technology and industrial capability, and viewed Japanese technicians as a vital element in the transformation of China into a modern and powerful nation.

Revolution and Reaction in the Chinese Countryside: The Socialist Education Movement in Cultural Revolutionary Perspective

1969 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
pp. 92-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Baum
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Central Committee ◽  
Education Movement ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party

At the time the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) issued its now-famous Circular Notice of 16 May 1966, which roundly criticized Peking's Mayor P'eng Chen and thereby ushered in a dramatic new stage of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, a large-scale and intensive Socialist Education Movement was still being implemented systematically in the Chinese countryside.

The Institutionalisation of the Chinese Communist Revolution: The Ladder of Success on the Eve of the Cultural Revolution

1968 ◽  
Vol 36 ◽  
pp. 61-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michel Oksenberg
Keyword(s):  
Social Mobility ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Chinese People ◽  
Revolutionary Era ◽  
The People ◽  
Communist Revolution ◽  
Individual Decisions

By the mid 1960s, the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had structured the opportunities and career choices available to the Chinese people. In their individual decisions, the Chinese people had to confront the questions Mao wanted them to face, such as whether to join the Party, to serve the people, and to become heavily involved in political life. Mao and his associates had helped to shape the determinants of social mobility and delineate the skills needed to get ahead and along in China. By 1965, the violence, uncertainty, and turmoil which affected lives during the revolutionary era had given way to a period of more stable, predictable, and structured career patterns.

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