The Formation of National Society in Communist China: The Convergence of Traditions

1971 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 467-488 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert E. Bedeski

Since the events of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in Communist China, a crucial question has been whether the structures of the state can survive intact after the passing of Mao Tse-tung from the scene. The emergence of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) as a strategic political force and the reconstitution of the Chinese Communist Party in 1969 point to the possibility that China has entered into a new phase of political development insofar as institutional arrangements are concerned. Hints that the National People's Congress may be reconvened can also be taken as indications that major changes will have to be ratified. In short, something of a constitutional crisis or its equivalent has occurred on the Chinese mainland. The future direction of Peking policy may well be determined by the way in which this crisis is settled.

2019 ◽  
Vol 53 (05) ◽  
pp. 1450-1485
Author(s):  
SHUK-WAH POON

AbstractMao Zedong's historic swim in the Yangtze River on 16 July 1966, which heralded a new phase of the Cultural Revolution, was a carefully staged political performance and a notable example of body politics in Communist China. Beginning in the late 1950s, Mao began to broadcast the idea that he was a keen swimmer and to convince the masses to take up swimming. The swim was the climax of those efforts and an integral part of the Mao cult. Swimming in Mao's China offers a useful lens for understanding the close relationship between sports, the body, and politics. Swimming was a means for Mao to mobilize mass support for his political authority and a venue for the masses to practise and perform Maoism. This article examines the constructive process and meanings of Mao's swimming body, and the extent to which the bodies of the populace were regulated through the mass-swimming craze. Drawing on untapped archival materials related to mass swimming in Mao's China, this article argues that swimming both solidified and destabilized the Mao cult and became a venue through which political values were shaped, indoctrinated, contested, and repudiated.


1966 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 149-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Uhalley

The current cultural rectification campaign in Communist China, which is to “sweep away all monsters” and “touch people to their very souls,” surpasses all previous campaigns in intensity, but more importantly it has revealed a serious political breach within the Chinese Communist Party itself.


Author(s):  
Tuty Nur Mutia Enoch Muas ◽  
Ervina Noviyanti

Dazibao literally translated as big character poster. Since China dynasty era dazibao has functioned as a medium to deliver messages to the public, therefore it is usually posted on an open wall. The use of dazibao as a propaganda medium for Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party has been widely discussed, but in the research process, specific data were found which show that revolutionary action and the number of Red Guards increased sharply in the short period of time after the dazibao of Nie Yuanzi from Beijing University and Mao Zedong were published. These findings aroused interest to dig deeper into dazibao’s strong elements as a Red Guards mobilizing medium during the Cultural Revolution which become the main analysis of this article. Historical approach which consist of heuristic, verification, interpretation, and historiography is used to reconstruct the strength of dazibao. The analysis focuses on the two dazibao mentioned above, along with Mao Zedong's influence and socio-political development at that time as inseparable factors. The result shows that writers background, main issue, form, and diction used are elements of the strength of Nie’s dazibao and supported by Mao’s dazibao caused dazibao to have a very significant function in raising the number of Red Guards during the Chinese Cultural Revolution 1966-1969.Dazibao secara harfiah dalam bahasa Indonesia berarti  poster dengan tulisan besar. Sejak era kedinastian Tiongkok telah dikenal dan digunakan sebagai sarana penyampai pesan kepada masyarakat, karena itu biasanya ditempel di dinding terbuka. Pemanfaatan dazibao sebagai sarana propaganda Mao Zedong dan Partai Komunis Tiongkok telah banyak dibahas, tapi dalam proses penelitian ditemukan data spesifik yang menunjukkan bahwa aksi revolusioner dan jumlah Pengawal Merah meningkat tajam dalam jangka waktu singkat setelah publikasi dazibao Nie Yuanzi dari Universitas Beijing dan dazibao Mao Zedong. Temuan tersebut membangkitkan ketertarikan untuk menggali lebih dalam tentang factor-faktor yang menjadi kekuatan dazibao sebagai sarana penggalangan Pengawal Merah pada Revolusi Kebudayaan tersebut. Hal itulah yang menjadi pokok bahasan artikel ini. Metode sejarah yang mencakup tahapan heuristik, verifikasi, interpretasi, dan historiografi digunakan untuk merekonstruksi kekuatan dazibao terutama yang tercermin dalam dazibao Nie dan Mao. Dalam pembahasan pengaruh Mao Zedong serta perkembangan sosial-politik saat itu menjadi bagian tak terpisahkan didalamnya.  Hasil analisis menunjukkan bahwa latar penulis, pokok bahasan, tampilan, dan pilihan kata/diksi merupakan faktor-faktor yang menjadi kekuatan dazibao Nie. Ditambah dengan dukungan dari dazibao yang dibuat Mao serta publikasi yang masif menyebabkan dazibao berfungsi sangat signifikan dalam penggalangan Pengawal Merah pada Revolusi Kebudayaan Tiongkok tahun 1966-1969.


1984 ◽  
Vol 97 ◽  
pp. 24-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham Young

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.


2021 ◽  
pp. 0920203X2110609
Author(s):  
Wing Chung Ho ◽  
Lin Li

This study explores the experience of elderly rural Buddhist and Taoist believers in communist China where the ruling party has maintained decades-long regulatory control over religion. Based on ethnographic observation and oral histories, the analysis begins with how the actors made sense of and coped in their relationship with the state during the fieldwork period (May–June 2020) when state regulations restricted public religious practice because of COVID-19. The analysis then looks back on how practitioners experienced tightening state ideological control from the early 2010s to before COVID-19; further back at the religious revival during the opening and reform (1980s–2010s); and finally, the Cultural Revolution period (1960s–70s) when strict atheistic measures were imposed. Their narratives reveal the practical logic (habitus) which practitioners used to mediate their resistance against and compromise with the authoritarian state. Specifically, four logical modes that involve actors’ different time–space tactics were identified, namely state–religion disengagement, state–religion enhancement, religious (dis)enlightenment, and karma. The implications of these ostensibly conflicting modes of thinking in mediating the actors’ resistance–compliance interface in contemporary China are discussed.


1969 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 54-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Merle Goldman

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.


2021 ◽  
pp. 185-192
Author(s):  
Ekaterina Karavaeva

The article explores the motif of love in a totalitarian society in Anchee Min’s novel “Wild Ginger”. Though an American citizen, Anchee Min belongs to a group of modern Chinese-American writers whose interests focus around the past of her home country China. Childhood and teenage years which Min spent in Communist China provided her with a lot of material for her later novels. In Wild Ginger through a classic plot of love triangle the writer approaches the motif of love in the times of Cultural Revolution. The author examines love as a relationship between a man and a woman, and as a religious feeling and communist ideology. Grotesque becomes the main literary device. Over-exaggeration bordering on incredibility expresses the author’s rejection of the surrounding reality. Intertwining comical and tragical situations, the novels brings the reader to a conclusion that love is the only means of attainting personal freedom and maturity in a totalitarian society.  


1950 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-258
Author(s):  
Herbert W. Briggs

On November 20, 1948, Chinese Communist Party soldiers, without previous warning, cordoned the United States Consul General's office and the residential compounds of the consular staff at Mukden, China, and subjected the entire United States consular staff and their families to house arrest inside the compounds. The detention lasted over a year. For almost seven months the party was held incommunicado and subjected to numerous privations. Adequate water, light, medical care, and sanitary and roofing repairs were denied, mobility within the compounds was restricted, and members of the staff were subjected to badgering interrogations and examinations.


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