The Radical Students in Kwangtung during the Cultural Revolution

1975 ◽  
Vol 64 ◽  
pp. 645-683 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hong Yung Lee
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political System ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Distinctive Character ◽  
The Status ◽  
Future Direction ◽  
The Masses ◽  
Self Examination ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

The Cultural Revolution was a large-scale self-examination by the Chinese of their political system, involving all the ruling groups as well as the whole population. Not only specific policy issues but also social. economic and political institutions and their value premises were subjected to this examination. Hoping to reverse the trend towards social restratification based on Party bureaucratism, Mao sought to build a mass consensus on the future direction of the revolution. However, in the process of “freely mobilizing the masses,” some social groups found that their interests called for a radical restructuring of the Chinese political system, while those of others lay in the status quo. As the Cultural Revolution (CR) unfolded, the masses and the elite further divided among themselves over the various issues: elite groupings took conservative or radical positions, and formed coalitions with corresponding sections of the masses. Consequently, the division between the radicals and the conservatives cut through both the elite and the masses and set in motion forces that gave the Cultural Revolution its distinctive character.

Settling Accounts with the Cultural Revolution at Beijing University 1977–78

1980 ◽  
Vol 82 ◽  
pp. 308-333 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Munro
Keyword(s):  
University Students ◽  
Educational Policy ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
New Approach ◽  
The Status ◽  
Student Enrolment ◽  
The Masses ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

The purpose of this report is to focus upon two events of some significance that took place at Beijing University (Beida) between late November 1977 and 1978. The first of these was a spontaneous, grassroots polemic concerning an innovation of the Cultural Revolution period. At issue was the radically new approach to the problem of rearing new generations of proletarian intellectuals, namely, the “worker-peasant-soldiers7” student enrolment policy, whereby university students were selected through recommendation by the masses instead of on the basis of examination results. This polemic constituted an uninvited interlude in the carrying out at Beida of the nationwide “third campaign” in the criticism of the “gang of four,” and focused upon the problem of how, in the light of recent changes in educational policy, the status of worker-peasant-soldier students was to be evaluated.

The Cultural Revolution and the Chinese Political System

1969 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
pp. 63-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tang Tsou
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Political System ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Differential Distribution ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
History Of ◽  
Distribution Of Power ◽  
The Masses ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

One of the most extraordinary and puzzling events of the twentieth century is surely the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China. This most profound crisis in the history of the Peking regime provides us with the best available opportunity to study the Chinese political system. For it is during a crisis that the nature, the strength, and the vulnerabilities of a political system fully reveal themselves. Further-more, we can attempt not only to note the unique features of this extraordinary event, and of Chinese politics itself, but also to see whether the seemingly unique Chinese experience does not reveal some universal dilemma of the human condition and fundamental problems of the socio-political order in a magnified and easily recognizable form. It is my belief that the Chinese political system prior to the Cultural Revolution is one of the purest forms found in human experience of a type of association in which there is a clear-cut separation between the elite and the masses. If one follows Ralf Dahrendorf in asserting that in every social organization there is a differential distribution of power and authority, a division involving domination and subjection, the Chinese political system can be taken as one of the polar examples of all social organizations, showing clearly their possibilities and limitations, their problems and dilemmas. From this perspective, the Maoist vision as it has revealed itself in its extreme form during the early phases of the Cultural Revolution can be considered a critique of this type of political organization.

Witch-hunting, Cultural Revolution and the bright side of kinship

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Feng Deng
Keyword(s):  
Social Structure ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Chinese Culture ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Dark Side ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Bright Side ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

Purpose Many studies on witch killings in Africa suggest that “witchcraft is the dark side of kinship.” But in Chinese history, where patriarchal clan system has been emphasized as the foundation of the society, there have been few occurrences of witch-hunting except a large-scale one in the Cultural Revolution in 1966. The purpose of this paper is to explain the above two paradoxes. Design/methodology/approach Theoretical analysis based on preference falsification problem with regard to the effect of social structure on witch-hunting is carried out. Findings There is a “bright side of kinship” due to two factors: first, it would be more difficult to pick out a person as qualitatively different in Chinese culture; second, the hierarchical trust structure embedded in the Chinese culture can help mitigate the preference falsification problem, which acts as the leverage for witch-hunting. In this sense, an important factor for the Cultural Revolution is the decline of traditional social institutions and social values after 1949. Originality/value This paper is the first to advance the two paradoxes and offer an explanation from the perspective of social structure.

The Cultural Revolution in Cinema

Slavic Review ◽  
1988 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 414-433 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Kenez
Keyword(s):  
Economic System ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Political System ◽  
Private Enterprise ◽  
Marxist Ideology ◽  
The Future ◽  
Party Congress ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

The NEP was an inherently unstable social and political system: It contained within itself the seeds of its own destruction. The Bolsheviks carried out policies in which they did not fully believe and with implications that worried them. Although the Tenth Party Congress in 1921 forbade factions within the party, the struggle for power during Lenin's final illness and after his death inevitably created factions. The struggle for power and the conflict between contrasting views concerning the future of society came to be intertwined. For the sake of economic reconstruction the party allowed private enterprise to reemerge. As time went on, many Bolshevik leaders came to be convinced supporters of the mixed economic system; others, on the basis of their reading of Marxist ideology, found such policies distasteful.

Chinese Art of the Cultural Revolution

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
William H. Ma
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Mao Zedong ◽  
Chinese Art ◽  
Political Propaganda ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Cultural Sites ◽  
The Masses ◽  
Visual Materials ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

The art of the Cultural Revolution in China, created during the ten-year period from 1967 to 1977, includes a large variety of visual materials in different media. Generally characterized by unambiguous and heroic images that appealed to the masses, these artworks became powerful tools of political propaganda. Most scholars attribute the beginning of the Cultural Revolution to the 1965 play HaiRui Dismissed from Office. Written by Wu Han, a local Communist official, the play was a thinly veiled critique of Mao Zedong. Though semi-retired in the early 1960s, Mao was determined to hold on to power by launching a new revolution to reawaken young Chinese people and root out the counterrevolutionary and anti-proletarian elements in society. Under Mao’s directive, people, places, and things representing the Four Olds (Old Customs, Old Culture, Old Habits, and Old Ideas) were targeted and violently attacked by young people wearing red armbands and carrying the Little Red Book, a collection of quotes by Mao. Party officials, teachers, professors, authors, and artists had their homes raided and were publically dragged out by the Red Guards for public humiliation. In addition, historical and cultural sites were desecrated and vandalized. While the real violence only lasted the first few years, it set the tone of militarism and revolutionary fervor for the next decade, which permeated through all the arts.

Psychiatric Concepts and Treatment in China

1976 ◽  
Vol 66 ◽  
pp. 315-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seymour S. Kety
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Medical Journal ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
American Psychiatric Association ◽  
Chinese Journal ◽  
The West ◽  
Primary Literature ◽  
The Status ◽  
Exchange Visit ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

There is practically no knowledge in the west regarding the status of psychiatry in the People's Republic since the time of the Cultural Revolution. The three publications on Chinese psychiatry that I was able to find, all of which are based largely upon the primary literature, terminate abruptly at the Cultural Revolution. At that time the Chinese Journal of Neurology and Psychiatrystopped publication and has not been reinstituted. The only medical journal which has begun publication, the China Medical Journal, carries occasional papers in neurology but thus far there have been none in psychiatry. A group of American psychiatrists who had been hoping to participate in an exchange visit to China under the auspices of the National Institute of Mental Health and the American Psychiatric Association had not succeeded in making the necessary contacts, and were in fact unable to give me the names of any Chinese psychiatrists in responsible positions.

What Revolutionary Action Means Today

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheldon S. Wolin
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
American Democracy ◽  
Western History ◽  
Democratic Citizen ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Masses ◽  
First Time

Tocqueville claimed that American democracy had eliminated the causes of revolution. He believed that the revolutionary impulse would wither because for the first time in Western history the masses of ordinary human beings had a tangible stake in defending the status quo. This chapter, however, asks, is it right for the democratic citizen to undertake revolutionary action when the political system retains some of the formal features of democracy but is clearly embarked on a course that is progressively antidemocratic without being crudely repressive? What are the precise ways in which a system that is formally democratic conceals its antidemocratic tendencies? Are pseudo-democratic substitutes introduced that create the illusion of democracy? Was the idea of a democratic citizen partially skewed at the outset so that its development in America was truncated? And, finally, does it make sense even to discuss the possibility of revolution under the circumstances of an advanced, complex society? In what terms would it make sense to talk of revolution today—what would revolutionary action by democratic citizens be?

The Third Front: Defence Industrialization in the Chinese Interior

1988 ◽  
Vol 115 ◽  
pp. 351-386 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry Naughton
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
Western China ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
The Third ◽  
National Leaders ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

Between 1964 and 1971 China carried out a massive programme of investment in the remote regions of south-western and western China. This development programme – called “the Third Front” – envisaged the creation of a huge self-sufficient industrial base area to serve as a strategic reserve in the event of China being drawn into war. Reflecting its primarily military orientation, the programme was considered top secret for many years; recent Chinese articles have discussed the huge costs and legacy of problems associated with the programme, but these discussions have been oblique and anecdotal, and no systematic appraisal has ever been published.2 Since Chinese analysts have avoided discussion of the Third Front, western accounts of China's development have also given it inadequate emphasis, and it has not been incorporated into our understanding of China during the 1960s and 1970s. It is common to assume that the “Cultural Revolution decade” was dominated by domestic political conflict, and characterized by an economic system made dysfunctional by excessive politicization, fragmented control, and an emphasis on small-scale locally self-sufficient development. The Third Front, however, was a purposive, large-scale, centrally-directed programme of development carried out in response to a perceived external threat with the broad support of China's national leaders. Moreover, this programme was immensely costly, having a negative impact on China's economic development that was certainly more far-reaching than the disruption of the Cultural Revolution.

scholarly journals Bending the Arc of Chinese History: The Cultural Revolution's Paradoxical Legacy

2016 ◽  
Vol 227 ◽  
pp. 613-631
Author(s):  
Andrew G. Walder
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Central Government ◽  
The United States ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Status ◽  
Political Foundations ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

AbstractContrary to its initiators’ intentions, the Cultural Revolution laid political foundations for a transition to a market-oriented economy whilst also creating circumstances that helped to ensure the cohesion and survival of China's Soviet-style party-state. The Cultural Revolution left the Chinese Communist Party and civilian state structures weak and in flux, and drastically weakened entrenched bureaucratic interests that might have blocked market reform. The weakening of central government structures created a decentralized planned economy, the regional and local leaders of which were receptive to initial market-oriented opportunities. The economic and technological backwardness fostered by the Cultural Revolution left little support for maintaining the status quo. Mao put Deng Xiaoping in charge of rebuilding the Party and economy briefly in the mid-1970s before purging him a second time, inadvertently making him the standard-bearer for post-Mao rebuilding and recovery. Mutual animosities with the Soviet Union provoked by Maoist polemics led to a surprising strategic turn to the United States and other Western countries in the early 1970s. The resulting economic and political ties subsequently advanced the agenda of reform and opening. China's first post-Mao decade was therefore one of rebuilding and renewal under a pre-eminent leader who was able to overcome opposition to a new course. The impact of this legacy becomes especially clear when contrasted with the Soviet Union in the 1980s, where political circumstances were starkly different, and where Gorbachev's attempts to implement similar changes in the face of entrenched bureaucratic opposition led to the collapse and dismemberment of the Soviet state.

The Cultural Revolution and China's Search for Political Order

1974 ◽  
Vol 58 ◽  
pp. 249-285 ◽  
Author(s):  
Byung-joon Ahn
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Chinese Politics ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

Since her traditional empire collapsed China has experimented with many political institutions. After the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) imposed a revolutionary one-party regime, the pattern of political order has shifted from one form to another. Intra-Party conflicts preceded these shifts, of which the Cultural Revolution represented the culmination. But in the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution another shift is taking place, so it too has raised a series of important questions about Chinese politics.

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