"Aesthetic Craze" in China — Its Cause and Significance

The extent to which the Cultural Revolution has transformed the world-view of the Chinese masses remains among the psycho-cultural imponderables, but clearly it has revolutionized the western view of Chinese politics. The dominant pre-1966 image of a consensual solidarity disturbed only rarely by purges, also handled in an orderly way by a consensus excluding only its victims, was challenged by a sudden multitude of polemical claims to the effect that a struggle for power and principle had been raging behind the scenes for decades. This struggle was characterized as a “struggle between two lines”: a “proletarian revolutionary line,” led by Mao Tse-tung, and a “bourgeois reactionary line,” led by Liu Shao-ch'i and Teng Hsiaop'ing. This struggle allegedly represented a deep underlying ideological cleavage within the leadership that had repercussions on every aspect of Chinese life: foreign policy, strategies of economic development, techniques of leadership and administration, pay scales and living standards, delivery patterns for education, medicine, and other services; even scientific method. Allegations concerning this struggle were supported by a wealth of documentary evidence, culled from hitherto confidential Party and government files. Initially greeted with scepticism among western journalists and academic circles, some variant of the “two lines” paradigm has made increasing inroads into our attempts to understand the origins of the Cultural Revolution. The time has come to re-evaluate the conception of a two-line struggle in retrospect and to try to determine just what it means and how it functions.

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Factions in Chinese Military Politics

The China Quarterly ◽

10.1017/s0305741000019548 ◽

1973 ◽

Vol 56 ◽

pp. 667-699 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

William L. Parish

Keyword(s):

Interest Groups ◽

Cultural Revolution ◽

Internal Conflict ◽

Chinese Society ◽

Internal Conflicts ◽

Chinese Studies ◽

Chinese Military ◽

Military Politics ◽

The Military ◽

The Cultural Revolution

In Chinese Studies, three themes have acquired new emphasis since the Cultural Revolution: first, the view that China is not a simple monolithic state but one with diversified interest groups and potential internal conflict. Second, the influence of the military throughout society and the extent to which its particular interests and internal conflicts shape the nature of government and society. Third, the fact that bureaucratism, though attacked in the Cultural Revolution, is likely to continue shaping Chinese society and to be a perennial threat to revolutionary ideals. This article touches on each of these themes – first, by an analysis of personal loyalty groups during the Cultural Revolution and the Lin Piao affair and, second, by an account of the changing nature of Chinese bureaucracies and of how these changes impinge on factional politics.

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Civil Adoption in Contemporary Chinese Law: A Contract to Care

Modern Asian Studies ◽

10.1017/s0026749x00001104 ◽

1989 ◽

Vol 23 (2) ◽

pp. 373-410 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Michael J. E. Palmer

Keyword(s):

Legal System ◽

Cultural Revolution ◽

Social Life ◽

Public Awareness ◽

Chinese Society ◽

Chinese Law ◽

Norms And Values ◽

Legal Structures ◽

The Law ◽

The Cultural Revolution

An outstanding feature of the far-reaching plans for development which China has been earnestly promoting under the general rubric of the ‘four modernizations’ is the post-Mao leadership's determined effort to revive and thoroughly institutionalize a meaningful and formal legal system. There is an obvious and sharp distinction between the policies towards law pursued during the period between the mid-1950s and the mid-1970s and the more recent attempts to fashion a pivotal role for law in Chinese society. Throughout much of the course of socialist rule China's leaders have been concerned not with promoting effective legal institutions but, rather, with the direct insertion of extrinsic political norms and values into the law. During the Cultural Revolution many important legal structures ceased to function. In contrast, in the years since 1978 an important aspect of the rigorous political reaction to the uncertainty and conflict of the Cultural Revolution has been unequivocal support for the establishment of a sound legal system. The leadership now believes that systematic and regulated law-making, public awareness of the law, and proper application of the rules should be integral elements in the administration of justice in the PRC. The hope is that this approach will prevent the recurrence of arbitrary political rule, curb reliance on ‘connections’ or guanxi in bureaucratic conduct, promote economic growth and generally encourage the development of a more predictable and orderly social life.

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Movimentos de Contracultura em Belo Horizonte * Movements of counterculture in Belo Horizonte (one of Brazil’s States)

História e Cultura ◽

10.18223/hiscult.v1i1.563 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 21

Author(s):

CARLA FERRETI SANTIAGO ◽

DÉBORA DE VIVEIROS PEREIRA

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Cultural History ◽

Cultural Revolution ◽

The United States ◽

Font Size ◽

The World ◽

May 1968 ◽

Belo Horizonte ◽

The Cultural Revolution

Este artigo propõe a análise dos movimentos de contracultura em Belo Horizonte, entre os anos de 1968 e 1978, a partir de reportagens do jornal Diário da Tarde. A contracultura, movimento de proporções mundiais, surgida entre as décadas de 1950 e 1960, na Europa – notadamente França, Alemanha e Inglaterra – e nos Estados Unidos, foi difundida pelo mundo, especialmente após a “revolução cultural” de maio de 1968, em Paris. No Brasil, ficou conhecida principalmente através do movimento Tropicália, que englobava diversos âmbitos artísticos em um mesmo grupo. Em Belo Horizonte, especificamente, as análises dos periódicos possibilitaram a descoberta e subdivisão de movimentos contraculturais artísticos, “anti-artísticos” e aqueles considerados “ameaças” à sociedade. Palavras-chave: Movimentos contraculturais – História Cultural – Diário da Tarde. Abstract: This article proposes the analysis of the movements of counterculture in Belo Horizonte between 1968 and 1978, starting from the reports of the newspaper “Diário da Tarde”. The counterculture, movement of world proportions, started between 1950 and 1960, between Europe – in particular France, Germany and England – and the United States o America, was spread throughout the world, especially after the “cultural revolution” of May 1968, in Paris. In Brazil, it became known especially through the “Tropicália” movement, which encompassed several artistic fields in a same group. In Belo Horizonte, especially, the analyses from the periodicals enabled the discovery and subdivision of artistic counterculture movements, “anti-art” and those deemed “threats” to society. Keywords: Counterculture Movements – Cultural History – Newspaper “Diário da Tarde”.

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The Fragility of Identity and the Imagination of Otherness in Bai Hua’s novel The Remote Country of Women

DAXIYANGGUO - REVISTA PORTUGUESA DE ESTUDOS ASIÁTICOS / PORTUGUESE JOURNAL OF ASIAN STUDIES ◽

10.33167/1645-4677.daxiyangguo2020.25/pp.72-91 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 72-91

Author(s):

Tânia Ganito ◽

Keyword(s):

Cultural Revolution ◽

Western Culture ◽

The State ◽

The Novel ◽

Literary Works ◽

Chinese Author ◽

The Way ◽

The Cultural Revolution

Drawing on The Remote Kingdom of Women (1988), the novel written by Chinese author Bai Hua (1930-2019), this essay examines how post-Mao China articulated the notions of memory and identity, as well as of belonging and othering, as an attempt to overcome the state of fragility caused by the trauma of the Cultural Revolution and the post-revolutionary growing influence of Western culture. It proposes to explore the way some of the literary works produced during this period were to promote an encounter between a fragmented yet hegemonic culture and the cultures of the internal ethnic Other, and how this encounter between majority and minority subjects was to highlight precisely the condition of fragility that underlies the very concept of identity. Keywords: China; Literature; Bai Hua; Identity; Majority; Minorities.

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Developments in Chinese psychiatry

Bulletin of the Royal College of Psychiatrists ◽

10.1192/pb.12.10.437 ◽

1988 ◽

Vol 12 (10) ◽

pp. 437-439

Author(s):

G. M. G. McClure

Keyword(s):

Cultural Revolution ◽

Sharp Contrast ◽

The Political ◽

Chinese Society ◽

Political Constraints ◽

Previous Decade ◽

The Cultural Revolution

During a recent visit to China, which included meetings with psychiatrists in Beijing, Shanghai, Xian and Hohot, I noted that many of the political constraints of the Cultural Revolution on psychiatry had been removed. Clearly, Chinese society was still strongly influenced by Marxist doctrine, but there was greater academic and clinical freedom for the reinstated professionals who had previously been considered ‘elitist’. Western textbooks and journals were available, and the very fact that Chinese psychiatrists were able to communicate freely with me was in sharp contrast to the enforced isolation of the previous decade.

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Ideology and Cosmology: Maoist Discussion on Physics and the Cultural Revolution

Modern Asian Studies ◽

10.1017/s0026749x06001995 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 40 (1) ◽

pp. 109-149 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

YINGHONG CHENG

Keyword(s):

Cultural Revolution ◽

Chinese Society ◽

Cultural Perspectives ◽

Fortieth Anniversary ◽

Political Economic ◽

The Cultural Revolution

The Cultural Revolution has reached its fortieth anniversary (1966–2006), but many questions about it remain unanswered or the answers themselves are controversial. Among the questions, why Mao and Maoist ideologists went such an extreme in seeking their political goals, and how they would justify the chaos and disasters the Chinese society suffered from 1966 to 1976, are perhaps the most fundamental one. To answer this question, Mao and China scholars have provided interpretations from political, economic, social, and cultural perspectives.

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From the “Great Union of the Popular Masses” to the “Great Alliance”

The China Quarterly ◽

10.1017/s0305741000036511 ◽

1972 ◽

Vol 49 ◽

pp. 88-105 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Stuart R. Schram

Keyword(s):

Cultural Revolution ◽

Chinese Society ◽

May Fourth Movement ◽

Fourth Movement ◽

May Fourth ◽

The May Fourth Movement ◽

The Cultural Revolution

The main purpose of this article is to serve as an introduction to the foregoing translation of Mao Tse-tung's essay, “The Great Union of the Popular Masses,” written during the summer of 1919. As suggested by the title, however, while focusing primarily on Mao Tse-tung's thought at the time of the May Fourth Movement, I have chosen to develop also certain parallels with the ideas he has put forward more recently, especially during the Cultural Revolution. That there are elements of continuity between these two epochs has been recognized by everyone from the very beginning of the Cultural Revolution. Indeed, Mao himself not only stressed these links, but, for a time at least, sought to exaggerate them. The Cultural Revolution was (among many other things) an attempt to re-create, for the benefit of today's youth, an experience analogous to that of Mao's generation of young Chinese half a century ago. None the less, the juxtaposition, for purposes of analysis, of two such episodes widely separated in time may at first glance appear somewhat arbitrary. Such an approach can, in my view, be justified by the fact that the Mao Tse-tung of 1919 had not yet seriously begun to assimilate Marxism, whereas the Mao Tse-tung of the Cultural Revolution had already moved beyond Marxism to conceptions not altogether compatible with the logic of Marxism or of Leninism. The intervening years, during which he mastered, applied and then to some extent discarded the principles of revolution developed by Lenin and Stalin are, of course, vitally important to an understanding of the genesis and present significance of his thought. But by looking directly from 1919 to 1969, and leaping over the intervening period, one can perhaps see the problem in a perspective which reveals points that would otherwise be obscured. In particular, one can note the persistence of traits and ideas not derived from Marxism, and which therefore belong to an earlier and deeper stratum of Mao's thinking and feeling about the problems of Chinese society.

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Chinese Opera after the Cultural Revolution (1970–72)

The China Quarterly ◽

10.1017/s0305741000009139 ◽

1973 ◽

Vol 55 ◽

pp. 478-510 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Colin Mackerras

Keyword(s):

Cultural Revolution ◽

Chinese Society ◽

Cultural Activity ◽

Chinese Opera ◽

The Arts ◽

Party Congress ◽

The Cultural Revolution

The theatrical life of the Chinese in recent years has closely reflected the evolution of Chinese society as a whole since the Cultural Revolution. Although the ninth Party Congress in April 1969 confirmed the success of the Maoist line established in the Cultural Revolution, deciding exactly how to apply that ideological system has not always been easy. Debate has continued in all sections of the community, and is reflected very clearly in the newspapers and media. Amid these debates enough concrete decisions have been reached to begin new cultural activity, largely suspended while the issues were being thrashed out during the Cultural Revolution, and with the passing of time the pace of the revival in the arts has quickened. The resurgence is based on Maoist theory, and it may conseqeuntly be useful to begin with a discussion of how the Chinese are formulating their ideas on what the theatre is all about.

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Factions in Chinese Military Politics

The China Quarterly ◽

10.1017/s0305741000006445 ◽

1973 ◽

Vol 53 ◽

pp. 667-699 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

William L. Parish

Keyword(s):

Interest Groups ◽

Cultural Revolution ◽

Internal Conflict ◽

Chinese Society ◽

Internal Conflicts ◽

Chinese Studies ◽

Chinese Military ◽

Military Politics ◽

The Military ◽

The Cultural Revolution

In Chinese Studies, three themes have acquired new emphasis since the Cultural Revolution: first, the view that China is not a simple monolithic state but one with diversified interest groups and potential internal conflict. Second, the influence of the military throughout society and the extent to which its particular interests and internal conflicts shape the nature of government and society. Third, the fact that bureaucratism, though attacked in the Cultural Revolution, is likely to continue shaping Chinese society and to be a perennial threat to revolutionary ideals. This article touches on each of these themes – first, by an analysis of personal loyalty groups during the Cultural Revolution and the Lin Piao affair and, second, by an account of the changing nature of Chinese bureaucracies and of how these changes impinge on factional politics.

Download Full-text