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MAO ZEDONG AND CHINA

IN THE TWENTIETH-CENTURY WORLD

A CONCISE HISTORY
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Mao Zedong and China IN THE

TWENTIETH-CENTURY WORLD
 J

Mao Zedong and China IN THE

TWENTIETH-CENTURY WORLD

A
Concise
History

Rebecca E. Karl

Asia-Pacific: Culture, Politics, and Socie~y

DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS DURHAM AND LONDON 2010
EDITORS: Rey Chow, Michael Dutton, H. D. Harootunian, and Rosalind Morris
 TO MY NEPHEW, CHRISTOPHER,

AND MY NIECES, TEPI, CHANNA, SOPHIA, AND NORA:

with love and in hope.

© 2010 Duke University Press

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 0

Designed by Heather Hensley

Typeset in Warnock Pro by Keystone Typesetting, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data appear

on the last printed page of this book.

L
Contents Preface and Acknowledgements lX

1 China in the World in Mao's Youth 1

2 From Liberal to Communist, 1912-1921 9

3 Toward the Peasant Revolution, 1921-1927 21

4 Establishing Revolutionary Bases:

From Jinggangshan to Yan'an, 1928-1935 35

5 Yan'an, the War of Resistance against

Japan, and Civil War, 1935-1949 51

6 Stabilizing Society and the Transition

to Socialism, 1949-1957 73

7 Great Leap and Restoration, 1958-1965 99

8 The Cultural Revolution:

Politics in Command, 1966- 1969 117

9 The Cultural Revolution:

Denouement and Death of Mao, 1969-1976 139

10 Reform, Restoration, and the

Repudiation of Maoism, 1976-Present 159

Notes 185

Bibliography 191

Index 193
Preface and Acknowledgements

Say "Mao Zedong" in China or among China scholars anywhere and there
is a ready-made argument. The disputes over Jung Chang's and Jon Halli-
day's recently published Mao: The Unknown Story provide just one exam-
ple. According to many reviewers of that book, the story therein told is
unknown because Chang and Halliday substantially fabricated or exagger-
ated it into existence. According to others, Chang and Halliday have finally
exposed Mao in all his naked cruelty to a hitherto credulous world. Which-
ever side one takes-and there. are more than these two alone-the po-
lemic gets polarized, the rhetoric heated, and the arguments intolerant. In
China, it is even worse. Attempts to reassess portions of the Mao period-
particularly by taking the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) seriously-bring
accusations of desires to bring Maoism back to life, of wishing to ne-
gate the post-Mao Dengist reforms and return the country to poverty and
global irrelevance, and of being anti-Chinese.
As Mao Zedong and his legacy for China are fought over by scholars
and laypeople alike, certain parts of Maoism are now detached from their
revolutionary meaning and historical context and reborn as fundamental-
ist capitalist tenets. Business schools routinely teach about "guerilla mar-
keting;' a strategy supposedly derived from Mao's theorization of "pro-
tracted war." Mao as kitsch and commodity floods the consumer market,
available on eBay or at any roadside stand in Chinese tourist spots. As the
scholar Michael Dutton wrote of this phenomenon in 1998, "Mao sells, but
what he sells today is the very new idea of everything being for sale"
(Streetlife China).
The current text joins the scholarly fray implicitly and becomes yet
 tne marKet realm expnCiny. tsut, It engages ootn tmpHcltly. ln the case ot nizer (GSOC), Maggte LHnton; ana tnose or tne .r-au :z,uuo vers10n or tnat
the scholarly fray, what can be said of the current effort is that the book course, ably assisted by the PhD students Feng Miao and He Xiang. In Fall
takes Mao Zedong and his era-in Chinese and in global terms-quite 2oos, in addition to learning about Mao, students were forced to confront
seriously. It t(l.kes socialism in China and the world as integral to the politics in their everyday lives, as we faced the stand-off between the grad-
history of the twentieth century. It construes Mao and Maoism as central uate student union and the NYU administration. It was a marvelous lesson ·
to the history of Chinese and global socialism, as well as central to the in politics in action, although also a dispiriting lesson about strong-arm
'history of revolution and modernity in the last .century. Even this mildest of domination in reality.
approaches to the subject lands the text in fraught politics. Some would The students in these two classes allowed me-with significant challenge
like to understand those politics in terms of today's uncompromising op- -to introduce Mao and his revolutionary philosophy in terms a politically
position between "freedom" and "tyranny." In the absurd "good vs. evil" engaged, yet slightly confused, younger generation might understand.
passing for political analysis in some quarters these days, taking Mao and They allowed me to discuss Mao in ways relevant to today's world, without
socialism seriously puts one, by taint of conflated ideological association, conflating today's problems with Mao's. Most important, they permitted
on the side of "evil" and "tyranny." This text, then, could be taken as an me to engage them in a theoretical and historical sophistication sufficient
extended argument against such simplistic reductions. to forestall simplistic reductions. Together, we strove to restore complex-
As for the book as a commodity, the market will decide. I have written ity and philosophy to historical inquiry and contemporary critique. The
the text as accessibly as possible without sacrificing complexity. While most industrious of these students-Eliot Ayer, Jessica Perlman, Margaret
Mao's life is the chronological frame of the narrative, twentieth-century Hsu, Andrew Ongchin, Max Kubicki, Mark McConaghy, Sylwia W eiwora,
Chinese and world history are what makes Mao possible. Discussing Mao Andrew Samuel, Riazul Islam, Kaitlin Collins, Megan Smith, and Destin
without Chinese and world history is quite impossible, just as discussing Hodges, among others-learned to grapple with the philosophical prob-
modern Chinese history without Mao is also quite i~possible. The book lems of revolutionary thought. and practice, while working through the
makes every effort to make Mao and China reflect on one another in politics and historical problems Mao faced as a committed Marxist revolu-
complex ways. tionary and a Chinese living in the twentieth-century world. They demon-
This text attempts to reattach Mao to a historical moment of crisis strated great ability to resist the conflation of the past with the present,
demanding critique and action. It tries to understand how, out of the while also recognizing how the past can potentially exist in the present as a
multiple catastrophes of the early twentieth century (Chinese and global), principle of historical transformation. In this, they proved both wise and
Mao dared to propose and activate a revolutionary project calling every adept. I am grateful to them for taking me seriously and allowing me to
convention into question so as to remake the world. Recalling Mao's chal- learn from their questions and confusions.
lenge is to recall a time when many things seemed possible; it is to remem- One motivation for writing this book was personal. It is dedicated to my
ber possibility against the pressure to concede to the world as it now nephew, Christopher, and my nieces, Tepi, Channa, Sophia, and Nora,
appears. In this sense, I am less concer~ed in the text about whether Mao who face so many challenges, in part as legacies of the historical moment
individually wrote or thought all the things attributed to him and more discussed here. The world they and their generation will inherit is much
concerned with Mao as a figure in Chinese and global history: as a maker of poorer for what has been called the project of disutopia, which is "not just
revolution. This is not a biography but rather a history on the model of the temporary absence of Utopia, but the political celebration of the end of
Georg Lukacs's consideration of Lenin in the 1920s. social dreams."(Zizek, Repeating Lenin, 9). This book introduces a histor-
For many of the formulations and approaches in this book, I am grateful ical moment, when fundamental global transformation could be thought.
to two sets of intrepid and intelligent undergraduate students at New York It is a moment I admire. Yet, I harbor no illusion that the specific projects
University: those in my inaugural "Mao and the Chinese Revolution" class toward which Mao Zedong worked are appropriate or even sufficient for

x PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi

L
today or for his world. I am optimistic, though, something of his philoso-
phy, passion, and historical method can be retrieved for a rethinking of
our present.
I also want to thank others, without whom this would have been a less
enjoyable project. Deborah Karl gave me good advice; after all these years,
I ,should just learn to listen to her. I am grateful to my initial readers, on

a
whom I relied to tell me what required elaboration and what was just too
much. Joanne Filley read with humor and sympathy the early chapters.
F. David Bell read the entire text with a critical and knowing eye toward my China ia the World in Mao's Youth
tendency to excess. My mother, Dolores Karl, removed many writing in-
felicities, while also reading carefully for coherence and accessibility. How-
ever much I've depended on them, everyone mentioned above and below is
absolved of responsibility for what remains.
Several of my graduate students and colleagues assisted in crucial ways. Mao Zedong was born on December 26, 1893, in China's south-
He Xiang taught me what I know of Mao's poetic practice. Zhu Qian central Hunan Province, in a small village called Shaoshan. Lo-
traveled with me to China in May 2007, recorded the interviews there, and cated in a fertile rice-growing valley at the foot of Mount Heng-
transcribed them for me. Her good humor, intelligence, and enthusiasm shan, the village is about eighty-one miles southwest from the
for food made the trip a joy and a learni11-g experience. I thank Harry and provincial capital, Changsha. Although Mao's birthplace was a
Kristin for their house and the isolation I needed to finish writing. And I quiet rural backwater, the political and social situation in China
am grateful to Maggie Clinton for finding books in China for me; sharing at the beginning of the. twentieth century was becoming increas-
my monastic retreat; and enduring weird cats and bold mice as I worked ingly fraught.
through the final chapters.
I want to express gratitude to Professor Wang Hui at Tsinghua Univer- Free Trade, Opium, Tea, and Silver

sity for sharing his time and insight with me; to Sabu Kohso in New York At the time of Mao's birth, China was ruled by its last imperial dy-
for years of political camaraderie, and wonderful perspicacity on things nasty, the Qing. The Manchus who founded the Qing had swept
near and far; and to W u Hongsen, the best friend a person can have. I am into China in the seventeenth century from their base in Man-
deeply sorry that Mr. WangYuanhua, one of the most extraordinary peo- churia to overrun the native Han-Chinese Ming Dynasty. Initially
ple I have had the good fortune to know, died before this book could be a robust dynasty, the Qing had entered a long decline by the early
published. While he would never have agreed with me on many things in it, 18oos as the empire was repeatedly assaulted by aggressive for-
we would have enjoyed a good-natured argument about them, followed by eign powers (led by the British) who were attempting to force
lunch and great conversation about a number of other things. His passing China into· free trade agreements the Qing resisted.
truly marks the passing of an era. I will miss him and his energy. The assault on China's territorial integrity and political sover-
Finally, thanks to my editor, Reynolds Smith, who got this book peer- eignty began in the mid-nineteenth century with the infamous
reviewed and into production quickly. To the readers, particularly Wang Opium Wars. These conflicts were fought between China and
Ban, I am grateful for the suggestions and encouragement. And to those at Britain, primarily. Trade between those two countries had thrived
Duke University Press involved in the production of the book, especially in the eighteenth century. By the early nineteenth century, how-
Mark Mastromarino, I am grateful for the hard work and crea~ive energy ever, the British could find nothing that the Chinese wished to
invested. purchase from them in large enough quantities to offset the in-

xii PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

 creasing British demand for Chinese tea. With the South American wars of through a thinly spread network of well-educated bureaucrats. As the
independence against Spain closing the silver mines and provoking a global authority of the central government weakened, the sway of local power
silver crisis, the British were desperate to find an· alternative mode of holders increased. A series of huge mid-century peasant rebellions-in
payment for their burgeoning tea-drinking habit. They hit upon opium. part set off because of the Opium War disruptions-then forced the em-
Highly addictive and easily grown by the British in their newly secured peror to cede even more power to local officials, so that they could defeat
ne~rby Indian colonies, opium began to be imported to China by British the uprisings in their midst. The most famous of these uprisings-the
merchants in great quantities as a substitute for silver. The Dao Guang Taipings-lasted for fourteen long years, before the Qing state could mus-
Emperor attempted to enforce a ban on the opium trade as the drug ter the force finally to suppress it.
devastation spread like wildfire through his empire. Queen Victoria, in- Meanwhile, the spread of European and American commercial and
censed at the trampling of British trade prerogatives, declared war against religious settlements, initially restricted to the (:oastal areas, had reached,
the Qing to enforce Britain's right to "free trade." by Mao's childhood in the 189os, the hinterlands of Hunan and beyond.
The Chinese were no match for the powerful British navy, which deci- The presence of foreigners, with their capitalist and Christian priorities,
mated their coastal forts. The Qing armies had never encountered the was insidiously destructive of the established order. Peasant handicraft
technology possessed by the British troops. They suffered one defeat after production was squeezed; railroads were built where no transport systems
another. Finally, in 1842, the Chinese were forced to sign a humiliating had existed, thus rerouting familiar trade patterns; and missionary stations
settlement, known as the Treaty of Nanjing. The treaty was weighted were set up with educational and hospital facilities that often created vio-
entirely in favor of the British. One key concession was "extraterritoriality;' lent tension with local populations, whose suspicions about alien prac-
which meant that British citizens on Chinese soil would be subjected to tices were often fueled by the contempt in which missionaries held local
British, not Chinese, law. In addition, trade would no longer be restricted "heathen" society.
by Qing imperial custom. Five ports were opened for foreign trade- China's weakness attracted the predatory attention of the rising Japanese
Canton, Shanghai, Fuzhou, Ningbo, and Xiamen (Amoy)-while Hong -a people who long had been regarded by the Chinese as the "dwarves of
Kong was ceded to the British as a foothold on the Chinese coast. In the East;' or as pesky pirates operating lawlessly near China's coasts. China
subsequent decades, with the strengthening of the British colonial grip in was completely demoralized when the Japanese convincingly defeated
India and Southeast Asia, the volume of opium grown increased quickly their forces in a dispute over the Korean monarchy. In the process, Ja-
and imports of opium more than doubled. pan destroyed the Qing government's new navy, which was supposed to
Most destructively, the Nanjing Treaty established the principle of be the strongest fleet in Asia and which had been built under the super-
"most favored nation." This clause provided that any commercial or other vision of French and British naval assistants. The 1895 treaty-signed at
rights wrested from the Chinese by other countries would automatically be Shimoneseki-ended the short war. China was forced to cede Taiwan to
granted to Britain. Two years later, the Qing was forced at gunpoint to sign Japan; to provide huge indemnity payments to Japan; and to grant Japan
new treaties with France and the United States; these were followed by manufacturing rights in China's open ports.
treaties with Prussia, Italy, Russia, and other European nations. This marks After China's defeat at the hands of the Japanese, the Qing dynasty
the beginning of what the Chinese later would call the "century of humilia- entered its final death throes. Failure to confront these previously weak
tion;' a century Mao is credited with ending by the founding of a strong and neighbors made the educated and commercial classes of China seriously
sovereign China in 1949. question the dynastic state's ability to safeguard China from outside as-
sault. An attempt made in 1898 by educated elites to force the dynasty to
A Crumbling Society and Defeat by Japan
reform its practices failed miserably. These two failures, combined with
The fallout from the Opium Wars played a crucial part in the decline of far-reaching social trouble brewing within China, led to a serious weaken-
the imperial grip on China, which for centuries had been administered ing of the state.
2 CHINA IN THE WORLD IN MAO'S YOUTH
CHINA IN THE WORLD IN MAO's YOUTH 3
 The special privileges enjoyed by colonial foreigners (British, French, cated peasant. Mao remembered him as authoritarian and unpleasant, and
Germans, Americans, and after 1895, Japanese) and native holders oflocal unsympathetic to his son's desire for a good education. According to Edgar
power soon provoked endemic rural violence, culminating in the Boxer Snow, who based his biography of Mao on interviews with him in the late
Rebellion of 1899-1901. This uprising was initiated by members of a secret 1930s, Mao attributed his father's disposition to his stint in the Qing.
Chinese martial arts group known as the "Righteous Harmonious Fists" or, dynasty's army. 1 After leaving the army, he became highly preoccupied
, as many non-Chinese called them, the "Boxers." Targeted initially at mis- with accumulating wealth. Through dint of luck, labor, and parsimony, by
sionaries and their native converts, whose presence was deemed disruptive 1893 he had become one of the richest of the 300 families of Mao's natal
oflocal social order, the Boxer rebellion soon grew into an all-purpose anti- village, Shaoshan. He owned about 2.5 acres of land-later acquiring an-
foreign and anti-Christian uprising. The rebels seized Beijing, executing other acre or so-which produced around 133 pounds of rice, of which
scores of foreigners and thousands of Chinese Christian converts. The about two-thirds was consumed by the family, leaving one-third as surplus
Qing joined the rebels, in a bid to regain some popular credibility. This for the market. With two hired laborers to assist on the farm, Mao's father
triggered an invasion by a combined force of eight foreign nations, which soon began a grain transport and selling business, and set himself up as a
in its turn massacred any Chinese suspected of sympathizing with the Box- middleman for urban markets. The middleman merchant was a feature of
ers. The Qing court abandoned the capital, and Beijing became a blood- the rural areas, and would later be defined by the Marxist Mao as "para-
bath. In the ensuing punitive settlement forced upon the Qing by the allied sitic;' and thus a target for revolutionary overthrow.
powers (led by Britain, the United States, Prussia, and Japan), the dynasty In contrast to his near-contempt for his father, Mao loved and revered
staved off final demise, but only by effectively giving away the country to its his mother, nee Wen Qimei. A hardworking woman who died young (at
foreign creditors. the age of fifty-three), she was reputedly selfless in her sacrifice for her sons
Through the turbulent years at the beginning of the twentieth cen- and family. Born just beyond the mountains from Shaoshan, she and her
tury, many rival contenders to state power emerged. Hunan Province, husband actually spoke different dialects of Chinese; nevertheless, family
Mao's home region, was a hotbed of all kinds of anti-dynastic activity. discussions, in which she participated fully, were reputedly always vig-
However, it took some time for Mao to become aware of what was happen- orous and spirited. Mao's emotionally charged funeral oration for her,
ing around him. delivered on October 8, 1919, highlighted his mother's steadfastness, her
adherence to the traditional virtues, her cleanliness and sense of order, her
Mao al home in Hunan charity, and most important, her hatred for injustice of any sort. Indeed,
Mao's parents had seven children (five sons and two daughters) but only Mao credited his mother for being adept at analysis, a skill that she used in
2
three survived, all boys. Mao Zedong was the eldest; Zemin, the middle supporting his side in his stormy relationship with his father. A devout
brother, and Zetan, the youngest, soon followed. All three brothers re- Buddhist, his mother clearly imparted to Mao a distinctive ethical stance.
mained close through childhood. Growing up on his father's farm, in a This was not a reverence for religion, which Mao eventually labeled as
spacious courtyard house surrounded ·by hills, terraced paddy fields, and "superstition" and pledged to stamp out; rather, it was a desire to correct
ponds, Mao enjoyed the extraordinary luxury of having his own bedroom, the problems of his world through action. His mother's love and affection
even after his brothers were born. He worked on his father's farm from the were a touchstone for Mao throughout his life.
age of six, and even when he began to attend the village school, and later a Mao's early education at the local school was presided over by an old-
nearby higher primary school, he continued to work in the early mornings style scholar, whose interest in world and dynastic affairs was apparently
and evenings. His experience as a working peasant was limited to this minimal and whose mode of teaching relied on the age-old method of rote
childhood period, even though he later vividly recalled carrying buckets of memorization of the Confucian classics. In an oft-told story, Mao narrates
manure from collection pits to the paddy fields for fertilizer. that after a particularly harsh lesson, he ran away from school and home.
Mao's father, Mao Rensheng, was a relatively wealthy but poorly edu- His worried family found him only after he had wandered alone without

CHINA IN THE WORLD IN MAO'S YOUTH 5

4 CHINA IN THE WORLD IN MAO'S YOUTH
food for three days. Upon his return home, Mao claims, his father's dis- subsequently commented that he found all these issues very exciting-
position towards him moderated, at least temporarily, as did the teacher's. except for the dynastic defense-but that he couldn't tell any of them apart
According to Mao, in a clearly apocryphal attachment of significance to at the time.
a childhood prank, this episode indelibly taught him the value and utility Right before the fall of the Qing dynasty in late 1911, the social and
of rebellion. 3 political situations becaine even more chaotic. Famines were endemic, in
As the eldest son and only literate one in the family, Mao was soon put part stemming from poor weather but also in part because merchants like
to work at bookkeeping for his father's business, a task that required writ- Mao's father shipped rice from rural areas into the cities for enormous
ing ability as well as facility with an abacus. By this point, the business profit. Peasants rebelled in frustration and were ruthlessly suppressed by
included not only farming activities and grain transport, but also the mort- local forces of order. These local rebellions, in Mao's later recounting, were
gages that Mao's father had bought on other people's land, part of the of great significance to the development of his political consciousness: he
usurious rural credit and petty landlord system that Mao later learned to particularly remembered having to pass the severed heads of executed
despise. It is during this period the disciplinarian side of his father flour- rebels stuck on top of stakes in public places that served as a warning to
ished, and confrontations over Mao's continued education became en- would-be troublemakers. And yet, he was not a wholehearted sympathizer
demic. Mao recalls that for these several years he was often beaten as well of the peasants: while he condemned people like his father for their rapa-
as deprived of meat and eggs in his diet. In subsequent years-after learn- ciousness, he did not support violent seizures of other people's property.
ing the Marxist analytical method-Mao often referred to his father as "the
Ruling Power" that he, his mother, and assorted laborers always tried to Mao leaves home
overthrow in an ever-shifting dialectic. of family relations. In 1909, at the age of sixteen, Mao convinced his father to pay for him to go
Meanwhile, at school, Mao had become acquainted with the Confucian to the district city of Xiangtan, a busy trading center on the Xiang River
texts, which he found dry and boring. He nevertheless learned to cite them around twenty-five miles away from Shaoshan. There he enrolled in a new-
from memory, sometimes hurling Confucian sayings at his father during style school, whose curriculum was not defined by the Confucian clas-
their arguments. He soon became attracted to the old novels of China, sics, but rather included natural sciences and what was called at the time
including the popular stories of rebellion, knights-errant, mythology, and "Western learning." One of the teachers had even studied in Japan and had
romance. His lifelong love of books, and in particular of classical tales and completely different ideas about learning from those of the old-style Con-
legends, clearly stemmed from his voracious reading as a youngster. In his fucianists. In this context Mao was more systematically introduced to the
subsequent theoretical, philosophical, and historical writings, Mao never anti-dynastic thought of the time. He was also exposed to a worldly milieu,
ceased to illustrate his political and social lessons with the folksy and · in which China was conceived as part of the larger global historical mo-
earthy color derived from these popular yarns. ment, which included the contemporary situations of Japan and Russia
It was only after leaving the stifling atmosphere of the traditional-style after Japan's surprise victory in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5; the
school that Mao seems to have discovered the roiling debates over dynastic colonizations of neighboring countries such as Vietnam (French), Korea
and republican politics then animating the urban scene all over China. He (Japanese), Burma -(British), and the Philippines (American); as well as
began reading political articles published in journals smuggled in from the knowledge of the American and French Revolutions. He also encountered
coast. These primarily featured members of a reformist monarchical fac- the biographies of past European and American political and intellectual
tion, led by Liang Qichao and Kang Youwei, and a revolutionary republi- leaders, such as Napoleon, Catherine the Great, Peter the Great, Rousseau,
can faction, led by Sun Yatsen, all of whom were exiles in Japan. In addition Montesquieu, and Lincoln, even as he continued to be fascinated by the
to these factions based abroad, there were various conservative defenders rebels and heroes of Chinese history.
of the dynasty, as well as local activists, who advocated regional autonomy On the eve of the establishment of the Republic in 1912, nothing in
in China, with calls for Hunanese independence leading the way. Mao Mao's thought or action indicated the revolutionary he was to become. His

6 CHINA IN THE WORLD IN MAO'S YOUTH CHINA IN THE WORLD IN MAO'S YOUTH 7
 politics--vague, at best-were mostly informed by his personal opposition
to his father rather than by any intellectual analysis of China's ills. By the
same token, his readings in classics had not attracted him to the ideal of a
Confucian gentleman as a personal or social role model. And, while his
interest in the anti-dynastic and anti-Confucian debates of the time, as well
'as his spotty introduction to Western thought, had given him an inchoate
sense of socio-political excitement, none of this had developed into any
sort of firm ideology. In this sense, contrary to what some interpreters have
claimed, Mao's early views did not indicate the political theorist that he ~ From Liberal to Commaaisl, 1912-1921
was later to become.
In other ways, Mao changed little. His personal habits were ingrained
early and never faded, no matter how high and mighty he later became. He
was contemptuous of flush toilets and toothbrushes (washing his mouth
with tea leaves), and he habitually burped and broke wind loudly. He The 1911 Revolution and Aftermath

always wore shabby, patched clothes, with complete disregard for outward Just a few months before the October revolution that overthrew
appearance. Mao held on to his rural habits throughout his life, often the Qing dynasty, Mao moved from Xiangtan to Hunan's pro-
regarding his more cosmopolitan and "modern" associates with suspicion vincial capital, Changsha. He was one of the first in his school
and disdain. Some time after he left the close provincial community of his to support the revolution by cutting the long tail of hair-the
childhood, he came to articulate his rural personal habits as an expression queue-that all boys and men wore. For 260 years, this had been
of political purity. an enforced sartorial symbol of fealty to the Manchu Qing; re-
moving it was subject to the death penalty. When the 1911 ("xin-
hai") revolution broke out, Mao joined the local revolutionary
army and served as a soldier in Hunan, although he saw no action.
With the first salary of his life, he paid others to haul water for him
(probably because he had endured enough hauling of buckets on
his father's farm), bought food, and used the remaining money
to purchase a variety of journals and newspapers. Through this
new practice of daily newspaper reading, Mao avidly followed the
fortunes of the revolutionary armies around the country. He later
claimed that it was also at this time that he first encountered the
concept of "socialism;' although if so, it did not leave any immedi-
ate impression.
A few months of soldiering was plenty at this point for Mao.
Believing the revolution to have been successfully completed af-
ter the emperor's abdication in February 1912 and the ascension
to power of General Yuan Shikai, Mao went back to school to
broaden his education. It took him several tries to find an appro-
priate venue. A short stint at a vocational school for soap making

8 CHINA IN THE WORLD IN MAO'S YOUTH

 was followed by several other ill-fated educational attempts-a commer- mental and manual exercise began changing; they were now seen as mutu-
cial school whose curriculum was in English and thus inaccessible to Mao; ally reinforcing rather than mutually opposed. Ideas about the status of
a law school whose regulations were objectionable; and so on-and then a women in the family and society were also in flux: the ideal of the depen-
period of self-study at the recently established Hunan Provincial Library. dent, illiterate woman, skilled only at self-adornment and crippled by
There Mao first read Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, Charles Darwin's bound feet became a target of nationalist, feminist, and reformist repudia-
, On the Origin of Species, and Herbert Spencer's Principles of Sociology, tion. Indeed, as one part of the fermenting "new culture" intellectual move-
among other translated books of European philosophy. He also consulted ment of the time-which rejected all aspects of what was named Chinese
the first world maps he'd ever seen and made a systematic study of ancient "tradition" -promotion of male and female physical strength became a
Greece, and the modern histories of England, Russia, the United States, touchstone for many forward-looking thinkers and intellectuals. A robust
and France. figure was now promoted as an outward manifestation of the rejection of
By 1913 Mao found his educational home. He entered the Fourth Pro- Confucian values, mores, and obedient behaviors. Rather than submit to
vincial Normal School-soon merged with and renamed the First Provin- what were increasingly understood as feminine norms that produced phys-
cial Normal School-a teacher training institution at the secondary level, ically and mentally weak people, men and women of China were exhorted
from which he graduated in 1918. "First Normal" had a profound influ- to reject old ideas and values by cultivating their minds and their bodies
ence on Mao's subsequent intellectual and political formation. Indeed, in ways appropriate to the demands of the new world. A new dynamic
the New People's Study Society, a student organization that Mao led, pro- and "masculine" connection between a healthy mind and a healthy body
duced many future members of the Chinese Communist Party: friendships was born.
formed here thus were of crucial personal and political significance. It was These ideas about the centrality of cultivating physical strength to any
at First Normal that Mao began his formal guided study of Western philos- adequate definition of a modern citizen-male or female-were mostly
ophy, of politics and society, and of China's place in the twentieth-century imported from Japan, which in turn had learned from Germany. In China,
world. Not yet exposed to Marxism, Mao became an idealist liberal, con- as in Japan, the physical education emphasis in new-style schools was on
vinced that if individuals cultivated themselves, an unjust and imperfectly military drills, parade-ground formations, and other regimented activities.
governed society could be transformed into an ideal political community According to Mao, this emphasis, rather than inspiring a love of physical
presided over by intelligent and upright leaders. activity, merely inspired hatred and resentment of such pursuits, precisely
There were several teachers at First Nor mal who left an indelible im- the opposite of what a modern republic required.
pression upon Mao-but this was not always positive. The most negative In his first published essay, Mao wrote passionately on the importance
impression was ingrained by the school's four physical education teachers. of physical education. Printed in April 1917 in New Youth, the premier
Physical education had only recently become incorporated into schools in "new culture" journal of the time, Mao's "A Study of Physical Education"
China. In the long history of China's scholarly tradition, aesthetic refine- makes an explicit link between the individual body and the body politic of
ment and mental activity were always posed as the polar opposites to the nation. The opening lines read: "Our nation is wanting in strength; the
physical strength and manual labor. Physical exertion, from this point of military spirit has not been encouraged. The physical condition of our
view, was inappropriate to the scholar and contrary to the proper cultiva- people deteriorates daily." Later in the essay, Mao wrote, "Civilize the mind
tion of the mind. The physical ideal of a learned man included extreme and make savage the body." In a rhetorical move that was to become char-
pallor, lack of musculature, long pinkie nails, flowing gowns that impeded acteristic of much of his writing, Mao calls for the ideal unity of contradic-
movement, languid activity. For refined, elite women, the ideal was even tory opposites, here of "civilization" and "savagery" in the bodies of all. 1
more extreme, including as it did, alabaster-white skin, three-inch bound The declarative boldness and structure of this essay show glimpses of
feet, corpulence, and no activity except embroidery and weaving. what was to become Mao's quintessential mode of public address: from the
By the early twentieth century, ideas about the relationship between direct posing of the problem, to the uncompromising statement of the

10 FROM LIBERAL TO COMMUNIST FROM LIBERAL TO COMMUNIST 11

l
solution. In this particular case, Mao's prescribed remedy for the stated in his early twenties, he had never left Hunan and was still quite provincial
problem-weak bodies = weak nation-was for individuals to do squat in outlook.
exercises and swim themselves into good health, if possible in the nude but In addition to his studies, Mao's friendships with Xiao Yu and another
if not in the nude, then in thin loose clothing. classmate, Cai Hesen, were also of enormous importance. During the First
Thus, at this point, Mao's solution to China's problems was premised Normal years, Xiao, Cai, and Mao became inseparable, taking classes with
not on socio-structural, but individual, personal, transformation. And yet, Teacher Yang; reading the latest "new culture" journals from Beijing and
it was also here that Mao began to pay particular attention to the everyday Shanghai; debating intellectual, political, and cultural issues of common
practices that could be revolutionized to produce larger social change. concern; and learning to understand the world of which China was such an
Taking his own advice, Mao cultivated a lifelong passion for swimming, for important and yet subjugated part. The correspondence between Mao and
long explorative hikes into the countryside, and for physical activity in Xiao provides many of our glimpses into Mao's early years (even though the
general. In subsequent years of revolutionary rigor in the far northwest two were to have an acrimonious political falling out in the 192os). Aside
desert regions, where the Communist vanguard lived in caves, Mao was from their letter writing, Mao and Xiao embarked on long exploratory
singularly unsympathetic to the politically radical but effete intellectuals travels in Hunan Province during summer vacations, traipsing through the
from urban areas who chafed at the harsh conditions under which they countryside pretending to be beggars. These travels tempered Mao's body
found themselves. Personal practice was to become thoroughly political. and taught him about the material poverty and resources of will of his
fellow Chinese.
Philosophy and Friendship at First Normal Cai Hesen was personally and politically allied with Mao throughout his
Mao's hatred for the physical education teachers was balanced out by his short life. Cai journeyed to France after graduation in 1918 on an anarchist-
admiration for his favorite teacher at First Normal, Yang Changji. Yang had inspired work-study program based in Montargis, where he became a
studied in Europe, where he had taken a philosophy degree at Edinburgh Marxist and Communist Party niember. Cai stimulated in Mao an interest
University and another in Germany with a focus on Immanuel Kant. Yang in the relationship between theory and practice. Indeed, it is said by most
taught philosophy and ethics not as timeless and abstract norms, but scholars that Cai's letters to Mao from France advocating the founding of a
rather as historical systems of transformative social change. Because of his Chinese Communist Party were very influential in Mao's turn to Marxism.
upright personal demeanor, Yang was dubbed the "Confucius of First Nor- Cai's execution in 1931 by the Nationalists (GMD) cut his life short. Despite
mal" by Mao and his best friend Xiao Yu. this, he is recognized as an important early figure in Chinese Communism
Teacher Yang introduced Mao to theWestern philosophical framework and as a major contributor to Mao's early political education.
that was to be the foundation for his later study of Marxism and his general
worldview. Mao's marginal notes on his translated copy of the German Mao's First Sojourn in Beijing

philosopher Friedrich Paulsen's A System of Ethics demonstrate his lively In 1918, after graduation, Mao was at loose ends. Teacher Yang was invited
engagement with the unfamiliar terms and ideas. While these notes do not to be a professor of philosophy at Beijing University, known as "Beida;' the
show unique brilliance, they do provide evidence that Mao was serious oldest modern institution of learning in China. Yang proposed that Mao
about working through the new problems Western philosophy posed to accompany him there, and Mao accepted with great enthusiasm.
his thinking .. Yang also encouraged Mao to meet with such important A few months later, Mao arrived in Beijing where he knew nobody
figures as the Japanese pan-Asianist, Miyazaki Toten, who was invited to apart from his teacher. He was not only an outsider, but he looked so dif-
First Nor mal to lecture. It was hence through Teacher Yang that Mao not ferent from the sophisticated Beijing folk at the university that he later
only broadened his intellectual horizons, but also his social connections claimed he felt almost alien. Most university students hailed from the
and sense of being a man in a wider world. For even though Mao was now privileged urban classes; they dressed neatly with an attempt at style, and

12 FROM LIBERAL TO COMMUNIST FROM LIBERAL TO COMMUNIST 13

they adopted what Mao would call affected manners. In his patched and the May Fourth Movement. The movement began as a protest against
faded peasant clothing-dyed blue to resist staining-with his toned and provisions in the Versailles Treaty that concluded the Great War. The
tempered body, relatively tall for a Chinese but with crude habits, Mao was Chinese had joined the side of the allies and provided some one hundred
no typical university student. thousand laborers to dig trenches in France. In return for their contribu-
Tea.cher Yang-now Professor Yang-found Mao a job as a clerical tions to the allied cause, the Chinese expected to recover German-owned
'worker at the Beijing University library. Mao's responsibility was to log territories in China. In addition, the American president, Woodrow Wil-
everyone in and out. He came to know all the big-name professors and son, had promised self-determination to colonized peoples, thus helping
renowned scholars, as well as, more meaningfully to him, the editors of his fuel Chinese expectations. They were disappointed at Versailles: German
favorite journal, New Youth, in which he had published his essay on physical territories were handed over to Japan, not to China.
education. At the center of activity and yet also on the outside looking in, Japan had been eying its enormous resource-rich neighbor to the north
Mao joined some reading groups sponsored by Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu, since 1895. The failure of the Republican Revolution to solve its political
editors of New Youth and famous professors. He tried to make an impres- problems had left China even weaker and more fragmented than it had
sion on those he so admired. Apparently, at this point, the only person he been under the dying Qing dynasty. Once Britain, France, and Germany
made a really deep impression on was Professor Yang's daughter, Yang had turned their backs on Asia to fight the Great War in Europe, Japan had
Kaihui, who later became his first wife and mother of several of his children. moved in. The Versailles Treaty thus merely confirmed the facts on the
It was in the context of the reading groups that Mao first became ground: Japan was now China's biggest threat, and the world powers would
acquainted with Marxism as an analytical method, revolutionary strategy, have to take Japan seriously.
and critique of the capitalist-imperialist world. Often filtered through anar- Chinese students at Beida were already politically engaged by the do-
chist language and concepts, Marxism at this time·in China was neither mestic problem of poor governance, militaristic warlordism, and inade-
rigorously understood nor systematically translated. Yet, the 1917 revolu- quate financing of education. Their concern for world affairs was greatly
tion in Russia that toppled the tsar and brought Lenin and the Russian facilitated by the telegraph lines recently laid under the Pacific that brought
Communist Party to power had greatly impressed Li Dazhao. Li wrote a news quickly to China from abroad. Reports of the Versailles Treaty provi-
long essay for New Youth in 1918 extolling the Bolsheviks as true revolu- sions galvanized students to action. Beida became the organizational site of
tionaries in comparison to China's anemic Republican Revolutionaries of an angry nationalist and anti-imperialist uprising that quickly spread be-
1911. Li, along with Chen Duxiu, also translated Marx's Communist Mani- yond the bounds of the university, soon reaching Shanghai and other major
festo as well as some writings of Lenin, Karl Kautsky, and other Marxists of urban areas. This was a political cause-a humiliation-that unified work-
the time. However, in Mao's surviving writings of this year, there is no indi- ers and industrialists, as well as petty merchants and shopkeepers. De-
cation that Marxism made a particularly huge impact on him, even though manding a boycott ofJapanese products and demonstrating in the streets
many later Chinese scholars have compared Mao's encounter with Marx- behind banners festooned with angry, pithy slogans calling for an end to
ism at Beida to a lightning bolt awakening him from his alleged slumber. imperialism and the strengthening of the Chinese nation through democ-
More consequentially at the time, Mao received notice in early 1919 racy and science, this. coalition of urban classes became a new force in
that his mother was gravely ill. He left Beijing without regret to travel back Chinese society and politics. It was to form and re-form, with shifting
to Hunan. He took a job teaching in Changsha and began writing for and constituencies, from this time forward.
editing his own journal, the Xiang River Review, modeled after New Youth. Mao, in Changsha, wrote from afar about these events for his Xiang
River Review. In his essays and editorials, he was ambivalent about the idea
May Fourth 1919 of violent revolution, even though he was all for the boisterous demonstra-
Shortly after Mao's departure from Beijing, Beida became the site of the un- tions of students and urbanites in the name of "democracy." He con-
folding of one of the major formative incidents of modern Chinese history: demned Japan's oppression of China, and encouraged the boycott of Japa-

14 FROM LIBERAL TO COMMUNIST FROM LIBERAL TO COMMUNIST 15

nese products as well as the activities of the "popular masses" against (and men) submit to marriages arranged by parents, or should they be
imperialist aggression and the betrayal of China by her leaders and the allowed to choose their partners freely'? If the latter, society would need to
Western powers. The Xiang River Review was soon suppressed by the accommodate women in public places, where they still did not appear in
Hunan militarist then in power because of its critique of the Chinese great numbers. In this sense, for Mao, any solution to the problem of
leaders' lack of backbone in failing both to stand up to Japan and to protest marriage and of female free will would require a complete overhaul of
the international betrayal of China at Versailles. social norms, from those regulating the family to those regulating citizen-
ship and the state.
Miss Zhao's Suicide By coincidence, at approximately the same time that Mao was discuss-
In November 1919, a local Changsha event grabbed Mao's attention and ing Miss Zhao, Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House-newly translated and in
galvanized his pen anew. This was the suicide of one Miss Zhao. The performance on the Shanghai stage-provoked a huge debate within new
precipitating incident involved a woman of no fame or social standing, culture intellectual circles. Inspired by the angry departure of the protago-
who was betrothed by her family to a man whom she detested. In the nist, Nora, from her stifling home and oppressive husband, many urban
covered bridal sedan chair transporting her to her future husband's home, Chinese feminists-male and female-promoted Nora as a role model for
Miss Zhao killed herself by slitting her throat. The role of modern women all women trapped in bad marriages. All women should be Nora, and
in social and political life was a prominent issue in the new culture discus- abandon stifling homes if they so chose. However, Lu Xun, China's most
sions of the day. Indeed, almost all male (and female) participants in new famous and accomplished modern writer, posed the startling question:
culture debates were, to one degree or the other, feminists. As such, the what happens to a Chinese Nora when she leaves home? That is, if society
formerly routine matter of a common woman's suicide in the face of an is not prepared for independent women, such women have no choice other
arranged marriage became, for social critics such as Mao, an occasion for than to become whores or die. What, then, he asked, would a host of
impassioned commentary. Chinese Noras do when they left home? This sobering question and all it
Mao begins the first of his nine commentaries on Miss Zhao-all pub- implied was to shape, for Mao and his generation of male and female
lished in the Hunan newspapers-with a seemingly prosaic statement: radical activists and thinkers, a determination to liberate women from the
"When something happens in society, we should not underrate its impor- strictures of traditional family constraint by making society receptive to
tance."2 Signaling with this comment that common daily events were as independent women.
worthy of social discussion as huge national or international ones, Mao
Toward the Communist Party
went on to pose the question of whether Miss Zhao's suicide was evidence
of her free will or of her subjection to an evil social norm. That is, was she The intellectual scene in China in the early 1920s had begun to fragment.
an active agent in her own death or a passive victim of life? Did Miss Zhao For, even while the new culture and May Fourth movements had identi-
have a personality that she was able to express through suicide? Or was fied a large number of problems that all progressives could agree upon-
suicide the ultimate expression of a powerless woman faced with a society including opposition to imperialism, support for nationalism and democ-
that conspired against her individuality? racy, rejection of traditional values and ideas, and promotion of feminism
Construing the everyday relationship of women to society as an inher- -there was no agreement about their solutions. The problem with anar-
ently violent. one-Mao characterizes it as a relationship of daily rape- chists, believers in the most radical and widespread philosophy of social
Mao concluded that women such as Miss Zhao (thus, most women in transformation then available, was their intentional lack of organization.
China) could not develop individuality in life, but could only assert free will Liberals, meanwhile, were split on how to achieve the social transforma-
in death by suicide. As such, Miss Zhao's predicament was symbolic, Mao tions for which they called. And among the political leaders of China-
wrote, of the socially charged marriage question in general: should women where no central government existed and where the forces of the erstwhile

16 FROM LIBERAL TO COMMUNIST FROM LIBERAL TO COMMUNIST 17

Republican Revolution were attempting to regroup in the South-there respective locations, everyone was to start to learn systematically the very
were few who could articulate any solution either to the dire political or the Marxism that was presumably the ideological basis for the Communist
long-term cultural issues that China faced. In this fragmented situation, Party. At the same time, the delegates were charged with recruiting new
more and more intellectuals came to view the Russian Bolshevik solution members, expanding into the working classes, and putting the ccp on a
-which called for a centralized party of committed activists who could firm ideological and social foundation.
lead society toward a common goal-as an attractive one.
At this point, even as Mao was in Changsha writing on Miss Zhao and
other matters of everyday and social concern, the Soviet-sponsored Com-
munist International (the Comintern) decided to foment interest in the
establishment of a Communist Party in China. Surveying the scene from
Moscow, Comintern agents determined that Li Dazhao, Chen Duxiu, and
their followers at Beida were likely candidates for such interest. They also
identified a group of intellectuals in Shanghai who could possibly form
the nucleus of a Communist Party. The Comintern search fortuitously
converged with a social-intellectual context also urgently in search of a
solution.
Mao, for his part, had also been moving towards Bolshevism, as he came
to understand the Russian Revolution more thoroughly and as he became
disillusioned with both anarchism and liberalism. Bymid-1920, aided by his
friend Cai Hesen's letters from France analyzing communism's virtues and
explaining the basics of Marxism, Mao declared his support for the "total
solution" and common ideology embodied in Bolshevist Communism.
Under the influence of all this internal and external activity, small com-
munist groups began to form around the country. Mao headed the one in
Hunan, and Yang Kaihui, not yet married to Mao but the beloved daughter
of his favorite teacher, also participated. Finally, in July 1921, these groups
began to merge into a national organization, when twelve delegates from
the various small cells met secretly in Shanghai to establish the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP) under the direction of the Dutch Co min tern agent
I

known as Maring (Hans Sneevliet). Mao attended the Shanghai meeting.

The two ostensible founders of the CCP, Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu, did
not attend. The twelve delegates, it turned out, represented a total of fifty-
seven self-identified communists.
The formal founding of the CCP was a totally unremarkable event in a
country rife with political and social chaos, fragmented under the leader-
ship of innumerable militarist warlords, and with urban areas controlled
by foreigners. Yet, with the founding of the CCP, Mao returned to Hunan,
and the other delegates returned to their home provinces, where, in their

18 FROM LIBERAL TO COMMUNIST FROM LIBERAL TO COMMUNIST 19

 II Toward lhe Peasaal Revolalioa, 1921-1927

A theoretical and practical paradox immediately emerged with

the founding of the CCP. Marxist revolutionary theory calls for
the working class-the proletariat-to lead a social revolution-
ary movement to overthrow capitalism and seize state power.
Yet, China in the 1920s was an overwhelmingly agrarian society,
with only small pockets of industrial manufacturing dominated
by Western and Japanese capitalists located in the coastal treaty
port cities. The question immediately presented itself: How were
Chinese Communists to reconcile a revolutionary ideology that
presumed an industrial social structure with the reality of Chi-
nese society, which was composed of primarily impoverished
peasants? Who was to lead this revolution? And against whom
was the revolution to be targeted?

Communist Revolution and China-A Mismatch?

China in the 1920s was divided amongst rapacious militarist war-
lords who ruled over disparate territorial satrapies in the inland
areas. The coastal cities were under the rule of the Western and
Japanese powers. There simply was no centralized or unified Chi-
nese state. Against which social forces-domestic and imperial-
ist-was a Communist Revolution to be launched? The question
at its most abstract as well as its most practical became: How
could a national Marxist revolution be mobilized in a country
that lacked the social elements of a Marxist revolution and a cen-
tral state apparatus, and where foreign imperialism played such

l_
enormous but uneven socioeconomic and political roles? This was the establishing consumer cooperatives and workers' clubs with educational
theoretical, political, social, and cultural dilemma that any Chinese Marx- and recreational facilities.
ist and Communist revolutionary faced. These issues were not taken up in This combination of activities was to become a common model for the
systematic theoretical fashion by Chinese Communists until after 1927, Communist labor movement, and later the peasant movement: organiza-
and yet they lurked behind the practice of all revolutionary mobilizers tion of male workers and a focus on women's issues in the communities,
through the 1920s. underpinned by a commitment to literacy and education for all. Mao and
Directly confronting the issues in practice, Mao began to organize labor his Hunanese comrades were not the only ones to engage this model, nor
in Hunan. He discovered that the tin and coal miners in Anyuan (north of were they its creators; but Mao was certainly one of the more successful in
Changsha) and the workers on the Hankou-Canton Railway, whose route implementing it. His success drew the attention of Chen Duxiu, the Beida
was through Hunan, comprised the largest concentrations of proletarian professor and New Youth editor Mao had met during his library stint in
labor in the province. Thus, in late 1921, he went to Anyuan to unionize Beijing, who was now chairman of the ccP. Chen was so impressed with
miners, working out of a cousin's house located at the foot of the mines. Mao's achievements that, in January 1923, he invited him to become a
Much later, in the 1960s, a heroic painting, Chairman Mao goes to Anyuan, member of the Party's ruling Central Committee in Shanghai.
was produced and circulated nationwide as poster art to commemorate Right before Mao's departure for Shanghai to take up his new Party
this earlier organizing effort of Mao's. The poster shows a young and slim post, the February Seventh Massacre took place. Ordered by Wu Peifu, a
Mao in a plain blue scholar's gown, with windswept hair and a fierce gaze hugely powerful warlord in the north, the action was targeted against
directed into the distant future; he is framed by the mountains and mines restive railway workers who were building a north-south rail line in cen-
as the backdrop to his coming greatness. This portrayal, of course, is tral China that Wu considered essential for the consolidation of his own
entirely retrospective, since in the early 1920s, the going was extremely power. The violent action was intended to crush all worker solidarity; it
tough, and Mao's future as leader of China was not even a glimmer on the resulted in the deaths of dozens of workers, the arrest of countless labor
horizon. organizers (mostly Communists) along with the summary execution of
Yet, Mao proved to be an impressive and effective organizer. By May many of those, and the brutal suppression of the most powerful and mili-
1922, as secretary of the Hunan branch of the ccP and now joined by his tant workers' organization in all of China. Wu Peifu's move emboldened
classmates, who had returned to Hunan from their work-study program in other holders oflocal power, who, in collaboration with their local business
France, Mao had helped organize more than twenty trade unions among leaders, began to move against the burgeoning labor movements in their
such groups as miners, railway workers, municipal employees, and print- areas. The Hunan labor organization that had been built over several years
ing press workers. In early 1923, Mao estimated that there were twenty- by Mao, his wife, his brothers, and his comrades, was destroyed overnight.
three major unions in Hunan, with over thirty thousand workers par-
ticipating. In only a couple of years, there had been at least ten strikes, The United Front-Nationalists and Communists in Alliance
which had extracted some key gains in wages and ameliorated work condi- Disheartened, Mao arrived in Shanghai shortly after this incident, at a
tions for over twenty-two thousand workers. moment of a great rethinking of Communist strategy. The February Sev-
In the midst of this very busy period, Mao married Yang Kaihui in a low- enth Massacre had revealed the fragility of the very labor movement the
key ceremony in Changsha. By late-1921, pregnant with their first child, Communists had determined would be their main social support. It had
Yang also became very active in the unionization movement, focusing on also revealed the urgency of stopping warlords from their destructive
the peasant communities near the Anyuan mines, where she worked for amassing of personal power, and thus the necessity of establishing a strong
women's rights, female literacy, and general educational improvements. political and military alliance for the unification of state power and the
Mao's brothers, Zemin and Zetan, also joined the struggle in the mines, strengthening of society.

22 TOWARD THE PEASANT REVOLUTION TOWARD THE PEASANT REVOLUTION 23

 The Communist Party's formal membership still numbered below two The Nationalists were convinced that China's major problem was its
hundred at this time. Only one large-scale organized modern political poverty and inability to compete on the global capitalist stage. For them,
party existed in China: the Nationalist Party, known as the Guomindang establishing a strong sovereign state was absolutely essential, and encour-
(GMD ). With roots in Sun Yatsen's Republican Revolutionary movement aging capitalism was the only viable method to quickly enhance China's
that had overthrown the Qing dynasty in 1911, the GMD by 1923 had wealth and power. Their goals, therefore, were the unification of the coun-
transformed itself from a small band of conspirators into a party with a try under a strong state and the establishment of a state-capitalist-landlord
mass social base. It was organized along Bolshevist lines-that is, as a partnership for the accumulation of national wealth based upon the pro-
centralized Party-and had a large contingent of advisors from the Com- tection of individual property rights. This type of socioeconomic analysis
intern. Indeed, Soviet Comintern advisors were also assisting the GMD led to a strategy that called for the development of urban-led industrializa-
build a modern and strong army at the newly founded military institute in tion funded by private capital with state guarantees. Rural areas were to
the south, the Whampoa Academy. play a supporting economic role at best. The GMD thus aimed to avoid any
The GMo's political-social base was in Canton in southern China, where revolutionizing of social class relationships that might prove destabilizing
it vied for power with several local warlords while also entering into fierce to smooth economic growth. It also called for cooperation with global
competition with the British colonial government farther south, in Hong capitalism, albeit from a position of strength and equality rather than
Kong. In May 1922, the GMD co-sponsored one of the most spectacular weakness and subordination. For the GMD, the overriding priority and
strikes in modern Chinese history, the Hong Kong seamen's strike. This concern were a strong unified state able to direct the economy and contain
action shut down the British colony as well as immobilized Canton and its social strife.
environs. The longevity of the strike and GMD solidarity with the workers, Communists, by contrast, defined the issue in almost polar opposite
along with successful wage and employment settlements for the seamen, terms. For them, capitalism was the problem not the solution. As far as they
garnered great prestige for the GMD among workers and radical organizers. were concerned, capitalism in its imperialist form in China had combined
In this domestic context, the Communists and the Nationalists- with the existing pre-modern landlord economy to produce a rapacious
despite their vast differences-were induced to form a United Front by the monstrosity. They called this monstrous social form "semi-feudalism and
Co mintern agents stationed in both camps. These agents had been charged semi-colonialism;' or "the two semis." According to the Communists, this
by Stalin in Moscow with welding together a unified political movement in social form produced two problems for China. First, as an imperialized
China that could contest the chaos of warlord power. The form of the country, the nation was subordinated and subjected to the domination of
United Front the Comintern advocated was called a "bloc within." It was predatory global capitalism that would never be a partner in developing
designed to have Communists join the Nationalist Party, even while they China. As a consequence, capitalism had to be resisted not only in China
retained their ccP membership. This required the much smaller CCP essen- but globally. Second, China was a partially colonized country. Its social
tially to fold itself into the much larger GMD, with the Nationalists provid- structure was unable to transform itself from its pre-modern agrarianism
ing the organizational, administrative, ·and ideological umbrella and in- because of the collusion of native landlords and dependent industrialists
frastructure. The Communists would retain a subordinated organizational (named "compradores") 'with foreign capitalist forces. This collusion in
identity, but no independent overarching structure. Many Communists, turn allowed foreign capitalists to prey upon China's socioeconomic weak-
including the CCP chairman Chen Duxiu, were quite skeptical about dis- nesses without developing China's overall economy. Thus, domestically,
solving their Party organization into the Nationalist Party. Many National- landlords and .compradores had to be overthrown, and their properties
ists were also very hostile to the idea of allowing Communists in their redistributed. While unification of the country was deemed absolutely
midst. For, the basic differences between the Nationalists and the Commu- necessary, for Communists the real transformative target was national and
nists were huge and primarily revolved around the parties' respective anal- global capitalism as well as domestic landlordism and compradore capital-
yses of China's present and the desired shape of its future. ism. This type of analysis led to a social revolutionary strategy calling for

TOWARD THE PEASANT REVOLUTION 25

24 TOWARD THE PEASANT REVOLUTION
the complete transformation of property relations-encapsulated in the gerous, and often intimate context of Party work. The children that were
concept of class struggle-that would overthrow domestic landlordism at born from the sexual relationships that often resulted became a hindrance
the same time as national and international capitalism. In this sense, for to their mothers' further advancement in the Party. Thus, while the essen-
Communists, the social struggle had at least as high a priority as the tial openness of the CCP to women and their declared policy of support for
struggle for the unified state. women's liberation attracted large numbers of women to the Party, the
These irreconcilable analytical differences between the GMD and the Party's rhetoric often was mitigated in practice by the relegation of women
ccP at first yielded to a shared hatred of the militarist warlords, a hatred to menial and maternal roles. The great internal Party debate about the
producing a shared conviction that social and economic progress could relationship of women to political work and family life of these years was
only be achieved through strong and unified state power. By 1923, opposi- not resolved before other urgent events overtook it.
tion to the United Front in both parties was transformed into grudging and Mostly immune to Yang's pleas to stay with her in Changsha, Mao left
wary acceptance. Mao was instructed to join the Nationalist Party in the for Canton in late January 1924 to take up his duties in the Nationalist
summer of 1923, even while he was elected to the ccP's ruling Central Party. Already an accomplished poet, Mao wrote a despairing verse for
Executive Committee. Yang upon his departure:

Mao's Wife and Other Women in the Early CCP "Waving farewell, I set off on my journey.
The desolate glances we give each other make things worse ...
In late 1923, Mao briefly returned to Changsha from his Party work in
From this time on I'll be everywhere alone.
Shanghai. He and Yang Kaihui had already had their first son, Anying,
I'm begging you to sever these tangled ties of emotion.
in early 1922. Their second boy, Anqing, was born in December 1923.
I myself would like to be a rootless wanderer.
Meanwhile, the situation in Hunan was becoming dire, with a daily escala-
And have nothing more to do with lovers' whispers."
tion in warlord-inspired violence against any and all perceived political
rivals. Peasant organizations that had sprouted up to oppose the rapacious In Canton, Mao plunged into the fraught and contentious environment
taxation policies of self-aggrandizing holders of local power, were being of political cooperation within the framework of the United Front. Demon-
crushed; Changsha's factories were being closed due to the incessant war- strating a singular ability to synthesize a debate and focus a discussion,
fare; and workers' organizations-even innocuous clubs-were being sup- Mao's organizational and political analytical skills were honed. Neverthe-
pressed. Faced with these tough circumstances, Yang Kaihui, a ccP mem- less, his initial support for the Front soon turned to discouragement, de-
ber herself and thus potentially a target of political suppression, but also spair, and then depression. Realizing that the goals of the two parties were
the mother of a fourteen-month-old baby and a one-month-old infant, too different to meld into one program, Mao's faith in Sun Yatsen, the titular
begged Mao to stay by her side and not return to Party work immediately. head of the United Front and the revered leader of the 1911 Revolution, was
In a pattern that was to repeat itself often enough for female Party severely shaken when Sun proved more willing to cut deals with power-
members, Yang's own political work dashed with her husband's work and hungry warlords than to confront them directly. And by the end of 1924,
her family obligations. Yang's decision was to stay with her children, sacri- Sun Yatsen was dead of illness. The Nationalist leadership was taken over by
ficing her own Party career for her boys and her husband. Other women military men. Mao went back to Shanghai, now joined by Yang Kaihui and
who became involved in the CCP faced similar problems. Yet unlike Yang, their two sons. He was exhausted, dispirited, and ready to take a break.
who remained close to her natal family, most women had to sever their
family relationships in order to liberate themselves from traditional norms Return to Hunan and Discovery of the Peasants
and marriage expectations. Many, in fact, were formally disinherited by Pleading illness, Mao returned to Changsha and thence to Shaoshan. He
their families. The CCP became the equivalent of a family for them, and missed meeting after meeting of the CCP, and his formerly prolific pen fell
they formed complex liaisons with male comrades in the exciting, dan- silent. In the quiet of Shaoshan, surrounded by his wife, sons, childhood

26 TOWARD THE PEASANT REVOLUTION TOWARD THE PEASANT REVOLUTION 27

friends, and others, Mao had plenty of time to indulge his favorite pastime: timid teachers such as himself and the beginning of an era of youth move-
reading. He had restocked his library in Shanghai in anticipation of his ments and politics (along with the horrible sacrifices those were to entail),
retirement from politics and he contentedly embarked on a life of calm and Lu Xun articulated a widespread shift just then gathering momentum.
contemplation. The deaths on May 30 and the circumstances leading up to them-
Yet, through 1925, spontaneous peasant unions started to spring up all including Japanese high-handedness, British-commanded troops (who
around Hunan and adjacent provinces in reaction to worsening economic, were actually Sikhs from British colonial India and Chinese police), and the
social, and political conditions. These soon drew Mao out of his self- shock of a student death-crystallized a huge amount of building anger and
imposed seclusion. While some scholars have suggested from retrospect frustration. This sparked an outpouring of strikes, anti-foreign boycotts,
that Mao must have returned to Shaoshan with the explicit intent to build demonstrations, and militant anti-imperialist activity that engulfed China,
an autonomous power base amongst the peasants, there appears no evi- from north to south and east to west. Most urban social classes-students,
dence for this. By the same token, because of Mao's silence through this merchants, petty shopkeepers, workers, and even vagrants and rickshaw
period, there is no way actually to trace the evolution of his social commit- pullers-participated in this loose movement of protest in a renewal of the
ments or his thought, or to find any definitive explanation for why peasant "May 4th spirit;' by occupying the streets, closing down business as usual,
organizing so grabbed his attention at this time. Mao had never previously pressuring political leaders, and fashioning elaborate banners, songs, and
expressed much interest in the peasantry as a potentially revolutionary protest slogans. The May 30th Incident and its aftermath helped usher in a
force but had instead adhered to the more orthodox Marxist view of the new hope for social mobilization and revolutionary upsurge.
urban proletariat as the leading revolutionary role. But we do know that The essentially urban movement was joined-in a historical first-by
after the spring of 1925, Mao became more and more enthusiastic about burgeoning rural peasant movements, such as the one Mao was becoming
the revolutionary potential of the peasantry, an attachment that marked an excited about near Shaoshan. By mid-1925, over two million peasants had
enormous departure from the urban-based political and social emphases mobilized against the intolerable conditions they were forced to endure
of both the Communists and the Nationalists. under the twin oppressions of landlords and warlords. The peasant move-
As peasants organized, radical political attention remained riveted on ments were spreading quickly, and while the urban and rural movements
the cities. On May 28, 1925, a Chinese factory worker in Shanghai was mur- had different catalysts and did not explicitly link up, anyone who wished to
dered by a Japanese foreman in a Japanese-owned cotton mill. This pro- notice could see that the whole country finally was ready for action. This
voked an enormous demonstration on May 30. Winding their way through energy injected a sense of hope into dispirited revolutionary-minded ac-
the streets of Shanghai behind streaming banners, thousands of Chinese tivists. It also suggested the future social coalition-petty urbanites and
demonstrators-students, teachers, workers, and regular city folk-arrived peasants-that was to become so essential to a distinctive Maoist Marxism.
at the International Settlement, where most foreigners lived and which was In the summer of 1925, invigorated by the various social movements,
heavily guarded by foreign troops and police. The protestors were fired Mao threw himself into the peasant world with a new sense of purpose. His
upon by British-commanded police. Dozens of workers and students were activity, however, soon attracted the attention of the Hunan warlord then
killed-including for the first time in such urban political violence, a female in power, and he was forced to flee for his life to Canton. There, Mao again
student. This event was immediately labeled the May 30th Incident. took up his abandoned Party activities.
A year later, .after another episode of political violence, in Beijing,
China's most famous writer, Lu Xun, wrote despairingly in memory of a The Northern Expedition and the 16 Reporl on an
female student killed by Japanese troops: "Miss Liu Hezhen, one of the Investigation of the Hunan Peasant Movement"

more than forty young people killed [on March 18, 1926], was my pupil ... In the wake of the May 30th Incident and its aftermath, the GMD and their
She is no pupil now of one dragging on an ignoble existence like myself. CCP allies finally found themselves in a position to launch the long-awaited
She is a Chinese girl who has died for China." 1 Signaling an end of the era of Northern Expedition from Canton. The intentions were to wipe out the

28 TOWARD THE PEASANT REVOLUTION TOWARD THE PEASANT REVOLUTION 29

warlords and reunify the country under one central government, and its mobilization demanded; and he established a poetics and a politics that
initial destination was Nanjing, the capital of the early Ming Dynasty. With constituted and reflected the revolutionary situation.
his Soviet-trained army, Chiang Kaishek, a GMD militarist soon to become The point of the Report was to convince urban-based ccP leaders that
paramount leader of the GMD-controlled Chinese state, began the march peasants were the key to China's revolutionary movement. It demonstrated
north. In· a winning strategy, CCP agents were sent out to the peasant that peasant organizing was already so far advanced that those who wished
organizations in advance of the army, to assist them in opposing landlords, to count themselves as revolutionaries had only three choices: "T 0 march
who were the financial props of the warlords. After the peasants and their at their head and lead them? To stand behind them, gesticulating and
ccP allies had weakened the social foundations of the combined power of criticizing them? Or to stand opposite them and oppose them? Every Chi-
warlords and landlords, the Northern Expeditionary troops led by the GMD nese is free to choose among the three, but by the force of circumstances,
would sweep away military resistance. This process of simultaneous peas- you are fated to make the choice quickly." 2 The "choices" Mao offered left
ant organization and military action represented the highpoint of coopera- no doubt that any true revolutionary had no real choice at all.
tion between the GMD and the ccP. In Mao's view, the significance of the peasant organizations was that
Through this period, Mao worked feverishly in Canton in the United they had been spontaneously organized by peasants themselves. That is, in
Front headquarters. He advocated the further radicalization and mobiliza- the face of centuries of oppression, during which peasants had been sys-
tion of peasants, as well as the adoption of peasant-friendly land reform tematically convinced that their difficult lot in life was fated by the heav-
policies that called for the confiscation of landlord property. Mao soon ens, they had finally decided to take their lives into their own hands so as to
became a severe critic of the ccP chairman Chen Duxiu and others, who transform them. This, for Mao, was a revolutionary turn in consciousness.
insisted that the ccp's most important social base remained in the cities This, for Mao, was what all genuine revolutionaries needed to learn how to
and that peasants were merely functional to an urban revolutionary strat- do. As far as Mao was concerned, the historic mission of China's revolution
egy. This urban-centeredness was, of course, the orthodox Marxist posi- now rested not in the urban areas alone, not among CCP or GMD leaders
tion, as well as the viewpoint of the Moscow-directed Co min tern agents in alone, but rather upon the shoulders of the peasants. As Mao articulated it,
China. Paradoxically, in this period, the more left-leaning of the GMD the peasants' mission was to overthrow landlordism, to help the proletariat
members, with whom Mao closely worked at Canton, were far more sym- oppose capitalism and imperialism, and to unite with the other revolution-
pathetic to Mao's peasant advocacy and to the peasant movements than ary social classes in a joint urban-rural coalition to rid the country of its
were Mao's CCP comrades. As a consequence of his pro-peasant views, oppressors. In this view, peasants, formerly understood as the most back-
Mao was appointed by the GMD to be the principal of the Peasant Move- ward of China's population, now vaulted into the forefront of progressive
ment Training Institute near Canton, where, from May to October 1926, history: they were the true bearers of revolution; they were the ones on
he was able to act directly on his convictions by instructing many leaders whom China's Marxist revolution was to rest.
who soon became peasant organizers. To those who sat in the urban areas and lamented from afar the violence
As the Northern Expeditionary troops got farther from Canton, and of the peasants' organizations, Mao responded: "It is fine. It is not 'terrible'
thus as the pace of work in the United Front headquarters slowed, Mao at all. It is anything but 'terrible.' ... 'It's terrible!' is obviously a theory for
returned to Hunan to engage in a study of agrarian conditions and peasant combating the rise of the peasants in the interests of the landlords; it is
organization. His February 1927 "Report on an Investigation of the Hunan obviously a theory of the landlord class for preserving the old feudal order
Peasant Movement;' written for CCP leaders, resulted from this study. It is and obstructing the establishment of the new democratic order; it is ob-
one of the most passionate of all his surviving early writings. In the brilliant viously a counterrevolutionary theory." To those who objected to the peas-
rhetoric of the Report, Mao called into being the very revolution he was to ants' lack of respect for the landlords and the violence of the movement,
lead; he produced the revolutionary unity that a new politics of mass Mao responded: "a revolution is not like inviting people to dinner, or

30 TOWARD THE PEASANT REVOLUTION TOWARD THE PEASANT REVOLUTION 31

writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so workers had been mobilized to prepare the grounds for the Northern
refined, so leisurely and gentle, so 'benign, upright, courteous, temperate Expeditionary troop advancements, their demands for land, wages, and
and complaisant.' A revolution is an uprising, an act of violence whereby social transformations became more radical. As the peasants were radi-
one class overthrows the power of another." And to those who were ap- calized, they threatened landlords' property rights, capitalist industrializa-
palled at the thoroughgoing nature of the peasants' revolutionary fervor, tion, and the centuries-long cultural legacy of entitlement assumed by the
Mao responded: "A man in China is usually subjected to the domination of landed and wealthy elites. The Hunan peasant movement about which
three systems of authorities: (1) the state system (political authority) ... Mao was writing with such enthusiasm was a prime example of such radi-
(2) the clan system (clan authority) ... (3) the supernatural system (re- calization. Standing on the side of landlords, urban capitalism, and social
ligious authority) .... As for women, in addition to being dominated by stability, Chiang and his GMD comrades found it more and more expedi-
these three, they are also dominated by men (the authority of the husband). ent and increasingly urgent to suppress these radical demands. Over the
These four authorities-political, clan, religious, and masculine-are the course of late 1926 and into early 1927, the alliance between the ccp and
embodiment of the whole feudal-patriarchal ideological system, and are the GMD frayed badly over these and many other issues.
the four thick ropes binding the Chinese people, particularly the peasants." By April 1927, Chiang's forces had reached Shanghai. He finally was
In view of these "four thick ropes;' according to Mao, all aspects of society able to turn the fury of his counter-revolutionary convictions against the
needed to be violently ripped apart. 3 very revolutionary forces that had sustained him and his army. Beginning
Mao ended his Report with a description of the constructive changes with a brutal assault on Communists and workers in Shanghai that eviscer-
Hunan's peasants had wrought in their own villages through their organi- ated the CCP and their urban-based labor unions, the attack soon spread
zations. Starting with bans and prohibitions on gambling and opium, the to the rural areas, where peasant leaders, organizers, and everyone close
improvements included such matters as bandit suppression, the abolish- to them were summarily killed. The ensuing "White Terror" proceeded
ment of exorbitant levies, the establishment of schools and consumer over several years. It took the lives of more than one million people, most
cooperatives, and the building of roads and irrigation embankments to of them the very peasants of whom Mao had written so glowingly. The
enhance commercial and agricultural productivity. From the larger level of White Terror led to the near extinction of CCP membership. And, in a
village association to the smallest level of everyday life, peasants had taken strangely grisly outcome of anti-revolutionary fury, short-haired women
their lives into their own hands. with natural-sized feet, presumed to be radicals because of their untradi-
The Report marks a complete shift in Mao's revolutionary commit- tional hairstyles and unbound feet, became specific targets of the terror.
ments. He called upon no political party to discipline or lead the peasant Their shorn heads and mutilated bodies-with breasts cut off-became
movement. The CCP was merely exhorted to join the peasants or be left favored public displays amongst those local GMD officials who now wished
behind. Indeed, as far as Mao was concerned, and no matter what ortho- to warn a cowed populace against further mobilization or opposition.
dox Marxist theory might say, from this time forward, the Chinese revolu- The rout of CCP social and organizational forces was complete. Of
tion would stand or fall with the peas.antry. 6o,ooo Communist Party members, only 1o,ooo survived the end of 1927.
Those not killed or imprisoned fled from urban areas, some to their famil-
Nationalist Betrayal ial homes in villages in the countryside despite the risk of endangering
The Northern Expedition was for the most part successful in destroying their extended families. Others went deep underground in large cities. And
the warlord strongholds in southern China (even while the re-conquest of yet others fled to remote rural areas. Mao chose the last course.
the north was postponed indefinitely). And yet, the mass movements of The possession of an army turned out to be one key to political power.
1925-27 that had been crucial to this success increasingly came to be seen This lesson was not lost on Mao or on others. In addition, the seeds
by the right-wing members of the GMD, including Chiang Kaishek, as a of extreme distrust in Moscow's directives were also sown, for, through-
threat to their political, military, and social control. For, once peasants and out the beginning of the terror, the Stalin-directed Comintern remained

32 TOWARD THE PEASANT REVOLUTION TOWARD THE PEASANT REVOLUTION 33

wedded to the United Front, advising the CCP to continue to work for
national unity. By the time the Comintern and Stalin in Moscow realized
the scale of disaster and betrayal befalling the ccP, it was much too late to
save anything but their own skins. Comintern agents fled China forthwith.
The painful task of regrouping, rethinking, and revitalizing got under
way among the remaining Chinese Communist Party members. Hence-
forth, this process was to take place primarily amongst the poorest and
remotest of the peasants, amongst whom the remnants of the CCP were
encouraged to gather. Communists in urban areas were hunted down like
wild animals. Li Dazhao, erstwhile Beida professor and one of the co-
founders of the ccP, attempted to take refuge with Soviet embassy officials
in Beijing. They handed him over to GMD soldiers, who executed him.
I Establishing Revolutionary Bases
FROM JINGGANGSHAN TO YAN' AN, 1928-1935

Made scapegoat for the disasters, Chen Duxiu was ousted as the Party
Chairman. While Party Central continued to operate clandestinely out of On the northwest side of the Jinggangshan Mountains in Jiangxi
Shanghai's French Concession area-for the moment, out of the reach of Province, just east of the provincial border with Hunan, stands
Chinese law enforcement-most surviving Communists dispersed to the a remote and forbidding promontory known as Huangyangjie.
countryside and went underground. Overlooking the site is a monument, a poem of Mao's engraved on
From the very bleak view of 1927, all seemed lost. it. The poem-which every Chinese schoolchild used to be able to
recite-commemorates an important victory won in August 1928
by Mao and the embryonic Red Army. This ragtag bunch of Com-
munists was in the process of establishing a revolutionary base in
the area amidst the ongoing disaster of Chiang Kaishek's White
Terror. Pushed farther and farther from urban centers by pursu-
ing militias, the Red Army-trained as a mobile guerilla force-
was compelled to stand and fight in the summer of 1928 against a
superior enemy. Mao's verse describes the heroic encounter:

At the foot of the mountain, our flags and banners can be seen,
At its peak our drums and bugles are heard to respond.
The enemy troops besiege us thousands strong,
We stand alone and will not be moved.
Already our defense was like a stern fortress,
Now do our united wills form yet a stronger wall.
The roar of gunfire rises from Huangyangjie,
Announcing the enemy has fled in the night. 1

34 TOWARD THE PEASANT REVOLUTION

 unwavering refrain from this time forward. Not only would the ccp need
The Jinggangshan Base
to strengthen its own military capacity to fight against a well-armed and
Jinggangshan was at best an accidental site for a revolutionary base. It was well-funded foe, but, even more important, it would need to define and
a remote bandit hideout known for its undisciplined lawlessness, not for its forge a united revolutionary will that would weld its military capacity to
potential to harbor a disciplined revolutionary organization such as the the Communist Party and to the mobilized peasant masses. It was toward
CCP. Yet, in this territory and society, Mao, and a little later, Zhu De, the the development of this unified revolutionary will that Mao worked tire-
brilliant military general who became one of Mao's closest associates, de- lessly for the rest of his life. In tying his personal fate directly to the fate of
cided to settle and regroup. There they began to experiment with those the Chinese revolution, Mao became inseparably identified with the revo-
social, cultural, military, and economic practices that later became the lution, even if the Communist Party often did not follow Mao's will.
hallmarks of "Maoism." For about one and a half years, under the protec-
tion of the Red Army-popularly known as the Zhu-Mao army- Settling in and Settling down
Jinggangshan's social, cultural, and economic life was transformed: land Mao was frantically busy in 1927-28 establishing Jinggangshan as a base
was redistributed (a task in which Mao's brother Zetan was engaged), basic area, fending off militias, establishing the ideological building blocks of his
literacy was promoted, and non-hierarchical organizational relationships revolutionary philosophy, waging intra-Party struggle with opponents, and
were encouraged. These practices attracted many local admirers, including experimenting with socially transformative practices among the peasant
educated youths and ordinary peasants as well as lower-level elites from communities in which he was operating. With his family far away and
surrounding areas. The practices also attracted the anxious notice and inaccessible, he was not too busy to engage in romance. The woman on
virulent opposition of the big landlords, provincial-level elites, and govern- whom his amorous attention was soon fixed was a young revolutionary
ment entities. After the Red Army's arrival, Jinggangshan, never an entirely · named He Zizhen.
peaceful area, soon became the target of concerted suppression campaigns From a local elite family, He Zizhen at age fifteen attended a school run
by militias and armies. by Finnish missionaries. There, she became politicized through reading
Jinggangshan was not the only rural site where Communists settled in radical journals and experiencing personal outrage over the May 30th
the post-1927 flight from the cities. Yet, in later Party histories it became Incident in Shanghai that had brought Mao out of semi-reclusiveness in
iconic because Mao's subsequent rise to power endowed it with retrospec- Hunan in 1925. One year later, having been expelled from school allegedly
tive significance. At the time, Jinggangshan was important because Mao's for her politics, He Zizhen returned home to set up revolutionary organi-
faction of the CCP there began to overcome its dependence on the Stalin- zations aimed at raising women's consciousness and establishing peasant
dominated Comintern, setting up a showdown with Moscow-trained CCP associations. Until the spring of 1927, she mostly worked in small urban
members who continued to espouse an urban-centered revolutionary areas in and around the Jinggangshan region. Once the White Terror set in
movement. Through the Jinggangshan experience Mao became convinced through the end of 1927, however, she was forced to flee into ever more
that, rather than pursue futile and costly attempts to regain the lost urban remote regions to escape capture. Showing great bravery and capacity for
areas, the ccP should harness itself to the peasantry by rooting in rural military tactics, He Zizhen had much opportunity to demonstrate her
base areas. Out of this conviction arose the Maoist strategy to mobilize the ability to shoot both left- and right-handed from horseback. She soon
countryside in order to "surround the cities." At Jinggangshan were sown became central to the Jinggangshan revolutionary cause and came to be
the seeds of this specifically Chinese path toward Marxist revolution, a known as "the Two-Gunned Girl General."
path that would see its unlikely fruition two decades later. Shortly after her flight into the mountains, in October 1927, He Zizhen
In light of subsequent events, Mao's commemorative poem takes on was introduced to Mao. There was evidently an immediate mutual attrac-
greater significance. For, aside from celebrating an unlikely (and tempo- tion. By May 1928, they were married in a small ceremony, attended by
rary) victory, the poem proclaims a theme that was to become Mao's several sympathetic bandit leaders from the area, some local Communist

36 ESTABLISHING REVOLUTIONARY BASES

ESTABLISHING REVOLUTIONARY BASES 37

l
 cadres, and a few of He's family members. Mao and He apparently spent where they were headed; they just needed to flee from immediate peril to
the weeks after their marriage working together redistributing land among find a more hospitable sanctuary elsewhere.
the peasants. Two keys explain the survival of the Zhu-Mao army through these lean
He Zizhen was Mao's constant companion from 1928 to 1937. Yet, times in the remote mountain regions: its prowess at a specific form of
Mao's first wife, Yang Kaihui, was still alive in Changsha and still married to guerilla warfare-known as protracted war-and its adherence to strict
, Mao, until her execution by the Nationalists in 1930. There was simply no rules of discipline. Unlike the predatory armies of the warlords or the
way for her to reach Mao in his mountain fortress, however, or for Mao to Nationalist government troops, who were usually not paid or fed and who
reach her in Changsha. The enforced separation took its toll, and in the often pillaged their way through villages in their path, the soldiers of the
loose social arrangements indulged by many Chinese men (no matter how Zhu-Mao army had ideological coherence and a reason to fight. The Red
revolutionary their politics), Mao simply married He Zizhen without for- Army soldiers neither were mere mercenaries nor had they been press-
mally divorcing Yang Kaihui. ganged into warlord armies. Their participation in the Red Army was
Through their sojourn in Jinggangshan, He Zizhen continued her own voluntary, and beyond its military significance, it was also a social en-
revolutionary activities, with and without Mao. At the same time, she also deavor. As such, they were respectful and considerate of the villagers, on
struggled to keep Mao supplied with the one thing he could not get in the whose good will they relied for provisioning and quartering.
mountains, but without which he could not live: current newspapers. The Mao helped Zhu De write the code of the Red Army soldier, which
newspaper-reading habit formed twenty years previously as a student in included the following eight precepts:
Changsha had now become an addiction and even a political necessity for
Mao, as National papers gave hints of government policies and strategies 1. Replace all doors [used under mats for a bed] when you leave a house;
2. Return and roll up the straw matting on which you sleep; 3. Be courteous
that could have a big impact on Mao's own plans. He Zizhen devised an
ingenious method to circumvent the embargo placed around Jinggangshan and polite to the people and help them when you can; 4. Return all borrowed
by the GMD military. She instructed the smugglers of salt and the small- articles; s. Replace all damaged articles; 6. Be honest in all transactions with
scale peddlers of other blockaded goods to use newspapers as wrappers for the peasants; 7. Pay for all articles purchased; 8. Be sanitary, and especially
establish latrines a safe distance from people's houses. 3
the items they brought to the region. She then unwrapped the items and
smoothed the papers for Mao's perusal. In this manner, Mao maintained As fame for their unusually polite behavior spread, the Zhu-Mao troops
access to the latest news, even if it came in scattered and wrinkled sheets. 2 were able to recruit freely from peasant families, whose sons-and some-
Mao and He Zizhen had six children together: three boys and three times daughters-were enthusiastic about serving with such principled
girls. Some died in infancy, and others were left in peasant households and comrades.
subsequently lost to their parents during the many and various CCP es- In addition to forging and maintaining good relations with local vil-
capes from disaster, leaving only their daughter, Li Min. lagers, the army was able to survive because of their adoption of gue-
rilla tactics. Mao's version of guerilla warfare contrasted sharply with the
The Red Army, Guerilla War, and Political Relations
instructions he had received from the Central Committee of the Commu-
Although the Red Army beat back the GMD offensive commemorated in nist Party, situated in Shanghai. In fact, Party Central's doctrinaire poli-
Mao's poem in August 1928, by early January 1929, with provisions dwin- cies had little to do with the realities faced by Mao and his followers on
dling, salt blockaded, and winter storms threatening to close all routes off the ground: The· Central Committee-under the direction of Moscow-
the mountain, the Jinggangshan base ceased to be viable. The Zhu-Mao educated, urban- focused Li Lisan-instructed Mao to break up his large
army and 3,500 followers decided to abandon it. Thrown back into a wan- force into small bands and to disperse them throughout the immediate
dering mode in their escape, they were burdened by many noncombatants area. Mao refused, believing that was a recipe for the annihilation of his
and pursued at all times by hostile troops. They had no definite notion of troops.

38 ESTABLISHING REVOLUTIONARY BASES ESTABLISHING REVOLUTIONARY BASES 39

 Keeping his men together, Mao articulated a strategy of "luring the Trapped in Changsha were Mao's first wife, Yang Kaihui, and his sons by
enemy deep" into hostile territories, where they would disperse and thus her; his sister, Mao Zehong; and the wives of his two brothers. Yang Kaihui
become sitting ducks for the concentrated forces ofthe Red Army. Com- was arrested and given the chance to save her life by repudiating Mao and
bining these tactics of concentration and luring with the classic hallmarks the Party. She refused to recant and was shot. His sister was executed for
of guerilla warfare-mobility and flexibility-Mao and Zhu were able to no other reason than her kih relationship to Mao Zedong. Mao's two
keep the bulk of the army intact. At the same time, they inflicted defeat surviving sons-Anying and Anqing-ended up in Shanghai, living hand-
after defeat on the numerically and technologically superior forces of the to-mouth. They were reunited with their father only in 1936 after con-
government troops. certed CCP efforts to locate them.
During the long months of retreat from Jinggangshan and the circu- The sole long-term silver lining to emerge from this military and per-
itous search for another sanctuary, one of the major ideological issues that sonal debacle was the rethinking soon thereafter of what came to be known
emerged was the optimal relationship between the political and the mili- as Lilisan'ism or the "Li Lisan line." This refers to the strategy that called
tary in the fashioning of strategy and tactics. Mao was acknowledged as the for Red Army attacks on cities in the hope of stirring proletarian uprisings.
political leader: he set the ideological tone and provided the political ra- This urban-based strategy merely led to the sacrifice of Red Army soldiers,
tionales. While Mao was also involved in military matters, day-to-day as demonstrated in the Changsha disaster. For, in face of the ongoing
command of the army was firmly in the hands of Zhu De. In this manner, White Terror perpetrated by Chiang Kaishek's GMD, the proletariat was
civilian Party control over the army became a core principle of Maoism. now not likely to risk themselves in revolutionary adventures. It was totally
This principle of civilian command over the armed forces is elaborated in quiescent.
the well-known, but oft-misunderstood, Maoist slogan: "The Party com- In the immediate term, however, the attack on Changsha had cata-
mands the gun; the gun shall never be allowed to command the Party." strophic consequences for the Jiangxi base and Mao's leadership.
In early 1930, after many months of wandering, battle-hardened and
The Bloody Origins of the Jiangxi Soviet Base Area
now thoroughly exhausted, Mao and his followers settled on the southern
plains of Jiangxi Province. Their headquarters was in a small city named Settling in and around Ruijin and combining a number of smaller CCP base
Ruijin. Here, the Zhu-Mao army was joined by the army of Peng Dehuai. areas, Mao proclaimed a soviet-style government in southern Jiangxi by
Peng had been left to retreat more slowly from Jinggangshan so as to draw mid-1930. This new amalgam was both a much larger and much more
some enemy troops off the pursuit of Mao and Zhu. Peng's army, initially viable socio-political and economic entity than anything Mao had presided
smaller than the Zhu-Mao army, but now swollen by new recruits, miracu- over in Jinggangshan. The Jiangxi base presented an opportunity to further
lously escaped annihilation. Through a similar circuitous route, they ar- hone revolutionary practices and to build a Communist administration.
rived in Ruijin in April1930. The armies were integrated through reorgani- Mao's arrival in Jiangxi, however, was superimposed on an indigenous
zation, thence reapportioned between Zhu and Peng. Communist movement not particularly eager to be incorporated into his
At this point; Li Lisan, still in Shanghai and still focused on an urban- expanding military-political complex. In addition, Mao's evolving ideol-
centered revolutionary movement, re-established contact with Mao. Li ogy of peasant-centered ·revolution presented the Central Committee in
ordered the Red Army to attack and attempt to take Changsha, the capital Shanghai with an explicit challenge to its urban-based ideology. The ten-
of Hunan Province. This order derived from Li's belief that the Red Army's sions between Mao and the Central Committee___:particularly after the
only utility was to launch assaults on cities, rather than to build a revolu- Changsha debacle---'-as well as those between Mao's followers and the in-
tionary movement slowly in rural base areas. Reluctantly, Mao instructed digenous Jiangxi Communists, broke out in December 1930 in a bloody
Zhu and Peng to commit some of their forces to this Changsha endeavor. orgy of internal conflict that almost paralyzed the Communist movement.
The Red Army troops were destroyed in the doomed effort to take what Known as the "Futian Incident;' the internal conflict had multiple
was now a heavily garrisoned and defended city. sources, including calls by Mao and his followers for radical land redis-

ESTABLISHING REVOLUTIONARY BASES 41

40 ESTABLISHING REVOLUTIONARY BASES
tribution -a policy opposed by local Jiangxi Communists in part because of Party. In a tortured pseudo-political logic, suspected Nationalist infiltra-
their personal ties to local society-and the military tactics for defending tors, who had been the targets of the first round of purges, came to be
the Jiangxi base against Chiang Kaishek's Nationalist troops. In this regard, labeled Li Lisan loyalists. Through extension, all forms of behavior and atti-
Mao continued to insist on his tactic of "luring the enemy deep." Yet, local tude suspected to be insufficiently loyal to Mao-including supposed Na-
Communists worried the immediate impact of such deep luring was the tionalist spying, alleged fealty to Li Lisan, opposition to Mao's land reform
inevitable destruction of local property and loss of life, including their own policies-were lumped together and labeled "counter-revolutionary." In
friends and families. Infusing all of this was the loyalty of the Jiangxi Com- such a context, the purges took on a surreal dimension. Having labeled
munists to Li Lisan, counterposed against Mao's clashes with Li and Party many loyal Communists-Jiangxi natives and others-as traitors, Mao
Central. Distrust was rampant. loyalists took the lives of thousands. Mao vigorously participated in and
In late 1930, a rumor about a hostile infiltration by Nationalists into the expanded this stage of the purge in order to suppress any possible loyalty to
Jiangxi Communist base areas began to circulate. Panic ensued. Initially, Li Lisan, his internal foe.
Mao and Zhu were engaged in their doomed efforts at Changsha and were The internal purges had taken their bloody course and had mostly
not involved in the onset of events. Upon his return to Jiangxi, Mao or- abated when the third extermination campaign was launched by Chiang
dered over four thousand officers and soldiers of the Red Army arrested on Kaishek, in late 1931. The three hundred thousand Nationalist troops
suspicion of betrayal. The vast majority of these were local Jiangxi Com- thrown at Jiangxi were also defeated by the Red Army with the now un-
munists. Over half of those arrested were induced to "confess" their guilt assailable "luring the enemy deep" strategy.
and were summarily executed. The purge sparked the mutiny of a division This third Nationalist defeat coincided with the Japanese invasion of
of Jiangxi soldiers, who suspected they would be the next targets. After a Manchuria in September 1931, which led to the establishment of the pup-
good deal of fighting back and forth, the mutineers were suppressed by . pet state, Manchukuo, under the rule of the last Qing emperor, Pu Yi, who
troops loyal to Zhu and Peng (and thus to Mao). Order was restored, at a had been deposed. In early 1932, the Japanese bombed Shanghai in an
great cost in lives and to unity. attempt to force Chiang formally to cede Manchuria; these attacks tempo-
Concurrent with this internally divisive and bloody set of events, Chiang rarily drew the attention of Chiang's forces away from Jiangxi and gave
Kaishek launched the first and second of his self-proclaimed "extermina- Mao's base a respite from Nationalist assault.
tion campaigns" against the "Communist bandits." The CCP attacks on
Changsha, and even earlier on Nan chang, the capital of Jiangxi, had raised The Xunwu Report
alarms about the growing Communist menace. The Communists now no In the midst of fending off Chiang's extermination campaigns, and despite
longer seemed contained in remote regions but apparently were contend- the internal purges, the revolutionary transformation of local society re-
ing for power in the urban areas. This struck fear into Chiang's heart. In mained a top priority of the CCP during the Jiangxi base period. The Jiangxi
early 1931, in the first "extermination campaign;' Chiang sent a hundred policy on land distribution and the transformation of peasant society was
thousand Nationalist troops to take care· of the "bandit problem." He was conceptualized and organized on the basis of Mao's acknowledged exper-
confident his overwhelming force would easily emerge victorious. Lured tise in rural affairs. Mao's "Xunwu Report" of 1930-named after the ad-
deep into Communist strongholds, the Nationalists were all but wiped out ministrative center of the area-provided the local specifics on which the
by Mao's forces. In his second effort several months later, Chiang sent over plans were implemented.
two hundred thousand troops to encircle and exterminate the Commu- At the beginning of the Jiangxi base period, in May 1930, Mao had taken
nists. This force also failed. the opportunity to investigate the area as he had the Hunan area for his
Coinciding with the second extermination campaign was another round report of 192 7. Based on a ten -day examination of the region, Mao's metic-
of purges loosely related to the original Futian Incident. This round was im- ulous analysis of the rhythms and structures of everyday peasant life-the
mediately tied to the ousting of Li Lisan in Shanghai as Chairman of the barbers, the prostitutes, the usurers, the telegraph and postal services, the
42 ESTABLISHING REVOLUTIONARY BASES
ESTABLISHING REVOLUTIONARY BASES 43
medicine shops, etc.-once again proclaimed his faith in the capacities of dispossessed of their excess land-defined as any land they could not till
peasants to transform their own lives, if only they had the socio-political themselves but for which they needed to hire labor. On this standard,
conditions for so doing. families were allowed to retain as much land as family labor could till, and
Equally important at the time to this proclamation of faith, were the all excess was thrown into a common pool for redistribution to the land-
specific details recorded of how peasants lived their lives. These details poor. The Jiangxi Soviet also minted its own currency, usable only in the
provided guides as to how peasant society could be more equitably struc- Jiangxi base area itself. Nevertheless, the symbolism of this currency was
tured through revolutionary activism and transformation. In other words, enormous, particularly insofar as its exchange value remained stable, while
the revolution was not something that was to happen above and elsewhere; Nationalist currency exchange rates fluctuated wildly.
rather, the revolution was brought into the everyday lives of local people. It The CCP took many initiatives on the social and cultural front. Recog-
was to become a lived experience of everyday life, not merely a rumor of nizing top-down approaches did not teach peasants to be active in the
other people's activities. transformation of their lives, Party workers urged peasants to take land
An outgrowth of this Report was the appearance of yet another of Mao's redistribution into their own hands and to reorganize their villages. Mean-
maxims: "Without investigation there is no right to speak." Criticiz- while, the CCP took aim at arranged marriages and anti-female family
ing his fellow Communists who "keep their eyes shut all day long and practices by elaborating the most progressive marriage laws in China or
go around talking nonsense;'4 Mao insisted book learning-or, abstract anywhere else. These provided the conditions for local women to divorce
theory-needed to be subordinated to reality and practice. In the imme- husbands they had been forced to marry; to detach themselves from mari-
diate sense, this was clearly an attack on the detached ideologues and tal families who were mistreating them; and to own and till their own land.
dogmatists of Party Central. In a longer-term sense, the unambiguous The Party also took literacy campaigns seriously. They opened schools for
announcement here of an inextricable relationship between theory and children and adults (male and female) using locally produced textbooks
practice became another hallmark of Maoism. Mao was to return repeat- filled with CCP-friendly learning devices. For the first time, peasants had
edly to this issue in the fuller articulation of his revolutionary philosophy in the opportunity to learn, contesting centuries of elite control over "cul-
the late 1930s and beyond. ture." At the same time, the Party launched public hygiene campaigns and
For the moment, the Xunwu Report informed the organization of Mao's dispersed rudimentary clinics and hospitals throughout the area, giving
new base area. The core of the Jiangxi Soviet covered a territory of close to peasants access to basic medical care in an attempt to wipe out common,
fifteen thousand square miles incorporating around three million people; but easily vanquished, health problems.
its extended zone could count more than six million under its administra- The combination of internal purges and serial assaults by the National-
tive sway. The establishment of a short-lived but stable polity there gave ists had created extremely difficult conditions for building trust and unity
those who later survived the fall of the base valuable experience as political within the Party, and between the Party and the society within which it
administrators; it also gave those, whose lives were transformed, a taste of was embedded. Mao had retained the personal loyalty of the vast ma-
revolutionary practice. jority of the Red Army because of the success of his strategy to thwart
The central aspect of the Jiangxi polity revolved around the transforma- Chiang's forces. However; he had lost the support of Party Central, which
tion of social relations in the rural areas. This included the redistribution of was staffed almost entirely by Moscow-trained ideologues and dogmatists
land and the rearticulation of the cultural bases of rural society. Having who were suspicious of Mao's commitment to rural revolution. From 1932
learned from Jinggangshan that too radical a redistribution policy would on, although Mao remained Chairman of the Jiangxi Soviet in name, real
alienate would-be supporters, the policy in Jiangxi was relatively more power was transferred by Party Central to others. Zhou Enlai, a returned
moderate. Not only were the poorest of peasants invited to participate in student from France who had joined the Communist Party with Mao's old
the land redistribution, but those categorized as "middle peasants" were friend from Changsha, Cai Hesen, took over the reins of political power.
also induced to participate. Only "rich peasants" and "landlords" were The Red Army remained in the hands of Zhu De and.Peng Dehuai.
44 ESTABLISHING REVOLUTIONARY BASES
ESTABLISHING REVOLUTIONARY BASES 45
 The year 1932 was relatively quiet at the Jiangxi base. Land redistribu- hideous fate at the hands of the GMD. In July, approximately ninety thou-
tion and cultural transformation took on their own momentum; Chiang sand people-among whom were a pregnant He Zizhen and nineteen
Kai-shek was busy fending off the Japanese in Shanghai. Mao was ill for other women-broke through a weak point in the Nationalist encircle-
much of the year with the return of malarial attacks and then was diag- ment. This main force of the Red Army, along with civilian administrators
nosed with tuberculosis. He took the opportunity of his effective fall from and bearers, was able to elude Nationalist detection long enough to escape
power to accompany He Zizhen to neighboring Fujian Province for the the immediate area.
birth of their second child, a son, Anhong. Mao stayed in a Communist- What came to be known as the Long March began. Born of the terrible
friendly sanatorium there until his tuberculosis abated. In early 1933, He political and military defeat symbolized by the fall of the Jiangxi base, the
Zizhen gave birth to their third child, a daughter who died in infancy. Long March retrospectively took on an aura of heroism and triumph.
Anhong lived with his parents until he was two years old. In 1934, with the However, few of the original escapees from Jiangxi survived the rigors of
retreat of the ccP from Jiangxi, he was left with Mao's brother, Zetan. After what turned out to be a yearlong "odyssey" across China. As with the
Zetan died in combat, Anhong was cared for by Mao's former bodyguards. escape from Jinggangshan five years earlier, the destination this time was
After Jiangxi was overrun by the Nationalists in 1935, Anhong was never also unknown. Mao's forces recognized, in order to survive, they needed to
heard of again. settle in a much more remote region than had hitherto been considered
possible or desirable. Relentlessly pursued by Nationalist ground troops
The Fall of the Jiangxi Soviet and the Long March
and air force, the cumbersome CCP columns were vulnerable to attack. Un-
At the end of 1932, leaving the Japanese to their Manchurian conquest, able to maneuver with sufficient flexibility and mobility, the slow-moving
Chiang Kaishek again decided the greater menace to China and his rule mass could not be defended. Within several months, at least half of the
was not the Japanese but the Communists. He launched a fourth exter- original columns had succumbed. Many of Mao's closest friends and com-
mination campaign against the Jiangxi Soviet. Again, this one was de- rades fell along the way. In the breach, it was decided, on arriving in Zunyi,
cisively defeated, albeit at much greater cost to the Red Army than the a city in Guizhou Province, the columns would stop and evaluate their
previous three. By October 1933, Chiang finally hit upon a winning for- present and future directions.
mula to dislodge the Communists from Jiangxi. Called the blockhouse At the Zunyi Conference in early 1935, the forty-one-year-old Mao
strategy, it was in part designed and implemented by newly hired Nazi emerged as first among the leaders of the ccP. Almost completely depos-
German advisers. Mobilizing over a million troops and outnumbering the ing the Moscow-clique, Mao declared his and the ccp's independence
Red Army ten to one, Chiang's forces refused to be lured deep without from the Comintern, Stalinism, and Moscow dogma. Instead, Mao advo-
adequate preparation. They meanwhile deployed their mechanized artil- cated, should the Red Army and the CCP survive the current crisis, the
lery and air force to great advantage. By careful advancement through main purpose of CCP policy would be to oppose the Japanese, struggle
fourteen thousand newly constructed concrete blockhouses, Chiang's against the Nationalists, and transform peasant society. All of this would
troops tightened the noose around the now--shrinking Jiangxi Soviet. Faced have the final long-term goal of taking state power and unifying the coun-
with this strategy and now advised by the dogmatic Co min tern agent, Otto try under CCP (and Mao's) nile.
Braun, the Red Army abandoned its mobile warfare in favor of a conven- While Mao gained a limited internal political victory, his and his fol-
tional positional battle. This was a disaster for the Red Army, which could lowers' very survi_val was still in the balance. The Red Army had already
not hold out in face of vastly superior numbers and technology possessed been reduced to thirty thousand exhausted and demoralized troops who
by the Nationalists. wanted to know where they were headed. Mao decided to aim for the last
By the summer of 1934, Braun and Zhou Enlai decided the Jiangxi base known surviving Communist base area, in far-away Shaanxi Province. Sep-
had to be abandoned. This meant leaving their erstwhile peasant collabo- arated from Zunyi by huge rivers, snow-capped mountains, deep ravines,
rators as well as their wounded comrades to what turned out to be a rough terrain, and potentially hostile local populations as well as absolutely
46 ESTABLISHING REVOLUTIONARY BASES
ESTABLISHING REVOLUTIONARY BASES 47
hostile warlords, the attainment of Shaanxi seemed impossible. Pressed at veterans of the Long March became the standard to which all revolution-
all times by Nationalist and now also warlord troops, it took another nine aries were held. In subsequent years, few measured up. In this context
months of extreme hardship and loss to reach the destination. of exhaustion, defeat, psychological depression, and depletion, however,
Mao's and He Zizhen's fourth child was born along the way. A daughter, there were flickering renewals of hope. With such flickers did the Yan'an
she was left in a sympathetic peasant household and never heard of again. period begin.

The Long March Ends

On February 28, 1935, Mao and the Red Army were mired in the moun-
tains of Sichuan Province, in the far west of China, where the climb toward
the Tibetan plateau begins. Commemorating in verse a major military
victory as well as the spectacular vista of Loushan Pass, Mao seemed up-
beat, despite the difficulties he and his troops were facing. He wrote:

Do not say that the strong pass is hard as iron,

For this very day we'll stride across its summit.
Across its summit,
Where blue-green hills are like the seas,
And the setting sun like blood. 5

As was often the case with Mao's poetry, the classical spatial imagery-hills
as seas-combined with the reality of a supercharged moment in time-
the bloody setting sun-to produce a curious but effective emotional state
of both elation and despair.
It was October 1935 before Mao entered northern Shaanxi province
with the scarcely eight thousand half-starved troops who remained from
the initial ninety thousand escapees from Jiangxi. There, in the shadow of
the Great Wall, they finally found sanctuary among a small band of Com-
munists who had an operational base and had heard rumors of the Red
Army's plight and made preparations for its arrival.
Although in subsequent Party histories, the Long March was hailed as a
major triumph, Mao clearly recognized it as a huge defeat for the Commu-
nist movement in China. Most of the Red Army had perished; the bases in
the interior of China had been destroyed, and most of the Communist
presence there had evaporated. Ideological struggles had taken a toll on
the unity of the Party. The economic, political, and social foundations of
Communism in China would need to be rebuilt from the ground up. The
psychological toll on the survivors was heavy. In an ominous turn, their
Communist mission now took on the quality of a sacred quest to avenge
their fallen comrades. The revolutionary loyalty and sheer will to survive of

48 ESTABLISHING REVOLUTIONARY BASES ESTABLISHING REVOLUTIONARY BASES 49

I Yan'an, the War of Resistance against Japan,
and Civil War, 1935-1949

Upon arrival in Yan'an, Mao and the CCP were faced with rebuild-
ing the Communist movement while administering a sprawling
territory sparsely inhabited by a mostly subsistence-level peasant
population. The conditions of life were characterized by a semi-
desert environment with poor natural resources and little surplus
agricultural production. There were no access to capital for in-
vestment, few urban centers, and little industrial capacity. To this
unpromising region, the CCP brought its army, battle hardened
but exhausted after a year of fighting its way across China, as well
as a tiny number of educated people with medical, scientific, and
cultural expertise. On this material and social basis, Mao and
the CCP set about constructing a viable socialist-inspired polity,
economy, and culture.
Yan'an became the unlikely location where the socially trans-
formative practices of and ideological rationale for Marxist rev-
olution in China were articulated, implemented, and honed. In
part for this reason, the Yan'an period holds a hallowed place in
Chinese Communist Party history. Policies implemented here
developed into the real-life crucible of Chinese revolutionary
practice. Yet, Yan'an also became a mythologized time and place
recalled for its Spirit of plain-living camaraderie and its relatively
nonhierarchical communal ethos of sharing. Forged out of the
morale and sensibilities of Long March veterans, Yan'an was sup-
posedly uncorrupted by considerations of individual wealth or
aggrandizement. In CCP lore, "Yan'an" represents an extended
moment of creative cooperation in the overcoming of hardship and emerges is Mao's visceral objection to Stalin's mechanical interpretation of
impossibility. the relationship between history and ideology. It was in this context that
Mao established his own theory of politics, a radical reinterpretation of the
Mao's Yan'an Life and the Elaboration of ''Mao Zedong Thought''
tenets of Marxism, Leninism, and Stalinism. This theory, known as "Mao
Settling into the type of cave residence peasants had long been carving into Zedong Thought;' is the product of these years.
the loess hillsides near Yan'an, Mao recovered from the Long March if not While Mao Zedong Thought is usually said to be the result of the
in luxury at least in some peace. He was able to enjoy the company of his collaborative thinking of Party leaders, it is clearly based on Mao's idio-
newest daughter, Li Min, born in the summer of 1936, the only one of syncratic explorations into Marxism and Chinese history. Mao Zedong
Mao's and He Zizhen's children raised to maturity. Yet, the relationship Thought is also usually said to be a "sinification" of Marxism, or the mak-
between Mao and He became increasingly tense. In 1937, pregnant again, ing of Marxism Chinese. This formulation is inadequate, however, as it
He Zizhen requested to be sent to the Soviet Union for medical treatment. takes Marxism as a unified dogma and considers Chinese as a settled cul-
Shrapnel fragments acquired during the Long March were causing her tural predisposition. Marxism was (and continues to be) a much-contested
pain, and she was considering having an abortion. She remained in Mos- matter, and, in the 1930s, "Chinese" was the subject of intense struggle. It is
cow, where, upon reflection, she decided to have the baby. The child soon more appropriate to see Mao Zedong Thought as the product of Mao's si-
died of pneumonia. When she was two years old, Li Min was sent to multaneous interpretation of Chinese history and China's present through
Moscow to be with her mother; Mao's two sons by Yang Kaihui, who had Marxist categories and the interpretation of Marxist categories through
been found and retrieved, went to Moscow to join them. He Zizhen was the specific historical situation of China. This mutual interpretation is the
divorced from Mao in 1939. motivating dialectic of Mao's theory and revolutionary practice.
In Yan'an, Mao set up a new household with a beautiful film actress, Mao's self-education at this time assisted him in his ongoing ideological
Jiang Qing, who had arrived in the revolutionary base area along with a and power struggles with Moscow-educated Party members, who again
huge influx of left-leaning artists and intellectuals after fleeing Shanghai in were sharply criticizing his rural revolutionary approach. It also allowed
the wake of the Japanese occupation in 1937. With few revolutionary cre- Mao to argue with theoretical precision for the historical and contempo-
dentials, although having several leftwing film credits to her name, Jiang rary bases for a Marxist revolution in China, for building socialism in such
was much resented by most inner Party members, who admired He Zizhen impoverished circumstances and, most immediately, for resistance against
and were annoyed at Mao's faithlessness. Jiang Qing was to become and Japan. In addition, from the Yan'an period onward, Mao Zedong Thought
remain Mao's wife until his death in 1976. Their only daughter, Li Na, lived became the standard for disciplining the Communist Party and for waging
to adulthood. guerilla warfare. Perhaps most important, Mao Zedong Thought became
Despite these personal upheavals and the rigors of establishing the the guide for the creation of a culture of revolution and of a revolution-
Communists in a new location, Mao took the opportunity of being settled ary culture capable of sustaining a long-term social movement that could
in one place to read systematically through some Marx and Soviet eco- capture and harness the imaginations and productive potentials of a broad
nomic and philosophical texts, as well as some Lenin. He was aided by his cross-section of the Chinese people facing insuperable odds against a
secretary, Chen Boda, a Soviet-trained Marxist philosopher critical of Sta- powerful enemy: the Japanese.
linism, who had arrived in Yan'an with the exodus of leftist intellectuals
from Beijing in 1937. During this period of study, Mao became familiar The Japanese and the Second United Front
with the historical materialist method, Marxist dialectics and categories of At the same time that the Red Army was fighting its way across China
analysis, and other theoretical components of a revolutionary historical during the Long March, with the GMD dogging its every step, the Japanese
philosophy. His commentaries and annotations on some of the works he had consolidated their grip on Manchuria. By 1935, they started moving
read at the time provide insight into his thought process, and what clearly into North China. As attacks on China by Japan increased, several generals
52 YAN' AN, WAR OF RESISTANCE, AND CIVIL WAR
YAN'AN, WAR OF RESISTANCE, AND CIVIL WAR 53
 within the GMD tried to convince Chiang Kaishek he needed to dedicate the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, a manufactured excuse to invade and
troops to fighting the Japanese. However, Chiang stubbornly insisted that to occupy Beijing. Given the disarray of the GMD military, the Japanese
wiping out the Communists was more important to the nation's secu- pushed south from Beijing with lightening speed. By December 1937, they
rity than confronting Japan. The disagreement came to a head in what is had reached Shanghai, which was valiantly, albeit futilely, defended by
known .as the Xi'an Incident of December 1936, when General Zhang GMD troops. The Japanese proceeded to the GMD capital, where they per-

Xueliang moved against Chiang. Zhang was originally a warlord in Man- petrated one of the most notorious episodes of the war, the "Nanjing
churia, who had been displaced by the Japanese and put in charge of the massacre." As GMD troops evacuated the city under orders from Chiang to
GMD attacks on the ccP from his new base in Xi'an. Unhappy with his new retreat inland, Japanese forces moved into the undefended capital. They
assignment and convinced that Japan was the more immediate threat to slaughtered, raped, maimed, and enslaved hundreds of thousands of de-
China, Zhang organized the kidnapping of Chiang Kaishek, whom he held fenseless Chinese civilians in an orgy of violence tracked in the Japanese
hostage for two weeks until Chiang agreed to begin negotiations with the press for entertainment value at home. This set a pattern of cruelty toward
ccP for unified military action against the Japanese. the Chinese that was to characterize the next eight long years of occupa-
Meanwhile, in addition to his preoccupation with Party and personal tion. Indeed, this was to be simplified by the late-1930s into the official
survival on the Long March and with establishing the CCP in Yan'an, Mao doctrine of the Japanese military known as the "three-all" policy: burn all,
had kept a close eye on Japanese advances. He had lost no opportunity to loot all, kill all.
write and distribute analyses of what he called the traitorous behavior of In light of these developments, arrangements for the second United
Chiang Kaishek. Throughout 1935 and 1936, Mao's writing and speeches Front took on great urgency. Mao ceased his verbal attacks on Chiang, and
consistently connected "Japanese imper.ialism" to "Chiang Kaishek's sell- Chiang lifted the GMD blockade on Yan'an. The United Front was finalized
out." According to Mao, Chiang was "the most diligent trailblazer for Japan in the autumn of 1937; it held for several years, always frayed and fraught.
in swallowing up China." 1 In laying the responsibility for the ease of the Mao remained rhetorically committed to the United Front, even as the
Japanese occupation of China on Chiang's doorstep, Mao was able to posi- unity broke down in the early 1940s.
tion himself and the ccP at the forefront of anti- Japanese resistance. In a
telegram written to General Zhang on his kidnapping of Chiang, Mao On Protracted War
declared the arrest of Chiang an opportunity not only to exhort the GMD to Faced with the Japanese, a vastly superior foe, whose technological and
resist Japan, but also to "drive out the fascist elements within the armed military capacities rested upon a vigorous military-industrial foundation
forces, and ... proclaim to all officers and soldiers Mr. Chiang's crimes in geared towards total war, Mao was required to update and elaborate his
selling out the country and harming the people." 2 theory of protracted war. As had its earliest versions during the ]iangxi
Mao clearly wished for Chiang to be permanently sidelined. This was Soviet, the theory still emphasized the necessity for "luring the enemy
not to be. Rather, the ccP was forced to negotiate with Chiang for re- deep." But now it had to account for the potentially national scope of
newed cooperation between the two parties. These negotiations took eight operations, the endless local variations of the opposition, and the impos-
months before resulting in the second United Front. Unlike the first United sibility of central coordination.
Front, this second effort at unity ensured the independence of both the When Mao delivered his famous set of lectures, "On Protracted War;' to
GMD and the CCP. As Mao wrote to Zhou Enlai, the leader of the CCP Party cadres in Yan'an in May 1938, Chinese forces had suffered numer-
negotiating team in the GMD capital, Nanjing, "the principle is to en- ous defeats. The GMD had continued its retreat inland under its policy
sure our absolute leadership" over the Red Army; "the principle is to ensure of "trading land for time;' and was busy setting up its wartime capital,
our Party's independence. Concerning these aspects, we absolutely cannot Chongqing (Chungking), deep in the mountains of Sichuan Province. The
compromise." 3 CCP guerilla capacity was not yet mobilized. Meanwhile, the Japanese had

The full-scale Japanese attack on China commenced in July 1937 with pushed far into China's most productive agricultural regions, occupying

54 YAN'AN, WAR OF RESISTANCE, AND CIVIL WAR YAN'AN, WAR OF RESISTANCE, AND CIVIL WAR 55

l
urban centers, seizing internal market routes, requisitioning supplies, and strength but rather of the death throes of that world. In this way, Mao
terrorizing the population. Added to this bleak internal situation, no coun- directly links Japan to a global situation-fascism and imperialism-and
try had come to the aid of China in fending off the Japanese. According to rejects the idea that the events in China are merely a regional or local prob-
Europeans and Americans, the Japanese attack on China was a regional lem. Furthermore, the "semi-colonial and semi-feudal" designation indi-
problem requiring a local solution. As long as the Japanese neither oc- cates China's current backwardness in relation to Japan: neither fully capi-
cupied nor touched European and American territories or assets in China, talist nor fully sovereign. Yet, Mao asserts, through "life and death" struggle
they were not considered a threat. While the Soviets were concerned to this backwardness will lead beyond fascism and capitalist-imperialism,
have Japan stopped at the China-Soviet border, neither they nor others saw beyond Japan and the dying world it represents, toward national sov-
this conflict as part of a global struggle against fascism or as a harbinger of ereignty and a new world. The nonfascist world, Mao felt sure, would
a second world war. eventually wake up to the fascist threat in its midst, and, if China could hold
Mao saw the issue otherwise. In his lectures of May 1938, he worked on until then, the nonfascists would come to the assistance of China, even if
hard to convince his audience that China could survive the current mo- only to save themselves.
ment, could fight a war against Japan, and could win the war, if only the Mao's conclusion to the historical portion is: "Taking an objective and
Chinese unified and found the correct path. The lectures opened with a all-sided view, we recognize the two possibilities of national subjugation
description of two major immediate dangers. First, Mao warned, a growing and liberation, stress that liberation is the dominant possibility, point out
sense of defeatism in parts of the country could lead to capitulation to or the conditions for its achievement, and strive to secure them." 5 A success-
compromise with the Japanese. This danger in fact was realized in 1939- ful historical outcome, Mao notes, could only be secured through the
40 when Wang Jingwei led a breakaway faction from the GMD and set up a creative and revolutionary activity of the unified Chinese masses. This is
collaborationist government in Japanese-occupied Nanjing. Second, Mao the contemporary burden of the Chinese, and it is the historical task of the
warned against an unrealistic hope in quick victory, encouraged by the idea Communist Party to protract the wa~ while leading the Chinese in this
an outside power-usually assumed to be Britain or the United States- direction.
would come to save China. Mao argued that, on the contrary, only the In the ensuing detailed analysis, Mao argues the key to securing the
Chinese could save China, and they could do so only in a protracted war. conditions for success is correctly recognizing the local situations, in all
For Mao, protracted war is defined in three ways simultaneously: 1) an their interconnected complexity at each moment of the struggle. In rap-
objective necessity, indicated by a dispassionate evaluation of the current idly changing circumstances and different terrains, guerilla commanders
situation; 2) a strategy for pursuing the war by actively protracting it; and needed to understand what would be best for their locale at any given time:
3) a method of analysis elaborating the historical relationship between whether to go on the offensive, to retreat, to engage in mobile warfare, or
global and local situations and deriving contemporary conclusions there- to melt into the populace and become invisible. Protracted war therefore is
from. Mao notes: "The war between China and Japan is not just any war; it not a centrally designed blueprint. Rather, it is an overall strategy or ap-
is specifically a war of life and death between a semi-colonial and semi- proach requiring what Mao calls "jigsaw" tactics. It is a puzzle-or, in
feudal China and imperialist Japan, fought in the Nineteen Thirties." He Mao's terms, a game of go (or weiqi, Chinese chess)-with an overall pat-
further specifies: "The present war was launched on the eve of the general tern that can only be discerned in its particulars. Correct recognition of
collapse of world imperialism and, above all, of the fascist countries; that is what is required at any given moment rests upon good military knowledge
the very reason the enemy has launched this adventurous war, which is in and judgment.
the nature of a last desperate struggle." 4 Even more important, correct recognition rests upon what Mao calls
In other words, according to Mao's historical analysis, imperialism and "politics." Mao's distinctive concept of politics is intimately related to his
fascism are part of the dying world order of the global 1930s. The war idea of creating a culture of revolution and a revolutionary culture. It is
launched by the fascist-imperialist Japanese is a sign not of the growing also central to the method of protracting the war. Practicing politics, in

56 YAN'AN, WAR OF RESISTANCE, AND CIVIL WAR . YAN'AN, WAR OF RESISTANCE, AND CIVIL WAR 57
Mao's terms, is part of everyday life. Politics entails the self-mobilization of an initial policy; yet, in the encounter with the real world, the policy and
the masses through the activation of a consciousness and determination to theory must be revised to suit the conditions of implementation. Finally,
transform the quotidian conditions of their lives. Different types of condi- the revised theory becomes the guide to "correct" practice and policy. In
tions, however, take priority over others at different times, depending on Maoist language, this is made into the slogan: "to the masses-from the
the situation of the particular moment. For example, in the context of the masses-to the masses;' a process requiring CCP cadres-who are charged
war: of resistance against Japan-in which a backward China confronts an with formulating and implementing policy-to be endlessly flexible and
advanced enemy and opposing Japan takes priority over all other matters- constantly analytical. They cannot be bookish or reliant on abstract theory,
mobilizing the masses means activating a broad sense of patriotism and for in Mao's terms, the only correct theory and practice are theory and
the desire of the masses to live as a sovereign people. Such mobilization al- practice that interact constantly in the concrete here and now of specific
lows not only the guerilla armies to embed themselves amidst the masses, conditions.
but also each and every person to become a combatant when needed. Si- During the Yan'an period, political practice centered on activating a
multaneously, in the context of the revolutionary struggle, politics means double movement of mass consciousness: resistance (against Japan) and
helping create the socioeconomic circumstances in which the masses can social transformation (of the conditions of life). Through this practice, a
become conscious of, and thence overturn the conditions of life keeping culture of revolution and a revolutionary culture would be simultaneously
them oppressed. Politics in this sense is class struggle, or the struggle to created and embedded in the lives of the masses. And the proof of the
overthrow oppressive social relations. correctness of theory and practice of politics in Yan'an would be the sur-
Central to the Maoist theory of politics is a theory of the historical role vival of the CCP and the progress made in the war against Japan. Mao's "On
of mass revolutionary consciousness and mass activity in transforming the Protracted War" articulated this politics precisely.
structures of social life. In Maoism-particularly as compared to orthodox
Marxism or even Leninism-consciousness and politics take priority over Practicing Politics in Yan' an and New Democracy
the givenness of social structure. That is, the structure of social relations Even as the war absorbed Mao's energies from mid-1937 on, building and
may constrain the pace and degree of certain transformative activities- consolidating the base area in Yan'an was also urgent. The urgency was in
how power and wealth are redistributed; how the rural and urban relations part dictated by the necessity to provision the CCP central administration
of production are recalibrated; how the cultural level of the populace is and its supporters, along with creating the educational and medical facili-
raised; and so on. Nevertheless, according to Mao, the conscious activity of ties the CCP had pledged to bring to the peasants. It was also dictated by the
the masses can alter these given historical conditions of constraint. While necessity to build an industrial capacity that could produce the military
many scholars have called this emphasis "voluntarism;' it is more appropri- equipment needed by the CCP armies for their fight against the Japanese.
ate simply to recognize there is no concept of politics in Maoism divorced Finally, the urgency was dictated by the desire to put into practice the
from mass politics. For this reason, politics in Maoist theory and practice revolutionary theories of social transformation and political consciousness
cannot be abstracted from everyday life, engaged in only by distant elites. It Mao called "new democracy." The achievement of all these goals would
is, rather, part of quotidian existence itself, and most important, it is part of make Yan'an a model of a: new socialist society and a magnet for Chinese
the struggle to transform social existence. and foreign sympathizers.
A necessary element of politics in Maoism is the integration of theo- With the slogan" everything subordinate to the war;' 6 the first goal of the
retical precepts-based upon education and wider knowledge-with the CCP in Yan'an was stabilization of local society and of its rule in it. An
everyday experiences and existence of the masses, generally confined to election system was established to absorb the energies and utilize the ca-
local concerns. This is where the Maoist method, the "mass line;' comes in. pacities of the local elite. Meanwhile, large-scale programs were launched
The mass line is a method through which theory is refined in practice. to educate peasants in electoral methods, since they would be involved in
Specifically, theory and historical analysis must inform the formulation of their own self-government. Land was redistributed, albeit in moderate
58 YAN' AN, WAR OF RESISTANCE, AND CIVIL WAR'
YAN'AN, WAR OF RESISTANCE, AND CIVIL WAR 59
fashion, and youths mobilized for war through a system of incentives of the proletariat and peasantry-new democracy aims for the nationalist
including family tax relief and free schooling for their family members. The unity of all "patriotic classes" who help resist Japan and can assist in de-
ccP also passed and promoted woman-friendly marriage laws. Most im- veloping the productive forces needed for the war and beyond. In Maoist
portant, peasants formed mass organizations from the grassroots up to put terms, new democracy is the politics and socioeconomic arrangements
into practice the "mass line" cornerstone of Maoist politics. Even though commensurate to the historical era and needs of the United Front in the
th~ Party remained the ultimate arbiter of correct practice and the formula- context of the global antifascist War of Resistance against Japan.
tor of all basic policy, nevertheless, mass organizations gave the hitherto In Mao's theory, new democracy contains three intertwined analyti-
disempowered peasant populace a greater sense of their own stake in the cal components: 1) the Chinese revolution is part of a global revolution
transformations of their lives. Party membership grew by leaps and bounds. against imperialism and fascist-capitalism; 2) it is, however, a revolution
Problems that were to plague the post-1949 Chinese state emerged at launched in a semi-colonized country, where national liberation is the
this point. One was the inherent contradiction between bureaucracy and primary task; and 3) thus, the Chinese revolution is also a national revo-
mass politics: Bureaucracy emanates from on high and aims at predict- lution to create a sovereign nation and a new culture. In the course of lib-
ability; mass politics, which requires mobilizing people, entails a certain erating China, a new culture would be elaborated; this new culture would
amount of instability. Another problem surfaced between male peasants be guided by a new type of Marxism, which drew simultaneously from
and their newly empowered wives and daughters: men came to resent their general Marxist theory and also from the particularly Chinese historical
loss of mastery over women. By the same token, the needs of the army conditions of its creation. This new culture would produce a new China.
often clashed with basic civilian provisioning. The freedom of the organs of Mao's concern in his elaboration of new democracy was to give a histor-
propaganda and communication-journa.ls and newspapers-came into ically and theoretically precise account of China's current and future tran-
conflict with ideological and policy standards crafted and enforced by . sition to socialism. Arguing against Soviet dogmatists (who called for col-
the Party. And, finany, the dispersed private nature of most industry- lectivism as the only correct socialist path) and ultra-radicals (who called
encouraged as a mode of maintaining and enhancing productivity, and of for the confiscation of all private property), Mao urged restraint. Indeed,
corralling local elites into the ccP fold-faced pressure from centralized Mao's theory of new democracy specified the relatively enduring place that
planning. a mixed economy comprised of small-scale capitalism coexisting with
Despite these problems, economic development was quickly fostered. state-ownership of banks and core industries had in China's present and
Cooperatives were formed to maximize labor power and productivity; in- future. Moreover, Mao cautioned land reform and redistribution would
dividual household industries, such as textiles, were turned into small- need to exhibit a certain inequality to ensure productivity.
scale cottage industries; and for the first time a way was discovered to And yet, realizing that none of this was going to occur without prob-
smelt crude pig iron in the region. 7 Several badly needed arsenals were lems, another pressing issue Mao addressed in his new democracy essay is
established. These and many other achievements made it clear that what the increasingly bureaucratic nature of Party work in Yan'an. For already in
had seemed impossible not only was possible but even likely, given appro- this period-and for the remainder of his life-Mao saw bureaucratization
priate priorities, good leadership, and a unity of social forces. as the enemy of revolution, the enemy of mass politics, and the potential
The theory guiding this social unity was called "new democracy." It was death of the CCP. By 1940, Mao was concerned with setting out the broad
articulated by Mao in an essay of early 1940, just as the Yan'an region's parameters of a culture of political and Party work that would be the
territory was being expanded and development was proceeding. New de- antithesis of bureaucracy and theoretical rigidity, a culture of political
mocracy calls for a gradual transition to socialism under a coalition of work that would exemplify his method of mass politics. In this culture, the
classes led by the ccP. Thus, rather than mobilize sharp class struggle- role of mass democracy is enshrined. Yet, the right to mass democracy was
through the dispossession of capitalists, landlords, and other elites in favor to be guaranteed only to the "revolutionary masses" and not to counter-

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YAN'AN, WAR OF RESISTANCE, AND CIVIL WAR 61
revolutionaries, a distinction that set up a potential problem of definitions. ing that art and literature are generally made for and appreciated by elites,
Who is included in which category? For the moment, in the context of the Mao insists revolutionary art and literature must expand its audience to
War of Resistance against Japan, the revolutionary category was quite workers, peasants, soldiers, and revolutionary cadres, who are not neces-
capacious: all anti-Japanese people in China, regardless of class, could sarily as educated as traditional art consumers. Revolutionary art and lit-
qualify. In subsequent years, the inclusionary breadth of the definition erature thus must address arid reflect problems faced by these new con-
frequently changed. stituencies, rather than only the romantic or material aspirations of an
urbanized elite intellectual and bourgeois class.
Mao's Talks on Literature and Art-Redefining Culture
Next in importance is work style. How are intellectuals, unfamiliar with
Along with the formation of a mass guerilla army and the development of their intended mass audiences, to write on themes that appeal to this
mass politics under the banner of new democracy, another key component audience? In what kinds of language are intellectuals to write, if they are to
to the establishment of a culture of revolution and revolutionary culture be understood by this audience? How are they to learn the language of the
was the redefinition of what constituted "culture." For Mao, the goal of people and to turn it into a literary language? To address these problems,
mass mobilization for war was not only to beat back the Japanese but also Mao calls for the invention of a new type of literature and art using revolu-
to achieve socialist national liberation. According to him, in order to attain tionary mass vernaculars. This would be a new literature and art not only in
both goals simultaneously, a cultural army had to work side by side with formal terms, but also in terms of content. This is what Mao calls the "mass
and be embedded in the army. In his famous "Talks at the Yan'an Forum on style." Cultural workers were not merely to represent the masses in their
Art and Literature" in 1942, Mao established the parameters of this revolu- art, they were to give the lives of the masses literary expression. In order to
tionary culture and its "army." learn and perfect this mass style, intellectuals-or, those now relabeled
Of first importance to the formation of a revolutionary culture and a cultural workers-would have to live with the masses, experience their
culture of revolution is what Mao calls "class stand." No artistic work is lives in all of its dirt and lack of refin~ment, and trade in their intellectual
innocent of class, according to Mao. A classical European still life, for pretensions for the simplicity and earthiness of the masses.
example, reflects a bourgeois lifestyle, while a classical Chinese landscape Finally, the problem of"popularization" also needed to be handled prop-
painting expresses the detachment of artists from everyday life and the erly. Mao did not recommend the dumbing down of culture, but rather its
subordination of human beings to nature. In Mao's view, it is important for reorientation toward a different audience and purpose. Popular art and
an artist-renamed a "culture worker" -to ask and answer the question: literature were to be measured, therefore, not in terms of market viability or
What constitutes the consciousness of the work of art or literature? For art eliteness, but rather in terms of its acceptance by the masses. To fulfill all
or literature to be "revolutionary;' in Mao's terms, it must express the these criteria, one must ask and correctly answer: For whom is literature or
consciousness of the "proletariat." Since the largest revolutionary constitu- art produced? And yet, at the same time, revolutionary literature and art
ency of the CCP was the peasantry, not industrial workers, the "proletariat" cannot be anti-foreign, nor can it repudiate the native past. Rather, it must
is a loose definition of the revolutionary masses. Or, more clearly still, it is combine the best of foreign things and the best of the native past to become
what the Communist Party represents. truly progressive, not only in national but in global terms as well.
Of second importance for a culture worker in pursuit of revolutionary As Mao notes in general terms, literature and art are subordinate to
culture is what Mao calls "attitude." Revolutionary culture must expose the politics, but in their turn exert a great influence on politics. That is, art
duplicity of enemies; it must praise and criticize allies (such as the GMD ); cannot be purely for the sake of art, but rather is always an ideological
and it must praise the masses, while helping to unite, encourage, and project serving a particular class. Thus, if, in capitalist society, art serves
promote their revolutionary progress. In this sense, revolutionary culture the bourgeoisie and is beholden to the market, in socialist society, art must
can be ambiguous, but not with regard to the masses, who must be de- serve the proletariat, or the revolutionary masses, and must be beholden to
picted in a positive light. Third is the problem of "audience." Acknowledg- them. In this sense, art must be subordinate to politics. This formulation,

62 YAN'AN, WAR OF RESISTANCE, AND CIVIL WAR ' YAN'AN, WAR OF RESISTANCE, AND CIVIL WAR 63
as many at the time cautioned and foresaw, soon lent itself to great inter- social sciences. We also held discussions at night schools .... We just wanted
pretive abuse. Indeed, art and literature's subordination to politics came to to do something useful for society; we had no targeted plan .. .
mean subordination to the Party: To the extent that. the Party came to Q: Did you write for newspapers? What were the topics?
control and enforce what was defined as revolutionary, it was also the Party A: . . . . We launched art and literature organizations which intended to
that came to define and enforce what was the culture appropriate to the organize youths from every walk of life. We taught them how to write essays
moment. and reportage literature about reality. I was appointed [by the Communist
Party] to do the organizing. Over two hundred people participated, and we
INTERLUDE-THE COMMUNIST UNDERGROUND IN SHANGHAI published their essays in Shanghai's newspapers.
Even as the center of Communist activity remained in Yan'an, the Party Q: How did the refugees [in the Shanghai camps] respond to the plays your
persisted in its efforts to rebuild a presence in japanese-occupied Shanghai. group performed for them?
These efforts were connected to the broad United Front policies of the CCP A: I remember, we sang a song called "Long Long Ago" [in English]. The
and were aimed at uniting all patriotic classes under the banner of anti- refugees had no idea what we were singing and kept wondering aloud: "What
japanese resistance. At the same time, they were to weld the ccP's concern kind of 'go' [dog] are they speaking of?" We had a lot of laughs then. We were
with mass organization to the broad urban elite. all educated university students ... they were all peasants ... We often talked
In May 2007, I interviewed one ofthe last living members ofthe Shanghai to the refugees and assisted them in their lives.
underground Communist Party from the 1940s, Mr. Wang Yuanhua. From Q: When you joined the revolution in the 1930s, why did you choose the
the 1940s on, Mr. Wang made a reputation as a literary scholar and critic, a Chinese Communist Party?
college professor, and political activist; by th~ time of his death from brain A: I resented the GMD's "nonresistance" policy toward the Japanese ...
cancer in March 2008, his huge corpus of work on classical and modern Q: So, it wasn't Communism or Marxism?
Chinese literature and history, as well as on Western literature was being A: No. I knew nothing of Communism or Marxism. I joined the [only] Party
systematically reprinted in China. No less important to his current reputa- that fought against the Japanese. I had no knowledge of Communism.
tion are various anthologies of his memoirs, occasional essays, and opinion Q: Did your anti-imperialist activities in the 1930s only mean fighting against
pieces that have appeared over the past decade or more. Best known as a Japan? Or, did you have a broader aim?
man of integrity and honesty, Mr. Wang had an inner circle composed of A: I opposed all invasions and occupations of China by outside powers. Of
those who could keep pace with his lively mind and critical attitude, with course, my activities at the time were mainly targeted against Japan because
whom he enjoyed the give and take of intellectual tussle. I was lucky to be Japan was attacking China then.
counted among them. I asked him to comment-for this book-on his ear- Q: In the 1930s, what did it mean to you to have an anti-feudal consciousness?
liest memories of how he, as an underground Communist cultural activist A: My anti-feudal consciousness was very vague .... I was deeply influenced by
in Japanese-occupied Shanghai in the 1940s, remembered the promotion of [the writer] Lu Xun and thought Chinese medicine was bad and Confucius
Mao's "Yan'an Talks on Art and Literature" among his Communist com- was evil. But, because I was born into a Christian family, I did not grow up with
rades. The interview he granted me was the last of his life. I excerpt part of feudal elements. We had no feudal rituals: We believed rituals for ancestors
it below. 8 were bad, as were those for the emperors. My consciousness [about these
things] was quite simple, very vague.
Q: Your activities in the Shanghai underground party in the 1930s and 1940s
Q: When did you get to know something of Maoism?
were mostly concerned with cultural issues?
A: I became a propaganda committee member at the end of 1942. The com-
A: Yes. Culture is connected to the future of the whole country and the nation.
mittee was comprised of three persons .... We belonged to the Changjiang
Q: Culture is a big field; in what activities did you engage?
Bureau, led by Zhou Enlai. Shanghai's situation was quite different from the
A: Mainly we organized art festivals ... activities in literature, opera, and the
Great Rear [the occupied areas] and even more different from Yan'an. We did

64 YAN'AN, WAR OF RESISTANCE, AND CIVIL WAR · YAN'AN, WAR OF RESISTANCE, AND CIVIL WAR 65
 not follow Mao's standard of "transforming" ourselves so strictly. The 1942 whether or not they have children, how they conduct their personal lives,
"Talks at the Yan'an Forum on Art and Literature" were the starting point of and how their personal lives allegedly influence their professional lives.
Mao's thought re-education movement [aimed at intellectuals]. Ding Ling charges that women are expected to "transcend the age they live
Q: What did you think when you first read that lecture? in"; they are supposed to be perfect and "hard as steel." However, she notes,
A: I couldn't accept it. This was an important Party document and we began to most "woman comrades" had to fight through many social obstacles to
read and discuss it [among underground Party members]. become communists and revolutionaries. As such, "the mistakes women
Q: What did you think of Mao's "art and literature for the masses" articulated commit" should be considered "in their social context." Despite rhetorical
in his "Yan'an Talks"? support for women and feminism among male and female Party members,
A: I also suspected it. I thought: how could it be possible that your thought will Ding Ling urges it would be "better if there were less empty theorizing and
progress once you step in a pile of cow dung? The massification of art and more talk about real problems, so that theory and practice would not be
literature was not originally proposed by Mao; leftwing literary associations divorced." 10 Thus using Maoist revolutionary language to argue her point,
had already proposed the question of massification. I was deeply influenced by Ding Ling was also arguing the politics of individualism over the politics of
the nineteenth-century version of massification in Russian literature, French collectivism. Rather than subordinate and sacrifice the individual (woman)
and German literature, as well as in American literature by those such as Mark to revolutionary necessity or Party needs, Ding Ling insisted on the autono-
Twain. I could hardly accept Mao's crude massification proposal when I was so mous meaning of "woman" and on a recognition of the distinctiveness of
obsessed with nineteenth-century literature. woman's personal and daily life.
For a brief few weeks after the publication of Ding Ling's essay in March
Critique of the Party at Yan' an 1942, many other Party members took the perceived opportunity to cri-
As the ccP established itself deeply in Yan'an, and as Mads theories of mass tique the Party on other grounds as well. Ding Ling was quickly accused of
politics, mass culture, and mass mobilization became clearer, a multisided harboring a "narrow feminist" and "subjectivist" sentiment-a nonrevo-
critique developed of certain practices from within the Party itself. One of lutionary view of the relationship between women's liberation and class
the most famous of these critiques was launched by the feminist literary struggle. She was fired from her literary journal editorship and ordered to
figure, Ding Ling. "reeducate" herself among the masses. Her strong revolutionary creden-
Ding Ling had come to literary prominence in the 1920s as part of the tials and populist belief in the necessary relationship between literature,
May Fourth generation of writers. Her literary practice had evolved from an language, and the masses allowed Ding Ling to politically survive her tem-
advocacy for cultural reformism into a profound belief in the need for porary fall from favor, and she returned to the center of cultural affairs
revolutionary culture and a cultural revolution. As a target of GMD attack some time later. Others were not as lucky as she in escaping severe punish-
for many years-her husband, Hu Yepin, was executed in 1930 by the ment, however.
GMD-Ding Ling arrived in Yan'an in the late-1930s. Her work there cen-
Rectifying the Party and the Mao Cull
tered on cultural matters and on pushing the CCP to make good on its
longstanding commitments to gender equality. Party membership and the Red Army expanded rapidly after the ccP's
In 1942, to commemorate International Women's Day (March 8), Ding arrival in Yan'an. Certain problems in the quality of new recruits had
Ling wrote an essay critiquing the gender politics of the CCP. She begins surfaced. A Party Rectification campaign was launched in 1941, originally
bluntly: "When will it no longer be necessary to attach special weight to the intended to weed out the weakest new recruits and train the stronger ones
word 'woman' and raise it specially?" 9 She acknowledges women are better in correct practice and theory. However, in the wake of Ding Ling's and
off in the CCP areas but points to the double standards with which "women others' critiques in 1942 and after Mao's "Talks" on art and literature, the
comrades" are treated. Specifically, they are subjected to incessant gossip, Rectification soon became a campaign to impose an ideological litmus test
and even censure, based on whether and whom they do or do not marry, on new and old members of the Party and Army alike. Mao's texts on the

66 YAN'AN, WAR OF RESISTANCE, AND CIVIL WAR' YAN'AN, WAR OF RESISTANCE, AND CIVIL WAR 67
interpretation of Marxism and Chinese history and on the relationship home, constant disputes over territory in the northwest had led to some
between culture and revolution became required reading and study matter bloody clashes between the ostensibly allied armies. Most egregiously, in
for all. A uniform ideology was molded. Passages from Mao's texts were late-1939, the GMD had resumed its blockade of the CCP base area centered
now often cited in Yan'an publications, almost as incantations. Deviators- on Yan'an. However, only with the "New Fourth Army Incident" in January
real or imagined-from accepted interpretations were punished. Some 1941 did the increasingly fiCtive unity become defunct.
were sent to "learn from the masses;' to reeducate themselves (such as The New Fourth Army was, along with the Eighth Route Army, the
Ding Ling); others were jailed for long or short terms; some were executed. strongest CCP military force. Operating behind the lines in the north, by
The emphasis on ideological purity had a traumatic dampening effect 1939 the New Fourth Army had pushed its way south of the Yangzi River,
on the vibrant intellectual society characterizing Yan'an until this time. It the heart of Japanese occupation and of GMD opposition. As with all gue-
was certainly recognized by most that Mao's military theories and strate- rilla operations, the New Fourth Army organized peasants for resistance
gies, as well as his methods for mobilizing mass enthusiasms and produc- and revolution simultaneously; they also recruited heavily in the very vil-
tivity, had already been quite successful. Mao's dominance within the col- lages from which the GMD tried to find troops to fill their depleted ranks.
lective leadership group was assured. Yet now "truth" became whatever The GMD became increasingly suspicious of the CCP Army's intent and
Mao said it was. Contravening his own philosophical and interpretive ordered it to retreat from its new southern positions. Meanwhile, the
method, Mao's texts were canonized in precisely the dogmatic fashion Eighth Route Army had successfully infiltrated and organized much of
Mao had warned against. From this grew the beginnings of the Mao cult. North China behind Japanese lines.
Mao's close associate, Zhou Enlai, who eventually became Premier, In 1940, the Parties convened in the GMD wartime capital, Chongqing,
wrote in 1943 an assessment of Mao: "Comrade Mao Zedong's style of to negotiate the borders of operation for the ccP armies. Deadlines were
work incorporates the modesty and pragmatism of the Chinese people; the set in late 1940 for the New Fourth Army to move north of the Yangzi, and
simplicity and diligence of the Chinese peasants; the love of study and for the Eighth Route Army to move north of the Yell ow River. Who did
profound thinking of an intellectual; the efficiency and steadiness of a what to whom has never been agreed; each side has its version. What is
revolutionary soldier; and the persistence and indomnitability of a Bol- clear is that in January 1941, the New Fourth Army headquarters was still
shevik."11 Yet, Mao's personal dictatorial style came to have more and south of the Yangzi. This force of around nine thousand men was sur-
more destructive effects. The extent of these effects did not become clear rounded by GMD troops on January 4. A vicious battle lasting over ten days
until later, but the Rectification gave many leftist intellectuals and many ensued. Top commanders of the New Fourth Army were killed, along with
Party members pause. seven thousand of their troops. 12
For the moment, the exigencies of the wartime situation seemed to The Incident was clearly a military disaster for the CCP, and the ccP
explain the ferocity of attacks on so-called internal enemies. And, for as immediately blamed the GMD for traitorous behavior. It also led to the
long as Mao's protracted war theories staved off and helped roll back tightening of the GMD blockade around the CCP base areas. As Mao wrote
Japanese advances, Mao's personal practices could be forgiven. in a telegram to his associates, "All of Chiang Kaishek's talk about vir-
tue and morality is a pack of lies and should under no circumstances be
United Front Strains trusted." 13 Chiang's declaration of January 17 that the New Fourth Army
Public unity between the GMD and the CCP was maintained until January was mutinous, provoked Mao to write this "marks the beginning of a
1941, even though a number of incidents had led to severe strains. At the sudden emergency on a national scale ... and the breakup of the whole
national level, the establishment of a puppet government in Nanjing by country." 14 And yet Mao was concerned to keep a public facade of coopera-
one of Chiang Kaishek's associates (albeit a rival for power), Wang Jingwei, tion and warned his commanders that "until Chiang announces a complete
led to increasing ccP suspicions that the GMD itself was preparing to break ... , we shall not raise anti-Chiang slogans .... "15
succumb to Japanese pressures to join an anti-Communist front. Closer to The New Fourth Army Incident provoked a realignment of forces within

68 YAN' AN, WAR OF RESISTANCE, AND CIVIL WAR ' YAN'AN, WAR OF RESISTANCE, AND CIVIL WAR 69
the ccP armies. It marked the rise of Liu Shaoqi, who was to become one of numbered over four million. Chiang Kaishek also possessed an air force
Mao's closest associates in the post-1949 period. It also marked the freeing and advanced weaponry-tanks and artillery-supplied by the United
from United Front constraints of ccP organizing and guerilla warfare. It States through the wartime lend-lease program. Moreover, the GMD was
was a public relations coup and became a call to arms to all patriots, backed by the only wartime power-the United States-not to have suf-
regardless of political affiliation, who now could believe the CCP was all that fered devastating territorial and financial destruction during the war. Fi-
stood between them and the Japanese. The Japanese noted the split in nally, Stalin had secretly signed a treaty of alliance with Chiang Kaishek,
Chinese forces and began a ferocious anti-insurgency campaign continuing forcing Mao into an attempt at a coalition government with his arch-
through the rest of the war. enemies. If Mao's distrust for Stalin had been sown in 1927 with the deba-
After his month of frantic telegram exchanges sorting out the Incident, cle of the first United Front, and then nurtured over the years through his
Mao took the time on January 31 to write to his sons in Moscow. His letter clashes with the Moscow-clique in his midst, this 1945 betrayal of the ccP
praises Anying and Anqing for their diligence and their correspondence, by Stalin was even harder to swallow. For the moment, Mao did not pub-
while also cautioning them to concern themselves "less with politics" and licly renounce the global "communist fraternity" of which Stalin was the
more with studying natural sciences. He warns them not to listen too acknowledged head.
much to praise, as it may make them "conceited, dizzy with success, and As the U.S. Army Air Corps and U.S. Navy ferried GMD commanders
complacent." He also advises them to "plant your feet on the ground and around the country to accept Japanese surrender, and as the United States
be realistic." 16 sent fifty thousand troops to occupy North China until the GMD could
arrive in sufficient strength to secure the region, Mao went to the GMD
War Triumph wartime capital, Chongqing, to negotiate a coalition government with
When the United States joined the war against Japan in the wake of Pearl · Chiang.
Harbor in December 1941, the tide of war in China began to change. In
Coalition Negotiations and Civil War
order to gain time to rebuild the Pacific fleet and to put the country on a
wartime footing, the United States needed China to tie down the huge The initial six weeks of negotiations from August to October 1945 were
number of Japanese troops now mired there. Soon, weapons and financing probably doomed from the start. Mao and Chiang hated one another, and
began to flow to the GMD, along with American advisors. While the CCP no trust existed between themselves personally or between their parties.
was still stranded-the Soviet Union, after all, was pressed to the limit by Although a surface atmosphere of seriousness was maintained, both were
the Nazi German assault after June 1941-nevertheless, the strain on the merely trying to appease their big-power supporters: Chiang was being
Japanese army began to take its toll. encouraged by the United States not to resume the civil war; and Mao's
In the course of the eight long years of war in China, the Red Army ex- hand was forced by Stalin. When this first round of talks broke down,
panded to over one million ideologically committed and battle-hardened fighting between the CCP and the GMD commenced in Manchuria, a ter-
soldiers. The ccP's unwavering policies to cnnfront the Japanese, as well as ritorial prize desired by both parties. With an infrastructure left behind by
its organizational prowess on the ground, had won it the strong sympa- the surrendering Japanese, it had the most developed industrial capacity of
thies and support of the north Chinese peasantry and of many city dwell- any place in China.
ers, who had labored under Japanese occupation and GMD waffling. Local In December 1945, U.S. President Harry Truman dispatched General
peasant militias had been formed throughout the country as bulwarks George C. Marshall to China to help mediate a settlement. Zhou Enlai and
against the Japanese, and for the first time in Chinese history, many rural a team of CCP negotiators stayed in the newly relocated GMD capital,
areas were thoroughly organized. Nanjing, to hammer out an agreement under the guidance of Marshall's
Nevertheless, at the Japanese surrender in August 1945, the GMD army group. A nominal truce between the CCP and GMD held through the spring

70 YAN'AN, WAR OF RESISTANCE, AND CIVIL WAR ' YAN' AN, WAR OF RESISTANCE, AND CIVIL WAR 71
of 1946. At this point, Marshall departed, the United States declared it was
washing its hands of the China problem, and the CCP and GMD were set
loose against one another again.
The final civil war was quite bloody, albeit relatively quickly resolved.
Even though the GMD possessed far superior arms and a numerically stron-
ger army-GMD generals boasted of a ten to one advantage over the CCP-
they had little support on the ground. In addition, corruption and demor-
alization within the GMD army made it much weaker in reality than it
appeared on paper. Finally, Mao's faith in the human will-in mass politics Stabilizing Soc:iely and the Transition to Socialism,
now directed toward a civil war rather than toward a war of resistance 1949-1957
against Japan-led him to depend greatly on the ability and desire of the
Chinese people to complete the ccP-led Chinese revolution. Mao's faith
was not ill-founded.
Fierce fighting ensued in Manchuria, where Mao and Chiang took per- In September 1949, as final victory against the GMD was at hand,
sonal control of their respective armies. The Manchurian campaign sig- Mao opened a session of the Chinese Political Consultative Con-
nificantly weakened Chiang's military through huge casualties and large gress in Beijing. The Congress gathered together independent
numbers of desertions among the best troops, who joined the Commu- parties committed to working under the ccP's leadership. Facing
nists. The CCP Fourth Field Army-commanded by Lin Biao-gained a the assembled representatives, Mao announced, "Chinese people
large influx of men along with the huge cache of American-made weap- have begun to stand up." He continued: "We have united ourselves
onry they carried with them. In addition to tried and true military tactics- and defeated both our forefgn and domestic oppressors by means
"luring the enemy deep" and mobile warfare-the peasantry's support be- of the people's liberation war and the people's great revolution,
came key to CCP victory. Providing bodies, intelligence, safe havens, and and we proclaim the establishment of the People's Republic of
economic support, the peasants of north China rallied to their wartime China [PRC]." 1
saviors to help defeat the GMD. This is what Mao called a "people's war." Having survived more than twenty years of remote exile, brutal
Fighting continued for another year, but in unexpectedly quick fashion, war, civil strife, power struggles, decimation and growth, Mao and
the GMD military caved in and retreated south. Along with them went the the Communist Party he now led had, against all odds, reached
Nanjing-based administration, whose last toehold on the mainland was the pinnacle of Chinese power. For the first time in over a cen-
Guangzhou. With the final collapse of GMD resistance, Chiang Kaishek and tury, China was a unified state and also a sovereign nation. This
his followers packed whatever they could on boats and planes supplied by was a monumental achievement the CCP could claim as its own.
the United States and precipitously fled the Chinese mainland to the island As a consequence, the year 1949 marked an absolute divide: the
of Taiwan. The dispute between the GMD and the CCP remains today a demarcation between "pre-liberation" and "liberation." In histori-
vestigial territorial problem of the Chinese nation. cal accounts, political statements, movies, dramas, and everyday
Meanwhile, in Beijing, Mao proclaimed the dawning of a new era for speech, everything now would be identified by this chronology,
China. with· darkness and gloom characterizing the before-time, light
and hope characterizing the after-time.
As Mao prophesied during his speech at the Congress, "An up-
surge in cultural construction will inevitably follow in the wake of
the upsurge of economic construction. The era in which the Chi-

72 YAN' AN, WAR OF RESISTANCE, AND CIVIL WAR '

nese were regarded as uncivilized is now over . . . Let the domestic and counter-revolutionaries, or the "non-people" -dictatorship would be the
foreign reactionaries tremble before us. Let them say that we are no good form of government imposed upon them. They could re-educate and re-
at this and no good at that. Through the Chinese. people's indomitable form themselves to become "people;' but, those classes and individuals
endeavors, we will steadily reach our goal." 2 Pledging to quickly overcome designated the "non-people" would be dealt with harshly, through dic-
the remnants of Chiang's GMD and to move rapidly into the task of de- tatorial and coercive methods. The "non-people" were not permitted to
velopment, Mao declared even though the civil war had been won, the participate in the life of the socialist nation, until their re-education by "the
revolution was far from complete. people" was completed (as decided by the Party).
At ten o'clock in the morning on October 1, 1949, Mao stood atop With this theoretical justification, a dual state form was promoted: a
Beijing's Gate of Heavenly Peace, the traditional center of the Chinese democratic one for "the people" and a dictatorship for all others. There was
state, crowds massed before him. One participant described the scene: no pretense to non-partiality. The PRC state was a state for the revolution-
"Above the sea of people thousands of banners were unfurled, waving in ary peoples-the coalition of peasant and proletariat as well as all those
the autumn breeze, their colors transforming the shabby city. The crowd who could claim to have the correct revolutionary consciousness. Others
was shouting slogans ... and singing revolutionary songs. The enthusiasm could either join by developing the correct revolutionary consciousness, or
was contagious ... "3 No longer in his ubiquitous army fatigues but now leave, or suffer their fates. Very quickly, of course, the problem of who
sporting a brown Chinese-style suit and a worker's cap, Mao was flanked qualified as "people" emerged. As Mao Zedong Thought became more
by a number of non-Communist personalities, Sun Yatsen's widow, Song dogmatically construed, and as the ccp using Mao Zedong Thought came
Qingling, among them. Speaking a version of Mandarin heavily accented to be the exclusive arbiter of "revolutionary truth;' the boundaries of the
by his native Hunanese dialect, whose lilt.ing rhythms and unaccustomed "people" became more fluid and arbitrary. These issues plagued Chinese
emphases soon became familiar to all Chinese, Mao formally proclaimed political society from this time forward.
the founding of the People's Republic of China.
An Economy in Ruins
People's Democratic Dictatorship
As the People's Liberation Army (renamed as such in 1937) took control of
At its founding, the PRC took the form of a "people's democratic dictator- the country region by region from the fleeing GMD military, the extent of
ship." This apparently contradictory form had a theoretical logic in Mao- China's disrepair became apparent. In their hasty flight from the mainland,
ism. In Maoist politics, revolutionary consciousness and activity were cru- the GMD had stripped the country of all liquid assets such as gold, silver,
cial elements distinguishing "the people" from counter-revolutionaries. and dollar reserves; they had also packed up and moved-on boats and
Enshrining this distinction as a principle and right of citizenship, "the planes supplied by the United States-the "cultural patrimony" of China,
people" were defined in the PRC as those who supported-through word including the treasures of Beijing's Forbidden City and other moveable
and deed-the revolution and, by conflation, the CCP. For these, "democ- artistic and archival items of value. They had attempted to firebomb indus-
racy" would be guaranteed. This democracy was not of the bourgeois or trial sites to prevent them from falling into CCP hands. However, many
"old" type (as practiced in capitalist countries); it did not rely on elections workers acted to protect their factories from destruction.
or parliamentary procedures. Rather, this was to be the "new" type of Adding to the problems, bandits roamed the scorched countryside,
democracy, as promoted by Mao in Yan'an. It was a democracy comprised preying upon a weakened people; displaced refugees from the Japanese
of the united revolutionary classes and supportive political parties under occupation ·and from the ravages of the civil war wandered the nation and
the leadership of the CCP. It depended on the "mass line" and called for clogged the cities. Commerce had been destroyed, first by the wars and
centralized rule. It was democratic centralism. All those designated "the then by rampant inflation; the national currency was worthless, and a
people" -the vast majority-could and in fact were expected to participate barter economy had emerged. Portions of the urban intelligentsia and
and contribute to the flourishing of this type of democracy. For all others- technologically proficient elites had fled with the GMD, leaving cities with-

74 STABILIZING SOCIETY AND SOCIALIST TRANSITION STABILIZING SOCIETY AND SOCIALIST TRANSITION 75
out administration and institutions without management. Daily neces- ·delivered part of the legal conditions for women's equality, even though
sities were scarce and prohibitively expensive. Urban unemployment was these conditions were to tie women more firmly than ever to the family
rife; rural productivity was at an all-time low. With the often enthusiastic, structure. With Mao's proclamation "women hold up half the sky;' the
although sometimes only tepid, support of the majority of China's war- Women's Federation became a symbol of the PRC's commitment to a
weary people; Mao's and the ccP's duties were daunting. particular form of feminism sponsored and guaranteed by the state.
One of their first tasks was to have the ccP armies, upon entry into the Aside from urban work, the other major tasks to stabilize society were
cities, stabilize the social and financial situations. For many of the peasant to get agricultural production going and to resume trade and commercial
troops, this was their first taste of modern life. As destroyed as the cities ties between the rural and urban areas. An initial requirement was to get
were, remaining urban amenities were still more advanced than those of rural refugees clogging the cities to return to the land. In the longer term,
the Yan'an caves or of the wartime front. Realizing the danger of tempta- however, raising agricultural production had to go hand in hand with land
tion in leading troops astray, Mao felt compelled to issue a directive in late reform and redistribution, which was going to prove disruptive before its
October 1949 to his armies to "always keep to the style of plain living and potential of enhanced productivity could be realized.
hard struggle" characterizing the Yan'an spirit. 4 Despite their best efforts, the ccP's administrative and financial capaci-
As a top concern, the ccP was committed to cleaning up the socially ties were soon stretched beyond the limit. To stave off complete crisis,
destructive habit and century-long symbol of Chinese colonial subjugation: Mao was forced to go hat in hand to Stalin.
opium smoking. Under the GMD, particularly in the civil war years of hyper-
11
Lean lo One Side" -Mao Goes lo Moscow
inflation, opium had become a widespread item of barter as the opium
gangs had increased their stranglehold on GMD finances. Drug usage had Immediately upon the ccP victory, the United States slapped an embargo
skyrocketed. Under ccP rule, big opium dealers were summarily executed. on the PRC, cutting off any and all trade with or aid to the mainland.
By contrast, common opium users as well as prostitutes were targeted as America's global allies followed suit: Mao, who had had illusions about
the two socially parasitical populations who should be saved through re- good relations with the United States and western Europe following ccP
education. The ccP enforced draconian drug rehabilitation measures re- victory in the civil war, was left with no choice. He had to "lean to one
quiring cold-turkey withdrawal. l\tleanwhile, they dragooned prostitutes side"-the Soviet side.
into centers, to treat them for their medical problems and re-educate them Until April1949, Stalin had remained an ally of Chiang Kaishek's. When
to be productive members of a new society. Within two years, opium had the ccP's imminent victory in the civil war could no longer be ignored,
been stamped out, and prostitution had been drastically curbed. Stalin was forced to acknowledge Mao, even though an independent Com-
The state-sponsored Women's Federation assisted in these tasks, as munist movement to his south was hardly to his liking. After the formal
prostitution in particular was understood to be a part of the "woman founding of the PRC in October 1949, Stalin invited Mao to Moscow for
problem." In order to boost economic productivity and reduce social chaos talks. In December 1949, Mao boarded a special train in Beijing for the ten-
-whether because of refugees, war-torn families, or child-selling due to day journey north. Mao's Moscow visit seemed to confirm to cold warriors
poverty, prostitution, or drug use-women and families became important in the United States there was one monolithic Communist bloc directed
subjects of policy. Indeed, a cornerstone of the Maoist notion of a strong from Moscow's Red Square; the McCarthy witch hunts got under way in
family was women, who were happy and secure enough in their marriages large part based upon this assumption. Yet Mao had no intention of deliv-
to be productive members of society and strong bulwarks for family unity. ering China to 'Stalin's control. In fact, Mao's struggles with Soviet-trained
As such, in early 1950, one of the first laws passed by the ccP state was the ideologues in China as well as Stalin's frequent betrayals of the ccP since
new marriage law, guaranteeing freedom of choice in marriage, as well as the 1920s had conditioned Mao to be very wary of Stalin. Yet, Mao's
divorce on demand and property rights to women. Thus addressing a position was not strong, given the international isolation of China and the
concern formed at least since the time of Miss Zhao's suicide in 1919, Mao disintegration of the economy.

STABILIZING SOCIETY AND SOCIALIST TRANSITION 77

76 STABILIZING SOCIETY AND SOCIALIST TRANSITibN
 On his arrival in Moscow, Mao stated in his formal address to the · dors and hallways. Each compound was separated from the others by walls,
welcome committee: "For me to have the opportunity at this time to visit fences, and armed guards. Those leaders, such as Mao, who had families,
the capital of the Soviet Union, the first great socialist country in the world, settled into routine family life; others, getting a later start, married and
is a very happy event in my life." 5 However, Mao's nine-week stay in the began having children, resulting in a minor baby boom in Zhongnanhai.
Soviet Union-one of only two sojourns abroad in his life-was by all Mao's compound housed himself and his enormous study, lined with
accounts a very unhappy time. With hard negotiating, he managed to the thousands of books he had been collecting since his Changsha student
extract from Stalin a pledge of the Soviet Union's assistance if China were days. In addition, there was Jiang Qing, his third wife, who occupied one
attacked by the United States or Japan, but he also had to allow the Soviets wing of the house with his daughter by He Zizhen, Li Min, who had re-
continued occupation of ports in Manchuria. Stalin refused to assist the turned earlier from Moscow; and Li Na, his daughter by Jiang. The two
ccP in planning a conquest of the GMD on Taiwan, even though he enthu- girls were enrolled in a nearby school in Beijing. Joining them in the com-
siastically supported a show of Chinese force in Tibet. Most important, the pound was Mao Yuanxin, the seven-year-old son of Mao's brother Zemin,
economic aid Stalin offered was, in absolute terms, tiny. Yet, for China's who had been killed in 1943 in the far northwest.
industrialization efforts, it became a crucial contribution, coupled as it was Mao's eldest son by Yang Kaihui, Anying, who had fought with the
with the number of Soviet scientific and technological advisors who were Soviet army on the Eastern European front, had recently married. He had
sent to China in the 1950s. his own residence and worked in a machinery plant in Beijing. Anqing,
Aside from negotiations, while in the Soviet Union, Mao sat for an Mao's younger son by Yang, was at first stationed in Manchuria engaged in
official portrait, met cultural figures, and toured many factories and farms. land reform. On his return to Beijing, he was diagnosed as schizophrenic;
He also visited Leningrad. Speaking at the. Moscow train station upon he kept a low-profile job as a Russian translator.? Anqing mostly lived in
departure, Mao noted in the course of his visits and talks that he had "seen the Zhongnanhai compound prior to his 1962 marriage to Shao Hua, the
the great achievements of the workers, peasants, and intellectuals of the sister of Anying's wife.
Soviet Union ... [and] observed the work-style of combining a spirit of Jiang Qing and Mao led mostly separate lives. Rumors of Mao's active
revolution with a spirit of realism and practicality." On February 17, 1950, · extramarital sex life immediately began to circulate. Many retrospective
Mao thanked the people of the USSR, in particular Generalissimo Stalin, exposes of Mao-most sensationally, by his private doctor, Li Zhishui-
and boarded his train home. 6 concentrate on the supposed relationship between his sexual appetites and
Through the 1950s, Mao continued his verbal fealty to Stalin even his dictatorial style. These prurient accounts are used to dismiss Mao as a
though his ideological differences from the Soviets were huge. These were lecherous tyrant. Whatever the alleged sex-tyrant linkage, it is true that
differences that, by 1960, erupted in an all-out divide between the two Mao's sexual liaisons with a number of women did create great difficulties
Communist giants. For the moment, Mao returned to Beijing carrying the between himself and Jiang Qing.
Sino-Soviet Friendship Treaty, with the bare minimum of what he'd gone Mao remained in vigorous physical condition until close to his death. His
to Moscow to seek. five-foot ten-inch frame was amply filled out, as he gained a good deal of
weight after moving to Beijing from Yan'an. Mao swam daily in an indoor
Mao Settles into Life in Beijing pool set aside for his use in Zhongnanhai; when he left Beijing to tour the
Upon resettlement from Yan'an to Beijing, Mao and the top leadership of country-as he did for many months each year-he walked for long dis-
the CCP had moved into a portion of the former imperial palace grounds tances. He continued, against his doctor's advice, to eat the greasy, chili-
called Zhongnanhai, behind the Gate of Heavenly Peace and next to the laden foods of his Hunanese childhood, often challenging guests to eat with
Forbidden City. Each leader-Mao, Liu Shaoqi, Lin Biao, Zhou Enlai, Peng him, exclaiming "if it is not spicy, it is not revolutionary." Mao also was a
Dehuai, and others-had as a place of work and residence a one-story heavy smoker: in the early 1950s, his favorite brand was British "sss" ciga-
courtyard house comprised of several wings connected together by corri- rettes; thereafter, it was China's "Panda" brand, which became famous (and

78 STABILIZING SOCIETY AND SOCIALIST TRANSITI'ON STABILIZING SOCIETY AND SOCIALIST TRANSITION 79
unobtainable) because of his habit. He preferred to work at night and sleep scale without the waged-labor and private-ownership structure of capital-
through the morning, continuing a schedule he'd maintained as a guerilla ist agribusiness or the immiseration of tenants in feudal land relations. In
warrior, when night maneuvers were the only ones possible. Most affairs of theory, collectivized agriculture would not only enhance productivity; it
state had to wait until late afternoon or early evening to be handled. would facilitate state accumulation of surplus for urban industrialization
Mao eschewed proper clothing. Upon his death, his closet reputedly and national social programs. It would also provide a more stable basis for
contained mostly old and patched outfits. He hated suits and leather shoes, peasant livelihood than the precarious ones generally marking the rural
and only agreed to put these on when receiving guests of state or presiding areas from time immemorial.
over formal meetings. His bodyguards broke in new shoes on his behalf, Land reform proceeded unevenly. In keeping with the tenets of Maoism
when required. He usually wore flexible cloth shoes and mostly preferred -revolutionary politics needed to be practiced as part of everyday life-it
to be naked, other than a draped robe around his shoulders and a towel was the peasants themselves who undertook the land redistribution, with
loosely thrown around his middle. In this fashion he received friends and the guidance of the CCP. In the old northern base areas, where the CCP had
colleagues. He disliked sit-down toilets, preferring the squat variety, and been in power since 1935, land redistribution had already begun long
continued his lifelong habit of cleaning his mouth with tea leaves rather before. During the civil war, these bastions of ccP support had been fur-
than a toothbrush. ther radicalized. In 1950, land reform quickly turned even more violent in
these areas. Landlords-big and small-were rounded up by local peasants
Land Reform
with scores to settle. They were subjected to brutal people's tribunal ses-
After his return from Moscow and before the rice planting season in June sions, where their and their family's crimes against the poor-current and
1950, Mao decided to launch the long-prornised land reform. In consulta- historical-were enumerated in public "struggle sessions;' after which they
tion with the Communist Party leadership group-who continued as a were sentenced to death and killed. In these areas, in fact, local ccP cadres
strong unified presence at this early stage of CCP rule-the decision was tried to rein in the excesses. Mao weighed in on this matter, albeit ambigu-
taken to destroy once and for all the gentry-landlord class, which had been ously. He urged caution against what he called "ultra-Left deviations" and
China's elites for millennia. Most landlords had stayed in China rather encouraged adherence to the new democratic social unity appropriate for
than follow the GMD to Taiwan. Their assets, after all, were not exportable. this transitional period. 8 And yet Mao also repeated his phrase from the
While many landlords confidently looked forward to the return of the Hunan Peasant Report of 1927-"a revolution is not a dinner party" -thus
GMD, others hoped for leniency. All were disappointed. seeming to sanction the violence.
Land reform was a political and an economic commitment made by the In the south, where land reform had not before been attempted because
ccp to the peasantry. And yet it held different meanings for the different ofGMD control, and where land was owned by large, sprawling clans rather
parties involved. To the peasantry, the CCP victory promised the fulfill- than single landlords, peasants were unfamiliar with the processes. The
ment of desires to own land, free of landlord control and perennial indebt- redistribution went more slowly and less antagonistically. In fact, unlike in
edness to predatory rural usurers (such as· Mao's father had been). For the the north, one problem the CCP had in the south was convincing poorer
CCP, land distribution to the peasants was to be the first step in a pro- peasants that the land· of their richer neighbors-often kin from the ex- f

tracted process. The initial step was intended to break the back of the tended dan-should be expropriated at all.
landlord class by expropriating the material conditions of their economic With ebbs and flows in the process and much regional variation, by
and cultural power: their land. The next steps were, necessarily, to lead to 1952 the momentous social revolution of land redistribution was com-
collectivization. pleted. The landlord-gentry was destroyed as a class. Many individuals had
Communist economics is not predicated upon private landholding; it is been executed, although most landlords, after admitting their historical
not intended to shore up what Marxists call the "petty bourgeois" econ- crimes, were permitted to have their own plots of land. In the course of
omy of small cultivators. Its goal is to achieve agricultural economies of the movement, cultivated acreage had been expanded, anti-pest cam-

80 STABILIZING SOCIETY AND SOCIALIST TRANSITION STABILIZING SOCIETY AND SOCIALIST TRANSITION 81
paigns undertaken, irrigation canals re-dug or strengthened, and insec- Popularly known in China as the "Resist America, Aid Korea" period,
ticides and fertilizers made more widely available. By 1952, rural produc- the war placed huge strains on an already fragile economy and society.
tivity increased hugely, and agriculture was on a firm footing. 9 With Soviet military aid in shorter supply than originally expected, the
All this proceeded just as China was forced back into war. Chinese were forced to produce, substantially on their own, the clothing,
food, and equipment needed by their troops fighting in the frozen north-
11
Resisl America, Aid Korea"
ern climes of Korea. This they had to do in addition to providing for
In the months of consolidation of CCP rule in the mainland, there were nu- civilians, who might chafe against further privations so soon after the
merous fears among leaders about the fragility of their victory. Nobody ex- completion of the civil war. Exhortations to production were the order of
pected Chiang Kaishek to take defeat lightly. Paramilitary groups of the the day, even as a measure of political terror descended upon suspect
GMD funded by the CIA operated out of Tibet and on China's borders, hop- populations out of fears about internal subversion.
ing to foment rebellion or chaos. Paranoia about internal spies and enemies At the beginning of the war, Mao's eldest son, Anying, requested to join
was rife. In the midst of this uncertain situation, the Korean War broke out the effort. Mao agreed. Though Anying wanted to be in the infantry, Peng
in mid-1950. This was a civil war fought as a product of the incomplete Dehuai decided it was too risky. Now twenty-eight years old, Anying was
independence of Korea from the Japanese after the Second World War. In assigned to be a Russian translator at Peng's headquarters. In late Novem-
the context of the military protectorate the United States threw around the ber 1950, Anying's position was hit by a U.S. incendiary bomb; he was killed
GMD on Taiwan and of CCP fears of counter-revolutionary activity, the U.S. and immediately buried in Korea. Peng told Mao in person of his loss. In his
entry into the war appeared as a direct threat to China. In mainland opin- public pronouncement, Mao was brief: "In war there must be sacrifice....
ion, and in many public statements from the United States, the American To sacrifice my son or other people's sons is just the same. There are no
involvement was immediately construed as an action ·preparatory to a · parents in the world who do not treasure their children.... There are so
potential invasion of China. The GMD-aligned "China Lobby" in Wash- many common folk whose children have shed their blood and were sacri-
ington did all it could to encourage U.S. policy in this direction. ficed for the sake of the revolution. They are in need of consolation, and we
By October 1950, U.S. troops had almost reached the Yalu River, the ought to pay more attention to showing them greater concern."ll
border between Manchuria and Korea. A faction of U.S. senators loudly Despite Mao's public stoicism, Anying's death took a huge personal toll
supported the "nuking" of China, or at least, an invasion to overthrow on him. Due to historical circumstances, Mao had never spent much time
Communism. Anxiously noting the developments, Mao issued an order on with his sons by Yang Kaihui. Now settled in Beijing, Mao had looked for-
October 8 for "the Chinese People's Volunteers ... to move immediately ward to the routines allowing him to enjoy his grown and smaller children,
into the territory of Korea, to join our Korean comrades in their fight and later, hopefully, some grandchildren. While Jiang Qing was never close
against the invaders, and to strive for a glorious victory." Enjoining Chi- to Mao's children by his previous wives-nor, reputedly, to her own daugh-
nese troops to "repel the attacks of the American imperialists and their ter, Li Na-Mao was a loving father. Anying's childless widow, Liu Songlin,
running dogs;' 10 Chinese participation in the Korean War began. remained close to her father-in-law long after her husband's death; in her
Commanded by the veteran guerilla general, Peng Dehuai, the Chinese memoirs, she writes of the concern he showed her and the long hours she
lured the enemy deep, onward toward the Yalu. When General MacArthur spent with Mao reminiscing about Anying.
took the bait, Peng sent wave upon wave of troops to attack, inflicting
upon the American army its greatest defeat. American forces were pushed Development vs. Revolution
back down the Korean peninsula. By mid-1951, fighting stabilized at the Once stabilization had been achieved and the Korean War fought to a
Thirty-eighth parallel, where the war had first begun. For two and a half stalemate, it was time to turn to longer-term plans. The dilemma now
years thereafter, a war of attrition was fought before the truce could be facing the CCP was a practical problem of culturally and politically trans-
arranged that is still operative today. forming a society that rested upon a very weak economic foundation. In

82 STABILIZING SOCIETY AND SOCIALIST TRANSITION STABILIZING SOCIETY AND SOCIALIST TRANSITION 83
dealing with this, Mao tirelessly attempted to impress upon his fellow CCP Soviet model was the only existing socialist one; because Soviet advis-
leaders that there is a vast difference between advocating development for ors counseled their Chinese counterparts to do so; and because Chinese
its own sake and advocating development in the pursuit of revolutionary economic weaknesses were so thoroughgoing and the Euro-American-
transformation. Japanese embargo so crippling, that the Chinese had to produce almost
In the quest for high growth rates, capitalism had already shown its everything they needed on their own. Finally, the decision was made be-
historical superiority in comparison to any other system. Yet, capitalist cause the economic developmentalist faction within the leadership tempo-
growth comes at the expense of huge inequalities within nations and be- rarily won the ideological debate over the Maoist faction.
tween them. Mao had long since rejected capitalism and embraced revolu- Mao made a virtue of necessity. Designating China's vast population
tionizing social relations. He was intent on developing China, not as an its most precious resource-in the absence of technology and capital in-
end in itself, but as part of deepening the transformation of and creating vestment, what China had in abundance was human labor power-Mao
the conditions for equality in society. Others disagreed. As early as 1953, promoted the idea of labor-intensive self-sufficiency, or autarky. Self-
ideological divisions began to emerge within the Party over the relative sufficiency in grain and other foodstuffs, in cloth, fuel, and all basic neces-
importance of development and revolution, and the methods by which sities, became the hallmark of Maoist-era economic policy and practice.
each would be achieved. These differences were not empty power strug- With land reform providing stable conditions for a steady source of
gles, as some scholars have claimed. Rather, the power struggles reflected agricultural surplus, the first five-year plan, lasting from 1953-57, saw the
real ideological disagreements over the course and direction of the Chi- annual rate of industrial growth average 16 percent. Total industrial out-
nese nation. put more than doubled over the course of the five years. The industrial
The disputes in the Party leadership introduced an issue, already fore- working class grew from six to ten million, and urban population rose.
shadowed in Yan'an, that characterized the Maoist period: the contradic- Large industrial workplaces were organized on socialist principles. They
tion between bureaucracy and revolution. As the Party in power, the ccP provided subsidized housing, cradle to grave medical care, permanent
was both the bearer of revolution as well as the bureaucracy in charge of jobs, educational facilities from pre-school through high school for work-
economic policy and social transformation. These were inherently contra- ers and their families, vegetable markets and butchers, barbers, entertain-
dictory roles. From 1953 on, during times of emphasis on economic de- ment, and so on. As the basic structure of labor and everyday life, the
velopment at all costs, the ccP's bureaucratic role grew, social hierarchies "work unit" (danwei) came to define and police the political and economic
proliferated, and the revolutionizing of society slowed in pursuit of growth parameters of the everyday lives of the majority of urban residents.
and economic efficiency. Conversely, at times of emphasis on social revo-
lution, the ccP, as a bureaucracy, became an object of revolutionary attack, Centralization and Decentralization
mass politics came to the fore, and social hierarchies were mitigated, while Organizing the national economy required a delicate balance between
economic efficiency took a backseat to radical politics. These oscillations centralized decision making and local-level activity and needs. As Mao
largely shaped the Maoist era. noted in a speech made in August 1953, "Centralization and decentraliza-
tion are constantly in contradiction with each other." According to his
Industrial Policy and Sell-Sufficiency method, then, one needed to analyze each moment to find whether the one
In 1953, the CCP opted to follow the Soviet path of development. This or the other was more appropriate to the situation. In raising this issue,
called for modernization based on the maximum extraction of surplus Mao was issuing a veiled critique of Party ideologues, whose insistence on
from the rural areas to fund heavy industrialization located in the cities. It centralization was often out of step with local conditions. As he recounted
was a plan subordinating the rural to the urban and calling for a centralized in the same speech, "Recently I made a trip to Wuhan and Nanjing and
state to allocate and distribute resources according to economic not social learned a lot about conditions .... When I stay in Beijing I hear almost
dictates. The decision to follow this path was made in part because the nothing; from now on I will go out and take trips." 12 Mao went further. He

84 STABILIZING SOCIETY AND SOCIALIST TRANSITION STABILIZING SOCIETY AND SOCIALIST TRANSITION 85
called the urban focus of the Party a "sugarcoated bullet of the bour- provided an umbrella for cultural activities, which now no longer relied on
geoisie." Indeed, he accused the Party of establishing a "gentleman's agree- marketability for survival, but rather needed to conform to political cri-
ment" with urban capitalists and of betraying revolutionary principles. teria. In the initial years, these criteria were rather capacious. Not long
This so-called capitulation to the urban bourgeoisie was an ominous in- after, ideological control over cultural production began to narrow dra-
dicator of potential counter-revolution within the Party for Mao. matically the parameters of the possible. At the same time, elementary,
Nevertheless, at this point, Mao grudgingly recognized that the nation- secondary, and tertiary educational facilities were set up or revived after
wide scarcity of resources required central distributive controls and the the wartime destructions and displacements. Mandarin was proclaimed
new democratic transition to socialism required firm Party leadership. the national (spoken) language to unify a country of mutually incompre-
Soon enough, Mao became thoroughly disenchanted with the ways in hensible dialect speakers. Linguists embarked on what was to become the
which plodding bureaucratic routines squashed mass initiative; in which simplification of the written language aimed at boosting literacy. Physical
urban and rural inequalities were proliferating; in which the continued education was widely promoted, to strengthen the bodies of the new so-
existence of private industry and private property in the mixed economy cialist people; in these campaigns, Mao's lifelong devotion to swimming
was hindering the fulfillment of socialist principles in the cities; and, fi- was cited and promoted.
nally, the ways in which Party cadres quickly became a privileged social The CCP provided basic medicine to the remotest of communities, in-
sector, taking urban comforts and perks of power as entitlements. By the tending to wipe out the diseases that had often been fatal only because
late 1950s, Mao was to attack all of this by whipping up a mass movement. untreated. After quickly training teams of what came to be known as
For the time being, in keeping with its broad cultural concerns, the ccP "barefoot doctors" in rudimentary aspects of diagnosis and care, public
immediately embarked on literacy campaigns, educational programs, and hygiene campaigns were launched at the same time as common ailments
wide-ranging plans to deepen the reach and content of revolutionary cul- were brought under control. As a consequence, fertility rose, infant mor-
ture around the country. For these initiatives, the Party needed to tap tality declined, life expectancy began to climb, and the population sta-
the expertise, participation, and enthusiasms of intellectuals and educated bilized and then grew for the first time since the Japanese invasion of 1937.
people. Yet, Mao had always had a conflicted relationship to intellectuals, Mobile drama troupes were sent on nationwide tours to bring culture
and his ambivalence was to erupt frequently through the years, as it already and propaganda to the farthest corners of the country. Mobile film groups
had in Yan'an during the Rectification. As independent thinkers, intellec- transported projectors and screens on oxcarts and shoulder-carrying poles
tuals were not to be wholly trusted. They were elitist, bookish, and urban to the remotest of villages, to teach peasants how to watch moving pictures
based. Even if nominally Marxist, their commitments to the revolution and how to understand the narrative forms of new media. Most of the
were not in tune with Mao's cultural revolutionary policies of massifica- emphasis was on the grassroots spread of medicine, education, and culture
tion. Nevertheless, intellectuals possessed the expertise and specialized rather than on urban-based specialized institutes and knowledge acces-
knowledge required of a functioning modern society. Thus, almost from sible only by the few for the few. This bias toward massification of culture,
the very first days of the PRC in October 1949, Mao wrote letters and begun during the Yan'an years, consistently was promoted by Mao from
telegrams to major literary and cultural figures, urging them to remain 1949 on.
on the mainland to help reconstruct the Chinese nation. Many of these
figures-including many non-Communists deeply disillusioned by Chiang Hu Feng and the Counter-Revolutionary Clique
Kaishek's and GMD corruption-decided to stay in the PRC to contribute At the beginn.ing of the 1950s, relations between the Party and intellectuals
their skills and knowledge to the revolutionary transformation of China. were tentatively cooperative. With Mao's public attack on the prominent
State-sponsored cultural organizations were established shortly after Confucian philosopher Liang Shuming in 1953, the atmosphere started to
the PRC's founding, often led by non-Communists. These organizations change. In 1955, the "Hu Feng affair" put intellectuals on permanent guard

86 STABILIZING SOCIETY AND SOCIALIST TRANSITION

STABILIZING SOCIETY AND SOCIALIST TRANSITION 87
about Mao's control over "revolutionary truth." Hu Feng was a literary Q: So you became suspicious at that time?
critic with a huge reputation and a distinctive style. Loosely a Marxist, Hu A: Correct. I think so. They did not allow people to speak honestly. Once, I
was no admirer of Party strictures, and he refused to submit to Party went to have a cup of tea with Hu Feng at a teahouse in a park. They accused
discipline. He had been in debating dialogue with Communist literary me of being part of Hu's counter-revolutionary clique. This was ridiculous.
figures since the 1930s, particularly with Zhou Yang, now in charge of Later, I realized that in a political campaign [such as the anti- Hu Feng one],
cultural policy. Hu Feng had consistently warned against the creation of a there is no truth; there is only meeting the needs of the movement defined by
"cultural desert;' should Party-dictated conformism be enforced or fol- the leaders. One could be framed at will. I could not understand this principle
lowed. Nevertheless, he had elected to stay in CCP-controlled China to at that time-thankfully!-so I was dismissed from the-Party.
assist in the rebuilding of the nation. In early 1955, he was accused of ex- Q: So the whole direction of the Chinese revolution was in doubt for you
hibiting "bourgeois" tendencies and "subjectivist" deviations. By mid-1955 after that?
and much more seriously, Hu Feng was accused of being the leader of a A: ... Hu Feng turned out to be only the beginning. Those in the Party who
subversive counter-revolutionary clique allegedly intent on preparing the disagreed with Mao came to be detained. This was to completely distort truth!
way for the restoration of GMD rule. In July 1955, Hu was arrested. Only in
As Wang attests, the Hu Feng affair turned out to be only a mild har-
1980, after decades of incarceration, was Hu released. He died in 1985.
binger of what was to come next for intellectuals.
Mao was personally involved in this affair. He wrote a preface to the
published anti- Hu Feng materials, in which he hurled one politically Bandung and Third Worldism
loaded accusation after another. Most ominously, he wrote: "The Hu Feng
By the mid-1950s, the global Cold War was subjecting all nations and
elements were counter-revolutionary elements who appeared in disguise;
. peoples to its divisive logic. The Indian leader, Jawaharlal Nehru, a~d Presi-
they gave people a false image and hid their true face .. ; ." In explaining
dent Sukarno of Indonesia, among .others, insisted there was a different
how such elements could have hidden in plain sight, Mao notes: " ... the
way through the global political minefields. They called for a conference
task of distinguishing and purging bad persons can be done only by relying
. of the unaligned Asian and African nations and peoples to be held in
on the integration of correct leadership on the part of the leading organs
Bandung, Indonesia, in April1955. The PRC was among the twenty-nine
and a high degree of consciousness among the broad masses .... All these
participating nations. Its delegation was headed by Premier Zhou Enlai.
things are lessons for us." He concludes, "We are taking the Hu Feng affair
Zhou had just attended the Geneva talks in 1954, during which the de facto
seriously, because we want to use it to educate the broad masses of the
division of Vietnam after the defeat of French colonialism had been a
people, first of all those literate working cadres and the intellectuals." 13
major point of contention. An urbane, multilingual, sophisticated man,
Zhou had spent time in France in the 1920s. He was a CCP insider, Long
INTERLUDE: WANG YUANHUA ON HU FENG
March veteran, and Yan'an survivor. The international spokesperson for
Q: When did you start to have doubts about.the Chinese revolution? Maoist-style communism and the PRC, Zhou was much respected inside
A: It started from the anti- Hu Feng campaign. At that time, Hu was regarded and outside of China. M~o kept him close for the entirety of his rule.
as a counter-revolutionary. The chief of police [of Shanghai] came to speak to Zhou went to Bandung to represent the PRC not as a Communist
me. He said, in essence: "If you admit that Hu Feng is a counter-revolutionary, nation but as a third world country, whose historical legacy of colonialism
I will let you continue to work; if, however, you do not, the consequences will and of imperialist-induced developmental distortion had much in com-
be severe." He asked me to think about my answer carefully. I was detained. I mon with other African and Asian countries. At Bandung, Zhou promoted
spent a very sleepless night. The next day, he came back and I replied to him: the "new democratic" developmental plan theorized by Mao in 1940. He
"I think Hu Feng certainly maintains an anti-Marxist line, but he is not a also promoted what he and Mao called the "five principles for peaceful co-
counter-revolutionary." existence." These were intended to create the global conditions for peace,

88 STABILIZING SOCIETY AND SOCIALIST TRANSITION STABILIZING SOCIETY AND SOCIALIST TRANSITION 89
beyond the tensions of the Cold War. Indeed, China's participation in as an alien force. Always suspicious of the Soviet Union's bureaucratic
Bandung was a firm sign not only of Mao's growing attachment to third tendencies and consistently critical of analogous ccp tendencies, Mao
world identifications but also of his increasing estrangement from the could understand the impetus behind the Hungarian uprising. Of equal
Soviet Union. concern was Mao's lifelong devotion as a Communist and a Chinese to
With the high point of the PRC's normally isolated international pres- keeping China independent from Soviet control. The reality of the Soviet
ence achieved at Bandung, two events in 1956 presented Mao with an ex- army marching into Hungary was not a comforting one in this regard. It
plicit ideological challenge: the Hungarian uprising and Krushchev's de- raised the specter of a similar action against China.
nunciation of Stalin. Combined with new developments on the domestic Nevertheless, an uprising weakening Communism by challenging the
front, these created a particularly tense situation in China by the late 1950s. socialist system could not be countenanced by Mao. In his condemnation,
Mao particularly focused on the supposed betrayal of socialism by Hun-
Dealing with Stalin's Ghost garian intellectuals and technocrats, who were, according to him, advocat-
Dead in 1953, Stalin was idolized in official Chinese propaganda as a great ing the restoration of bourgeois rule. Conflating Hungarian desires to be
socialist leader. However, nothing in Nikita Krushchev's secret speech to free of the dead hand of Soviet-style bureaucracy with suspicions about the
the Soviet Politburo in 1956 detailing Stalin's terrible crimes and brutality loyalty of intellectuals to socialism, Mao gave clear indications of where his
was news to the Chinese. What needed to be explained publicly was how domestic wrath would next fall.
the most advanced socialist country in the world could have permitted
such crimes to proliferate, and, moreover, what the relationship of those On Rural Collectivization
individual crimes was to the socialist endeavor in general. This ramified By the mid-1950s, the Chinese economy was growing at a good pace,
into the larger question of what was the proper relationship between leader although agricultural production had slowed after the post-reform spurt.
(the "cult of the individual") and the Party (the collective), and between the The second five-year plan was under discussion. At the same time, the
Party and society? In turn, this question was directly related to the in- problem of Party bureaucracy and privilege was becoming worse, as was
creasingly fraught relationship between Mao and the ccP, and between the the relative disadvantage of the rural areas in relation to the urban. Mao
CCP and Chinese society. was galvanized to push forward on the next steps in China's transition to
In 1956, Mao echoed, while mitigating, Krushchev's condemnation of socialism. He decided it was time to abandon the new democratic mixed-
Stalin. Acknowledging Stalin was responsible for crimes, Mao also credited economy approach by expropriating all remaining urban private property
him with building Soviet socialism. In a balance sheet approach to become and industry and moving toward rural collectivization. These decisions
a familiar form of evaluation, Mao proclaimed Stalin mostly correct and were much contested within the Party. They not only represented inroads
partially wrong. This allowed Mao to continue to promote Stalin as a major on the Party bureaucracy's vested interests but also an ideological shift in
socialist leader, even while he launched critiques of the Stalinist method economic strategy.
and of Stalin's cult of personality. The first problem to tackle was the rural areas. In 1953, peasants were
Of even more momentous concern was the outbreak in Hungary in given the option to join low-level agricultural cooperatives. These were
November 1956 of a direct challenge to communist rule and the dispatch not producers' collectives, but rather loosely configured mutual-help or-
of Soviet troops to quell the challenge. For Mao, this presented a real ganizations. By the end of 1955, cooperativization had reached the major-
conundrum. Mao recognized how the hyper-bureaucratization of the So- ity of poor ·and middle peasants, who enthusiastically participated. With
viet system-in Eastern Europe as in the Soviet Union-and the mechanis- an initial impetus from above, this movement mostly was carried out at
tic nature of its implementation had produced social alienation. The Party, the grassroots level. Mao interpreted the grassroots upsurge as a "social-
rather than grow organically from society, was imposing itself upon society ist tidal wave" overtaking the countryside, and as a spontaneous clamor

90 STABILIZING SOCIETY AND SOCIALIST TRANSITION STABILIZING SOCIETY AND SOCIALIST TRANSITION 91
for a more decisive struggle between capitalism and socialism. 14 Seizing . terms of production, while the process of collectivizing had been smooth,
the moment, Mao immediately decided to deepen cooperativization into the actual running of the collectives was far less successful. They were
collectivization. plagued by confusions, insufficiencies in accounting procedures, ineffi-
But this was in explicit opposition to two recent Central Party Commit- ciencies in work allocations, difficulties in planning the larger units, and
tee (cPc) decisions. The CPC had opted to wait on collectivization until inequities in the distribution of the fruits of labor. Peasant enthusiasm
China had the capacity to mechanize agriculture. Mao argued mechaniza- quickly waned. Increasing coercion was required to forestall the stampede
tion was fine in theory, but in practice it put people out of work, and to withdraw from the newly formed collectives.
what China had in abundance was people. The CPC also argued the "rich In terms of politics, Mao's end-run maneuver in 1955 brought into clear
peasant economy" was most productive, and this economic form should relief the problem of the relationship between leader and Party. In ap-
be consolidated. Mao disagreed. He believed middle and poor peasants pealing directly to local cadres and the peasantry's own spontaneous ac-
should be given assistance in opposing rich peasants and ex-landlords, tivity, Mao began to separate himself from the Party's foot-dragging bu-
who were attempting to reestablish their dominance. In Mao's view, fore- reaucracy and to attach himself directly to the revolutionary people. The
stalling this restoration could only be achieved through collectivization. Party seemed to figure in Mao's speeches as a nonrevolutionary entity
In an end-run around the CPC, Mao made a speech to local Party cadres squashing the revolutionary enthusiasms of the people. The Party was
in July 1955 urging further cooperativization and collectivization. The becoming an enemy of the people.
response was overwhelmingly supportive. Mao proclaimed, ''A high tide in
the new socialist mass movement will soon sweep across the rural areas On the Ten Major Relationships

throughout the country. Some of our comr.ades, however, are tottering For the time being, peasants were organizing into collectives, and the next
along like a woman with bound feet, complaining all the time about others, problem was solving the recalibration of the overall economic relation-
saying: [You're] going too fast, [you're] going too fast. [They are given to] ships in society. In 1956, Mao spoke to this issue in a series of essays,
excessive nitpicking, unwarranted complaints, endless worries, and count- speeches, and reports. All of these increased tensions between himself and
less taboos and take this to be the correct policy for guiding the socialist the Party. They also addressed Mao's differences from Stalin. In Mao's
mass movement in the rural areas. No, this is not the correct policy; it is a view, the Stalinist approach to development refused to acknowledge the
wrong policy." 15 complexity of the relationship between a planned economy and the bu-
Collectivization required the incorporation of all peasants, not just the reaucratic state. This had been one of Mao's concerns in Yan'an. His essay
willing ones. It required the end of most privately owned land, the end of of 1956 "On the Ten Major Relationships" and his slightly later "Notes on
family farming, and the pooling of resources. Richer peasants were not A Critique of Soviet Economics" present his attempt to rethink the state's
enthusiastic, and many were downright hostile. However, they were over- relationship to production under socialism, as well as the proper role of
run by enthusiasms among poor and middle peasants, who had everything technocrats and intellectuals in the economic and social life of a socialist
to gain by collectivizing resources. The rich-peasant land, livestock, and nation.
implements were summarily incorporated into producer collectives, and With the second five-year plan under discussion, the concrete problem
by 1956 over 90 percent of the rural population was incorporated into col- facing Mao was the method by which the state could accumulate invest-
lectives. The astonishingly quick movement had been completed mostly ment capital in a situation of domestic scarcity, and where attracting for-
without violence. This agricultural socialization process stood in great eign capital was not an option. What Mao found most unpalatable in the
contrast to the 1930s Stalinist version, which had entailed intense state Soviet system was the focus on extraction from the peasantry, who were
violence and coercion accompanied by waves of executions. Mao took made to bear the brunt of industrialization's costs. This was precisely the
many opportunities to point proudly to the differences. system put in place in 1953 in China that developmentalists within the
Two major issues emerged from the collectivization movement. In Party wanted to continue into the second five-year plan. Yet the peasantry

92 STABILIZING SOCIETY AND SOCIALIST TRANSITION STABILIZING SOCIETY AND SOCIALIST TRANSITION 93
was Mao's strongest constituency, and their standards of living and access All of this was monumentally contested. First, the reversal of deter-
to commodities were actually falling in relation to their urban compatriots. minations-relations leading production rather than production leading
This was intolerable. relations-meant the Party bureaucracy's role in directing the growth of
The essay on the ten major relationships is a dense consideration of the forces of production would be demoted. This was a direct attack on the
socialist economic laws, the particulars of which are of interest only to the Party. Moreover, the urban-located heavy industrial bias of all develop-
,specialist. However, the astonishing upshot of the essay was Mao's re- ment policy was under assault. Second, Mao's theories seemed to be ques-
articulation of one of the major Marxist precepts of economic develop- tionable, relying as they did on faith in the revolutionary people's con-
ment. In orthodox Marxism-Stalinism included-the most important sciousness and activity in overcoming material limitations. Third, Mao was
economic and thus social relationship is between the forces ofproduction intervening in matters hitherto left to technocrats and specialists, whom
(the capacity for machinery, factories, electrical supply, etc.) and the social he was critiquing for their urban, elitist ("bourgeois") biases. This set up
relations of production (the mode of exploitation and organization, e.g., the battle lines that were soon enough to be fought out at the mass and
waged labor, slavery, etc.). Orthodox Marxists hold that the relations of inner-Party levels.
production are wholly determined by the level of the forces of production.
For example, classical capitalism demands industrial waged labor aimed at On Contradictions among the People
garnering maximum profits for the capitalist; feudalism demands agricul- In a third intervention into the problems of the late 1950s-following
tural tenancy presided over by landlords, whose extraction of surplus is those on peasants and economic development-Mao reopened the ques-
economically unproductive but politically empowering. And so on. As a tion of "the people" and of politics under socialism. In his important "On
Marxist, Mao accepted these basic elements. Yet, what Mao did in his the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People" of February
essay was to reverse the determinations. That is, rather than the forces 1957, Mao called for a people's. movement to critique the Party and Party
determining the relations, according to Mao, in the historical situation methods. Here, Mao specifically defined intellectuals as part of the revolu-
of scarcity in which China found itself, it would have to be the social tionary "people" and placed the burden of critique mostly on them. He
relations of production that would determine the level of the forces of noted that their critiques of the Party and of bureaucratic methods would
production. As such, even though China's forces were quite backward, have to be handled as friendly critiques, not as hostile ones. They should
advanced collectivized social relations of production would be the way to not be suppressed, as the critiques of enemies would be. Mao went further.
enhance them. He proclaimed in socialist society, where economic classes had basically
Translated into a matter of policy, Mao advocated the radical alteration been abolished, contradictions continued to exist. These contradictions
of the relations of production, rather than work exclusively for the growth were sometimes even of a fundamental, or antagonistic, variety. But, he
in productive forces as more orthodox Party economists were advocating. specified, so long as these contradictions are "among the people;' they are
In the rural areas, this meant collectivization as a means for enhancing non-antagonistic. Only contradictions between "the people" and the "non-
productivity; in urban industry, it meant overhauling the organization of people" are antagonistic and must be dealt with dictatorially.
factory floors to enhance worker participation in management. Overall, it Much of this was familiar enough as Maoist analytical method or as
required a much tighter integration of rural and urban economies than the settled ideology. What was extraordinary in the speech was Mao's pro-
essentially extractive one currently being pursued. It called for the spatial nouncement that in the China of 1950s, there was a contradiction "be-
reorganization of industrialization, so that it would no longer be located tween the leadership and the led" and it could be an antagonistic one.
only in the cities, but rather dispersed through the countryside as well. Clearly, for Mao, "the leadership" was not himself, but the Party. His insin-
This would bring the social relations of industrial production closer to the uation was that "the people" (and Mao as their spokesperson) were better
social relations of rural production. It would simultaneously fulfill Mao's arbiters of revolutionary truth than the Party. Intellectuals were invited to
desire to revolutionize society and to develop the Chinese economy. give voice to "the people."

94 STABILIZING SOCIETY AND SOCIALIST TRANSITION STABILIZING SOCIETY AND SOCIALIST TRANSITION 95
 The implications were staggering, and they were not lost on Party lead- accused right-wingers and counter-revolutionaries of abusing the invita-
ers. First, Mao implied, the Party was now, only seven years into socialism, tion to "the people" to voice their opinions. Many observers thought, based
thoroughly divorced from the society it ruled. It was a force above rather on this indication, the crackdown would be limited in scope and token in
than a force of the people. It had lost its claims to revolutionariness. Sec- nature. They were wrong.
ond, Mao placed himself conspicuously outside the Party on the side of Intellectuals were hounded and labeled as "rightists;' or worse, counter-
the people, from whence he and they could criticize the Party. This gave revolutionaries. They were summarily kicked out of the ranks of "the peo-
enormous impetus to the Mao cult. Third, and perhaps worst (from the ple." Purges ensued. Some intellectuals were subjected to house arrest and
Party's perspective), in proclaiming a contradiction between the leadership forced to write and rewrite self-criticisms confessing their thought crimes.
and the led, Mao seemed to be advocating popular struggle against the Others were sent for re-education, their right to urban residencies re-
Party. He had transposed class struggle within society into struggle be- voked. A few were executed or harassed to death. Institutions where in-
tween the Party and society. The ccP was put on guard. Yet Party leaders tellectuals were employed fell under a pall. Silence fell, except for the
remained silent. shrill denunciations proceeding in the newspapers and media. Intellectuals
feared to speak out. Even worse, they feared to speak to one another,
Lei One Hundred Flowers Bloom
lest they be forced to report on colleagues or friends under suspicion.
One immediate consequence of Mao's invitation to the people to speak They hunkered down, waiting for their turn to come. Unlike the Stalinist
was the gradual opening of social spaces of critique. Newspapers published purges, where a knock on the door after midnight heralded doom, in
at first tentative and then increasingly vituperative criticisms of unjust Maoist China, doom came through words, in newspapers and wall posters.
Party methods, incredible inefficiency, poor planning, inadequate atten- It came in tortured interpretations of texts, that shortly before had ap-
tion to everyday life and people's needs, and so on. Names were not often peared innocuous. It came in social shunning and rumors and insinua-
given in the articles, but they certainly were signed by their authors. Cri- tions. It came as social death.
tiques appeared in wall posters, in pamphlets, and in any number of per- With critics muzzled and the Party now back on his side, Mao went on
manent and ephemeral written forms. The "blooming and contending" of to his next projects.
the hundred flowers-diverse opinion-was astonishing in its range from
May- June 1957. Equally astonishing was that most of the published or
posted commentary was premised upon an absolute acceptance of the
socialist system and the CCP as a ruling party. It was intended as honest
suggestion to make the system work better not to overthrow it. The major-
ity of the critique fell upon the Party's abandonment of its revolutionary
principles, and the high-handed bureaucratic ways transforming Party
cadres into a privileged social class.
Intellectuals, at first quite wary, soon found it safe enough to speak out.
They did so in droves. And they came to regret it in droves.
Although much of the expressed critical sentiment paralleled Mao's
own dissatisfactions with the Party, the flood of discontent was disturbing
to Mao and, of course, to the rest of the Party leadership. On June 8, 1957,
Mao endorsed an editorial in the Party mouthpiece, The People's Daily,
declaring "poisonous weeds" had grown among the "fragrant flowers." This
was a clear sign of a crackdown. Now joined by fellow ccP leaders, Mao

96 STABILIZING SOCIETY AND SOCIALIST TRANSITION

STABILIZING SOCIETY AND SOCIALIST TRANSITION 97
~~ Great Leap and Resloralloa, 1958-1965

With the anti-rightist campaign in full swing, rural collectiviza-

tion all but completed, and urban private property and indus-
tries now under state ownership, Mao was in a good mood in the
summer of 1957. Even the Party leaders with whom he'd been at
odds were back on his side. In a July article prepared for a meet-
ing in Qingdao of provincial leaders, Mao noted that the difficul-
ties China was facing were part of the struggle "between the two
roads-socialism and capitalism." He added, "Complete victory
in this struggle will take a very long time. It is a task for the en-
tire transition period." 1 Clearly, capitalism as an economic system
no longer existed in China. Here, "capitalism" meant "bourgeois
thought" and "rightism;' while "socialism" pointed to revolution-
ary consciousness, or, increasingly, loyalty to Mao himself.

Mao Goes to Moscow, Again

In 19 57, Mao even had reason to feel more kindly toward the So-
viet Union. His wife, Jiang Qing, had been diagnosed in late 1956
with Stage One cervical cancer. Her doctors advised her to go to
Moscow for treatment, as Soviet cancer facilities were more ad-
vanced than China's. She had returned some months later by all
medical standards cured, although, apparently convinced she was
still ill. Her paranoia about her health only got worse.
When Mao was invited to attend Nikita Krushchev's celebra-
tion of the USSR's fortieth birthday in November 1957, he de-
cided to accept. He was eager to go to Moscow, now not as the
supplicant he had been in 1949, but as leader of the most populous Com- rural and urban areas through rural collectivization and factory-floor re-
munist country in the world. He gathered a contingent of high-level Party form. The next part of the transition was to rest on large labor-intensive
insiders and staff to accompany him. The latter included, for example, his infrastructural projects. Of priority among them was water conservancy,
Chinese-style and Western -style doctors, his Hunanese chef and Western- involving the building of reservoirs and dams for local irrigation and drink-
style cook, a nurse, and others. The many Party leaders who went included ing. Other projects such as bridges and roads were also launched. The col-
Mao's secretary, Chen Boda, as well as Deng Xiaoping and Peng Dehuai. lectivization of agriculture and efficiencies of scale provided ample peasant
Song Qingling, Sun Yatsen's widow and the token non-Communist in labor to be siphoned off for this construction.
state-level office, also attended. In order to signal the importance of these projects, in May 1958, Mao
Rather than take the train, Mao flew to Moscow on a Russian plane sent and other top leaders went to the outskirts of Beijing where a dam was
to pick him up, fully stocked with caviar and vodka. Krushchev ceremo- being built. Mao worked there with a shovel for half an hour in the midday
nially met him at the airport and took him directly to his living quarters, a heat. A picture of him was snapped by an accompanying newspaper pho-
former tsarina's palace. Mao refused to use the flush toilet adjoining his tographer. The next day, it was plastered across the front page of papers
room, preferring to squat over the chamber pot he'd brought. He also across the country. Provincial leaders immediately ordered dams and res-
refused to eat the food prepared by the Russian cooks, not for fear of ervoirs to be built in their localities, and each went on a ritual shovel-
poisoning, but because he detested it. His Hunanese chef cooked all his wielding visit to demonstrate proximity to the laboring masses.
meals, which he ate in private. Otherwise, Mao seemed to enjoy the opu- Yet, a rapid increase in modern infrastructure was only part of the "go
lent setting, although only because it bespoke his high prestige in the all out, aim high" movement. More fundamentally and far more destruc-
Communist world. tively, Mao announced China would surpass England in steel production
On November 7, 1957, Mao stood with Krushchev orr the leaders' re- within fifteen: years and overtake America in grain and steel in thirty. A
viewing stand. With St. Basil's cathedral and the crenellated walls of the frenzy of activity set in to achieve these goals.
Kremlin as backdrop, waves of impressive goose-stepping military contin-
gents passed by on the cobblestone streets of Red Square. After issuing his Great Leap Forward

Moscow Declaration, in which he lavishly lauded Soviet progress and in- From mid-1958 through mid-1959, China was gripped by this frenzy. For
ternational Communist unity, Mao returned to Beijing on November 20- the two years after, the country was enveloped in lies and stalked by starva-
also by Russian plane-elated with his international visibility and success. tion and mass death. Maoism gone horridly awry was at the root of the
problems; sycophantic and cowed advisors abetted them.
"Go All Out, Aim High, and Build Socialism" Mao believed in the capacity of revolutionary masses to overcome ob-
Mao turned immediately to domestic matters. At a meeting in Chengdu, jective obstacles. This was as true of raising levels of production in grain or
Sichuan Province, in early 1958, the Maoist slogan that was to guide the steel as it was of pursuing revolution or waging war against a superior foe.
next several years-disastrously, it turned ·aut-started to make an ap- Mao had patience for neither plodding planners nor overly cautious bu-
pearance. It went (more succinctly in Chinese than is possible to render in reaucrats. He had even less patience for leaders at any level who said higher
English), "Go all-out, aim high, and build socialism with greater, faster, production targets could not be achieved. Indeed, in Mao's view, one key to
better, and more economical results." This was an opaque signal that eco- achieving higher production was "permanent revolution." This meant, for
nomic planners and Party bureaucrats were going to take a backseat to a him, that revolution was not a one-time event, but a long-term, ever-
mass movement. The contours of the contemplated movement were not deepening, neverending process. If revolution waned, bureaucracy took
yet clear. What was clear was Mao's dissatisfaction with plodding progress over. That spelled the death of historical progress. Mao's faith in the revo-
and his wish to accelerate China's transition to socialism. lutionarily aroused people conditioned his rapidly evolving view of de-
The relations of production had been at least partially transformed in velopment. In 1956, he had already articulated the theoretical framework

100 GREAT LEAP AND RESTORATION GREAT LEAP AND RESTORATION 101
going to test the theory m practice by mobilizing the people. This test was · (educated).
called the "great leap forward." As communization was getting under way, Mao and the Party leader-
Mao offered the theory of a developmental "leap" in explicit opposition ship were in their summer retreat in Beidaihe, on the northeast coast.
to the process of slow, steady development advocated by the Soviet eco- There, they combined meetings with family vacations and escape from the
nomic crowd (and by economists of any persuasion). It postulated that if Beijing heat. Mao was increasingly stifled by a number of internal Party
people worked with a high enough sense of purpose, all existing barriers to intrigues he had fomented himself. Jiang Qing's paranoia about her nurses'
productivity could be shattered. A leap in social wealth and well-being alleged intent to kill her was also a constant irritant. Mao took every
could be achieved in very little time. This pursuit could be accomplished opportunity to tour the country, to escape this stultifying atmosphere.
with activated masses. "Bourgeois" thinkers within the Party as well as go- Apprised of the commune initiative, he wanted to take a look. In August
slow bureaucrats in the localities were the main obstacles to this endeavor. 1958, under a blazing summer sun, Mao was ushered to communes around
Mao swept these obstacles aside with one sentence, uttered as he toured the country by eager local cadres. Wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat,
newly formed people's communes in the summer of 1958. the sixty-four-year-old Mao outstripped all of them with his long strides
In Marxist theory, communes demonstrate a higher stage of the social- and complete indifference to the heat. He and his flagging retinue were
ization of rural production than do collectives. In their formation in China, followed by reporters and photographers from the official New China
communes transferred economic decision making from central bodies to News Agency. The crops were growing beautifully, the spring and summer
the local-level authorities working within the production units themselves. weather had been perfect, the harvest promised to be abundant, and the
For full use of available labor power and local resources, it was people on mood was buoyant if a little torrid. At one spot, Mao proclaimed: "The
the ground who knew best, not faraway bureaucrats. Most important, people's commune is great." 2 The very next day, these words were banner
communes were a form of people's ownership, where private property was headlines in newspapers across the country. In short order, communiza-
completely dissolved into the communal whole. tion drives were started or accelerated everywhere. The "spontaneous"
In China in the late 1950s, communes were created from the amalgama- movement took on a life of its own, and by the end of 1958, almost half a
tion of collectives. As larger units, they housed the production of crops and billion people were incorporated into these new structures. In a burst of
grain; but also as small- and medium-sized industries, they provided com- exuberance, Mao hailed this movement as the transition from socialism
modities for local use. Rural areas would no longer rely on urban industry into communism.
for their consumer needs; everyday items chronically in short supply such Meanwhile, Mao's rash promise that China's steel production would
as thermoses, toothbrushes, pails, and twine and rope would now be pro- surpass England's within fifteen years and overtake America's in thirty had
duced locally. This was the goal of self-sufficiency taken to a new level of led to some strange developments. At a trivial level, many children born in
self-reliance. It represented a true break from Soviet methods. It also held 1958 and 1959 were named "Chaoying" ("Surpass England") or "Chaomei"
out the possibility for raising rural standards of living by employing sea- ("Overtake America';). When the Great Leap was repudiated many years
sonally underemployed rural labor in industry, without people migrating later, a number of this demographic cohort felt compelled to change their
to the cities. now embarrassing name~. At a much more serious level, backyard furnaces
The size of the commune units also allowed for medical and educational were encouraged so that each family and locality could contribute to the
facilities to be established at central locations within each; the surplus to overall targets in steel production. This was a waste of time, labor, and
fund these endeavors, rather than being sent to the central state, would resources. Scarce fuel was burned to keep the furnaces going; household
remain local. In this way, communes were to replicate the combined pro- implements were melted down for their trivial amounts of iron ore; and
ductive and socio-cultural functions of the integrated urban work unit labor better used for the harvest of bumper crops was eaten up by these
established earlier at the factories. This would produce in the countryside schemes. And, the steel ingots produced in these furnaces were useless.

102 GREAT LEAP AND RESTORATION GREAT LEAP AND RESTORATION 103
going to test the theory in practice by mobilizing the people. This test was (educated).
called the "great leap forward." As communization was getting under way, Mao and the Party leader-
Mao offered the theory of a developmental "leap" in explicit opposition ship were in their summer retreat in Beidaihe, on the northeast coast.
to the process of slow, steady development advocated by the Soviet eco- There, they combined meetings with family vacations and escape from the
nomic crowd (and by economists of any persuasion). It postulated that if Beijing heat. Mao was increasingly stifled by a number of internal Party
people worked with a high enough sense of purpose, all existing barriers to intrigues he had fomented himself. Jiang Qing's paranoia about her nurses'
productivity could be shattered. A leap in social wealth and well-being alleged intent to kill her was also a constant irritant. Mao took every
could be achieved in very little time. This pursuit could be accomplished opportunity to tour the country, to escape this stultifying atmosphere.
with activated masses. "Bourgeois" thinkers within the Party as well as go- Apprised of the commune initiative, he wanted to take a look. In August
slow bureaucrats in the localities were the main obstacles to this endeavor. 1958, under a blazing summer sun, Mao was ushered to communes around
Mao swept these obstacles aside with one sentence, uttered as he toured the country by eager local cadres. Wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat,
newly formed people's communes in the summer of 1958. the sixty-four-year-old Mao outstripped all of them with his long strides
In Marxist theory, communes demonstrate a higher stage of the social- and complete indifference to the heat. He and his flagging retinue were
ization of rural production than do collectives. In their formation in China, followed by reporters and photographers from the official New China
communes transferred economic decision making from central bodies to News Agency. The crops were growing beautifully, the spring and summer
the local-level authorities working within the production units themselves. weather had been perfect, the harvest promised to be abundant, and the
For full use of available labor power and local resources, it was people on mood was buoyant if a little torrid. At one spot, Mao proclaimed: "The
the ground who knew best, not faraway bureaucrats. Most important, people's commune is great."2 The very next day, these words were banner
communes were a form of people's ownership, where pri':ate property was headlines in newspapers across the country. In short order, communiza-
completely dissolved into the communal whole. tion drives were started or accelerated everywhere. The "spontaneous"
In China in the late 1950s, communes were created from the amalgama- movement took on a life of its own, and by the end of 1958, almost half a
tion of collectives. As larger units, they housed the production of crops and billion people were incorporated into these new structures. In a burst of
grain; but also as small- and medium-sized industries, they provided com- exuberance, Mao hailed this movement as the transition from socialism
modities for local use. Rural areas would no longer rely on urban industry into communism.
for their consumer needs; everyday items chronically in short supply such Meanwhile, Mao's rash promise that China's steel production would
as thermoses, toothbrushes, pails, and twine and rope would now be pro- surpass England's within fifteen years and overtake America's in thirty had
duced locally. This was the goal of self-sufficiency taken to a new level of led to some strange developments. At a trivial level, many children born in
self-reliance. It represented a true break from Soviet methods. It also held 1958 and 1959 were named "Chaoying" ("Surpass England") or "Chaomei"
out the possibility for raising rural standards of living by employing sea- ("Overtake America"). When the Great Leap was repudiated many years
sonally underemployed rural labor in industry, without people migrating later, a number of this demographic cohort felt compelled to change their
to the cities. now embarrassing natp.es. At a much more serious level, backyard furnaces
The size of the commune units also allowed for medical and educational were encouraged so that each family and locality could contribute to the
facilities to be established at central locations within each; the surplus to overall targets in steel production. This was a waste of time, labor, and
fund these endeavors, rather than being sent to the central state, would resources. Scarce fuel was burned to keep the furnaces going; household
remain local. In this way, communes were to replicate the combined pro- implements were melted down for their trivial amounts of iron ore; and
ductive and socio-cultural functions of the integrated urban work unit labor better used for the harvest of bumper crops was eaten up by these
established earlier at the factories. This would produce in the countryside schemes. And, the steel ingots produced in these furnaces were useless.

GREAT LEAP AND RESTORATION 103

102 GREAT LEAP AND RESTORATION
 anu mass parnCipanon m economic development. !{ather than dampen Mao's desire for and commitment to female "liberation through labor."
this mass movement, Mao encouraged it. And yet, the problem to which the feminist literary figure, Ding Ling,
The Great Leap Forward also called for the partial industrialization of had pointed in 1942 in Yan'an, and to which she had returned in 1957
the rural areas. Far from complete or adequate at the time, this early effort during the "hundred flowers" movement, was exacerbated. Women's dou-
became one of the building blocks for the post-Maoist resurgence of the ble burden became intolerably difficult to manage. With the invisibility of
rural areas in the early 198os (although most Chinese analysts and West- household reproductive labor in the productivity statistics, the fact that
errt scholars do not acknowledge this history). The goal of self-reliance was someone had to give birth to and take care of children, cook food, and
never achieved, but small-scale commodity production was temporarily clean the house, in addition to all the domestic maintenance women usu-
established in many localities. However, if China was to be a national ally performed, disappeared from view. Women were celebrated in their
market, as economic planners had striven to make it, the uncoordinated public role as "iron women;' for their heroic contributions to production.
proliferation of local-level industrialization was redundant and wasteful. Meanwhile, they were forced to silently struggle with household chores.
For, each locality now strove to produce everything it needed on its own, Ding Ling, who had courageously spoken out in 1942 and then again in
whether or not local production was efficient or sensible. Not only was the 1957 on the issue, was sent for a second time for re-education among the
national-level economy sacrificed in the name of local self-reliance, but masses during the anti-rightist campaign.
the same commodities were made (sometimes poorly) by each commune, Focused as he was on productivity, Mao addressed the problem of
thereby stunting regional exchange and markets. This soon led to the household reproductive labor by encouraging the formation of communal
stockpiling of certain resources in certain areas and shortages in other canteens, where everyone would eat together. This was supposed to free
areas; gluts of certain commodities in some places and scarcity of neces- women from family cooking chores. These were formed during the Great
sities in other places. With neither markets iwr central pl~nning, the econ- Leap period, but never became popular among the peasants. The quality of
omy ceased to function. the food and the cooking was bad; the distances people needed to travel to
get to the canteens were sometimes formidable; and rather than increase
Iron Women
efficiency, the canteens proved to add to women's burdens.
Another central aspect of the "Great Leap" was the total mobilization of
all able-bodied people in agricultural and industrial production. This in- Quemoy and Matsu, and Krushchev' s Secret Visit to Beijing
cluded women. While encouraging women to join production had been In the midst of all these developments and after several routine provoca-
a fundamental policy from the beginning of the Maoist period, it was tions, in August 1958 the PRC took the unprecedented step of bombarding
stressed even more in these years. There emerged at this time the phenom- the islands of Quemoy and Matsu from the Fujian coast. These two islands
enon of the "iron woman." in the Taiwan Straits were GMD-garrisoned buffer zones between Taiwan
Because of the lack of mechanization in China, all projects were labor and the mainland located within shouting distance of China's Fujian Prov-
intensive. Women's labor was particularly .needed in the fields, as male ince. The Straits were patrolled by the United States Seventh Naval Fleet as
labor was dedicated to the backyard furnaces and construction projects. part of the U.S. protec~orate around Chiang Kaishek on Taiwan. With the
"Iron women" were born, as it were, as more women began performing bombings, everyone went on high alert, including Chiang's military and
nontraditional tasks. In the fields, they drove water buffalo teams and U.S. army troops and air force personnel based in Taiwan, Japan, Korea,
tractors for plowing, traditionally a man's job. In the factories, women and the Philippines. After an exchange of heated rhetoric, the Quemoy and
moved in droves into management, which combined administrative and Matsu crisis did not develop into a full-scale war. As Mao later said of the
labor roles. Women competed with one another and with men for high issue, "The United States wants to sign a declaration demanding Chiang
productivity. Those women who gained distinction in these competitions Kai-shek not fight us and we not fight Chiang Kai-shek. We say no, be-
104 GREAT LEAP AND RESTORATION
GREAT LEAP AND RESTORATION 105
 I - -- - - - ~ . ~ - • • -~ •
physically stunted because of malnourishment. The worst hit, however,
Even the Soviet leader, Krushchev, was nonplussed by Mao's brinks-
were in the countryside, where whatever grain there was had been requisi-
manship. In the late summer of 1959, Krushchev sent an urgent message to
tioned for urban use. This left peasants to fend for themselves. Soon they
Mao indicating he wished to visit Beijing in secret. Mao traveled in from
began to die of starvation. Local leaders were too afraid to inform central
Beidaihe to meet him. Krushchev was received poolside at Zhongnanhai,
authorities of the extent of distress. After all, they had reported bumper
with Mao in swimming trunks and a robe draped around his shoulders.
crops and endless abundance. Those few who tried to make the problems
The Soviet leader had brought no swimming gear. He was lent a swimsuit.
known were accused of "bourgeois" thinking or "rightism." Most ducked
It turned out he did not know how to swim. Part of his talks with Mao
their heads, hoping to survive physically and politically.
took place as he bobbed in the pool enclosed in a life preserver, sur-
More people died.
rounded by bodyguards. The interpreters tried their best to translate from
the pool's edges. 4 The 1959-61 famine was enormous. In a contested retrospective num-
bers game, reliable statistics are impossible to find. Most responsible de-
Krushchev wanted to inform Mao personally of his change in policy to-
mographic estimates put the number of dead at some fifteen to twenty
ward the United States. At his meeting with President Eisenhower at Camp
million. The vast majority of those were peasants, with the old, young, and
David in early 1959, Krushchev had pledged to engage with the Ameri-
female particularly vulnerable. City dwellers did not witness the pileups of
cans, rather than continue the purely confrontational path Stalin had trod.
corpses in rural areas. Rural refugees were barred from entering the cities.
He wanted Mao to ratchet down tensions with the United States. After
There was a total internal news blackout on the topic. Famine refugees
three days of inconclusive talks-and some uncomfortable swimming-
who managed to escape to Hong Kong alerted Western China-watchers to
Krushchev returned to Moscow in a towering rage.
the situation. Yet, they could only report about their own localities and had
Gl'eat Famine no sense of the scale of disaster. Only in the 1980s, after the official relaxa-
tion of some prohibitions on evaluating the Mao period, did the severity of
The combination of enthusiasms and irrational initiatives, along with Mao's
the famine become known to the world and to the Chinese.
increasing dismissal of criticism of himself, his policies, and theories, pro-
duced a tragic situation in China by 1959. Provincial and local authorities, Shaoshan, the Lushan Confel'enc:e, and the Fall of Peng Dehuai
eager to be on the right side of history and of Mao, reported crazily inflated
Rumors of disaster began to reach Mao. Isolated from reality, he decided to
statistics intended to demonstrate the massive gains made in steel and
travel to the one place he knew he could get a straight answer: his home-
grain production. Based upon these falsified numbers, it remained unclear
town, Shaoshan. In his first visit there since 1927, Mao re-encountered old
for some time that crops were rotting in the field for lack oflabor to harvest
friends, neighbors, and distant relations. He was apprised of some of the
them. Women and children working sixteen-hour days were insufficient
difficulties people were experiencing at the everyday level. And yet Shao-
for what would have been the largest harvest in Chinese history. It was
shan, Mao's birthplace, was accorded special administrative treatment by
clear the steel produced in backyard furnaces was unusable in any form,
the Party; as such, conditions there were much better than in other places.
and yet no one dared to call a halt to such p~ojects.
The picture Mao got was not of absolute disaster but of certain difficulties.
Hunger began to stalk the land. Even in privileged locations, such as
Mao stopped eating ~eat in solidarity with the people's troubles.
Zhongnanhai, scarcities of meat and vegetables began showing up. The
By the summer of 1959, the communes had more or less collapsed, and
military, usually the best fed of any group other than the Party leaders,
many of the Great Leap initiatives were faltering. Mao decided the com-
tightened their belts and substituted coarse grains for rice. Urban dwellers
ing Party Plenum would be devoted to discussion of developmental pol-
found food more and more difficult to obtain, and rationing was estab-
icy. Held in the mountain resort town, Lushan-where missionaries and
lished to ensure a certain minimum of necessities for each family. It often
foreign diplomats in the nineteenth century and early twentieth, and
106 GREAT LEAP AND RESTORATION
GREAT LEAP AND RESTORATION 107
 ~~ --~-~-- 0 ---- --------~L ··~...... rurnea out to be
u ..... _._.,511ut .~.~a.tLy rtenum
· would protect him; his extraordinary service in the Korean War; his bril-
an extraordinary event. Party leaders were entirely aware of the human
liance as a general; his steadfastness as a Communist; his alliances in the
and economic disaster into which the country had been driven. Many
Party. He was wrong on all counts. Peng was dismissed in disgrace. Mao's
had gone on tours of the country and discovered the enormity of the
protege, Lin Biao, took over as commander of the PLA. The country was
problems. They intended to use the Plenum to restore some measure of
stunned.
planning to the national economy. However, the meeting was soon over-
With famine and now bad weather gripping the land, Mao's victory at
taken by an irreparable conflict between the two old comrades in arms,
Lushan was fleeting. His exhortations to revive the commune movement
Mao and Peng Dehuai.
found little resonance in rhetoric or practice. People were simply ex-
Peng was now Minister of Defense. He was particularly unhappy about
hausted and famished; local officials were lying low. By the end of 1959,
the Great Leap, believing it was weakening China just as the USSR was
Mao recognized the magnitude of the economic disaster and resigned as
establishing a rapprochement with the United States. He also had wit-
Chairman of the PRC. Retaining his title as Chairman of the Communist
nessed the starvation in the country. Peng stood up to Mao at the Plenum,
Party, he gave up its daily management. Those tasks were transferred to
accusing him of "petty bourgeois fanaticism" and demanding an end to the
Liu Shaoqi. By 1960, Mao had lost control of Party and state. Only the
policies. For two weeks, Mao patiently listened to one critique of himself
army, now under Lin Biao, was still in Mao's pocket.
after the next, led by Peng. Finally, he took the floor. In his speech of
From 1960 to 1965, Mao essentially withdrew from political center
July 23, Mao affirmed the communes and the basic direction of the Great
stage. Proclaiming, "Bourgeois elements have infiltrated our Communist
Leap, even while he called the backyard furnaces a "great catastrophe." He
Party;' 7 he operated from behind the scenes. He traveled in the country,
blamed falsified reporting and poor local implementation for the accumu-
avoided as much as possible Zhongnanhai, and remained aloof from what
lation of problems, yet he acknowledged that he was ultimately responsible
he saw as the bourgeois takeover of the Party.
for the chaos in the country. Then he began to retreat: ·"Everybody has
faults. Even Confucius made mistakes. I have also seen Lenin's handwritten Mao and His Wives
manuscripts which had been altered so much that they looked a real mess.
By 1960, Mao and Jiang Qing were living almost entirely apart. Jiang win-
If he had not made mistakes, why did he have to correct them?"s
tered in Guangzhou (Canton), where the weather was milder and less
The Plenum wanted to reverse policy course. Mao called for the con-
troublesome to her host of largely imaginary ailments than the cold of
tinued tapping of mass enthusiasm for communism. Most spectacularly,
Beijing. She occasionally joined Mao on some of his trips, but mostly
Mao warned, if the commune movement was suppressed, "I will go to the
enjoyed watching movies (chiefly Western), dancing, engaging in pho-
countryside to lead the peasants to overthrow the government. If those of
tography (at which she was genuinely talented), and other leisure activities
you in the Liberation Army won't follow me, then I will go and find a Red
in specially built facilities for her exclusive use. On occasion, she invited
Army, and organize another Liberation Army. But I think the Liberation
others to join her. She was an intelligent, ambitious woman at loose ends.
Army would follow me."6 Mao was threatening to go directly to the peas-
In the summer of 1961, Mao was back at Lushan, nominally for a Party
ants to overthrow the CCP! The Plenum quickiy fell into line, fearing a huge
meeting. There, he had ~ause to send for He Zizhen, his second wife, now
political and even larger social upheaval.
suffering from schizophrenia. She arrived at the mountain resort, and
Mao's target was clear. Peng Dehuai, Minister of Defense and leader of
when they met, she apparently recognized Mao, but then went blank. Mao
the People's Liberation Army (PLA, renamed after 1949), was not following
was immensely saddened by her aspect, mental state, and the signs of
Mao. He would have to go. He was to be punished for standing up to Mao
advanced old age. This was the last time he was ever to see He Zizhen; he
(and for the rankling phrase about petty bourgeois fanaticism). Peng had
gave her money and had her escorted away.

108 GREAT LEAP AND RESTORATION

GREAT LEAP AND RESTORATION 109
 --~ ---------------- --------- -----· -r•••
nese revisionism." 8 In July 1964, Mao released a pamphlet On Krushchov's
In 1960, China's self-induced economic crisis was exacerbated by Kru- Phoney Communism and Its Historical Lessons for the World. It was a
shchev's recall of the 1,400 Soviet scientists and technology specialists and wholesale attack on Soviet "revisionism." Appearing among the proceed-
advisors working in China. Most of these were involved in urban-based ings of the Central Committee meeting of that time, the pamphlet was
industrial sites of major national importance. The blow was enormous. carried in all the major Chinese newspapers. While the author was always
Many projects came to a screeching halt. Over time, much of China's given as the Editorial Committees of the People's Daily and Red Flag (both
machinery, imported from the Soviet Union, was .impossible to fix, as spare mouthpieces of the CCP ), it is generally agreed that Mao was the motivator
parts became unavailable when relations between the countries deterio- behind this pamphlet and its release to the public. The domestic implica-
rated completely and trade relations broke down. tions of all this were not immediately evident. They were to become so
Problems between China and the Soviet Union had been brewing for soon enough.
some time. In addition to the ideological differences, there was no love lost
between Krushchev and Mao personally. In September 1959, China and Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping, and Restoration
India fought a border war in a territorial dispute left over from the colonial Mao's retreat from the political scene left it open for others. The restora-
period. The dispute had been reactivated due to the PLA invasion of Tibet. tion of the economy in the post-Great Leap years called forth the restora-
At the time, Chinese troops made a number of incursions into what In- tion of the bureaucracy. Laid low by hunger and indifference to politics,
dians said was India but what the Chinese claimed as their own territory. the masses seemed only too happy to comply. Rather than "leaping;' politi-
The Indians counterattacked, and Krushchev upheld Nehru. In addition to cal predictability and economic stability and efficiency were the new or-
Krushchev's disapproval of the Quemoy and Matsu events, his refusal to ders of the day. Termed by at least one scholar the "Thermidorean reac-
support China against India also infuriated Mao. Most re~ently, Krushchev tion;' the 1961-65 period was presided over by Liu Shaoqi and Deng
had been critical of Mao's Great Leap, and had mocked Mao for claiming Xiaoping. 9 Liu was a Party insider and Yan'an survivor; he had come to
China was entering communism without having consolidated socialism. prominence during the War of Resistance, after the New Fourth Army
Then there was the matter of the visit to Beijing and the swimming pool. Incident. He had remained in the top echelons of power. For his part, Deng
In 1960, the Sino-Soviet split became official with the withdrawal of had been a student in France with Zhou Enlai in the 1920s, had joined the
advisors. A round of mudslinging ensued, in the public space of a meeting ccP early, was a Long March veteran, and also had been in Yan'an. He, too,
of the Romanian Communist Party in Bucharest. Krushchev verbally at- was an insider.
tacked China; Peng Zhen, the Chinese delegate to the meeting, returned The CCP under Liu's and Deng's direction moved quickly to put into
the attack in kind. It appeared to most observers that China and the USSR place emergency measures to stabilize the situation. The resumption of
would come to open warfare. Yet, cold warriors in the United States re- centralized planning along with strict rationing immediately addressed the
fused to see the Sino-Soviet split, preferring to uphold the bogeyman of a distribution part of the problem. Reviving agricultural production was a
monolithic Communist bloc for another decade. different task. Local rural cadres in charge were largely Maoist and dis-
Verbal vituperation against the Soviet Union followed in China. Politi- mayed at the turn of political tide. They were rapidly replaced by cadres
cal language became particularly creative, and conceptual conflations ever sent from the cities. Students, soldiers, and the urban unemployed were
more bizarre. The Soviets were labeled "revisionists;' "socialist imperial- also sent to help get agriculture back on its feet. This was a policy intended
ists;' "nationalist imperialists;' and other politically charged names. "Revi- to forestall any possible urban rebelliousness due to either political change
sionism" came to be associated with "rightism" or "right opportunism;' and or personal privation. It was also intended to flood the countryside with
thence with "bourgeois thought" and the restoration of capitalism. As Mao more sober urbanites so as to stem any potential radical rural tide.
confirmed in September 1962 at the Tenth Plenum, "I think that right- Communes were not abolished, but scaled back in size and function.
110 GRE.AT LEAP AND RESTORATION
GREAT LEAP AND RESTORATION Ill
 Luuural purposes were a1sconnnuea, ana communes became administra- Following Zhou Enlai's insinuation in 1964 about the "new bourgeois ele-
tive units under the direction of the central state. Corruption ensued, as ments" in society, 12 Mao abandoned his conciliatory attitude and made
urban cadres unfamiliar with local conditions came to rely for administra- very explicit where those bourgeois elements resided. In 1965, he named
tive assistance on the former village elites-ex-landlords and rich peasants them and their social function: "the bureaucratic class" was the new bour-
-who had been unhappily dispossessed and now saw an opportunity to geoisie and they were the oppressors of the masses. The implications of
make a ·comeback. Private family plots, abolished during the high tide of such a statement were stark. If socialism's historical mission was the over-
communization, were returned to the peasants, and family agricultural throw of the rule of the bourgeoisie, and if the new bourgeoisie had taken
production was encouraged with the resurgence of private markets. In an over the Communist Party, then true socialism would have to retake the
astonishingly short time, rural inequality burgeoned. And yet, there was Party from the bourgeoisie. How and by whom this would be accomplished
food. There was also a major baby boom. Later, this was to be called by was not yet clear.
Mao "the restoration of capitalism in the countryside." For the time being,
it was official policy. 01 Paper Tigers and the Atomic Bomb
' !!. In the cities, after first shoring up critical food shortages, industrial Meanwhile, through the beginning of the 1960s, international threats on
production was addressed. Workers designated "excess labor" were sent to China's borders proliferated. The Soviets to the north were a clear enemy,
the countryside for a temporary period of work with the peasants. Those and although war had not broken out, there were frequent skirmishes
remaining in the cities were charged with getting the factories back up to across the immense border between the two countries. To the west, the
speed. Factory floor discipline was reestablished, and experiments in fac- war between China and India had ended, but the boundary issues con-
tory democracy were suspended. Managers reoccupied administrative of- tinued to fester. To the south, the Indonesian coup deposing the left-
fices, and workers retreated to the assembly lines. Women workers were ist nationalist, Sukarno, in favor of the right-wing, American-supported
marginalized; masculine authority was restored. Centralized planning took militarist Suharto, had brought a U.S. sycophant to power in a formerly
over. Other old hierarchies also reasserted themselves. Rural-urban dis- friendly country. The ensuing massacre of Chinese-Indonesians, on suspi-
parities widened. The urban economy was unambiguously favored. The cion of being a disloyal "fifth column;' was part of the larger witch-hunt
cost of industrial goods sold to the peasants was kept high, whereas the against Communists-assumed to be of Chinese ethnicity-there, as well
cost for agricultural goods sold to the cities was kept artificially low. 10 Even as in Malaysia and other Asian states. Millions of Chinese ethnics died.
though property was not the measure of wealth (nobody had much of it), The U.S.-led Southeast Asian Alliance, SEATO, was formed with the Philip-
geographical location and access to the bureaucracy and power became pines, Thailand, and Suharto's Indonesia as charter members. This was
the equivalents of wealth. seen by the PRC as a clear indication of U.S. and Soviet collusion to sur-
Another restoration was also achieved. Intellectuals were returned to round China with hostile neighbors
the ranks of "the people." The anti-rightist campaign was discontinued, Meanwhile, the American buildup of advisors and troops in Vietnam
and the politically mandated isolation en_dured by many educated people did not go unnoticed. In an early 1965 interview with the American jour-
was reversed. Educational institutions in the cities resumed their nor- nalist Edgar Snow, who had spent a good deal of time in Yan'an and was
mal functioning, even as rural educational opportunities, enhanced when officially designated a "friend of China;' Mao voiced his opinion that Ho
schools had been established in the remotest of backwaters, were cut back Chi Minh and North Vietnam would have the moral and national support
with the communes. An urban managerial, technocratic class was rein- to win the·fightY Nobody could have known then how long Vietnamese
vigorated and set down roots. victory would take and at what cost to the Vietnamese people. For the
Mao, even in his effective exile from the center of government, did not moment, the presence of American advisors and troops on China's south-
remain silent. He attacked "revisionism" within the Party, and advocated ern border was alarming to Mao.
GREAT LEAP AND RESTORATION 113
112 GREAT LEAP AND RESTORATION
 vLH<OL utuepenaence movements gave Mao hope that
ruuLcut auucutuJwH
Thought on behalf of China's nuclear program were merely the tip of what
the world's peoples-particularly in the third world-would no longer was becoming an enormous iceberg of the Mao cult.
stand for imperialist control. In his statement of support for the Congo in
1964, Mao noted the American-directed murder. of the Congolese na- Mao's Exile and His Cull
tionalist hero, Patrice Lumumba, which had motivated the Congolese peo- Through his years in exile from power, Mao's control over Party and state
ple's resistance to the reassertion of imperialism. He accused Americans- was lost. But he did wield influence, in part through his enormous personal
in collusion with Europeans-of wishing to control not only the Congo, charisma and in part because of the reverence in which many held him.
but the entire African continent. But American ambitions did not stop This reverence was encouraged by the CCP and grew inexorably into a cult
there. Mao's list of nefarious U.S. activities included intervention in Viet- of individual personality. Mao continued to participate in Party meetings,
nam, Laos, and Cambodia; the "strangling" of the Cuban revolution; sup- where he railed against what he saw as the expansion of social injustices
T
port for the Indonesian coup; the occupation of South Korea, Taiwan, and and the wrong policy directions of the CCP. In 1962, he encouraged the
I~
,,, '
the Philippines; and dominance over Latin America. Mao concluded: "U.S. Socialist Education Movement, intended to reacquaint people with the
~I ~

:; . imperialism has over-extended its reach. It adds a new noose around its goals of socialism as an egalitarian system. Taking particular aim at cadre
I•,
neck every time it commits aggression anywhere." Calling U.S. imperialism corruption, bureaucratic malfeasance, and the retreat from collectivism-
a "paper tiger" -fierce on the exterior but empty on the interior-Mao issues with which a number of Party leaders were also quite concerned-
issued his revolutionary challenge: "People of the world, unite and de- Mao wished to launch another mass movement against the Party.
feat the U.S. aggressors and all their running dogs! People of the world, He temporarily contented himself with reaching out to two major social
be courageous, dare to fight . . . Then the whole world will belong to constituencies, aside from the peasantry: the military and students. With
the people." 14
the latter, Mao had been quite concerned with the reappearance of educa-
Over the years, Mao had consistently underplayed the nuclear capabili- tional elitism in China. After all, one of the major tenets of Maoism from its
ties of the United States, the Soviet Union, and other atomic powers. He earliest days at Jinggangshan had been literacy campaigns and increasing
had nevertheless directed the Chinese scientific community to pursue the educational opportunities for all people in China, not just privileged
aggressively the development of atomic and hydrogen bombs. Through the urbanites. The reform of the written language-called "simplification"-
political upheavals of Maoist rule, the nuclear physics research groups had was introduced into the schools and into text publishing (including news-
not been disrupted. The withdrawal of Soviet advisors might have been a papers) in the late 1950s. It precisely was intended to boost literacy by
blow to Chinese atomic research, but since Krushchev had long since facilitating reading. With the dismantling of communes and education for
reneged on his pledge to help China get the bomb, Soviet advisors had not peasants after the Great Leap, the reproduction of the urban elite through
been involved directly in the endeavor. Chinese scientists cracked the educational biases became a reality. Moreover, the bookishness of the
atomic code on their own, and in 1964 China exploded its first atomic educated-indicating, for Mao, their lack of revolutionary experience or
bomb at its test site in the northwest desert regions of Xinjiang Province. practice and their reliance on abstract theory-was now dovetailing with
One year later, China exploded its first hydrogen bomb in the same region. the technocratic tendep.cies of the bureaucracy to produce an almost per-
The results of these explosions were nationally televised in a special pro- manent elite based on residence in the cities and access to knowledge and
gram celebrating the massive victory of "Mao Zedong Thought;' which power. Mao appealed to students' idealism in attacking this elitism.
allegedly had assisted scientists in vanquishing the objective obstacles to Meanwhile, Mao's protege, Lin Biao, had managed to insulate the PLA
atomic progress. A CIA satellite captured this program off Chinese TV and from the bureaucratic tendencies and interference infecting the CCP. This
made it available to the American public as proof of the global threat led Mao to identify the army as the sole remaining bearer of revolutionary
represented by "Red China."
values lost by the rest of society. He called upon the army to participate in
114 GREAT LEAP AND RESTORATION
GREAT LEAP AND RESTORATION liS
 small at best, it was a harbinger of later army involvement in civilian affairs.
Mao's positioning outside the Party-his effective exile from it-allowed
him to ally himself directly with the people in critique of Party practice.
This contributed to one of the most dramatic developments on the domes-
tic Maoist front in these years: the exponential growth of the Mao cult.
':' ery soon, this was to have disastrous consequences. For the moment,
what originally had been an organic reverence for a leader was becoming an

r
'
'·
orchestrated affair. The Party abetted the growth of the cult, to provide
cover for the ccP's extremely un-Maoist policies. Lin Biao, Minister of
Defense, did his part to fuel the Mao cult in the army, by extolling the
example of a soldier, Lei Feng, who had drowned in the course of his duties.
I The Cultural Revolution
POLITICS IN COMMAND, 1966-1969

Lei had kept a diary, published after his death, in which he had recorded his
!t:1,.. Beginning in 1966, Mao launched a movement to seize back from
..,,,
absolute devotion to Mao and to Mao's Thought. Lei Feng became a model
the Communist Party what he saw as his right to be the master
I"
,,, soldier, and in time, a model Maoist, whom all proper citizens were ex-
cultural and historical interpreter of the Chinese revolution and
horted to emulate. Aside from promoting Lei Feng, Lin Biao also edited the
Chinese Marxism. Who would speak of and for the Chinese revo-
first edition of what soon became a ubiquitous accessory for all Chinese
lution? Who would speak of and for the culture of that revolution,
citizens: the little red book. This contained a selection of Maoist sayings
Maoism? These were central issues animating what came to be
and aphorisms distilling the wisdom of Mao Zedong Thought into digest-
known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution-a move-
ible nuggets of truth. Statues of Mao we~e erected ev~rywhere. Mao was
omnipresent. His cult was pervasive. ment as unpredictable and unintended in its scope as it was or-
ganic to Mao's revolutionary philosophy and politics.
On this note, the last act of Maoism in China was about to begin.

What was the Cultural Revolution?

It is said, the Cultural Revolution was launched by Mao to seize
state power. This interpretation contains a good bit of truth, and
the period certainly exhibits power struggles in abundance. Yet
for Mao, state power was never a pursuit unto itself; state power
was to be used in the waging of revolution. To explain the com-
plexity of the Cultural Revolution, then, it is more appropriate to
understand the movement not merely as a bid for state power, but
as an attempt to seize politics-the power of mass culture and
speech for revolution.
It is also said, the Cultural Revolution was an outgrowth of
peculiarities in Mao's personality: his desire to be immortalized,
his basic tyrannical nature, and his fear of death. Mao clearly was
a forceful and ruthless man; if not for this, he could never have
risen to the heights of power amid the historical circumstances

116 GREAT LEAP AND RESTORATION

 ---- --v-- -~ - - -······" .. b ~~ ... .., was Ill gener-
v n u \ ..U:::OllU~t::. l.el, ne 01 an uuerance.
ally good health. He was, it is true, increasingly concerned about a political However one sees it, the Cultural Revolution was a failure. It failed to
successor. Whether this bespeaks a fear of death or an irrational desire for achieve any of its lofty or base goals. Most prominent, it failed to secure the
immortality is a stretch. What it does indicate is Mao's concern about the Maoist-style revolution. The quick reversal of Maoism after Mao's death
potential longevity and future direction of the revolutionary endeavor to and the complete repudiation of the Cultural Revolution precisely indicate ·
which he had devoted his life, and in which he still believed passionately. that Mao's fears of the abandonment of revolutionary practice were in fact
Since 1960, all signs pointed to the reversal of hisrevolutionary vision. To correct. The Cultural Revolution's failure to break the back of the Party
the extent that the Cultural Revolution was about ensuring his legacy, bureaucracy is also remarkable. All it did was bequeath to the CCP a new
then, it was about securing the historical conditions for the continuation of lease on life, as the savior of China from chaos. Not only was the Cultural
'
'· the revolution.
Revolution a failure in its own terms, it was often a cruel and demoralizing
Some say the Cultural Revolution was an expression of religiosity, and movement that ruined the lives of many, took the lives of many others, and
certainly much of the devotion it inspired appears very religious. yet, permanently altered the trajectories of several generations. Yet, the many
Mao's belief in the Chinese revolution was not a question of divine faith. It memoirs published in retrospect also make clear that, within the cruelty
I·:.:: was a belief in the historically situated capacity of mass activity to change
~ ~~·. ~
and violence, the Cultural Revolution was at times also an exhilarating,
the circumstances of life. For Mao, the whole point of the revolution was liberating, and optimistic period-so optimistic in fact that its failure pro-
the practical one of creating the conditions for the masses to transform duced complete disillusionment.
their own lives. The Cultural Revolution was launched in part to restore to The Cultural Revolution was not one movement but many, and it does
the people the revolutionary momentum seized from them by Party bu- not lend itself to one narrative line. It has many internally complex and
reaucrats. Mao was intent on cleansing the Party of these usurpers. If this overlapping stories. Narrowly defined, it lasted from 1966 to 1969 and,
meant destroying the Party to save it, he was prepared to do so. unlike pre~ious peasant-centered movements, it was predominantly an
Many say the mass resonance and response to the Cultural Revolution urban phenomenon. The ensuing seven years were its aftermath. It is,
are what can be expected from an ant-like, or sheep-like people such as the however, now conventional to speak of the Cultural Revolution as span-
Chinese, who have no tradition of independence and freedom, and are ning the decade of 1966-76, ending with Mao's death.
hence easily tyrannized into blind obedience. To be sure, the scope of the
popular response is one truly astonishing aspect of the movement, and it The Prelude: Rai Rui
contradicts the view of the Chinese people as sheep-like. Rather, it suggests The prelude to what came to be known as the Cultural Revolution began in
that six years into the post-Leap restoration, a good number of people were November 1965 on a literary note, with a critique of a play written in 1960
dismayed by the direction in which the country and Party were headed. regarding Hai Rui. The play had been staged during the post-Leap restora-
They were apparently ready to do something about it, and, when given the tion, although not since 1962; it was taken to be an allegory. Hai Rui was
chance, they acted.
a fifteenth-century Ming dynasty official who was upright, honest, and
The Cultural Revolutionary call to rec~nnect "culture" to "revolution" spoke truth to power; he was for centuries a popular subject for local
through mass politics sometimes was as straightforward as smashing tem- operas. In one famous episode from his life, Hai Rui was sent into exile
ples to destroy the sites of old superstitious beliefs, deemed unsuited to the after criticizing the emperor for land policies. He had been a favorite
new culture of the revolutionary everyday. At other times, the connection historical character of Mao's, until Peng Dehuai had spoken truth to power
between culture and revolution was as labyrinthine as the dizzying number at the Lushan conference in 1959. After this, Hai Rui's fortunes dipped as
of alleged intrigues, or as incomprehensible as the waxing and waning Red quickly as did Peng's.

118
CULTURAL REVOLUTION: POLITICS IN COMMAND
CULTURAL REVOLUTION: POLITICS IN COMMAND 119
 ta topic ana set:nng or Lntna s DesL-KHUWH uassiLai pueinsJ, IlS uragun s
drama and of Ming dynastic history by his strong grasp of ideology. Yao's Well tea, and its beautiful women. Mao stayed for a month in a retrofitted
critique, featured in a leading Shanghai newspaper, pointed to the counter- Qing-dynasty guesthouse on the banks of West Lake set aside for his use.
revolutionary message supposedly encoded in the Hai Rui play. This cri- December found him in Nanchang, the Jiangxi capital, where he cele-
tique provoked first confusion (why would this play be a subject of review brated his seventy-second birthday. He then moved on to Wuhan, a dusty
three years after its last staging?) and then a debate among literary and industrial entrepot in the center of China, where he stayed in a former tea
academic circles in Shanghai for the next six months. The evaluation of merchant's estate on the East La.ke.
most of the participants in the debate was disdainful dismissal of Yao. The By March 1966, Mao was back in Hangzhou presiding over an expanded
Beijing-based cultural oversight group chaired by Politburo member and meeting of the Party's Central Committee, during which he took Peng
Beijing mayor Peng Zhen, weighed in on the topic in February 1966, com- Zhen and others to task for their timid cultural policies and failure to deal
..' adequately with the Hai Rui critique. Pressing his charges against Peng
menting that Yao's political treatment of academic and cultural matters
was out of order. It all seemed quite insignificant. Zhen occupied him for some time, and to do so he shuttled the short
,,' distance between Shanghai, where meetings were being held, and Hang-
,. ' Few knew the article had been commissioned and planted by Jiang
,l'
.. I ~ Qing, Mao's wife, at his direction. This was an opening salvo against the zhou. Then he visited Shaoshan, his hometown in Hunan; when the heat
Party establishment. And, it was fired from outside Beijing; Mao, keeping got too much to bear, he returned to Wuhan. Restless, Mao let the Cultural
his distance, was traveling in the provinces. Revolution develop, in his absence from Beijing.

Mao's Travels The May 16th Directive

In 1965, Mao was rarely in the capital. After the Chinese New Year in Literary debate was hardly all Mao had in mind by planting the Hai Rui
February, he journeyed by train across the country. Iri May, he went to article. The playwright, WuHan, Beijing vice-mayor and Beijing University
Jinggangshan, the base area where he had established himself as a revolu- professor, was quickly disposed of. Mao then raised the stakes. As he later
1

tionary leader after 1927. In part nostalgic, this trip was also intended to put it, he wished for a revolution that "touches people to their very souls."
remind everyone of where Mao's revolution had begun. He arrived back in With Lin Biao and the army on his side, Mao used an editorial in the PLA
mouthpiece, Liberation Daily, to demand a purge of "bourgeois elements"
Beijing in June.
At the time, the rural areas were embroiled in a large-scale divisive cam- from cultural circles and of "right opportunists" from within the Party. In
paign, called the "four clean-ups;' aimed at sweeping out corruption among this unsigned piece of early May 1966, the two major targets of the Cultural
rural cadres. Mao did not participate directly, but he sent his daughter Li Revolution were announced. Intellectuals and Party cadres would have to
Na, now twenty-four years old, and a student in the history department of be on their guard. The major location of the movement-the cities-was
Beijing University. Li Na went to the Jiangxi countryside with a group of also indicated.
Mao's assistants from Zhongnanhai on a fact-finding trip. Li Na was not On May 16, Mao, still outside Beijing, followed up with a directive. In
well liked. Reputedly quite temperamental, she was apparently not help- the name of the Party's Central Committee, the directive attacked the
ful in the Jiangxi endeavor, complained about the living conditions, and Beijing Mayor, Peng Zhen, for dampening political enthusiasms, promot-
wis~ed to be sent back to Beijing. Willful in her ways, she demanded special
ing bourgeois literary critical standards (art for art's sake, rather than art
privileges. Mao consistently refused to have Li Na, Li Min, or his nephew subordinated to politics), and shielding "anti-socialist element;' Wu Han.
Mao Yuanxin treated differently from others. In Li Na's case, this provoked Peng was removed from power. The Beijing Party structure was quickly
tension between Jiang Qing and Mao. reorganized, and the cultural oversight group Peng chaired was dissolved.
Even more dramatic, the directive announced that "representatives of
In November 1965, as the Hai Rui critique was getting under way, Mao
CULTURAL REVOLUTION: POLITICS IN COMMAND 121
120 CULTURAL REVOLUTION: POLITICS IN COMMAND
 Zhongnanhai and she was an accomplished photographer. Jiang had long
Krushchevs-revisionists and bourgeois traitors to socialism-under the desired to get into the political and cultural fray, but had been forestalled
protection of one big Krushchev, as yet unnamed. Few could guess who by the opposition of Party leaders. Mao had agreed it was best for Jiang
it was. Qing to remain apart from politics.
Things proceeded with lightening speed, as did the creation of ever In 19 65, Mao changed his mind and commissioned Jiang Qing to do a
more fanciful political language. Along with the Beijing Party organization, number of secret jobs in the cultural sphere he could entrust to no one else.
national organs of propaganda and communication were purged, including The Hai Rui incident was an example of Jiang's success in implementing
the editor of the Party mouthpiece, the People's Daily. Zhou Yang, the Hu Mao's directions. She soon moved into political position, publicly through
Feng antagonist of 1955 and post-1949 cultural policy leader, was ousted. the ccRG, and privately through a shadowy organization named the Cen-
Mao's secretary, Chen Boda-who had been with him since Yan'an-along tral Case Examination Group. The latter took on the task of digging up
with Jiang Qing became the nucleus of a new "Central Cultural Revolution damaging gossip against proposed targets of struggle or removal.
Group" (ccRG) that took over national communication and culture policy. Ultimately, Jiang Qing became a scapegoat for the Cultural Revolution
,,
.,,,,' They handpicked a number of like-minded people to assist; among those and for her role in the Gang of Four. At her public trial in 1981, she was
.,,'
was Yao Wen yuan, the Hai Rui critic from Shanghai, and his senior super- accused of many specific crimes. She also was accused of being the female
visor, Zhang Chunqiao, a friend of Jiang Qing's and Party Secretary of demon power behind the throne and of demonstrating all of the reasons
Shanghai. Jiang, Yao, and Zhang were the three original members of what why a woman with power was a bad woman. In such a context of vilifica-
later became known as the "Gang of Four." tion, it perhaps can never be known just how much she operated on her
From early on, Mao and the CCRG framed the movement-formally own, and how much only at the behest of Mao. She remains widely reviled
named the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution -as a life and death strug- in China.
gle between capitalism and socialism, with capitalism residing in all forms
of "bourgeois ideology" and socialism residing in Mao Zedong Thought, as Big Character Posters
interpreted by Mao and the CCRG. With this struggle on the agenda, Mao Soon after the May 16th directive, when the Party's alleged infiltration
was not even close to finished in May, nor was the CCRG and its now- by the bourgeoisie was announced, Mao issued a call to students. "Dare
invigorated leader, Jiang Qing. to rebel against authority;' he told them. They soon responded in their
millions.
Jiang Qing' s Rise On May 25, students at Beijing University (Beida)-the site of the May
When Jiang married Mao in Yan'an, she was widely resented by Party Fourth Movement in 1919-affixed a "big-character poster" to the campus
leaders as a home wrecker. Unfair as this may have been-Mao's and He walls. It denounced the university's highest authority, the president, for
Zizhen's marriage was already shaky by then-she had for years bided her suppressing discussion of the Hai Rui play. The poster called for a battle to
time, in enforced leisure and with much bile accumulating against those begin between revolutionary intellectuals and bourgeois school bureau-
she considered her or Mao's enemies. Through the years, her relationship crats. Big-character posters were an important weapon in the ensuing
to Mao became increasingly attenuated, and they spent more time apart. struggles. They were a. tool of popular political communication and war-
Jiang's real and imagined illnesses had made her a paranoid hypochon- fare. They could be anonymous or signed; they could be posted anywhere
driac, and Mao's dalliances with young women became more frequent and on any surface, hence available to anyone with a brush, ink, and paper; they
disrupted any possibility of a settled relationship with his wife. could be dashed off or labored over; they could level accusations without
As a former actress, Jiang had remained interested in, and connected to, proof, or they could adduce evidence at their leisure; their accusations
the cultural world, particularly that in Shanghai, China's cultural capital. were almost impossible to refute, other than through reactive posters,

122 CULTURAL REVOLUTION: POLITICS IN COMMAND CULTURAL REVOLUTION: POLITICS IN COMMAND 123
 not reaa tmmemately, accusanons coma cnange, compounamg the Oit- successors"-to do it.
ficulty of responding fast enough to forestall the spread of reputation- Teachers, professors, and school administrators were attacked in big-
destroying rumors. character posters and then arrested by students. They were detained
The authors of big-character posters used all of these guerilla tactics to and forced to write self-criticisms addressing the crimes of which they
seize the right of speech away from those who normally controlled the were accused. Some were harassed or even beaten to death; some com-
organs of mass communication. They turned politics into a mass politics mitted suicide rather than face the harshness of treatment. Others endured
by making political voice available. Students and soon residents all over the long days, weeks, months, and years of humiliation. They had dunce caps
urban and rural areas were bombarded with political posters, much as placed on their heads and were paraded around with their alleged crimes
product advertisements now occupy the same walls that used to be public presented on sandwich boards hung around their necks. They were forced
political not privatized space. For most in China, from this time on, there to attend struggle sessions. They had to stand in painful positions while
was no life without the posters and politics. being accused. They had to admit publicly their crimes. Even if they did all
The Beida poster was torn down immediately by Party authorities. A that was asked, they were usually not released. The point was to demon-
,," I few days later, Mao praised its content. A little later, he went on to note, strate the hollowness of all authority, whether bureaucratic-administrative
,, or knowledge-based instructional. It was to impress physically upon those
II "youth is the great army of the Great Cultural Revolution! It must be
mobilized to the full." And, in a caution to his fellow leaders against damp- in positions of authority that they could be humbled. It was to demonstrate
"
" ening youth enthusiasm, he told them, "You must put politics in com- the power of the masses over the authority that oppressed them, and to
mand, go among the masses and be at one with them, and carry on the give the masses a voice where it had previously been suppressed. Or that
Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution even better." 2 A People's Daily edi- was the idea.
torial, assumed to have been written, or at least approved, by Mao, shortly Observing from Wuhan, Mao wrote in a letter to Jiang Qing of July 8,
thereafter proclaimed, "Revolutionary Big-Character Posters are 'Magic 1966, that he wished to "create great disorder under heaven" so as finally to
Mirrors' That Show Up All Monsters." 3 Mao's support fueled the ensuing achieve "great order under heaven." 4
student revolution. The revolution spread from universities to senior and junior high
Attempts by Liu Shaoqi and other Party leaders to keep the students schools, with the first Red Guard groups formed by high school students in
under control failed. The movement spiraled in its own momentum, tak- Beijing. The movement became a tide of attacks, factions, allegations, and
ing professors, administrators, writers, and others down at will and with- punishments. Youths as young as thirteen took their teachers, school prin-
out logic. cipals, and parents to verbal and physical task. None of them dared fight
back. Red Guard factions multiplied. Erstwhile friends became enemies;
Education, Authority, the Bourgeoisie, and the Red Guards enemies became friends. Dorms were occupied and barricaded. Violence
Teachers, professors, and intellectuals in general were accused of being broke out. At ostensible issue were correct politics and interpretations of
the primary harborers and spreaders of pourgeois thought. Education- Mao's thought. The debates became exercises in arcane textual analysis, as
in its guise as rote memory, exam taking, bookish knowledge, and ab- big-character posters festooned every available surface.
stract principle-was faulted for being divorced from the practical needs of Summer came, and ~lasses were suspended. Students did not disperse;
the revolutionary masses. Schools were identified as the reproducers of they continued the struggle. Party work teams were sent into the schools to
the bourgeoisie. The urban and elite bias of institutions and instructors try to sort things out, but they merely contributed to further factionaliza-
was blamed for producing a generation of apolitical careerist youth, who tions and were driven away. In July, Mao criticized the work teams for ob-
had no concept of revolutionary sacrifice or practice. Mao was intent on structing the revolution. He ridiculed them for being afraid: "You people! If

CULTURAL REVOLUTION: POLITICS IN COMMAND 125

124 CULTURAL REVOLUTION: POLITICS IN COMMAND
 wenr on, 1\.ner rwo monrns, you snu naven·t got the slightest perceptual clothing as baggy as possible. They cut their hair very short, or had it
knowledge and you are still bureaucratic.... The first thing is struggle, the summarily shorn on the streets. Red Guard patrols routinely stopped those
second is criticism, the third is transformation. Struggle means destruc- deemed too pretty, accusing them of harboring bourgeois ideas of beauty.
tion, and transformation means establishing something new."s The only real beauty, it was said, was revolutionary beauty, not a physical
but a political manifestation. Femininity was bourgeois, and all personal
Mao Swims the Yangzi
adornment became politically suspect.
Ih a celebrated event on July 16, 1966, Mao went swimming in the Yangzi
River near Wuhan. He swam many miles. It was claimed the seventy-two- Sixteen Articles and Four Olds
year-old Chairman swam faster and more vigorously than any Olympic In mid-August 1966, a Party Central Committee meeting formally pro-
swimming champion. Numerous photographs, said to demonstrate Mao's claimed the Cultural Revolution a movement to overthrow "those within
virility and vitality, were published in China and globally. the Party who are in authority and taking the capitalist road." Names were
'
'I
It seems clear that Mao was aided mightily in his swim by the strong not named. A closely related purpose was the destruction of what was
"I'•

river currents. Yet, since Mao had been out of the public eye for so very called the "four olds" -old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits.
long, the photographs of him swimming and in good health served to bring These were said to be the tools through which the bourgeoisie ensured its
,, him back to popular attention. Two days later-on July 18-Mao turned own reproduction as a class.
"
''"' up in Beijing. After the meeting of August 18 on Tian'anmen Square, the Red Guards
''
I
,.
began the destruction of the "four olds" with breathtaking violence and
Received by Mao
thoroughness. Obvious targets such as temples were first taken down. The
By early August 1966, students sporting Red Guard arm_bands began roam- destruction then moved into homes, the spaces where bourgeois reproduc-
ing the streets of every city and town in the country. They chanted slogans tion happens at the level of quotidian practice. Flower gardens, planters,
and policed revolutionary practice, between themselves and among others. and even pet birds in their cages were destroyed as signs of bourgeois
Mao wrote to the Red Guards at various locations to urge them to continue thought and habit; classical records, pianos, foreign-language books, and
rebelling against "reactionaries"; at the same time, he encouraged them to anything smacking of refinement or high culture was dragged out and
unite with "all who can be united with." He reminded the Red Guards of destroyed, or at least confiscated. No body's home was safe from Red Guard
what Marx had said: "the proletariat must emancipate not only itself but all inspection and sacking. The residences of Party members were the first tar-
mankind." Hence, rather than just destroy individuals, those who made gets; soon the homes of former capitalists (whose productive properties had
mistakes should be offered a "way out." 6 long since been nationalized but who had retained their private residences)
Mao received the Red Guards at an ecstatic dawn meeting on August 18 became targets, as did former landlords (whose houses and possessions
at Beijing's Tian'anmen Square. A million students attended, each waving were more lavish than most), and anyone whose life was not the paragon of
his or her little red book, now a mandato_ry revolutionary accessory. (The revolutionary class position. Various leaders tried to rein in the zeal with
little red book is the second most published text in the world after the which the "four olds" were attacked and destroyed. They, in turn, became
Bible.) As Mao stood on the reviewing stand overlooking the Square, he targets of verbal and physical assault for giving succor to the bourgeoisie.
received a female Red Guard emissary, who offered him a red armband. He In previous Maoist practice, if one had revolutionary consciousness and
placed it on his left arm over his familiar army fatigues, symbolizing his acted upon .it, one could overcome background or actual class standing to
command of, and solidarity with the Red Guards. become part of the "people." This changed during the Cultural Revolution.
The ubiquitous uniform for Red Guards now became an army outfit, Now, the only important marker was "bloodline" demonstrating the cor-
with a red armband attached on the left. The sartorial and gender ideal was rect family class position-poor or middling peasant, proletariat, or sol-
126 CULTURAL REVOLUTION: POLITICS IN COMMAND
CULTURAL REVOLUTION: POLITICS IN COMMAND 127
 rne peopte mw rne omcK caregones. 1 ms naa tne cunous ettect ot came clear that the main Chinese Krushchev was Liu himself.
casting suspicion on the vast majority of the old revolutionaries. After all, In the summer of 1966, Liu was identified within Party circles as the
the nucleus of the CCP back in the 1920s and 1930s had been urban, "leading person in authority taking the capitalist road." Deng Xiaoping was
educated youths along with some offspring of landlord or rich peasant named along with him as a "capitalist roader." Liu vigorously defended
families (for example, Mao himself). They were now suspected of secretly himself, counting upon his strong Party alliances to bail him out of trouble.
harborin.g bourgeois thoughts and actions. Soon, he found the cards stacked against him, as those loyal to him lost
' The blackest of all categories, aside from counter-revolutionaries and their own positions. He disappeared after November 1966 and was publicly
traitors, was intellectuals, the progenitors and promoters par excellence of identified and formally dismissed in disgrace in 1967. He was expelled from
bourgeois ideas. They were called "the stinking ninth [category]" (of ten), the Party in 1968, and died of pneumonia in 1969. This was the result of
and were specifically marked out for attack, re-education in proximity to pure neglect, as he was denied medical treatment. His wife, Wang Guang-
the masses, and the confiscation of their belongings, all now tainted with a mei, a veteran revolutionary, now under the same political cloud as her
bourgeois odor. The works of venerable and celebrated leftist and Com- husband, had been sent to be re-educated in prison; she had not seen Liu
,,'
·I'•'
munist writers-stalwarts of the ccP and the Revolution included-were since 1967 and was not present for his final illness. Liu was left to die in ob-
reinterpreted through new eyes. These writers were now declared "snakes" scurity. He was posthumously rehabilitated in 1980, whereupon his ashes,
for hiding so well their bourgeois sympathies in the midst of ostensibly carefully preserved, were handed over to his wife.
,,
". radical texts. They were masters of disguise, it was said, and it was the task By contrast, Deng Xiaoping wrote a self-criticism and was sent to repair
:' ~ .
''I
I
of the Red Guards to strip their masks away to reveal the bourgeois essence tractors in rural Jiangxi. Through labor, he rehabilitated himself. Mao
•'

underneath. brought Deng back to Beijing in 1973.

Red Guards carried portraits of Mao, of red suns (Mao was the "reddest
11 Bomhard the Headquarlers! 1 ' and. the Shanghai Commune
sun in our heart"), of Mao peering over the red sun, of Mao as the red sun
was rising, of Mao juxtaposed to the rising red sun, and so on. If Mao was On August s, 1966, Mao wrote a big-character poster with the message,
depicted looking right instead of left in these portraits, the artist, as well as "bombard the headquarters." It called upon the masses to dismantle the
the person carrying it, could be accused of political crimes. The little red very Party of which he was Chairman, and to which he had devoted his life.
book became an object of devotion, to be memorized and cited by verse This not only meant struggling against individuals, it also meant destroy-
and page number. Revolutionary names were concocted for city streets ing the structures of power through which the Party oppressed the people.
and affixed over old signs (leading to much confusion at the post of- It meant replacing those structures with new ones.
fice). The location of the former American embassy was renamed "Anti- As the Party was pervasive through all levels of society, the movement
imperialism Street." now expanded beyond students. Mass organizations were formed. Likened
Chaos and violence flowed unabated through the end of 1966, when the to those of the Paris Commune of 18 71-the short-lived paragon of Marx-
CCRG-]iang Qing and her crowd-deci.ded that the utility of the Red ist revolutionary practice-these new structures took over Party head-
Guards was mostly spent. But before the students were dispersed, the "big quarters and functions. The ccP reeled from attacks and the gutting of its
Krushchev" had to be exposed and deposed. membership.
Meanwhile, the revolution was taken up in the factories. In the late
The Fall of Liu Shaoqi (and Deng Xiaoping) autumn of 1966, the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee came under
Liu Shaoqi, who had taken over from Mao after the Great Leap, was ill with attack from a newly formed alliance, named the Headquarters of the Revo-
tuberculosis. He nevertheless was in power, with loyalists staffing high lutionary Revolt of Shanghai Workers. The purpose of this organization,
Party positions. In the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, these loyalists led by Wang Hongwen, a young textile worker, was to reintroduce the fac-

CULTURAL REVOLUTION: POLITICS IN COMMAND 129

128 CULTURAL REVOLUTION: POLITICS IN COMMAND
 the workers envisioned was a cooperative relatiOnship between themselves
and managers, to help transform the relations of production from com- mass communicationJ
mandism (bureaucratic rule) to genuine proletarian democracy. Suddenly, former Shanghai denizens Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wen-
The Shanghai Party Committee refused the Workers' Headquarters de- yuan, now leaders of the ccRG, arrived on the scene from Beijing. They
struck an agreement with Wang Hongwen, the textile worker leader of the
mands. To press their case, workers commandeered a train to Beijing
Workers' Headquarters (who became the fourth member of the "Gang
intending to go directly to Mao. The train was stopped by Party authorities
of Four") and attempted to bring Shanghai to order. The triumvirate of
not far from the Shanghai station. A siege ensued. From Beijing, Mao's
Zhang, Yao, and Wen proclaimed the founding of the "Shanghai Com-
longtime secretary, Chen Boda, in his capacity as ccRG leader, ordered the
mune." Radical worker groups-such as the Second Regiment-contested
workers back to work; a fellow member of the ccRG, Zhang Chunqiao,
this alliance for being imposed by Beijing rather than voted in by Shanghai
former Party Secretary in Shanghai, remanded the order. In Beijing, this
.,, workers. Violence broke out between the groups and lasted through the
spelled the demise of Chen Boda's career. In Shanghai, it meant temporary
end of January. Zhang and Yao were recalled to Beijing in February to give
victory for the proletariat.
an account to Mao. While Mao agreed with their overall approach, he
...'
The Shanghai Party Committee disintegrated. Red Guards along with
,, suggested it was time to deepen the movement and rather than merely
IH worker groups proceeded to organize students and workers in the city. A
number of different workers' groups sprang up, most radical among them, chanting slogans, "students should make a deeper study of things and
I,'
8
the Workers' Second Regiment, and most conservative, theWorkers' Scar- choose a few passages to write some critical articles about."
.,,,, By this point, not only in Shanghai, but all over China's cities, Red
let Guards, comprised of technicians and skilled workers. By the end of
Guards were roaming streets perpetrating violence against one another;
1966, the majority of the workers of Shanghai-the most industrialized of
schools were out of session, as the teachers had been deposed and children
all Chinese cities, responsible for over half of all industrial production in
were at loose ends; many parents were involved in political struggles in
the nation-were organized into one of these groups.
their places of work or residence, and were unable to look after their
In December, the conservative Scarlet Guards provoked a violent com-
children; workers were organizing, contesting each other, management,
petition with the Workers' Headquarters for leadership of the proletariat.
and Beijing's authority; and the Party was all but destroyed as a functioning
The remnants of the Shanghai Party Committee attempted to gain covert
control of the Scarlet Guards, by buying off workers' support. This was administrative body.
duly discovered by the Workers' Headquarters, who managed to rally re-
Linking Up
maining workers to their side. The now compromised Scarlet Guards,
As students were freed from study and as school and parental control
along with the financially exhausted and politically disgraced Party, were
weakened or disappeared altogether, many of them took to the roads
overthrown.
and railways to travel the country and see the revolution unfolding. Non-
In this "January Revolution" (1967) workers took over the major news-
Beijing residents seized the opportunity to travel to Beijing, in hopes of
papers of Shanghai and immediately publtshed a "Message to All the Peo-
being received by Mao on Tian'anmen Square, as he had done in August
ple of Shanghai." It condemned the Scarlet Guards and the Party, while
1966. (He did in fact receive Red Guards a total of eight times.) Meanwhile,
calling for all workers to return to their factories to resume production.
many from Beijing took the opportunity to travel elsewhere. Some decided
In a mass meeting on January 6 sponsored by the Workers' Headquarters,
to make pilgrimages to hallowed revolutionary sites, such as Shaoshan
the Shanghai mayor, Party leaders, and Party functionaries were publicly
(Mao's ho~etown), Jinggangshan and Ruijin (the pre-Yan'an base areas),
excoriated, physically and verbally humiliated, and then summarily dis-
and Yan'an. Several particularly intrepid groups decided to retrace the
missed from their posts. On January 9, Mao affirmed what had happened
in Shanghai, calling it a "great revolution" and confirming that the "up- steps of the Long March.
CULTURAL REVOLUTION: POLITICS IN COMMAND 131
130 CULTURAL REVOLUTION: POLITICS IN COMMAND
 ot the time, tne vanous revomnonary movements m anterent parts ot the
country. Railroads suspended the need for tickets, as did buses and other obvious dampening effect.
modes of public transportation. Students crowded onto trains with little The next step came as the army redefined the Cultural Revolution as a
more than a toothbrush in their hands. Food was distributed free, and movement to study Mao Zedong Thought, rather than to use Mao Zedong
students stayed with Red Guard groups at university dorms or public Thought as a guide to action. By discouraging activism and encouraging
spaces. Travelers overwhelmed the capacities of smaller sites, and larger study, this, too, tamped down some of the passions. 9 And the tamping
places overflowed. down of passion was precisely what Mao desired at this point. He began
These experiences were perhaps the most exhilarating aspect of the calling some of the more radical manifestations of the previous six months
Cultural Revolution for many. Never before given so much freedom of "anarchistic;' and was insistent that these tendencies be staunched. In
movement-pressures and poverty served to keep most youths rooted to particular, he called for the cessation of the physical assaults on Party
their places of residence-this was the first time most had ever traveled cadres and state leaders, and for the revival of certain functions of the state
anywhere; and it was the first time most were away from home. They got and Party apparatus.
their first glimpses of their huge and diverse nation. For a few, travel Through the early spring of 1967, the PLA took over the mass organiza-
confirmed what they thought they already knew; for the majority, travel tions formed in the Party's stead. By May, mass resentment was high-
was extraordinarily eye-opening. against the PLA and its restoration of deposed Party cadres. Beijing, Shang-
The continued poverty of the rural areas was a shock to those from the hai, and especially Wuhan exploded in mass activism all over again. In a
cities, who had never seen or dreamed of such conditions. The difficulties series of bloody and Byzantine intrigues, these rebellions were quelled, al-
peasant women continued to face, due to gender inequality, was astonish- though in the process, the specter of civil war and of PLA factionalism was
ing to city girls, who took their equality for granted. The unevenness of raised. In August, these possibilities came to the fore, as the mass move-
socialism, or perhaps, the unevenness caused by socialis~, came as a reve- . ment broke down and different sectors attempted to ally with the PLA.
lation. Urban privilege and rural disadvantage became clear. Some formed Mao remained silent. Jiang Qing goaded the Red Guards on, advising
the desire to lock this unevenness in place in order to protect their posi- them to "defend themselves with weapons." And yet, the Party was re-
tions; many formed the desire to do what they could to change it. grouping under the protection of the military. It was preparing to re-seize
command, now with Mao and Lin Biao on its side and at its head, rather
The People's Liberation Army
than in opposition.
Through the beginning of 1967, Mao became increasingly dismayed at the
lack of unity among rebel groups. He was staring at the specter of complete
11
Normalcy''
chaos in the country. There was only one ideologically trustworthy organi- In the summer of 1967, Mao embarked on an inspection tour of the prov-
zation left intact that could bring order to the situation: the army. inces. He was evidently appalled at what he witnessed. In September 1967,
In late January 1967, the PLA was calle_d on to intervene in the inter- the PLA again was sent to crush opposition, to disarm civilian groups, and
necine battles on the streets, campuses, and factories of the cities. Lin Biao, to restore "normalcy." The order was signed by Mao, the Central Commit-
on Mao's orders, moved the army into Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan, and tee, the ccRG, the Central Military Affairs Committee of the PLA-in
other areas in chaos. While the PLA remained under civilian control- short, by all conceivable branches of the government, to demonstrate its
Mao's control-its intervention nevertheless tipped the balance toward definitive nature and its seriousness. Jiang Qing was tasked with announc-
certain outcomes. In the interests of restoring order and stability, from ing the ord~r and in the process renouncing her previous views that stu-
February to March 1967, the army forcibly disarmed rebel student groups dents and mass organizations were justified in taking up weapons against
and radical worker organizations, killing thousands and arresting many the army. The about-face was total, and the suppression of mass initiative

132 CULTURAL REVOLUTION: POLITICS IN COMMAND CULTURAL REVOLUTION: POLITICS IN COMMAND 133
quite bloody. Yet, by Uctober 1, 19o7, tne PLA s generals, revuea as covert
capitalists just a short few months before, now stood atop the Gate of and habits.
Once those who volunteered departed, a huge number of remaining
Heavenly Peace alongside Mao for the National Day celebrations. By mid-
students were forced out of the cities by urban authorities. They were
October, the Red Guards were ordered to disband, and students were
placed in small factories and collective farms in remote areas, where they
instructed to return to their classrooms.
were expected to produce for their living. Originally designed as a short-
In an attempt to explain the chaos, Mao "revealed" that Liu Shaoqi had
term solution to the rebelliousness and violence of Red Guard organiza-
been at the root of the anarchy. With the toppling of Liu, now publicly
tions, the voluntary "down to the countryside" movement became a coer-
named the "big Krushchev" and dismissed in disgrace, the poison could
cive measure of being "sent down;' so as to empty the cities of potential
cease to flow through the veins of the Chinese body politic. However, the
ferocity with which mass organizations in many places fought against the challengers to the restoration of Party power.
The students who went early and voluntarily often recall the idealism
PLAto retain their hard-won political gains is testament to how unsuccess-
with which they began their sojourns among peasants or workers. The
ful the propaganda campaign against Liu was in convincing anyone that a
dreams of growing their own food, relying on their own labor, and learning
covert puppeteer controlled the movement. Indeed, it was quite clear to
from the hard-working class leaders of the revolution (peasants and prole-
workers and rebel students that the promise of the Cultural Revolution-
tariat) sustained many a teenager through very tough transitions to un-
mass politics in command-was being betrayed.
By the end of 1967, while the ccP staged its revival, Zhou Enlai presided familiar terrain far from familiar faces.
These idealisms and dreams were followed by progressive disillusion-
over the rebuilding of the state apparatus. The forces of order were ready-
ment with the circumstances. Some of this had to do with the incredible
ing their comeback.
poverty and straitened conditions in which they found themselves, for
11
Down to the Countryside" which the socialist propaganda about ever-improving standards of liv-
ing had ill prepared them. Some of it was related to the relative hostility
The summer of 1968 saw the last-gasp attempts of the mass organizations
with which the students were received by unsuspecting villagers, forced by
and student groups to recapture the political energies of the year before.
local Party leaders to accommodate youths who had never seen a rice
Anger over the restoration of those who had been mercilessly critiqued
shoot, never carried a shoulder pole, and never done manual labor of any
and so very recently deposed boiled over in many places. Before it could
sort. Much of the disillusionment was due to the cultural conditions of the
become a renewal of mass activism, a ruthless military crackdown was
rural areas and what urbanized educated students understood to be the
launched to suppress, once and for all, the challenges to "normalcy." Uni-
"feudal" unschooled and traditional thoughts of peasants. Mostly, forbear-
versity campuses were the sites of this last-ditch struggle, and they turned
ance turned to despair as paths back to the city were closed off and rus-
into bloodbaths.
ticated youths realized they were now expected to stay forever in their new
The only way to diffuse, finally and completely, student passions and
organizational densities, Mao decided, ~as to disperse them. Starting in locations.
Students with powerful and politically intact families were able to ma-
1968, university and senior and junior high school students were systemat-
neuver their way around the regulations to get back to the cities after a few
ically invited to volunteer to go down to the countryside and into the
years. Students, whose families had been politically active, now destroy~d,
factories to work with the peasants and proletariat. A very large number of
but who still had good contacts within the system, were stuck for a while
idealistic students did go of their own free will to "rusticate" themselves.
longer yet had an escape route. Students who had never had powerful or
Piling into railway cars, buses, trucks, and tractors, students were shipped
politically connected families gave up all hope of escaping their circum-
out of the cities, batch by batch, to places both close to and far from their

CULTURAL REVOLUTION: POLITICS IN COMMAND 135

134 CULTURAL REVOLUTION: POLITICS IN COMMAND
 ing. China Increasingly wa:s lldllC:U, Ul 111U11J y~~~~u ~~~---- ---- o·---, -- -
their dashed expectations. Power, 1t turned out, was eminently corruptible
leader in a type of Communism appropriate for the nonindustrialized third
by those who could work the system.
world. The PRC in fact had become a pilgrimage site for left-leaning people
The emptying of cities removed the student elements from mass orga-
from all over the world. Mao met with as many as he could, including
nizing, helping calm the urban areas and restore order. Workers went back
African, Asian, and Latin American leaders, as well as writers, cultural
to work,. with only some of the democratic factory floor gains they had
figures, and Communists from Japan, Europe, and the United States.
sought. Spaces were opened at the universities and urban learning institu-
However, there were still a few things bothering Mao. In his speech
tions for peasant and proletarian children, who had never had a chance at
of April 28 at the First Plenum of the Ninth Congress, he vented. First,
college-level education or maybe even at urban life. When schools re-
Mao complained about Soviet verbal attacks that labeled the ccP as a
opened in the early 1970s, it was with the favored "worker, peasant, sol-
"petit bourgeois party" rather than a party of the proletariat. These attacks
dier" student as the major constituency. Curricula were redesigned to
loomed particularly large in the wake of the airing of the "Brezhnev doc-
serve these students and the goals of the Cultural Revolution, to render
trine." Proclaimed in 1968, just as Soviet troops were violently quelling the
culture into something useful for the revolutionary everyday lives of the
Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia, this doctrine held that Moscow had the
II masses. Bookishness, abstract research, learning for the sake of learning-
right to depose those in the socialist bloc posing a challenge to Communist
all this "bourgeois" dross was discarded in favor of practical education. The
principles. As with Hungary in 1956, there was no Chinese support for the
teachers allowed back into the classrooms took instruction from the stu-
Prague Spring. But there was considerable discomfort about Soviet troops
dents by enhancing their own practical skills, and students spent only a
marching into other people's territories, and about the "revisionist" USSR
fraction of the day in the classrooms, with the rest of it spent in practical
as the self-proclaimed leader of correct Communist doctrine and practice.
training. Campus life was thoroughly revolutionized and politicized. This
Second, Mao complained that factories were still being run along old
was approaching Mao's vision of education for the masses.
. Liu Shaoqi rule~ of material incentives and profits in command. The point,
The Ninth National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party Mao noted, was to make the factories bastions of proletarian politics in
command. "Economism;' or rewarding productivity with money, in Mao's
In 1969, the CCP convened its ninth national Congress. In his opening
view, demonstrated the wrong values; production should be led by (revolu-
address on April 1, Mao reviewed the long and torturous history of the
tionary) politics, not cash. Third, Mao complained that rusticated youths
CCP-from its twelve-delegate founding in 1921, through the lean years
and those in cadre schools had become divorced from the world and the
and Yan'an, to the present. He lauded the Party for having rid itself of its
life of the nation. He urged that they should be brought back in through
internal enemies, primarily Liu Shaoqi and Peng Zhen, and expressed the
study classes organized to "talk about history ... about the course of the
hope that after all the divisiveness resulting from exposing enemies, the . h "10
Great Cultural Revolution durmg t e past two years.
Congress would be one of unity and victory.
Mao also warned that China was still not sufficiently prepared for war.
Mao had reason to feel confident. He had marginalized his enemies.
With the Americans in Vietnam and the hostile Soviets on the northern
The Party, state, and cultural apparatuses were now preponderantly staffed
border, Mao cautioned that it was probably only a matter of time before
by Maoists. The country was relatively quiescent, having come through a
"imperialists and revisionists" (Americans and Soviets) attacked. Lastly,
cataclysmic set of events kindled by Mao himself, and taken up by millions
Mao complained about the continuing signs of disunity in the country,
of students and workers. He had reoriented the course of development,
from small-scale petty quarrels to larger matters of policy. In this regard
education, and cultural policy toward revolutionary goals. Institutions had
Mao propos~d "the answer to the problem of the localities lies in the army;
been remolded around Maoist ideals, and bureaucratic Party cadres had 11
the answer to the problem of the army lies in political work."
been sent in droves to cadre schools in remote areas for re-education

CULTURAL REVOLUTION: POLITICS IN COMMAND 137

136 CULTURAL REVOLUTION: POLITICS IN COMMAND
 context or potennat war, was tne nammg ot Lm l:Srao-the PLA commander
and one of the most respected generals of the anti-Japanese and civil
wars-~s Mao's successor. Nobody could have predicted that a short year
later, Lm was t0 be accused of sedition and "expos. ed" as th e b.rggest CCP
snake of all.

I The Cultural Revolution

DENOUEMENT AND DEATH OF MAO, 1969-1976

As the Cultural Revolution was unfolding in China, the 1960s

were unfolding across the rest of the world. From Africa, Latin
America, and Asia, to the United States and Europe, domes-
tic radicalism and anti-colonial revolutionary nationalism were
shaking up the global establishment. These upsurges were met,
sooner or later, by forces of national and international order. Cor-
responding to attempts to beat back the transformative tide was a
rise in revolutionary internationalism. This internationalism-in
its domestic and global forms-spun a vision of a new world with-
out domination or exploitation.

Revolutionary lnlemalionalism and lhe Globall960s

The Chinese Cultural Revolution was an inspiration for many in
envisioning this new world. This was not because the movement
was well understood. Far from it. The idea and image of a people,
apparently set free from constraint to practice mass politics, ap-
pealed to those, who were increasingly disaffected from the rou-
tines of life. They were tired of political quiescence, and impatient
with grinding exploitative, sexist, and racist views and practices.
The perceived imaginative and creative exuberance of the Cultural
Revolution-particularly in its early days-tapped into burgeon-
ing desires everywhere for common people to seize politics from
the dead hands of faraway bureaucrats, technocratic social engi-
neers, and militaristic warmongers and turn it into something of
culturally enduring and everyday significance.
138
CULTURAL REVOLUTION: POLITICS IN COMMAND
 were the ones who should be in Tian'anmen Square meeting with Mao Ze-
The following excerpts are from my interview with the japanese-born, New
dong and Lin Biao.
York-based independent writer Sabu Kohso. Growing up in postwar japan,
Our focus was really on the Japanese underclass, the ones who had been
Sabu entered high school in the early 1970s, and there came into contact
left out of the postwar middle-class centered society.... We believed Mao's
with student radicals and experienced political struggles. It was then that he
words that the revolution should start from the countryside; of course, in
became aware of the Cultural Revolution, Maoism, and China. 1
Japan, this was very unrealistic, as Japan was already mostly one big metro-
Q: When and how did you become aware of Mao and China's Cultural politan region! But, Okinawa was the last place we could organize .... B~ 1972
Revolution? or 1973 , the core members of me became determined; they went to Okmawa
A: The late 196os and early 1970s in Japan were exciting; it was an entire to build a revolutionary base. They asked us to choose whether to go with
~ i ~.
decade: you walked the streets of Tokyo, and there were student demon- them or not. I didn't quit high school to go; I couldn't ...
!i strations, struggles with the police, cultural experimentations, politics in the . . . There were lots of events, films from China, even a good bookshop,
..1.
streets. Those of us who were just coming of age at that time were excited .... I which still exists, called Toho Shoten [Oriental Books]. Our fashion was dif-
,,"'II
I,

happened to have a friend, whose tutor was one of the founders of Die- ferent. Back then, most leftists looked like American hippies, with long hair,
Destruction is Construction-one of the leftist sects at the time. This guy was jeans, and so on. We sought to be different, more humble like Chinese stu-
really critical of the previous New Left line in Japan .... He found the real core dents. The majority of the New Left groups focused on street fights, from
of revolution in China's Cultural Revolution: ... to change the values of militant ones to nonviolent actions; but we thought we needed revolutionary
everyday life, to undertake social revolution. This was a big deal for us, be- acts in day to day life, so as to depose the educational machine.
cause, even though we were affected by the atmosphere of revolution all Q: What Maoist texts interested you most at the time? .
around us, we were after all the children of Americanization-John Ford A: It was mostly the short citations from the Little Red Book, as well as the
movies, Coca-Cola-and so to find some new values for everyday life in Chi- philosophical texts like "On Contradiction" and "On Practice." ... We also
nese things was really different! read Mao's writings on the war against Japan-"On Protracted War." My
... My generation faced severe entrance exams; to be socially successful, favorite was always his addresses to students, his encouragement to students
you had to go to great schools, and our work was to study constantly. Today, to rebel and to speak their minds. . . . The Cultural Revolution . . . was
students face a more complicated situation; but in our time, climbing the encouraging to us; it helped us dare to think we could do something. [Her~,

ladder of social success-reproducing ourselves as a class-was accomplished Sabu showed me his marked up copies of the Little Red Book and Mao s
directly through education. We focused, therefore, on "stop the examinations" Exhortation to Students. On one page, in the margins of the text, Sabu had
campaigns, using propaganda and discussions with students and teachers. We traced out in Chinese characters: "zaofan you li" -"It is right to rebel" -Mao's
formed networks against education as a class reproduction system.... I was most famous slogan calling students into being as a revolutionary force in
probably fifteen or so, and was the youngest. Other students participating in ]
19 66 .... T his was really the beginning of thinking about the world for me; .. ·
this campaign had more experience .... We believed in the Maoist line based the Cultural Revolution helped me think on my own terms. I couldn't follow
upon the Cultural Revolutionary idea, which was to transvalue our everyday my mother's hopes for me to become a banker; the Cultural Revolution gave
life through cultural rebellion. me an imagination of what might be possible.
Q: Did you base your actions on Maoist writings? Q: What did you think when Nixon visited China?
A: ... We read Mao's works every day. We were intent on shifting the values of A: we didn't know what to make of it. Some insisted it was necessary for
Japanese society from being based on the United States to China. We were not China to confront the USSR. But it was a shock. ... It was a big disappoint-
officially connected to China, not like the Sino-Japanese Friendship Society, ment: I even stopped listening to the daily radio broadcasts, "Peking Hoso"
[Peking News]; at the beginning of those broadcasts they would sing "The East
140 CULTURAL REVOLUTION: DENOUEMENT AND DEATH
CULTURAL REVOLUTION: DENOUEMENT AND DEATH 141
 tous in China at the timeJ. When Nixon went to Lnma, 1 stoppeClltstemng to ·to rial atter editorial called tor ··the people ot the whole world lto J unite,
those broadcasts. [to] defeat the U.S. aggressors and all their lackeys." As Mao wrote in
May 1970 for the People's Daily, "U.S. imperialism not only massacres
The potential of the Cultural Revolution was not fulfilled, either in
foreigners, it also massacres white and black people in its own country.
China or elsewhere. Various forces of order and "normalcy" were able to
Nixon's fascist atrocities have enkindled the raging flames of the revolu-
quash, while co-opting, parts of the 1960s movements. In China, as Mao
tionary mass movement in the United States."3 In a different venue, Mao
was declaring victory for the Cultural Revolution in April 1969, it had
went on to proclaim that "imperialism [i.e., the United States] is afraid
already become clear to those who had engaged in it with passion and
of the third world;' a category to which China belonged, in Mao's view.4 It
conviction that the promise of mass politics in command had been be-
was hard to imagine two more firm foes than the PRC and the USA in
trayed. The "victory" turned out to be for the Party alone; it was not a
rapprochement.
triumph for the masses, who had embraced the movement as theirs to
Throughout 1969 and 1970, the prospect of full-scale war with the
shape and claim.
Soviets was a major Chinese preoccupation. The Soviets moved battlefield
Laying 11China Cards" on lhe Table nuclear weapons to the border, even as Mao pressed on with bilateral
negotiations. Zhou Enlai was sent to Hanoi for Ho Chi Minh's funeral,
At the same time that Maoism was being promoted by many as an exciting
where he met with Soviet Premier Kosygin; a delegation went to the border
alternative to the moribund Soviet variety of socialism, the Chinese were
to hold talks. At the same time, China prepared for extended hostilities.
engaging in a showdown with the Soviets on their border. In March 1969,
Key economic and research installations, located in large urban areas, were
after many minor incidents and wars of words, outright hostilities broke
dismantled and concealed inland, to protect them from potential Soviet
out at the Ussuri River, the boundary between Soviet Siberia and Chinese
strikes. Tens of millions of people were moved to rural areas, in anticipa-
Manchuria. Whether the Chinese instigated the events or were provoked
tion of an urban nuclear holocaust. In mid-October 1969, the ccp leaders
is the subject of heated historical debate. Whatever the onset, one upshot
-including Mao-were evacuated from Beijing, each to a different loca-
was the manifest spectacle of the two socialist "fraternal allies" engaged in
. tion. Mao went to Wuhan.
a hot war. American spy satellites operated by the CIA captured the results,
noting "the Chinese side of the [Ussuri] river was so pockmarked by Soviet
Mao in 1970
artillery that it looked like a 'moonscape.' "2 The PLA was put on high
In the autumn of 1969, central China experienced unusually cold weather.
alert. In China, warnings about full-scale war were issued to great patri-
In Wuhan, Mao refused, as he normally did, to turn on the heat in his resi-
otic effect.
dence so early in the season. Now in his late seventies, Mao still believed
Meanwhile, the Soviets attempted to play their "China card" by sound-
that enhanced exercise would help him withstand the climate. He was
ing out Washington about the potential of a surgical strike against Chinese
wrong. No matter how much squatting and swimming in the indoor pool
nuclear weapons installations. President Nixon and his National Security
he accomplished, he caught cold. It soon turned into severe bronchitis.
Advisor, Henry Kissinger, had by then given up pressuring the Soviets to
In mid-1970, from his base in Wuhan, Mao journeyed to Lushan for a
influence North Vietnam. They decided to play their own "China card" and
Party conference. It wa~ here that many insiders began to have an in-
warned the Soviets not to escalate attacks on China.
kling of a conflict between Mao and his designated successor, Lin Biao. At
The momentous Nixon opening to China germinated. It was now clear
Lushan, Lin t.t;ied to reinstate the post of head of state, as the office had
that the Cold War bogeyman of a Communist monolith was a postwar
remained empty since Liu Shaoqi's fall from power. Lin argued it was time
fantasy, invented and sustained to whip up American patriotic fervor. Yet,
to fill it. Mao argued it was best to abolish the post altogether. Lin's argu-
in 1969-70, Chinese newspapers were in full-scale vitriol against Ameri-
ment seems to have led Mao to conclude that Lin was attempting to seize

142 CULTURAL REVOLUTION: DENOUEMENT AND DEATH CULTURAL REVOLUTION: DENOUEMENT AND DEATH 143

L
 Party chairman in an end-run maneuver around him. Things were riot u·-- . . u
ana.nts son ~1:ne cuuuuallucJ. VJ. ----- --- __
~~~--, ~
resolved. Beidaihe, the summer retreat for CCP leaders. Lin Doudou, his daughter,
Mao left Lushan and returned to Wuhan in poor health, experiencing was left behind, and it was she who alerted Zhou Enlai to the event. The jet
shortness of breath. It turned out that he had contracted pneumonia. was headed toward the Soviet Union. After a flight of an hour or so, it
Treated for that on top of the recent bronchitis, Mao was physically weak- crashed in Outer Mongolia, either because of a shortage of fuel (most
ened ~hroughthe end of 1970. His battle with Lin Biao was to further affect plausible), or because it was shot down by the Soviets or the Chinese (for
his physical condition. Despite his illnesses, Mao managed to attend the which no evidence was ever found). All on board were killed. Lin Biao's
National Day celebrations in Beijing on October 1, when, as usual, he stood presence on the plane was soon confirmed through his dental records.
atop the Gate of Heavenly Peace. What prompted Lin Biao to flee is in dispute. It is said, Lin was prepar-
In December, Mao was well enough to meet his old friend, Edgar Snow, ing to launch a coup against Mao involving the assassination of the Chair-
the American journalist who had spent time in Yan'an and written a best- man. The coup was discovered by Mao loyalists, but Lin was tipped off in
selling account of Chinese Communism in the 1940s for an American time to flee. It is also said, the alleged coup was a Maoist invention to
audience. Snow had long since been named a "friend of China;' a label used depose Lin Biao, whose power within and over the PLA had grown too fast
by the Chinese to indicate foreigners not hostile to the PRC. Considered a and great for Mao to countenance. Rather than a successor, Lin had be-
suspicious figure in the United States because of his "commie" sympathies, come a rival. Or it is said, Lin Biao was always a stooge of the Soviets,
Snow nevertheless was used by Mao in late 1970 as a conduit to the Ameri- through an alleged longtime secret connection to Chiang Kaishek. He had
can government. In their meeting of December 18, Mao informed Snow he bided his time until he could deliver China to the USSR and thence to the
would be delighted to meet with Nixon or any high-level American official GMD. This, it is said, explains why Lin fled toward the Soviet Union just as
willing to come to China. Indeed, Mao stated that it would be best to allow the Soviets and China were still engaged in a border war. Recently it has
Americans-rightists along with leftists-to visit the PRC, since "right been suggested Lin was not power hungry, was indeed a Mao loyalist, and
now we must straighten things out with Nixon." Mao's urgency was, in had not hatched a coup conspiracy, but was somehow induced to board the
part, informed by the festering Taiwan situation, in part, by the American plane and flee by Ye Qun-his power-mongering wife-and his son, both
escalations in Vietnam and the fear they would spill over into China, and in of whom perceived doom on the horizon and wanted to save themselves,
part, by Soviet hostilities. His urgency was also spurred by his eagerness to and their father, for another day. 6
maneuver around his Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which he accused of While this dispute cannot be resolved, it is quite clear from the Lushan
ideological rigidity in formulating foreign policy. Mao was confident that conference in mid-1970 onward that Mao was increasingly uneasy about
the United States, would sooner or later welcome his initiative; after all, he the role of the military in civilian life. Of course, it had been Mao himself
noted, "we haven't occupied your Long Island!"s who had called the PLA in to quell the mass movements. Yet, since the
Ninth Congress in April1969, Mao had been trying to rebuild the ccP. The
The Fall of Lin Biao
PLA now stood in the way, as it had stepped into the vacuum created by
The Party unity proclaimed at the Ninth Congress in April1969, proved to the gutting of the Party. The PLA's ubiquitous presence now appeared
be short lived. Division seized hold of the ccp's inner circles, and struggles suspicious.
were re-animated over issues of personnel and policy. The most spectacu- Throughout late 1970 and into 1971, Lin Biao increasingly came under
lar of these was the split between Mao and the PLA commander Lin Biao. verbal attack. Nevertheless, he continued to be the biggest spokesperson
One of the more extraordinary developments, the Lin Biao affair re- for the Mao cult. In 1970, Lin advocated Mao be proclaimed a "genius" in
mains shrouded in mystery. The ending is mostly known: a little after the state constitution (Mao refused); Lin promoted the little red book and

144 CULTURAL REVOLUTION: DENOUEMENT AND DEATH CULTURAL REVOLUTION: DENOUEMENT AND DEATH 145
 aoove rne Yany ana aoove tne ~tate ~Mao objected). All of this has been Moaea nevoauuonai'Y "'unun=

taken as evidence of Lin's loyalty, as proof that Lin's fall was due to Mao's Through all the political upheaval, the impetus to create a revolutionary
alleged perversities. It seems more plausible, as a few argue, that Lin's culture proceeded, and once the destruction of the "four olds" had abated,
promotion of the Mao cult and the adulation it demanded made Mao construction of this new culture began in earnest. The Maoist theory of the
extremely suspicious of Lin's motives.? relationship between revolution and art, elaborated in Yan'an in 1942, was
The finaJ days are impossible to pin down. The coup plot is said to vigorously promoted. This resulted in "model" dramas, soon adapted to
have included an attack with artillery and bazookas on Mao's special Beijing opera and ballet. These were eight well-honed and well-vetted
train, returning to Beijing on September 12 with Mao aboard; in the event works, whose combination of revolutionary aesthetics and artistic practice
of failure, there was to be a frontal assault by a specially trained com- exemplified a Maoist revolutionary cultural ideal.
mando squad. The subsequent purge of military commanders and, in In propaganda posters and dramatic performances, the new revolution-
the Politburo, of military members, speaks to the suspicions harbored ary aesthetic was formulated out of a socialist realism of the Soviet type (in
about the PLA's loyalty. Yet, details of the coup planning have never been which all representations were outsized) and transformed into a socialist
substantiated. realism brought to the level of the everyday life of the masses. Idealized as
In the two years of intrigue before Lin Biao's death, Mao moved to they were, representations of socialism as a quotidian politics proved to be
ensure that the troops, whose loyalty Lin commanded, would obey Mao's emotionally powerful and attractive (as advertising subsequently has been).
orders. Immediately before Lin's demise, Mao had embarked on a tour of For in various venues-in print or on stage-art did not just mimic (ide-
the provinces to shore up PLA support. In his talks to military command- alized) life; rather, life was transmuted into aesthetically politicized theatre.
ers, Mao, as usual, gave a narrative history of the ccP's founding and its im- In the 1970s, print art sought to combine realism with folk art in a redis-
probable rise to power. In this particular version of the story, Mao empha- covery, as it were, of the authentic mass origins of native Chinese drawing.
sized Various subtle signs (retrospectively discovered) of Lin's treachery, (Many artists by this time had been sent down to the countryside, facilitat-
stretching back to 1928, when Lin joined Mao at Jinggangshan. What Mao ing this "rediscovery.") The accustomed sharp outlines of revolutionary he-
emphasized were "questions of principle" with which, he implied, Lin fun- .roes, rendered in bold primary colors, were blunted with new softer color
damentally disagreed. This version of the past demanded that Lin be re- schemes and less abrupt brush- and pen strokes. In ballet, an obviously
moved in the present. 8 imported art, fluid classicism was combined with revolutionary gestures
In the early morning of September 13, on Mao's return from the prov- and rigid body postures to produce a recognizable, but defamiliarized form,
inces to Beijing, Zhou Enlai informed him of Lin's flight and death; Mao drawing from apparently opposed traditions of physical movement. New
was both shocked and relieved. Explaining this development to the people musically hybrid scores were composed for the purpose. In Beijing opera,
-who knew Lin as Mao's "closest comrade in arms" -was going to be the accustomed trilling atonality was slightly blunted into more melodic
another story altogether; it would take more than a year before Mao coordi- albeit still shrill enunciative form. Lyrics were adapted from revolutionary
nated a minimally plausible line through which to denounce Lin publicly. narratives to accompany new scores, combining Western and Chinese
Ultimately, Lin's supposed disagreements on matters of principle became classical traditions with Chinese folk music. Movements-formerly metic-
the building blocks of the denunciation. The thoroughness with which ulously calibrated-wer~ broadened into gestural revolutionary positions
Lin's reputation was tarnished at this time has prevented Lin's status as to suggest collective strength alongside individual fortitude.
traitor from ever being overturned or rethought. However, it appears his Revolution was art; art was revolutionary. Artistic creation was to bring
role in the successes of the pre-1949 rise of the CCP is now being recognized to light what was already beautiful in the revolutionary masses, and by
in China. This represents a major reversal of the post-1971 airbrushing of stimulating the masses through aesthetics, the artist was to bring his or her
Lin from history.9 capacity and energy into play in the revolution. For Mao, revolution was in

146 CULTURAL REVOLUTION: DENOUEMENT AND DEATH CULTURAL REVOLUTION: DENOUEMENT AND DEATH 147
 the French writer Andre Malraux, revolution is "a drama of passion; we did
not win the people over by appealing to reason, but by developing hope, secretary and group leader, Chen Boda, was deposed. Left standing from
trust, and fraternity." 10 These innovations, before they were dogmatized, this dissolution were Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, and the three radicals from
initially provided creative space for artists, even if the topics were pro- Shanghai: the literary critic Yao Wenyuan, the former Shanghai Party chief
scribed to a few acceptable ones. Zhang Chunqiao, and the textile worker and Shanghai Commune leader
The revolution as a drama of (platonic) passion was perfectly, if rigidly, Wang Hongwen. By 1973, all four were in the Politburo, while Zhang and
exemplified in the eight models of revolutionary culture. These models Wang were named members of the Standing Committee (the highest rul-
played ceaselessly in China over many years and were practically the only ing body in the land).
cultural products available to a mass audience. They seeped inexorably into The Gang's political constituency was not comprised of the old-time
people's consciousness, penetrating their feelings and shaping their judg- revolutionaries, with whom they were locked in constant battle. Indeed,
ments. Yet, these were neither dramas to be contemplated from a distance, the older revolutionaries-Long March and Yan'an veterans-despised
nor were they commodities to be consumed. (Nobody even had to pay to see Jiang Qing and had contempt for the Shanghai upstarts who, in their view,
them.) These were dramas exhorting audiences to participate, emotionally understood nothing of true sacrifice and revolutionary practice, and only
and physically, in the revolutionary activities they staged and encouraged. knew how to manipulate intrigue. By the 1970s, though, newer Party mem-
A majority of these model dramas had women as their title characters. bers had emerged from the struggles of the late 1960s and joined the
Rather than being sexualized objects, these female protagonists generally leadership ranks. These were not the mass organization activists (students
begin the narratives as victims of class, gender, and imperialist oppression. or workers), long since banished from the urban areas and from any hint of
The stories then revolve around their liberation through a simultaneous power positions. Rather, these were members, who had opportunistically
discovery of hitherto unsuspected internet'! strength an~ of the Communist risen with the rebuilding of the Party after the cataclysmic events. Out-
Party. While the formula was predictable-this predictability in fact had numbering the old revolutionaries by a good proportion, the newer mem-
been adapted from 1940s and 1950s Hollywood melodramatic templates- bers threw their support behind the Gang, in an attempt to seize control of
the stories nevertheless packed a punch. However, their depictions of fe- the Party and state apparatus from old-timers. The battles were epic in
male liberation always hinged upon an enlightened male Party leader, who proportion, Byzantine in nature, and vile in underhandedness. They pro-
guided the woman to revolutionary consciousness and action. The fre- ceeded behind the scenes until Mao's death and slightly beyond.
quency with which women had to await liberation by men (in the guise of
the Party), and the denial of sexuality and romantic possibilities to these Of Ping Pong and Kissinger
unions (always confined to revolutionary Puritanism), promoted the ccp's Meanwhile, throughout late 1970 and into 1971, contacts between China
version of state feminism, while undercutting any possibility for the de- and the United States flourished through the intermediary of the Pakistani
velopment of autonomous feminist principles. president Yahya Khan. These were kept as secret from the U.S. State De-
Whatever the dogmatic and formalistic elements-repudiated in the partment as they were from China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Zhou
198os-parts of this revolutionary cultural ethos persisted long after the Enlai was the point person for Mao on this initiative; Kissinger was Nixon's
demise of the revolution itself. man. The secrecy was· mandated, in part, by Mao's distrust of his foreign
policy crew and Nixon's own secretive nature; in part, because a USA-PRC
The Gang of Four
rapprochement would have extraordinary global impact.
As political infighting proceeded, the "gang of four" flexed its muscles in The first public breakthrough occurred in mid-April 1971. The U.S.
the cultural and media spheres. They attempted more. The gang label was Ping-Pong team, competing in the thirty-first world table tennis cham-
affixed by Mao only in 1975, in condemnation of their conspiratorial meth- pionships in Japan, received an invitation to play friendly matches with the
148 CULTURAL REVOLUTION: DENOUEMENT AND DEATH
CULTURAL REVOLUTION: DENOUEMENT AND DEATH 149
 Nlao oecame convmcea tnat sports were a great way to push forward and the long rise of the Pl<.C trom revolutionary mternanonaust Icon to
diplomacy. On April 10, after a flurry of bewildered communication with bulwark of the established global order.
the State Department, the U.S. team went to Hong Kong and proceeded
across a footbridge to the PRC. From April11-17, the Americans played Mao Receives Nixon
ping pong, toured the Great Wall, and attended a performance of a model Richard Nixon was to arrive in Beijing on February 21, 1972. Prepara-
ballet. Zhou Enlai received them formally, lauding the visit as a harbinger tions for his visit to Zhongnanhai-Mao's residence and workspace-were
of a new era in China's relations with the United States. feverish. Mao had long since ceded the courtyard house to Jiang Qing
Meanwhile, the top-secret Pakistani-mediated negotiations continued. and others, whom he no longer wished to see on a daily basis; he had re-
In July 1971, Kissinger, pleading illness on a trip to Pakistan, slipped away moved himself to the indoor pool area, where a bedroom and a study were
to fly to Beijing to finalize details about the Nixon visit. Several days later, installed.
on July 15, it was publicly announced in China and the United States that After Lin Biao's flight and death in September 1971, Mao's health had
Nixon would visit China in February 1972. taken a plunge for the worse. Always susceptible, his lung infections ac-
cumulated, his breathing became labored, and his heart started to fail. As
Joining the United Nations
always, Mao refused treatment until the ailments had become acute. Three
As the world was digesting this news-and as several western European weeks before Nixon's arrival, Mao finally agreed to take action. He did,
governments were stewing about it-the groundwork the PRC had laid after all, want to be in shape for the triumphal reception in Beijing of the
since the Bandung Conference in 1955 finally bore fruit at the United firmest anti-Communist ever to be American president. A good deal of
Nations in late 1971. hospital equipment was moved into the indoor pool area and Mao concen-
At the end of the Second World War, the GMD-con~rolled Republic of trated on regaining strength. Prior to Nixon's visit, the oxygen tanks and
China (ROC) had assumed the China seat in the United Nations. One of . other paraphernalia were disassembled or hidden from view. The hospital
the five war victors, the ROC also had a seat on the uN's Permanent bed was moved into a corridor, and the pool was covered over. The area
Council. After the GMD's removal to Taiwan, the ROC continued to hold was turned into a reception hall, albeit one that could be transformed
the China seat, since the CCP was not recognized as the legitimate govern- instantaneously into an emergency room, if required.
ment of China by the United States and its allies. Every year since, the PRC The day of Nixon's arrival, Zhou Enlai met his plane and escorted him
had petitioned to be seated in the UN in place of the ROC. Every year, the to the villa where he would stay. A luncheon was held. After a rest, Nixon
petition had been defeated. Through the 196os, the defeats had become boarded a Red Flag limousine to Zhongnanhai and was whisked through
narrower, as former colonies gained their independence and were seated as the streets of Beijing, which were closed to all bicycle and bus traffic (the
sovereign nation-states in the UN. Since Bandung, the PRC had promoted only kind of vehicular traffic at the time). Nixon entered the "reception
itself vigorously as a "third world" nation. Particularly in the Cultural Revo- area" with Kissinger and Winston Lord (later ambassador to the PRC). The
lutionary years, but even well before, the PRC had been one of the loudest Secretary of State was excluded by design. As Nixon entered, the tin roof of
global stalwarts rhetorically to support anti-colonial movements around the pool-cum-reception hall blocked Secret Service radio contact, and
the world (particularly in Africa) and had competed with the United States panic among the Amer.icans ensued. Chinese security forces assured them
and the Soviet Union for influence in these countries. Nixon was safe with Mao. The visit proceeded without the American Se-
At the annual vote on the PRC's petition to join the UN on October 25, cret Service ..
1971, for the first time, countries sympathetic to the PRC outnumbered Mao was not able to talk well, because of his illnesses. He was also quite
those that the United States and the GMD could line up in support of the bloated because of medication and congestive heart failure. Nixon had
ROC on Taiwan. The PRC was voted in, and the ROC was banished. This been alerted to Mao's difficulties, although not in detail. Originally sched-

ISO CULTURAL REVOLUTION: DENOUEMENT AND DEATH CULTURAL REVOLUTION: DENOUEMENT AND DEATH 151
photographs were taken by the assembled press, the most famous being sides then pleage to worK Luwa1u uvullaULa.U'-'" '"'" ·~·~~·~··~, ~- · - - - - - ___ _
one of Mao and Nixon locked in an historic handshake. danger of international conflict, not to seek hegemony in Asia, and not to
Aside from his visit with Mao, Nixon was accompanied in Beijing by collude with others. Disagreement revolves around Taiwan. While both
Jiang Qing to the model opera, The Red Detachment of Women. Nixon the USA and the PRC agree that there is only one China, the PRC claims
liked the opera well enough, although he apparently did not at all like that the Taiwan question is an internal domestic dispute in which the
]ia~g-whom he described as "unpleasantly abrasive and aggressive." 11 United States has no legitimate interest. By contrast, the United States
Then again, Jiang did not like Nixon either, finding him arrogant and claims an ongoing, albeit diminishing, interest in the problem. The United
insufferable. Moreover, she saw his visit as undermining her position as an States then pledges to withdraw its troops and installations from Taiwan as
unrelenting foe of "American imperialism." Indeed, Nixon's visit was Zhou soon as feasible.
Enlai's coup, and Jiang Qing was at this point already conceiving a plan to This latter was the poison pill the GMD was forced to swallow, without
sideline Zhou. After leaving Beijing, Nixon was escorted south, to the warning or consultation, so eager was Kissinger to conclude a statement
famous scenic city of Hangzhou, where over the years Mao had spent with the PRC. The Chiang Kaishek-aligned "China Lobby" in the United
much time near West Lake. Nixon ended his trip in Shanghai. States screamed bloody murder, and it took until 1979 for the United
States Congress to overcome its strength and formally establish diplomatic
Shanghai Communique relations under President Carter. Yet, immediately after the Nixon visit,
Negotiations on the content of the joint statement about Nixon's visit U.S. allies-including Japan, Great Britain, and West Germany-stam-
consumed a good deal of Kissinger's time in China. Again, the State De- peded toward China. Within a year, all had broken relations with Taiwan
partment was shut out of these discussions. The document was finalized in in order to establish relations with the PRC. By the 1990s, the Taiwan
a series of late-night moves during the l~st days of the visit. Issued in government-now no longer even under GMD rule-was recognized diplo-
Shanghai, historians generally have seen the Communique as a huge coup matically by only five nations.
for the PRC.
The Fading ol Mao and the Old Revolutionary Generation
After courteous preliminaries, the Communique first contains two sep-
arate statements. The American side notes, "No country should claim The public appearance with Nixon was one of the last in Mao's life. His
infallibility and each country should be prepared to reexamine its own health was quite precarious, and his powers of speech were all but gone by
attitudes for the common good." But then, the United States goes on to early 1973. His heart was failing, his eyesight hazing, and his extremities
aver an unwavering belief in "individual freedom and social progress for trembling. His distrust of medicine continued, however, and he refused
the peoples of the world." Further, the United States pledges to find a treatment, or even proper diagnosis, for all but the most obvious of his
solution to the Vietnam War, to continue its alliance with South Korea and symptoms. Because he could no longer see well enough to read, Mao
Japan, and to support the recently negotiated Pakistani-Indian cease-fire. occupied himself with watching movies. He loved the martial arts films
The Chinese statement begins with China's basic principles: "Wherever from Hong Kong best of all.
there is oppression, there is resistance. Countries want independence, na- With his mind absolutely clear even as his body failed him, Mao con-
tions want liberation and the people want revolution-this has become the tinued to attend Party meetings, albeit now surrounded by medical staff
irresistible trend of history." The Chinese go on to reaffirm their support and nurses. He also met with a few foreign visitors, including the president
for the peoples of Indochina, for the peaceful reunification of Korea, and of Zambia,. with whom he discussed the theory of the "three worlds;' and
for UN supervision of the Pakistani-Indian cease-fire. the former British prime minister, Edward Heath, with whom he discussed
The arenas of agreement include a reworded affirmation of Zhou's and the ongoing issue of Hong Kong. His "talks" with them were conducted in
Mao's foreign policy doctrine of "peaceful co-existence;' first offered at writing.

152 CULTURAL REVOLUTION: DENOUEMENT AND DEATH CULTURAL REVOLUTION: DENOUEMENT AND DEATH 153
 Many of Mao's generation of revolutionaries were also in poor health. In stability. This policy-soon honed and championed in the post-Mao pe-
late 1972, Zhou Enlai was diagnosed with lung cancer; the despised chief of riod by Deng Xiaoping-came to be called the "four modernizations."l2
the secret service, Kang Sheng, a staunch Mao loyalist and the object of
much distrust among everyone else, learned he had bladder cancer. Others Mao's Final Trip
were just too old to work effectively. And yet others had been banished to With increasingly intractable health issues making it hard for him to
th~ countryside, where they languished away from intrigue and far from speak, eat, or breathe, Mao wanted to go on one last trip, to visit Wuhan
top-notch medical care. and his home province, Hunan. Jiang Qing, whom he could no longer bear
to be around, stayed in Beijing. While in Wuhan and in good spirits, Mao
Deng Xiaoping Returns
received Imelda Marcos from the Philippines.
It is in these circumstances that Mao decided to pluck Deng Xiaoping from In September, once the summer heat had abated, Mao, his doctors,
the tractor repair factory in Jiangxi and restore him to power. Zhou was nurses, and others in his personal retinue went to Changsha, capital of
slowed due to illness, and by May 1974, hospitalized. The day-to-day ad- Hunan, where Mao had begun his political education so many years ear-
ministration, over which he normally presided, was grinding to a halt, as lier. In a nostalgic mood, Mao wished to go swimming, for it was in the
the State and Party apparatus were staffed with relative newcomers. If not Xiang River at Changsha, where he had spent so many pleasurable after-
incompetent, they were untrustworthy. Mao wanted an older-generation noons as a young man. His doctors were alarmed and dissuaded him from
revolutionary by his side and in charge. Deng -a decade younger than Mao swimming in the river; he attempted to swim in a pool instead but his
and a veteran of the Long March and Yan'an-was the man. breathing problems made it impossible for him to continue. At eighty-two,
Despite Deng's association with the n~w-disgraced and deceased Liu Mao finally faced up to the fact that he would never be able to engage in his
Shaoqi, he had never been the object of Mao's distrust in the same way as favorite activity again.
Liu. An accomplished administrator, Deng's restoration through 1973, af- Mao stayed in Changsha throu-gh his birthday in December 1974 and
ter an absence of seven years from the halls of power, became the major into the beginning of 1975. Zhou Enlai traveled to Changsha to see Mao in
political story in China. Mao's and Zhou's respective declines left the field late December. From afar, Mao helped tip the balance at January's Fourth
open. His only rival-and she was a huge one-was Jiang Qing, whore- National People's Congress, when he supported Deng Xiaoping's appoint-
garded Deng as a "rightist" not to be trusted to continue the revolution. As ment over any of Jiang Qing's candidates.
1973 proceeded, Mao also restored to power a number of formerly dis-
11
graced "rightists;' all of whom were associated in some way with the early Crilicize Lin, Criticize Confucius"
196os economic restoration after the Great Leap disaster. This confirmed Jiang Qing and her gang's last effort to re-appropriate the mantle of revolu-
to Jiang Qing that the fate of the revolution hung in the balance. tion came in the launching of the most improbable "criticize Lin [Biao],
By 1975 and the Fourth National People's Congress, Deng was elevated criticize Confucius" campaign. This was an attempt to rally support against
to the Politburo's Standing Committee. He·was also appointed the chief of the restoration of the bureaucracy represented by Deng Xiaoping's rise to
staff of the PLA. He was widely recognized as the hand-picked successor to power.
Zhou Enlai. Zhou's final appearance was at this same National People's Begun in August 1973, this campaign attempted to link Lin Biao's per-
Congress, held in Beijing in mid-January 1975. Zhou's speech to the 2,8oo fidy and treachery to his alleged love of Confucius and Confucianism. Lin
delegates reaffirmed the goals named at the 1949 founding of the PRC. was depicted as the heir to a 2,500-year-old tradition of Confucian reac-
China was to be a "powerful country with a high degree of socialist indus- tion, as someone who represented himself as a Marxist in order to smuggle
trialization;' and would pursue the modernization "of agriculture, industry, the poison of Confucianism into the unsuspecting Chinese body politic.
national defense, science and technology" in a context of global peace and This assault on Lin and Confucius was waged by respected historians and

154 CULTURAL REVOLUTION: DENOUEMENT AND DEATH CULTURAL REVOLUTION: DENOUEMENT AND DEATH 155
literary scholars-many of whom were fished back to Beijing from exile in A few days before the traditional tomb sweeping festival, which in 1976
the countryside and shut into a building at Beijing University. There, they fell on April 5, students, workers, cadres, and common Beijingers from all
were to do the "research" required to substantiate these charges. Many of walks of life began laying wreaths in Tian'anmen Square, at the base of the
the arguments adduced for this campaign were abstruse close textual read- Monument of People's Heroes, in honor of Zhou Enlai. This was in clear
ings, which took passages of Confucius and of Lin Biao out of context, in opposition to ongoing attempts to wipe out old customs now labeled as
order to establish an ostensible family resemblance between them. superstitious. The wreaths accumulated, and soon, so did wall posters,
These charges filled the newspapers from mid-1973 through 1974. They poems, and speeches eulogizing Zhou. Trucks were sent by the Beijing
were recognized by almost all readers as total nonsense. Indeed, many government on April 4 to cart the wreaths and posters away. On April 5,
students and intellectuals stuck in the countryside correctly read them as large numbers of people arrived on the Square to protest. They came in the
the signs of the death throes of the Cultural Revolution (albeit without any tens of thousands. While most were soon persuaded to leave the Square,
knowledge of what would come next). As most correctly surmised, the some were violently removed.
ultimate target was neither Lin Biao-already dead for two years-nor Deng Xiaoping was blamed for this "counter-revolutionary" mass pro-
Confucius-already dead for more than two millennia. The target was test, soon commemorated as the "April 5th Movement." He was the subject
Zhou Enlai, and through him, Deng Xiaoping. of vitriolic attack, crowned with every political label of which editorial-
By 1974, the "criticize Lin, criticize Confucius" campaign had abated. In ists could avail themselves. In May 1976, he was banished, this time to a
its stead were raging ideological debates within the Party over the relation- pig farm in the south. Meanwhile, workers engaged in deliberate slow-
ship between revolution and development. These were, of course, old is- downs, absenteeism, and strikes to protest. Social struggle broke out all
sues that had bedeviled post-1949 Chinese economic ·and social policy. over again, this time without even the veneer of ideological substance.
They were restaged in 1975 as a debate between the "bourgeois right" People were weary of these stru.ggles, and once again intellectuals were
(Deng et al.) and the Maoist left (Jiang Qing et al.). In keeping with Mao's their main target.
late-1950s reinterpretations of Marxism for Chinese historical circum- Mao lay dying and did not witness the final disintegration of his dreams
stances, Maoists maintained that the transformation of social relations was and lifework.
the only way to properly achieve socialist development. In contrast, Deng
and the "rightists" maintained that the building of productive forces (in- Mao's Death

dustrial capacity and efficiency) was the only way to achieve development. Perhaps the final piece of good news Mao received, before his own death,
These were vital issues, and Deng Xiaoping eventually came out on top was that Chiang Kaishek had died in Taiwan on April 5. Mao could take
after Mao's death and the arrest of the Gang. But the 1975 debate was comfort in the knowledge that he had outlived his bitter enemy and Chiang
conducted under the threat of political terror. Factional politics quite over- had never been able to take back China, as had been his dream. Bad news
shadowed the actual issues. overshadowed this, however. For, also in April, one of the oldest revolu-
tionary cadres still living, Dong Biwu, passed away; by December, the re-
Zhou Enlai' s Death and the April 5th Movement viled secret service chief, Kang Sheng, succumbed to illness. Zhou was
On January 8, 1976, Zhou Enlai died in a Beijing hospital at the age of dead in early 1976, and by July 1976, Zhu De, the founder of the Red Army
seventy-eight. His funeral was held on January 15, with a eulogy delivered and PLA, had also died. A generation was passing on. Their dreams of
by Deng Xiaoping. Mao was too ill to attend. Jiang Qing took the oppor- making China both modern and socialist were dying with them.
tunity to press her attack on Deng, whom she accused of being "China's On July 28, 1976, a massive earthquake shook northern China. Its epi-
new Krushchev" (an old label) and, in a new twist, "an international capi- center was one hundred miles from Beijing. It flattened the coal and steel
talist agent." Her chance to push Deng off the political stage only came in city of Tangshan and killed over two hundred and fifty thousand inhabi-
April1976. tants. The area's survivors were left bereft. International assistance was

CULTURAL REVOLUTION: DENOUEMENT AND DEATH 157

156 CULTURAL REVOLUTION: DENOUEMENT AND DEATH
rejected, and the PLA was mobilized-quite effectively-to assist survivors
and the cleanup. As the social world seemed to be falling apart, the earth-
quake came to be interpreted by many as an omen of worse to come, as a
sign from the natural world that the human world was in great disorder.
Much as the CCP tried to tamp down such "superstitious" belief, such an
interpretation was nevertheless quite rampant.
Several weeks later, on September 9, 1976, a somber announcement
blared over the numerous public loudspeakers in urban and rural areas
alike. The announcement stopped the nation in its tracks. Mao was dead. Reform, Restoration, and the Repudiation of Maoism,
However people had felt about him and his era, the uncertainty of what 1976-Present
would come next filled them with both grief and dread.

On his deathbed, Mao apparently passed the mantle of leader-

ship to a fellow Hunan native, the colorless vice premier, Hua
Guofeng. Hua had been elevated to his position during Deng
Xiaoping's second fall from power in early 1976 but had no inde-
pendent national-level base of support. In a bid to shore up his
position as Mao's successor, Hua reported Mao had written a note
to him just prior to death reputedly saying: "With you in charge,
I am at ease." Despite wide play in the newspapers, few were con-
vinced; indeed, most believed the note to be apocryphal.

The Arrest of the Gang of Four and the Two Whatevers

With Mao lying in state at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing,
the reaction against Jiang Qing began. Formerly shown much def-
erence, she was now all but ignored. She tried to arm support-
ers in Shanghai and Beijing and also made an alliance with Mao
Yuanxin, Mao's nephew, the political commissar of the Shenyang
Military Region in Manchuria. It appears that Jiang Qing was
hoping to seize power through a military coup.
Mao's funeral was held at 3:oo P.M. on September 18, 1976.
Over a million people attended. Early in the morning, they began
gathering on Tian'anmen Square to mourn or at least mark the
passing of a leader and an era. The Square was filled to capacity
with workers, students, cadres, and urban dwellers. There was
grief as well as ambivalence. Domestic and international leaders
filed past the casket in the Great Hall of the People, abutting the

158 CULTURAL REVOLUTION: DENOUEMENT AND DEATH

 Square. Nobody there or on the Square itself quite knew what to expect
next. Revitalizing Economy, Culture, and Education
A heated discussion took place about what to do with Mao's body. Some Despite the "whatever" rhetorics, Hua endeavored to return China to the
leaders wanted him buried. Others argued that Mao should be embalmed pre-Great Leap economic policies of tolerance toward a marketplace in
for display in a mausoleum to be built on Tian'anmen Square, just as Lenin agricultural goods, centralized planning, and economic incentives for in-
wa,s on Moscow's Red Square. Even though Mao had always objected to the dustrial productivity. Removing what was called the "ultra-leftism" of the
handling of Lenin, the embalming faction won. A magnificent structure Cultural Revolution, Hua encouraged a revival of local-level economies
was built in the middle of the Square to house Mao's body. Viewing the that combined planning with limited market freedoms. This is what Mao-
body attracts a large number of visitors to this day. ists derisively had labeled "economism." Hua also moved quickly to erase
Immediately following the mourning period for Chairman Mao, Hua the control the Gang had asserted over cultural and educational policy.
Guofeng was persuaded to move against Jiang Qing. He presided over the Movies, plays, and books long suppressed now appeared for public con-
"smashing" of the Gang of Four on October 6, 1976. Jiang and her three sumption; scholarly journals began to solicit academic articles; and new
Shanghai associates were arrested one by one by military guards loyal to periodicals and magazines sprang up, and the literary sphere was much
CCP old-timers. None resisted arrest. Along with these four, Mao Yuanxin enlivened by the publication of a flood of short stories and poems narrating
and many other suspected Gang supporters were also taken into custody. the wounds of the Cultural Revolution. Soon called "scar literature;' these
In 1980-81, the four were given a public trial in a sensational media event works set China onto a path away from mass revolutionary culture and the
intended to close the era of the Cultural Revolution with finality and a culture of revolution toward an introspective and individualist market-
whiff of legality. While some advocated a "gang of five" label (with Mao as driven and market-dependent literary practice and style.
the fifth), this was firmly resisted by the leadership. All talk of Mao's "guilt" Educational institutions were shored up with the reintroduction of the
was deferred to a formal Party assessment. entrance exam system, designed as of old to offer admissions into high
With the Gang sidelined and their major supporters in jail, ccP veterans schools and universities only to the academically qualified. The years of
wasted no time in purging all levels of the Party of the Cultural Revolution- urban educational opportunity for poorly prepared but motivated peasant,
ary upstarts, whose rise to power and credentials rested on their loyal worker, and soldier students were over. Rusticated youths whose educa-
implementation of Gang policies. The majority of these were worker and tion had been interrupted flocked to exam sites, in an attempt to escape
peasant cadres, elevated into the Party as the intelligentsia and old Party their marginalized rural or factory locations. Those who had remained
cadres had been removed. The post-Cultural Revolutionary order was defiantly engaged in reading and intellectual practices during their years of
restoring old prerogatives: CCP bureaucrats rose from the ashes stronger rural or industrial labor generally fared well in the exams and were able to
and more vigorous than before. vault out of remote areas into urban educational institutions. A generation
Hua's brief leadership was marked by rh~torical loyalty to Mao, sar- of older students returned from rustication to take up their studies where
castically dubbed the "two whatevers" position: "to support whatever pol- they had left off. Their teachers, rusty in their specialties and chastened by
icy decisions were made by Chairman Mao" and "unswervingly to fol- political exile, were usually happy to resume their work Those former
low whatever instructions were given by Chairman Mao." With little students who had given up hope or had gotten married and started families
autonomy, Hua did what he could to stabilize the country. His most im- in their new locations either failed or were barred from taking the exams.
portant task was to regain the confidence and loyalty of intellectuals They were stuck where they had been sent down as youths, victims of
and Party cadres, the two major casualties of the Cultural Revolution, personal choices, whose historical implications they could hardly have
whose restoration would lead to stability and the rebuilding of Party fathomed.
strength. The elitist bias of top-notch educational opportunity was quickly re-

160 REFORM, RESTORATION, AND REPUDIATION REFORM, RESTORATION, AND REPUDIATION 161
 stored as a birthright of the urban intellectual class. Practical and voca- question. For the time being, it was clear Deng believed in the Party's
tional education at the tertiary level was cut back drastically, as universities centrality as the dominant ruler of China. Much of his early effort was
emphasizing research regained the financial and academic upper hand spent on strengthening the role of the Party at the center of Chinese
they had hitherto possessed. The roots of the post-Mao technocratic as- politics and the Chinese state.
cendance were being sown, as a new elite was recruited, trained, and af- In January 1979, Hua was effectively shoved aside when it was Deng
firm'ed as masters of society. Xiaoping who traveled to the United States to celebrate with President
The Cultural Revolution -era constitution was rewritten, and leftist poli- Carter the official normalization of PRC-USA relations. By early 1980, Hua
cies were deleted. In their stead, the "four modernizations" were enshrined. was completely isolated when his supporters were purged from the Cen-
Harking back to 1949, but most recently to Zhou Enlai's rearticulation of tral Committee. In 1981, Deng's practical ascendance was affirmed by the
them in 1975, the four modernizations called for emphasis on science and transfer of all the titles-Party Chair, Military Commission Chair, etc.-to
technology (for which elite education was necessary); mechanization of himself. Hua faded into retirement.
agriculture and the freeing of rural labor for local industry; material incen-
tives in urban industrial production along with the return to an efficient Democracy Wall and the Fifth Modernization

management style; and a streamlining of the military through the resump- One factor assisting Deng in his return to power was the popular support
tion of hierarchical ranks abandoned during the latter phases of the Cul- he gained in urban areas from intellectuals and workers, who saw in him
tural Revolution. Economic growth was to trump revolution, and the Mao- the successor to the revered Zhou Enlai. Big-character posters started to
ist attempt to make modernization serve social revolution was discarded. appear in late 1978 on the square behind the Gate of Heavenly Peace in
Hua Guofeng presided over the beginnings of this anti-Maoist program, · central Beijing supporting Deng, mistakenly identifying his desire to nor-
all the while wrapping it in the most Maoist of rhetorics. Yet Hua's essen- malize society for a desire to democratize it. This mistake became apparent
tial weakness among Party leaders and his lack of any national-level con- very quickly.
stituency made him an easy mark. As Deng Xiaoping regathered his politi- The posters were mostly written by workers and ex- Red Guards, whose
cal resources, Hua was slated to fall. It took Deng two years to internally desires for mass democracy during the Cultural Revolution had been be-
maneuver this event. He did so without fomenting a mass movement, a trayed. They saw the denunciation of the Cultural Revolution as an oppor-
strategy he had learned to hate. Deng's rise was ironically facilitated by the tunity to press for a "fifth modernization" in addition to the other four. It
fact that he had been repairing tractors or shoveling pig dung for most of was to be called democracy. Rather than an institutional or procedural
the Cultural Revolution. He had relatively clean political hands and could concept, democracy connoted for them a popular voice and role in the
present himself as the representative of a new beginning for China. He was, implementation of policy; it was an anti-bureaucratic mass-line concept of
of course, one of the last of the May Fourth generation of ccP members, a political and social relations.
veteran allied but also in tension with Maoism and Mao himself. The Through late 1978 and into 1979, the posters multiplied in number as
newness and cleanliness were hence quite relative. did gatherings of those reading the posters. Enthusiasm grew for the politi-
By December 1978 at the Third Plenum of the Eleventh Central Com- cal possibilities that seemed to be on the horizon. The ·~pril sth Move-
mittee meeting, Deng was able to take over most of the reins of power. ment" commemorating Zhou Enlai, declared by Jiang Qing a counter-
Aided by old-timer ccP members, who had risen again since Mao's death, revolutionary ·action, was reclassified in late 1978 by the Party as revolu-
Deng triumphed over the "whateverists" with a new ideology stating: tionary and patriotic. This gave impetus to more gatherings, more posters,
"Practice is the sole criterion of truth." In other words, Maoist text was not more narrative outpouring of Cultural Revolutionary suffering. The big-
where truth was to be sought; rather, truth resided only in "practice." What character poster, whose original purpose precisely had been the creation of
the measure of "practice" was to be-e.g., the accumulation of individual a mass political voice, seemed to come into its own as a mode of genuine
wealth or the foundations for collectivist socialism-remained an open mass democratic participation.

162 REFORM, RESTORATION, AND REPUDIATION REFORM, RESTORATION, AND REPUDIATION 163
 This was not to last. The repression began in the spring of 1979, with the cultural struggle. Thus, second, Mao's political concepts were related to his
arrest of Wei Jingsheng, an ex- Red Guard factory worker and editor of an understandings of changes in social contradictions at the level of society....
unofficial journal entitled Explorations. He was the author of the original Politics in the Mao period was a broad concept.... It was widely mobllizable
"fifth modernization" poster, and thus became the initial scapegoat for the and depended upon everyone's participation. In one word, Mao's politics is the
whole democracy wall movement. Accused of multiple crimes, Wei was universalization of class struggle on the one hand; and on the other hand,
sentenced to fifteen years in prison. (He eventually immigrated to the politics is universalized .... Politics in Mao's time is everybody's concern ...
United States.) Many others followed Wei into jail, where they languished Today's politics is about who is seizing power and who is in the dominant
for years (and some continue to languish still). position; there is no consideration of political value. The deepest change in
The suppression of the democracy wall movement-completed by 1980 politics is the change of politics itself.... After D~mg Xiaoping came to power,
-signaled the intention of Deng and the CCP to monopolize political he denounced the principle of class struggle and shifted the central task to
power. No voices other than those sanctioned would be raised in political economic construction, which indicated that the previous emphasis on revo-
participation. Democracy-mass or otherwise-emphatically was not on lutionary politics was withdrawn and the new politics was all about economic
any Dengist agenda. Big-character posters were outlawed, and a regime development. For Mao, politics and economy were united; under Deng, they
of "socialist legality" was promoted. In practice, this mostly meant the were split from one another .... This process started from the middle of the
suppression of views deemed antagonistic to whatever "socialism" was 1980s and continued in accelerated form after 1989.
proclaimed to be at any given time. The depoliticization of society was
underway. War with Vietnam

In 1979, a border war between the erstwhile socialist allies, Vietnam and
INTERLUDE: WANG HUI INTERVIEW
the PRC, broke out. If any further proof were needed that China was
In May 2007, I interviewed Proj Wang Hui in Beijing on issues pertaining charting a new course, this war sealed the verdict. The war was provoked by
to Mao and his reassessment after 1976. In his latejorties, Professor Wang two things. Of lesser importance were policies in Vietnam that had an
is a literary and historical scholar, currently teaching at Tsinghua University. adverse impact on the Chinese ethnic population of Saigon. In the wake of
He served as the longtime editor and intellectual architect oftwo ofthe most the American defeat and the Communist unification of the country, the
influential post-Mao journals of academic and scholarly inquiry: Xueren Vietnamese capitalist class was dispossessed. It so happened that most
[The Scholar] and Dushu [Readings]. Long attacked by liberals and neo- small-level capitalists in Vietnam were Chinese ethnics. Politically per-
liberals in China for his critical attitude toward the social consequences of secuted and economically ruined, many fled over the border to China. At
the Dengist reforms and toward global capitalism in general-indeed, la- the same time and much more significant, Vietnam moved to depose Pol
beled a ((new leftist;' a label intended to tarnish him with the now-repudiated Pot in Cambodia, whose genocidal policies and incursions across the Viet-
((leftism" of the Maoist period- Wang Hui's analyses ofpolitical, economic, namese border had proven to be destabilizing to Vietnam. Pol Pot was
historical, cultural, and literary currents in classical, modern, and post-Mao a PRC ally. The Vietnamese invasion sparked a Chinese reaction. Deng
China nevertheless command broad respect and a huge readership. Some of Xiaoping promised to "teach Vietnam a lesson."
his seminal work has been translated into English. 1 After his February 1979 return from normalizing relations with the
United States~syrribolically enough-Deng sent the PLA into Vietnam.
Q: How has the definition of "politics" changed since Mao's time?
The Chinese were singularly unsuccessful in teaching any lesson. Rather,
A: This question deserves attention .... Politics in Mao's time had two charac-
the PLA learned one: that it was unprepared to fight against such battle-
teristics .... First, Mao's politics was informed by the Marxist theory of class
hardened troops as the Vietnamese. The cost in lives and property was
struggle. Yet, Mao's class struggle was very complicated.... Although it was
enormous, despite the short duration of the war (a few very bloody weeks).
about struggles over production, politics, and everyday life, it was more about
One of the only vocal protests in China against the PRC invasion of Viet-

164 REFORM, RESTORATION, AND REPUDIATION REFORM, RESTORATION, AND REPUDIATION 165
 __________........
nam was Wei Jingsheng's. This dissent, along with his democracy wall agricultural advances as expressed in China's economic self-sufficiency;
advocacies, hastened his arrest and silencing. the expansion of basic education and medical care; and PRC leadership of
the third world, exemplified by the seat at the UN. However, the document
Assessing Mao notes, errors of concept and practice were made. These, it is said, were due
~y 1981, Deng Xiaoping was enough in control to embark on a very deli- to "subjectivism." Hence, to the extent Mao stayed within the collective
cate task. The Party needed to account for the Cultural Revolution, and to leadership, he was correct. To the extent he insisted on "subjectivist" -or,
assess Mao in the process. This was of both historical and contemporary individualist-tendencies and departed from collectivism, he made er-
urgency. It was urgent for the present, because the Party's legitimacy had to rors. The roots of "subjectivism" are traced back to the onset of the Great
be affirmed. If the Party were responsible for the "catastrophe" of the Leap in 1957, even as the hundred flowers is affirmed and sweeping anti-
Cultural Revolution, why should it be entrusted with the current and fu- rightism repudiated.
ture rule of the country? The issue was urgent for history, because any In this view, the years from 1957 to 1964 saw "setbacks;' but in general,
state power knows that the national past and the national present are the period is affirmed. (The twenty to thirty million dead during the famine
intimately intertwined. That intertwining needs to be captured and nar- are not mentioned, other than obliquely as a setback.) The document
rated by the state. explicitly notes, "Although Comrade Mao Zedong must be held chiefly
The conundrum, simply and functionally put, was: In the process of responsible, we cannot lay the blame for all those errors on him alone."
narrating modern Chinese history, it was impossible to denounce Mao Sharing the guilt are none other than Jiang Qing, his reviled wife; Kang
simply as a tyrant, because Mao stood at the origins of the legitimacy Sheng, the loathed secret service chief; and Lin Biao, the PLA commander
of ccp rule. All veteran CCP leaders were in fact tightly connected to turned traitor. It is such "careerists" who, "harboring ulterior motives,
Mao. However, Maoist policies now were being dismantled and repudi- made use of these errors and inflated them. This led to the onset of the
ated. They had to be put in proper historical perspective. In the apt charac- 'cultural revolution.' "3
terization of one historian, Mao, the revolutionary, had to be rescued for Grave mistakes begin in 1965 and continue afterward. The attack on
history by separating him from the worst of his revolutionary policies. 2 intellectuals is repudiated, and the dismantling of the Party condemned.
To deal with these problems, a document was commissioned and heavily Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, among others, are formally rehabilitated
discussed. Its formal name is "Resolution on Certain Questions in the and praised. As the document notes, "Chief responsibility for the grave
History of Our Party since the Founding of the People's Republic of China;" 'Left' error ... does indeed lie with Comrade Mao Zedong. But after all it
it was adopted by the Central Committee of the CCP on June 27, 1981. Its was the error of a great proletarian revolutionary."4 In fact, the measure of
verdict: Mao was 70 percent correct and 30 percent wrong. This ratio Mao's greatness is said to be that the system he designed survived him. It
provided the necessary ideological sanction for continued CCP rule, albeit has emerged stronger than before. (This was the very system he had tried
with a radical departure from Maoism. to destroy!) Mao, therefore, remains a "respected and beloved great leader
The document's first section is a historical review. It affirms pre-1949 and teacher."5 The worst mistakes are laid at the door of the "counter-
Mao as first among equals in the promulgation of "Mao Zedong Thought" revolutionaries;' Jiang Qing and Lin Biao. The document pledges the mis-
and revolutionary practice. Mao is demoted to be one among a collective takes of the ·cultural Revolution would be overturned. Leaders and com-
leadership successfully guiding China to the revolution. Yet, the successful mon intellectuals would be rehabilitated, reputations restored, jobs given
revolution is proof of the correctness of Mao Zedong Thought, itself a back. The definition of "the people" was re-expanded to be as inclusive
product of the collective, with Mao in the lead. The second section takes as possible, and the strengthening of all levels of the Party was stated as
up an assessment of the Maoist period. The basic successes are stated as basic policy.
the achievement of national independence and unity; a centralized govern- a
The end of the document attempts to draw line from the past to the
ment and strong army; the transformation of so.cial classes; industrial and present of 1981 through to the envisioned future. The three major precepts

166 REFORM, RESTORATION, AND REPUDIATION

REFORM, RESTORATION, AND REPUDIATION 167
 of Maoism to be extended are said to be, "seeking truth from facts; the sign, as individual families, with the state. This contract system called for
mass line; and national independence." National independence is clear. peasant families to turn over a certain proportion of their yield to the state
The first two precepts required ideological somersaults. For Mao, the rela- for a fixed price; all surplus beyond that, peasants could market for profit.
tionship between facts and truth was never self-evident; it was always a This ensured that inflation did not get out of control and that the state had
political problem attached to the analysis of a specific historical circum- enough staples for distribution in the urban areas at a predictable price
stance. Thus, what is a fact and what is truth is dependent on a political- (thus protecting urban consumers without too completely sacrificing the
historical analysis and determination. Similarly, the mass line had a revolu- rural population). It also permitted peasants to earn extra money from
tionary connotation in Maoism; it was not a mere bureaucratic technique marketing surpluses.
of dictating policy to the people. However, under Deng, enshrined in the Through the early 198os, state prices for grain, cotton, and other staples
1981 document, these two principles are ostensibly derived from Maoism, were set quite high, helping to stimulate growth in peasant household
yet they are shorn of all political and revolutionary meaning. They are income. Villages, still the unit of a reduced collective rural economy, could
ripped from context, and set back down as principles of centralized Party tap into state funds to establish (or, really, reestablish) small-scale indus-
rule. In Dengist policy, a fact was an empirical (not a political) problem of tries as collectively owned resources to employ village residents and from
measurement; truth was what the Party said it was; and the mass line was which the villagers could derive a share of the profit. This dual system-of
there to foster an obedient populace. If ever there was a use of Maoist collective economy supplemented by the market economy-had the im-
theory to sanction extremely un-Maoist policy, this was it. mediate effect of accelerating rural productivity and raising living stan-
The document's penultimate section includes a restatement of basic dards among the vast peasant population. This boom lasted through the
issues for the present. In addition to the four modernizations and re-- mid-198os.
unification with Taiwan, there are four "cardinal principles" to which all Yet, these measures soon had the effect of accelerating regional inequal-
must adhere. These are named as 1) upholding the socialist road; 2) up- ities. Those in fertile soil regions or in locations close to transportation
holding the people's democratic dictatorship; 3) upholding the leadership routes and big cities were able to take advantage of market opportunities
of the ccP; and 4) upholding the guidance of Mao Zedong Thought and much more readily than were those who lived in more remote places. Local
Marxism-Leninism. As the document ominously warns in rigid legalistic inequalities also developed apace. Differences in ability and capacity to tap
language, '1\ny word or deed which deviates from these four principles labor resources produced disparities between families. But the largest po-
is wrong. Any word or deed which denies or undermines these four prin- larizations occurred as collective property was seized by those in posi-
ciples cannot be tolerated." 6 Finally, the document states, the direction tions of power-mostly village Party secretaries-who had access to bank
China will travel in the next historical period will be based on the building funding because of superior contacts outside of the locality. Before most
of the productive forces (industrial capaci_ty) rather than the transforma- villagers even knew what had happened, collective property became the
tion of social relations. Forces are elevated above relations in a complete private property of Pa~ty leaders. When objections were raised, Party sec-
reversal of Maoism. With revolution not desirable, people are exhorted to retaries used every means at their disposal to silence them.
work hard and listen to and follow the Party's lead. While the original design of the household contract system was not
market dependent, state prices for staples soon fell so far below market
Rural Reform price that peasants stopped growing state-mandated crops or began hiding
More complete de-Maoification now could proceed. In terms of social crops from the state in order to market them directly for higher profit.
structure, one of the first priorities was the undoing of the agricultural Inflationary pressures became huge, and, as these grew, the threat of urban
communes, whose form had become quite elaborate during the Cultural unrest became manifest as the price of food rose precipitously. By the
Revolution. They were to be scaled back. The collective rural economy- mid-198os, the state was forced to retreat; most commodities were by then
not yet abolished-was to be supplemented by contracts peasants would directly marketed by peasants themselves. The collective economy was

168 REFORM, RESTORATION, AND REPUDIATION _ REFORM, RESTORATION, AND REPUDIATION 169
soon dismantled completely, and with the removal of that social safety net, to achieve rural economies of scale, without relying on the discredited
the poor, old, sick, or honest were on their way to getting poorer while the collectivization of agriculture. This law was suspended in 2008 due to the
rich, young, healthy, and unscrupulous, were becoming richer. financial crisis and fears of social unrest.
Rural entrepreneurialism grew quickly. The first experiments in entre-
pr~neurship were engaged by peasant women-the first "millionaire" in The One-Child Policy

post-Mao China was a woman who ran a small-scale duck farm for profit. Two things converged in the early 198os to produce the urgency for a
The assumption was that if such activity was found illegal (too capitalist), draconian one-child policy. One was purely demographic and harked back
women would be dealt with less harshly than men. When it became clear to the post-Great Leap baby boom. The other was a result of the socio-
rural entrepreneurship was here to stay, women were shoved aside, and economic restructurings of the rural economy. As for the demographics: by
men took over. the early 198os, the post-Leap baby boom generation was just entering its
As the educational and medical advances of the Maoist period were marriage and childbearing years. This presented a demographic time bomb,
erased with the end of collective funding, the free-for-all of primitive ac- whose multiplier effects would ripple into the next several generations.
cumulation by any means possible began. This coincided precisely with the With the abandonment of the Maoist policies of labor-intensiveness and
late-1g8os fiscal austerity measures initiated by the state, which blunted the turn to mechanized modernization, a large population was now a liabil-
the ability of the central government to intervene forcefully or adequately ity rather than an exploitable resource. This large population was now rela-
in the snowballing local problems. Since the late-198os, rural productivity beled "redundant." The potential for the baby boom generation to triple or
has declined in absolute terms as well as in.relation to urban productivity. even quadruple itself appeared as a nightmare. Demographers and sociolo-
Rural polarization is enormous, while rural-urban dispatity, in economic, gists-academic disciplines abolished during the Maoist period (as un-
cultural, and social terms, has grown exponentially.? Marxist) but now resurgent-argued for the implementation of a stringent
Illicit privatization of public property-including, most recently, land population policy to contain the potential explosion. The unfortunate gen-
seizures retrospectively legalized through manipulation of political con- eration on whom this was visited were those in their twenties and thirties in
nections and hastily passed laws-became endemic in the rural areas by the 1980s and early 1990s. And the burden of this policy fell directly on the
the 1990s. This is an ongoing story. Corruption is entrenched, fueling a massive rural population, whose rampant reproduction was most feared.
socially destabilizing dynamic comprised of grasping officials and wealthy The demographics coincided with socioeconomic restructurings break-
locals versus victimized peasants. Village and local leadership focused only ing apart the collective economy. Previously dominated by the collective,
on short-term profits have become exceedingly rapacious. Longer-term where labor was pooled, the rural economic unit was returned to the
considerations-environmental, social, cultural, and educational-are sac- family. Production was now to be accounted for within the family. It thus
rificed for immediate gain. Unrest grows, but it remains local and thus became imperative for peasants to concentrate labor within the family, for
containable for the time being. Yet, the accession of the PRC to the W odd which more children (particularly boys) was a better strategy. The eco-
Trade Organization in 2001, opening the doors to agricultural imports, nomics of more children for individual peasant families butted up against
dealt a heavy blow to China's rural economy. Soon thereafter, the Chi- the national policy calling for fewer children overall. The convergence
nese state announced self-sufficiency in food-a cornerstone of the Maoist triggered unrest and massive coercion in the countryside.
vision of independence-was no longer a national goal. Most recently, a On the sexist assumption that birth control is a women's issue, and thus
new property law has been passed, that legalizes the re-concentration with women's fertility as the overriding target of population policy, the
of land into private hands through purchase. This law is an attempt Women's Federation was put in charge of the draconian implementation,
to undercut the illegal appropriation oflands and to ensure that peasants permanently tarnishing its reputation as an advocacy group for women.
are properly compensated for their land; in addition, it is an attempt Soon, the policy triggered a rise in female infanticide, as girl children

170 REFORM, RESTORATION, AND REPUDIATION REFORM, RESTORATION, AND REPUDIATION 171
became disposable because the only labor that counted within the family increasingly porous patchwork of the state-owned economy confronted a
was male labor. (Girls marry out of the family.) A socioeconomic predispo- new vibrant private economy growing alongside it (with none of the social
sition favoring boys quickly was translated into a revived cultural prejudice responsibilities attached to the state sector), it became very apparent that
against girls, with the two aspects reinforcing one another completely. state-run factories could not compete. They were then more or less wiped
,In the mid-1990s, the one-child policy was partially, if selectively, re- out. As a result, as one sociologist has recently analyzed, China currently
laxed, as the life cycles of the baby boom generation advanced beyond has two main industrial types, the "rustbelt" and the "sunbelt."8
childbearing years. While all population controls are contested in the rural In the state-owned sector, over the course of the 198os and into the
areas-where intrusive monitoring and coercive abortions were (and to 1990s, in the name of efficiency and streamlining, the first to be laid off or
some extent continue to be) frequent-the one-child advocacies took root encouraged to leave were women workers. They were instructed, in private
in urban areas and became the norm by the end of the 1980s. Boys and girls and public rhetoric, to return to the home, where life was more comfort-
in urban families are equally spoiled. In the countryside, two decades of able and supposedly more suited to the female psyche and physical condi-
female infanticide has led to a shortage of girls. Aside from the infants tion. Decades of state feminism exhorting women to participate fully in
thereby killed or not born, the gender imbalance has become an enormous production as a right and obligation of socialist citizenry screeched to a
social problem leading, among other things, to entrenched criminality halt. Next to go were the older (male) workers, who could not or would not
(involving kidnapping of women for marriage, now often crossing into adapt to the economistic measures of productivity now being promoted.
Vietnam, Cambodia, North Korea, and Laos). Accustomed to working in the context of at least some factory floor de-
In addition, age-based population imbalance is on the horizon and now mocracy, members of this generation felt the new regime of profit-driven
urgently debated. While the health of the population has declined, pri- managerialism was improper, unsocialist, and unseemly. It didn't matter,
marily due to the withdrawal of medical care in the rural areas since the as they soon lost their jobs. Finally, many state-owned industries, now with
breakup of communes and the vast pollution of the water supplies, never- skeletal staffs and production teams, were allowed to go bankrupt, of
theless, an aging population with fewer young people to support it is a which workers were usually not informed until they found themselves
growing problem. The demographics, economics, and social impact of this locked out and the assets being sold out from under them. By the time they
skewing continue as problems into the present. could organize a protest, the industrial plant was no more, and the leader-
ship had fled. Left was the housing-now maintained by no one-and the
Urban and Industrial Reform crumbling schools and medical clinics, abandoned once state and industry
Reform of the urban economy proceeded on the heels of the initial restruc- funding had dried up. Massive numbers of state employees were left to
turing of the rural economy. Industry had long been structured on socialist fend for themselves.
principles, with job security (known as the "iron rice bowl"), housing, This is the situation comprising the rustbelt: old state-owned indus-
education, and medical care provided for workers and their families. This tries, with pensioned and laid-off employees cut off from their sources of
was all accommodated within the "work unit." The socialist economy was income and medical care. With properties privatized, several generations
not based on the compiling of private profit, but on the leading role of the of workers, who grew up and worked under the socialist system, accepting
proletariat in furthering the revolution. lower wages in return for state benefits and a stake in the products of their
With urban reform and de-Maoification, profit became more impor- labor, are bereft. The leading role of the proletariat in the revolution has
tant. As profit became the measure of success, the cradle-to-grave social devolved completely. There is little recourse for the workers, as local lead-
programs became liabilities, and workers became expendable and exploit- ers often are in cahoots with the plant managers and leaders. These work-
able. The whole state-owned structure first was transformed in the 198os .I ers have seen an absolute decline in their standards of living, have no
through a series of reforms in management, profit-making, and respon- I medical care, and have no future in the new economy.
sibility systems loosely modeled on the rural c;ontract system. Yet, as the By contrast, there are the "sunbelt" enterprises, mostly foreign-invested

172 REFORM, RESTORATION, AND REPUDIATION REFORM, RESTORATION, AND REPUDIATION 173
sweatshops or manufacturing plants located in the fast-developing south- son's hometown and right of residence. Originally conceived as a way to
ern regions close to Hong Kong or Taiwan. The city of Shenzhen adjacent restrict rural-to-urban migration and the overcrowding of cities, the sys-
to Hong Kong is exemplary. Declared a "Special Economic Zone" in the tem forced peasants to remain on the land. As such, it functioned to lock
late 198os, Shenzhen and its environs were exempted from the socialist into place a fundamentally uneven distribution of collectively produced
legal system pertaining to the rest of the country, and promoted as a social wealth. (By the same token, the slums that ringed cities in the un-
developmental zone with completely different rules. This encouraged for- developed world were completely avoided in China at the time.)
eign investment-primarily from Hong Kong, Taiwan, the United States, An urban residence registration confers on urban citizens the right to
and Japan-whose rates of profit repatriation could skyrocket with no public education for their children and public medical care in local hos-
fuss. Wages were set very low, labor regulations were relaxed, taxes were pitals and clinics. Rural citizens have the right to a state-allotted plot
nonexistent, and land was given away (after being expropriated through of land-now increasingly jeopardized by illegal seizures and expropria-
eminent domain from those living on it). A small village, Shenzhen be- tions as well as by the new property law-and nothing more. With the
came within a decade a veritable boomtown, as lawless as it is exciting, breakup of the communes, which used to fund village schools and clinics,
as astoundingly rapacious as it is architecturally stunning in its disor- access to educational and medical facilities has all but disappeared in many
ganized growth. rural areas, particularly those in the interior farther from the coastal
Shenzhen and its environs now draw millions of young women from boomtowns. The central and provincial governments have not picked up
interior China to work in the sweatshops and plants for low wages. In the slack.
exchange, these girls escape at least tempor:arily the stifling atmosphere of In the 198os, as the labor needs of booming cities grew, internal migra-
a dying rural China. Leaving parents and siblings behind, the mostly un- tion also grew. With the final dissolution of state rationing and the floating
married young women (their average age ranges from fifteen to twenty- of all commodities on the market, it became possible for peasants to reside
three) flock to the factories, sending part of their wages home to help on the margins of the cities without worrying about access to goods (they
support their natal families. Remaining wages in hand, they join the ranks could use money to purchase, whereas previously, urban residents had
of urban consumers at the lowest end of that totem pole. With some access to many things only through residence-issued ration tickets). By the
education, no access to medical care, and the "freedom" of job mobility 1990s, as regulations for urban housing and labor mobility also gave way,
(that is, no job security), these girls work in the midst of a globalized more rural migrants arrived to take up service, construction, and other
economic system, whose practices post-Mao Chinese policy enthusiasti- work at unregulated and thus very low wages in the cities. Up to two hun-
cally helps elaborate. For, the inexhaustability of the Chinese labor force dred million people-equivalent to two-thirds of the American population
contributes enormously to the enhancement of the global labor regime, in -move around every year. Women became nannies (formerly seen as a
which labor is disposable and capital moves at will. bourgeois practice, now common in most urban intellectual and entrepre-
The financial meltdown and global economic crisis begun in 2008 and neurial homes) or joined the sweatshop labor force; men joined the urban
continuing apace is now threatening this model of development. It re- workforce in manual and other sorts of undesirable labor, such as trash
mains to be seen how China will respond. Signs of intensified police action, collecting, recycling, and rag picking.
to rein in potential unrest, do not bode well for China's workers. While this employment provides a better income than could be earned
on the land, without the right to urban residence, these migrant laborers
The Household Registration System and lntemal Migrant Labor live a most precarious existence. They can be deported to their hometowns
The Chinese household registration system facilitates the pliability of at any time of the government's choosing; they have no recourse to medical
this new labor regime. From the late 1950s Great Leap period onward, i care, other than through exorbitant fees; they work under unregulated
China promoted a household registration system to designate each per- I
I
conditions, with few safety or other guarantees; and they discover that the

174 REFORM, RESTORATION, AND REPUDIATION REFORM, RESTORATION, AND REPUDIATION 175
legal system does not usually work for them. Wages can be depressed to was coming through the newly revitalized educational system. Caught in
the lowest possible rate-and sometimes, wages are rtot even paid for work the interstices of a crumbling socialist regime and a developing capitalist
done-and migrant laborers have had little leverage over the situation. one, this new generation was particularly concerned to secure their post-
With people unmoored and portions of the rural population rendered educational lives in a manner of their own choosing. And yet, economic
destitute, gangs and criminality have made a roaring comeback, as have instability and social insecurity were making this quite difficult.
drug use, prostitution, and all manner of social ills previously stamped out. Most important to many students was the rampant systemic corruption
Everything from internal labor recruitment and overseas labor smuggling they experienced as a part of their everyday lives. To get anything done
to child bride kidnapping, from drug cartels to prostitution are now parts required a "backdoor" of connections to power. The gathering crisis of
of criminal gang activities stretching across the nation and its borders. An the planned economy thus met the reality of market and power monop-
overextended, underfinanced, and often corrupted police force cannot olization through corruption, all of which led to snowballing injustice
keep up or is bought off by the gang system to keep the peace. and inequality. This spurred huge demand for an increased tempo of
reform, which could possibly clear away the obstacles to social justice,
1989: The Demise of Communism and the as conceived by students. It soon appeared to students-and to many
Tian' anmen Social Movement and Massacre others-that a transformation of political structure was necessary to ac-
As China's marketization and de-Maoificiation were proceeding under the company the rapid economic transformation. In this light, Gorbachev's
firm guidance of the ccP, and as China normalized trade and diplomatic glasnost was attractive.
relations with the Western world, the socialist bloc of which China had Again, it was the death of a leader that provided a spark to action. Hu
always been a notional part crumbled. The specter of the overthrow of Yaobang, who had risen and fallen-in the 1980s, died on April15, 1989. Hu
communist states from Poland, East Germany, and Romania to the Soviet was lionized by many students as a Party spokesperson for the political
Union, Albania, and beyond struck fear in the hearts of CCP leaders. It openings they hoped for. While this was a vast misreading of Hu's overall
hardened among many of them a resolve that no such thing would happen position, that is not the point. For, Hu had been deposed by Deng Xiaoping
in China. in 1986 precisely on suspicion of his sympathies for some form or degree of
Although Deng Xiaoping had been consistently critical of the Soviet democratization. The deposing allowed students to identify Hu with their
leader Mikhail Gorbachev's political reforms-encapsulated in the con- political cause and social malaise. On the evening of Hu's death, students
cept of glasnost-he had sought to normalize PRC-USSR relations, to mute went to Tian'anmen Square to lay wreaths at the Monument to the Heroes
the two decades of mutual vitriol. In the midst of this initiative, Gorbachev of the Revolution. This was no innocent act; it was meant as a provocation
indicated that the Soviet Union would no longer enforce communism in in emulation of the April sth (1976) Movement to honor Zhou Enlai.
Eastern Europe. Each of those countries had burgeoning political move- Students spontaneously gathered not only to mourn Hu, but also to press
ments, and the removal of the threat of Soviet intervention immediately the Party and the stat~ for dialogue and reforms. At first a completely
led to the fall one by one of the governments of Eastern bloc states in amorphous event, student activities gathered momentum and soon took
violent and jubilant mass activity. Wang Hui, the Tsinghua University on organizational form. Daily demonstrations with increasing numbers of
scholar, wrote about this spectacle from the vantage of China, "The year participants followed, with "long marches" through the city streets accom-
1989 was a historical watershed; nearly a century of socialist practice came panied by the spirited singing of revolutionary songs of defiance. Inter-
to an end. Two worlds became one: a global capitalist world." 9 national media quickly focused on the events.
As these events were unfolding on China's ideological doorstep, as it Hu Yaobang's funeral was held on April 22, and more than a hundred
were, a remarkable event was getting under way in China. In the midst of thousand people stood on the Square outside the Great Hall of the People
internal economic transformations and the global collapse of the social- in defiance of a government decree banning the public from the Square.
ist world, a post-Cultural Revolution generat~on of university students Deng Xiaoping lashed out in an editorial of April 26, declaring the stu-

176 REFORM, RESTORATION, AND REPUDIATION REFORM, RESTORATION, AND REPUDIATION 177
dents and others part of a conspiracy to overthrow the Communist Party. democracy and freedom. The performance was magnificent, the spectacle
Deng's elevation of the movement to an anti-Party conspiracy inflamed the more dramatic than any reality TV could possibly dream up. Enraged and.
situation, as students had been quite careful to avoid any suggestion of upstaged, Deng's resolve to crack down was enhanced.
anti-Party rhetoric or activity. The editorial, rather than tamp down and Meanwhile, Zhao Ziyang, the then- Party General Secretary, having
frighten the students, stimulated their anger and activism. lost the intra-Party struggle, decided to make his oppositional stance pub-
' The seventieth anniversary of the May 4th (1919) Movement was the lic. Zhao went to the Square to meet with students in a quiet but powerful
occasion for a new spurt in activities. More than three hundred thousand midnight encounter. Deng was incensed. The PLA was immediately called
people filled city streets for marches culminating in Tian'anmen Square. in to restore order. Stopped on the outskirts of Beijing by citizens who
Soon, under the watchful eyes of the enormous Mao portrait hanging on gathered to talk the troops out of advancing, the PLA's progress into the
the Gate of Heavenly Peace, the Square was "Occupied: tent cities sprang up, center initially stalled. Local commanders and troops were quite hesitant
student guards took on the responsibility for security and sanitation, and about shooting at unarmed civilians. New troop contingents were called in
food deliveries were arranged. Classes were boycotted, and high school and from the prpvinces; these had no connection to Beijing or to the move-
junior high students joined in. The Party and state leadership were para- ment. They could be counted upon to obey orders without question. By the
lyzed. The specter of the Red Guards appeared. On May 15, Gorbachev end of May, Beijing was surrounded.
arrived for a historic visit to China-the first since the Sino-Soviet split in A last-ditch effort was made by workers and common urbanites to
1960; Chinese authorities were unable to bring him to downtown Beijing defend the city against the PLA. It failed. On the night of June 3, 1989,
because of the student occupation of the space. troops moved into central Beijing, shooting their way through crowds of
By this time, urban dwellers from all walks of life had joined the stu- workers, onlookers, and regular. Beijingers. Hundreds, if not thousands,
dents, in sympathy and in protest against government corruption, inac- were killed in the glare of media coverage. At the edge of the Square itself,
tion, and stalling. Workers organized and staked out a presence on the the PLA stopped to give the remaining students there an opportunity to
Square. Journalists and editors of the Party mouthpieces, such as People's vacate the space. Those who refused to leave were shot down or run over
Daily and the Central Television Station, began publishing and broadcast- on June 4· No accurate numbers of the dead are available.
ing pieces sympathetic to the students. They marched behind banners to Different cities dealt with activists differently. For example, Shanghai,
make their own voices heard. The movement spread to urban centers under the leadership of its Party secretary Jiang Zemin, refused to use
across China. While peasants remained mostly uninvolved, most cities violence. After witnessing and protesting the events in Beijing, Shanghai
were turned upside down by student, worker, and common people's activ- crowds dispersed on June 5 and 6. Jiang ordered the arrest of student and
ism. No single voice in all of this prevailed, although Beijing remained intellectual leaders of the Shanghai movement, but defied Beijing and
the center of the movement, and a small group of elected students from would not engage in mass arrests or violence.
Beijing-area Universities represented the whole. Once again, silence fell in China, other than the shrill denunciations of
Divisions within the Party and state became evident. Behind closed the "counter-revolutionary" student movement and the self-congratulations
doors, there was a great debate about how to handle the movement. It took about the correctness of the Party's decision to suppress the threat. The
Deng Xiaoping several weeks to assert his will and leadership. As the forces of law and order swept into schools, factories, and media outlets
student occupation of central Beijing stretched into its third and fourth across the natiori to arrest those held responsible in addition to anyone
weeks, martial law was declared. This indicated a factional victory for who had participated. Over forty thousand people were swept up in the
Deng. Some students embarked on a hunger strike to protest and to press dragnet; the vast majority of those imprisoned and executed were workers
Party and state leaders into a dialogue with student leaders. Deng Xiaoping or other ordinary citizens. Student leaders ran for their lives, many making
was induced to agree. In a dramatic encounter at the Great Hall of the it across borders before being caught. Others were trapped and hauled
People, hunger-wracked students hooked up to IV drips lectured Deng on back for court hearings and punishments. Students remaining on cam-

178 REFORM, RESTORATION, AND REPUDIATION REFORM, RESTORATION, AND REPUDIATION 179
puses were sent home. Workers resumed production under a vise of sur- much a development of self-censorship as of new conviction in the superi-
veillance. New news anchors and editorialists obedient to the Party line ority of depoliticized scholarship and objective empiricism, of the cata-
appeared as if by magic. Zhao Ziyang was formally purged from his posts. strophic consequences of "radicalism" and political engagement.
(He died under house arrest of illness in 2007.) Other leaders were pro-
moted or demoted, depending on the positions taken in the final weeks of INTERLUDE: WANG HUI INTERVIEW, CONTINUED
the events. Shanghai Party chief, Jiang Zemin, was promoted and even-
Q: How is "new left" defined, and what do you, its supposed leader, think of
tually replaced Deng Xiaoping, when the latter's health failed.
this label?
The Southem Tour and the Retreat of Politics A: ... I am reluctant to be labeled as such. It is my opponents who label me a
leader of the (Chinese) New Left. After the Cultural Revolution, "left" became
The global reaction to the Tian'anmen massacre was a temporary retreat
a notorious word. It means sympathetic to the "Gang of Four." To be labeled
from investment in China. Yet Chinese leaders worked hard to normalize
"new left" is to be deprived of the right to speech. In addition, in the 1990s,
the situation, by proceeding with economic measures intended to encour-
when depoliticization, marketization, professionalization, and neoliberalism
age individual consumerism and enrichment. The temporary downturn in
came to prevail, "new left" became a dirty label. I was attacked by different
foreign investment proved to be easily overcome by the return to eco-
people ...
nomic activity and the almost immediate dissipation of political passions
Q: What are the questions for scholarship in the post-Mao period?
in the wake of the vast repressions. With critics silenced-either through
A: ... Marxism has been completely replaced by modernization theories. This
emigration, imprisonment, or self-imposed censorship-:-economic pro-
is the shift from one type of deterministic narrative to another-from revolu-
grams could proceed away from the glare of public scrutiny.
tionary teleology to depoliticized. economic developmental teleology. This
By 1992, Deng Xiaoping had formally given up his titles to handpicked
shift got under way in the mid-198os and has continued strongly ever since. In
successors, primarily Jiang Zemin, the erstwhile Shanghai Party chief. Deng
the mid-1990s, under the impact of extensive marketization and globalization,
nevertheless remained extremely influential and kept his hands in politics
this trend was reinforced .... In historical research, emphasis is now on a
and policy until his death. In January, in part to escape the winter chill in the
normative and typical nationalism; this is the direct result of a de-emphasis on
North, Deng embarked on a long tour of the south, including the Special
revolution and radical ideas or movements.
Economic Zone of Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Shanghai. Much as when
Mao had toured the people's communes and pronounced them "good" in In perhaps the most un-Maoist of all developments in post-Mao China, as
the mid-1950s, Deng's January 1992 pronouncement that economic de- an analytical and philosophical matter, economics and social development
velopment was "good" and should be deepened stimulated an all-out are now thoroughly divorced from politics. The definition of politics now
market-based race for personal wealth and economic power all over China. is monopolized by state and Party procedures, while economics and social
This new round of accumulation and expropriation, in turn, inaugu- development are monopolized by market-defined success.
rated a new spurt in foreign investment, with multinational corporations Deng Xiaoping died in 1997 at the age of 92 with the post-Mao reforms
and banks, as well as smaller-scale investors from Taiwan and Hong Kong, as his major legacy. He was the last of Mao's revolutionary generation.
now assured that economics would trump all and profit-killing political
instability would be crushed. China's extraordinary decade and a half of Consuming Mao
double-digit growth began and has only recently begun to abate. With With the marketization of everything, it was only a matter of time before
economic growth proclaimed the highest good, politics of any sort re- Mao too became an item of consumption. In the early 1980s, people threw
treated to a position of marginality bordering on invisibility. Intellectual away many Mao items: the aluminum badges embossed with Mao's image
life was revitalized after two years of silence, and it now proceeds on the and sayings (by 1969, 4.8 billion of these with 1oo,ooo different motifs had
premise of a "professionalization" explicitly precluding politics. This is as been printed 10), the little red books, the Red Guard armbands, the clocks

180 REFORM, RESTORATION, AND REPUDIATION REFORM, RESTORATION, AND REPUDIATION 181
and vases and pencil holders and paperweights sporting Mao in all con- Hong Kong's continued domination by a British colonial government was a
ceivable dignified poses, the propaganda posters, . : . the detritus of a constant thorn in the sides of Chinese leaders. Its return was desired as
revolutionary dream and desire now repudiated. With the passage of years, final proof, if any were needed, of China's elevation by theWestern powers
however, ail of these items, and more, have become valuable, as collect- into the ranks of what used to be called the "civilized" nations.
ibles, as museum items, or merely as one commodified historical curiosity Unfortunately for Deng Xiaoping, he did not live to experience the
among others. This has fueled a huge market in reproductions, as well as event itself. However, it was under his negotiating instructions and with his
enormous domestic and global collectors markets in genuine pieces of the handpicked team that Britain was induced to hand Hong Kong back to
period. Mao is for sale, and he sells. China on essentially Chinese terms. The defeat of imperialism had been
Beginning in the early 1990s, several other faces of Mao also emerged. one of Mao's central quests; with Hong Kong's return, this at least was
One is Mao, the publishing sensation. Everybody who had ever been close fulfilled.
to him, had touched him, had had anything, even peripherally, to do with
him, personally wrote a memoir claiming to reveal the "true" Mao. From The 2008 Beijing Olympics and Beyond
salacious gossip to character assassination to hagiography: all of this is After its bid for the 2004 Olympics was rejected, China made absolutely
represented in the flood of published material featuring stories of Mao. certain that its 2008 bid would be unbeatable. The Beijing Committee
Such materials continue to pour forth. assembled a team comprising the award-winning filmmaker Zhang Yimou,
Another face of Mao is his representation in art. During Maoist times, well-known actors, spokespeople whose linguistic skills were impeccable:
Mao's image was everywhere, his portrait hanging in every office, and his the most worldly and cosmopolitan group it could find. With dour Party
statues dotting the landscapes of every city and town in the nation. His officials and state bureaucrats taking a decidedly backseat in public to
portrait continues to hang at the center of the nation, in Tian'anmen these beautiful people, the Beijing bid won in the second round of voting in
Square, even as most of his statues have long since been hauled away. In 2001. Celebrations in Beijing were wild. Tian'anmen Square was filled with
the early 1990s, Chinese artists, such as Zhang Hongtu, began to play with joyous urbanites; a magnificent fireworks display was unleashed; jubilant
Mao images. Zhang's most famous painting of Mao depicts him in a loin- crowds bursting with nationalistic pride roamed the city, congratulating
cloth as acupuncture art. Parts of his body are indicated as acupressure friends and strangers alike. In the provinces, the mood was less giddy.
points, but the labels are political and ideological, not medical. Taking Most knew the national budget would be bled dry by Olympics-related
Mao's image a step further were international fashion designers, such as construction; this could only be detrimental to those locations not desig-
the Hong Kong native Vivienne Tam, who used Andy Warhol-like Mao nated part of the Olympics bonanza. Even Beijingers soon became skepti-
images in her fabric designs. cal, as financial and architectural boondoggles mounted, huge migrant
A popular version of Mao is as talisman. In the 1990s, taxi drivers all labor construction crews camped out all over the city in makeshift hous-
over China began to hang portraits of Mao on their rearview mirrors. ing, and the massive expropriations of property and personal enrichments
When questioned about the meaning, most replied that he functioned as proceeded under the ~over of Olympics preparations. Many now wish the
protection against accidents and misfortune. In temples in the south, Mao Olympics had been held anywhere but in Beijing..
was seated among various Buddhas, as one god among others. The re- The red1,1ction of Mao's dream of socialist modernization to a crass
ligious and superstitious appropriation of Mao is particularly ironic, in fulfillment of nationalist pride was completed with the successful running
light of Mao's lifelong hostility to the divine and belief in fate. of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. With the Olympic slogan "One world, one
dream;' Mao's dream is clearly not the one being dreamt in today's Bei-
Hong Kong jing! Rather, it is the nightmare overcome. Even the opening ceremonies-
Hong Kong's retrocession to Chinese sovereignty was scheduled for June spectacular and comprehensive as they were in ranging over five thousand
1997. As the last symbol of China's weakness during the imperialist period, years of Chinese civilization-had no room for even a mention of Mao.

182 REFORM, RESTORATION, AND REPUDIATION REFORM, RESTORATION, AND REPUDIATION 183
 Thirty years after the death of Mao and Deng Xiaoping's rise to power,
China under ccP rule is a global cultural hotspot as well as an economic
powerhouse. Chinese language learning is booming across the world.
China's influence and attraction is manifest from Africa and Latin America
to the United States, Europe, and Asia. Despite a spate of terrible publicity
-most recently tied to lead paint in toys, toxic toothpaste, environmental
disasters, slave labor, repression in Tibet, Olympic torch protests, poison
milk powder that kills children, and so on-China's cachet seems quite
firm. The breathlessness generated by a country growing at breakneck Noles
speed seems to appeal to practically everyone.
Modernization certainly is happening in China today. It is ugly, uneven,
and unjust, even as it can also appear exhilarating, exciting, and extraordi-
nary. How Mao is connected to this process actually is tangential to what
Mao himself represented as a historical actor and as a philosopher of 1. China in the World in Mao's Youth
revolution and modernization. Only in repudiating Maoism and every- 1. Edgar Snow, Red Star over China, 112-24.
thing Mao stood for is it possible for current Communist Party leaders to 2. "Mao Zedong's Funeral Oration in Honor of His Mother" (October 8, 1919), in
retain Mao as their fig leaf of legitimacy. The current party slogan of Stuart Schram, ed., Mao's Road to Power: Revolutionary Writings, Vol. 1, 417-
18.
building a "harmonious society" is just about as far from Mao's vision of
3. Snow, Red Star over China, 115.
revolutionary leaping as one can get! Whether the current extraordinary
pace of China's growth can be sustained, therefore, has very much less to 2. From Liberal to Communist
do with Mao and his legacy than with the current and future configura- 1. "A Study of Physical Education;' 113, 119, in Schram, ed., Mao's Road to Power
tions of the global economy, politics, and society and with China's place 1:113.
therein. In this sense, while China certainly is a question for the Chinese to 2. "Commentary on the Suicide of Miss Zhao;' in Schram, ed., Mao's Road to
resolve, that resolution poses questions for the rest of us as well. Power, 1:421. All citations from Mao's writings on Miss Zhao are taken from
421-49·

3. Toward the Peasant Revolution

1. Lu Xun, "In Memory of Miss Liu Hezhen;' in Hua R. Lan and Vanessa L. Fong,
eds. Women in Republican China: A Sourcebook, 110-15.
2. Schram, ed., Mao's Road to Power, 2:430.
3. Ibid., 433, 434, 452-53.

4. Establishing Revolutionary Bases

1. Schram, ed., Mao's Road to Power, 3:61. For a description of Huangyangjie, see
Stephen C. Averill, Revolution in the Highlands: China's !inggangshan Base
Area, 1.
2. Averill, Revolution in the Highlands, 310.

3. Cited in Maurice Meisner, Mao Zedong, 6o.

4. "Oppose Bookism;' in Schram, ed., Mao's Road to Power, 3:419.
s. Schram, ed., Mao's Road to Power, s:S.

184 REFORM, RESTORATION, AND REPUDIATION

 7. "Chinese bid farewell to Mao Zedong's second son;' People's Daily Online,
5. Ya' an, War of Resistance, and Civil War April 2, 2007, at http://english.people.com.cn/20070402-363016.html (ac- .
1. Mao, "Declaration Opposing Japan's Annexation of North China and Chiang cessed July 2008).
Kaishek's Treason" (June 15, 1g35), in Schram, ed., Mao's Road to Power, 8. Mao, "Soliciting Suggestions on the Question of Strategy for Dealing with Rich
5:12. Peasants;' Selected Works ofMao Tse-tung, 5:24-25.
2. ,"Telegram from Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai to Zhang Xueliang" (December g. Meisner, Mao's China and After, g8-gg.
13, 1g36, at noon), ibid., 53g. 10. Mao, "Orders for the Chinese People's Volunteers" (October 8, 1g5o), in Kau
3. "Two Principles in Negotiating with Nanjing" (April1, 1g37, 2:ooA.M.), ibid., and Leung, eds., The Writings ofMao Zedong, 1:13g-4o.
632. 11. Mao, "Comment on Hearing of Mao Anying's Death" (November 1g5o), ibid.,
4· Mao, "On Protracted War;' in Selected Works ofMao Tse-tung, Vol. 2, 121, 125. 148.
s. Ibid., 133. 12. Mao, "Oppose the Bourgeois Ideology in the Party" (August 12, 1g53), ibid.,
6. Cited in Mark Selden, The Yenan Way, 125. 367-68, 36g, 365.
7· Ibid., 260-61. 13. Mao, "Preface and Editor's Notes to Material on the Hu Feng Counterrevolu-
8. I was assisted in this interview by my student Ms. Zhu Qian and my longtime tionary Clique" (May-June 1g55), ibid., 1:562-63.
friend Mr. Wu Hongsen. The interview was conducted by me in Chinese; Qian 14. Meisner, Mao's China and After, 141.
did the taping and transcribing, as well as the preliminary translations of the 15. Mao, "On the Cooperativization of Agriculture" (July 31, 1g55), Kau and
interview into English. Leung, eds., The Writings ofMao Zedong, 1:5g1.
g. Ding Ling, "Thoughts on March 8th;' in Tani E. Barlow, ed., I Myself Am a
Woman: Selected Writings ofDing Ling, 317. 7. Great Leap and Restoration
10. Ibid., 31g. 1. Mao, "Situation in the Summer. of 1g57;' Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung,
11. Zhou Enlai, "Zenyang zuo yige hao lingdaozhe" [How to be a good leader], s:475.
Selected Works ofZhou Enlai, Vol. 1, 132. 2. Li Zhisui, The Private Life of Chairman Mao, 26g.
12. "Circular to Zhou Enlai and Others from Mao Zedong, Zhu De, and Wang 3. Mao, "The United States Must Withdraw Its Troops from Taiwan" (May 10,
Jiaxiang ... ;'in Schram, ed., Mao's Road to Power, 7:633. 1g5g), On Diplomacy, 2g4.
13. "To Zhou Enlai and Ye Jianying Concerning Political and Military Preparations 4. Li Zhisui, The Private Life of Chairman Mao, 25g.
for an Overall Counterattack;' ibid., 637. s. Mao, "Speech at the Lushan Conference;' in Schram, ed., Chairman Mao Talks
14. "Dispatch to Liu Shaoqi Regarding the Estimate of the Situation after the to the People, 141-42.
'January 17' Order;' ibid., 654. 6. Mao, "Speech at the Lushan Conference;' ibid., 13g.
15. "Directive of Mao Zedong, Zhu De, and Wang Jianxiang on Guidelines for the 7. Mao, "Speech at the Enlarged Session of the Military Affairs Committee and
Action of the New Fourth Army after the Southern Anhui Incident;' ibid., 660. the External Affairs Conference" (September 11, 1g5g), ibid., 145.
16. "To Mao Anying and Mao Anqing;' ibid., 665. 8. Mao, "Speech at the Tenth Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee" (the
morning of September 24, 1g62 in the Huai-jen Hall), ibid., 1g2.
6. Stabilizing Soc:iety and Socialist Transition g. Meisner, Mao's China; and After, 255.
1. Mao, "The Chinese People Have Stood Up;' Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, 10. Ibid., 267.
s:1s. 11. Mao, "Speech at the Tenth Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee;' in
2. Ibid. Schram, ed., Chairman Mao Talks to the People, 1g3.
3. Li Zhisui, The Private Life of Chairman Mao, 51. 12. Zhou Enhii, "Report on the Work of the Government" (December 1g64), cited
4. Mao, "Always Keep to the Style of Plain Living and Hard Struggle" (October 26, in Meisner, Mao's China and After, 267.
1g4g), Selected Works ofMao Tse-tung, 5:23. 13. Mao, "Talk with Edgar Snow on International Issues" (January g, 1g65), in On
s. Mao, "Speech on Arrival at Moscow Train Station" (December 16, 1g4g), Kau Diplomacy, 416.
and Leung, eds., The Writings ofMao Zedong, 1:51. 14. "American Imperialism is Closely Surrounded by the Peoples of the World"
6. Mao, "Speech on Departure from Moscow" (February 17, 1gso), ibid., 61. (1g64), in Timothy Cheek, ed., Mao Zedong and China's Revolution, 167-68.

186 NOTES TO CHAPTER SIX NOTES TO CHAPTER SEVEN 187

8. Cultural Revolution: Politics in Command I 0. Reform, Restoration, and Repudiation
1. Peking Review 9, no. 24 (June 10, 1g66): 8-g. 1. This interview was conducted with the assistance of my student Ms. Zhu Qian,
2. Mao, "Talk to the Leaders of the Centre" (July 21, 1g66), in Schram, ed., Chair- who transcribed and prepared a preliminary translation of the text. Below are
man Mao Talks to the People, 255. excerpts from a three-hour-long discussion.
3· K. H. Fan, ed., The Chinese Cultural Revolution: St:lected Documents, 308. 2. Meisner, Mao's China and After, 443·
4. Cited in Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, Mao's Last Revolu- 3. Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party since the Founding
tion, 52. ofthe People's Republic of China, 31-32.
s. Mao, "Speech at a Meeting with Regional Secretaries and Members of the 4· Ibid., 41.
Cultural Revolutionary Group of the Central Committee" (July 22, 1g66), in s. Ibid., 42.
Schram, ed., Chairman Mao Talks to the People, 257, 258. 6. Ibid., 44·
6. Mao, "A Letter to the Red Guards of Tsinghua University Middle School" 7. Lin Chun, The Transformation of Chinese Socialism, g4-g8.
(August 1, 1g66), ibid., 260-1. 8. Ching Kwan Lee, Against the Law: Labor Protests in China's Rustbelt and
7. Mao, "Talk at a Meeting of the Central Cultural Revolution Group" (January g, Sunbelt.
1g67), ibid., 276. g. Wang Hui, "Contemporary Chinese Thought and the Question of Modernity;'
8. Mao, "Talks at Three Meetings with Comrades Chang Ch'un-ch'iao [Zhang 45·
Chunqiao] and Yao Wen-yiian [Yao Wenyuan]" (February 1g67), ibid., 27g. 10. Michael Dutton, Streetlife China, 240.
g. Meisner, Mao's China and After, 334.
10. Mao, "Talk at the First Plenum of the Ninth Central Committee ofthe Chinese
Communist Party" {April28, 1g6g), in Schram, ed., Chairmq_n Mao Talks to the
People,282,284,28g
11. Ibid., 287.

9. Cultural Revolution: Denouement and Death

1. I interviewed Mr. Kohso at my New York University office in February 2oog.
2. Cited in MacFarquhar and Schoenhals, Mao's Last Revolution, 30g.
3. Mao, "The People of the Whole World Unite, Defeat the US Aggressors and All
Their Lackeys" (May 20, 1g7o), in Mao, On Diplomacy, 444.
4. Mao, "Imperialism is Afraid of the Third World" {July 11, 1g7o), ibid., 446.
s. Mao, "If Nixon Is Willing to Come, I am Ready to Hold Talks with Him"
(December 18, 1g7o), ibid., 44g-so.
6. See Jin Qiu, The Culture of Power: The Lin Biao Incident in the Cultural
Revolution, 11-12.
7. Meisner, Mao Zedong, 18 7.
8. "Summary of Chairman Mao's Talks with Responsible Comrades at Various
Places during his Provincial Tour" (mid-August to September 12, 1g71), in
Schram, ed., Chairman Mao Talks to the People, 2go-gg.
g. "Lin Biao's Return;' International Herald Tribune, July 16, 2007.
10. Cited in Wang Ban, The Sublime Figure ofHistory, 212.
11. Cited in MacFarquhar and Shoenhals, Mao's Last Revolution, 348.
12. Meisner, Mao's China and After, 3g5.

NOTES TO CHAPTER TEN 189

188 NOTES TO CHAPTER NINE
 Bibliography

'<

Averill, Stephen C. Revolution in the Highlands: China's finggangshan Base Area.

New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006.
Barlow, Tani E. I Myself Am a Woman: Selected Writings of Ding Ling. Boston:
Beacon Press, 1989.
Cheek, Timothy, ed. Mao Zedong and China's Revolution: A Brief History with
Documents. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's Press, 2002.
Dirlik, Arif, Paul Healy, and Nick Knight, eds. Critical Perspectives on Mao Ze-
dong's Thought. Amherst, N.Y.: Humanity Books, 1997.
Dirlik, Arif, and Maurice Meisner, eds. Marxism and the Chinese Experience. New
York:M.E.Sharpe, 1989.
Dutton, Michael. Streetlife China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Dutton, Michael, Hsiu-ju Stacy Lo, and Dong Dong Wu. Beijing Time. Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2008.
Fan, K. H., ed. The Chinese Cultural Revolution: Selected Documents. New York:
Monthly Review Press, 1968.
International Herald Tribune. Online edition.
]in Qiu. The Culture of Power: The Lin Biao Incident in the Cultural Revolution.
Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1999.
Knight, Nick. Rethinking Mao: Explorations in Mao Zedong's Thought. Lanham,
Md.: Lexington Books, 2007.
Kraus, Richard Curt. The Party and the Arty in China: The New Politics of Culture.
Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004.
Lan, Hua R., and Vanessa L. Fong, eds. Women in Republican China: A Sourcebook.
New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1999.
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Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007.
Li, Zhisui. The Private Life of Chairman Mao. New York: Random House, 1994.
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sity Press, 2006.
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and John K. Leung. New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1986.
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Peking Review 9, no. 24 (June 10, 1966): 8-9.
People's Online Daily. Http://english.people.com.cn.
Africa, 114, 137, 139, 150, 184 Buddhism, 5
Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party since the Founding of
Agriculture, 77,81-82,91-95, 111, Bureaucracy: centralization/decentral-
the People's Republic of China. Adopted by the Sixth Plenary Session of the
137i after Mao, 168-71. See also ization and, 85-86, 112; as problem,
Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. June 27, 1981.
Land reform; Peasants; Rural collec- 60-61,84,90-96, 101-2, 113, 115,
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Algeria, 114 155, 160. See also Chinese Commu-
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America. See United States nist Party: bureaucratic centraliza-
Siao-yu. Mao Tse-tung and I Were Beggars. New York: Colliers Books, 1959.
Anarchism, anarchists 17, 18 tion and
Snow, Edgar. Red Star over China. New York: Bantam Books, 1978.
Anti-rightist campaign, 97, 99, 105, Burma, 7
Wang, Ban. The Sublime Figure of History: Aesthetics and Politics in Twentieth-
Century China. Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1997. 112
April Fifth Movement, 157, 163, 177 Cai Hesen, 13, 18,45
Wang, Hui. "Contemporary Chinese Thought and the Question of Modernity."
Atomic bomb, 114 Cambodia, 113, 143, 172
Translated by Rebecca E. Karl. Social Text, 12:1 (Summer 1998): 45-66.
Capitalism, capitalists, 3, 14, 25-26,
Zhou, Enlai. Zhou Enlai Xuanji [Selected Works of Zhou Enlai]. 2 Vols. Beijing:
Bandung,89-90,150,153 61,84,92,99,112,122,127,170,
Renmin chubanshe, 1980.
"Barefoot doctors;' 87, 170 172-73, 176-77; "capitalist-
Zizek, Slavoj. Repeating Lenin. Zagreb: Bastard Books, 2001.
Beijing Olympics, 183-84 roaders" and, 129, 156
Beijing University ("Beida"), 13-16, 18, Carter, Jimmy, 153
23,34,120,123-24,156 Centralization/ decentralization, 85-
"Big character posters;' 12,3-24, 129, 86, 112
163,164 "Century of humiliation;' 2
Bolshevism, 14, 18, 24 Changsha, 1, 9, 15, 18, 27, 38, 40-42,
Bourgeoisie, bourgeois, 74, 86-89, 95, 155
99,102,107-10,113,122,127, Chen Boda, 52, 100, 122, 130
135-36,156,175 Chen Duxiu, 14, 18, 23, 24, 30, 34
Boxer Rebellion, 4 Chiang Kaishek, 30, 32, 35, 41-46, 54,
Braun, Otto, 46 68-74,82,86,105,108,145.157
Brezhnev doctrine, 137 China Lobby, 82, 153
Britain, 1-2, 7, 153, 183 Chinese Communist Party (ccP; "the

192 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Chinese Communist Party (cont.) Compradore capitalism, compradores, Education, 87, 102, 112, 115, 124-25, vs., 23-26; civil war and, 71-75; ex-
Party"), 10, 13, 24, 39, 42, 45, 47, 57, 25 136,161-62,170,177 termination campaigns and, 42-43,
64, 73, 75, 77,85-87,91-92,102, Confucius, Confucianism, s-8, 11, 65, Eighth Route Army, 69 46-47; Northern Expedition and,
111,115,128,148,154,176,178,184; 87, 108, 155-56 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 106 · 29- 34; War of Resistance against
bureaucratic centralization and, 8 5- Congo, 114 Europe,77,85,90,114,137,139,184 Japan and, 54, 56, 68-71; White
87, 93-gs; civil war and, 71-72; cor- Cooperativization, 91 Extermination campaigns, 42-43, 46- Terror and, 33-34, 41
ruption and, 112, 115, 120, 177, 178; Counter-revolution, 86-89, 157 47
Cultural Revolution and, 118-19, Counter-revolutionaries ("non- Hai Rui, 119-20, 121, 123
121-22,124,127-29,133-38,142, people"), 75, 97 Fascism, 55, 56-57, 61 Hangzhou,121,152
144, 145, 148; economic develop- "Criticize Lin, criticize Confucius;' February Seventh Massacre, 23 Hankou-Canton Railway, 22-23
ment and, 83-84, 93-95; formation 155-56 Feminism, 11, 16-17,77 Hengshan (mountain), 1
of, 17 -19; GMD vs., 23- 26; Hu Feng Cuba, 114 Feudalism, 31, 32, 65, 81 He Zizhen (Mao's second wife), 37-38,
and, 88-89; land reform and, 8o-82; Cult of individual (cult of personality), First Provincial Normal School ("First 46-48,52,79,109,122
Northern Expedition and, 29- 34; go, 115-16. See also Mao Zedong: Normal"), 10, 12 Historical materialism, 52
peasant revolution and, 21- 23; post- cult of First World War (Great War), 15 Ho Chi Minh, 143
Leap restoration and, 111-13; post- Cultural Revolution (1966-76), ix, "Five principles for peaceful co- Hong Kong, 153, 174, 180, 182-83;
Mao restoration and, 160,163,166- 117-58,160-63,166-68,176 existence;' 89, 152 seaman's strike in, 24
68, postwar stabilization and, 7s- Culture of revolution (revolutionary Forces of production, 94-95, 156, 168 Household registration system
77; relations of, with Mao, 37, 41, culture), 53, 58-66, 73-74, 85-86, "Four cardinal principles;' 168 (hukou), 174-76
95-97,99,103,109,112, 115-16; 118~19, 136, 147-48 "Four clean-ups;' 120 Hua Guofeng, 159-63
Shanghai underground and, 64-66; Culture worker, 62-66, 128 "Four modernizations;' 154, 155, 162, Huangyangjie, 35
women and, 26-27, 45; in Yan'an, Czechoslovakia. See Prague Spring 168 Hu Feng, 87-89, 122
51-72 "Four olds;' 127, 147 "Hundred flowers" (diversity of opin-
Chinese Political Consultative Con- Danwei (work unit), 85, 102, 172 "Free trade;' 1-2 ion), 96-97, 105
gress, 73 Dao Guang Emperor, 1 Futian Incident, 41-43 Hungarian uprising, 90-91, 137
Christianity, 3, 4, 37, 65 Democracy, 15, 59-62, 74-75, 85, Hu Yaobang, 177
Chongqing (Chungking), 55, 71 163-64, 173. See also New democ- "GangofFour;' 122-23,131,148,159, Hu Yeping, 66
Citizenship. See "People, the" racy; People's democratic dictator- 160
Civil war, 71-72, 74,75 ship Germany, 12, 15, 46, 153 Ibsen, Henrik, A Doll's House, 17
Class struggle, 26, 58, 6o, 80-82, 95, Democracy wall, 163-64 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 176, 177, 178 Imperialism, 1-2, 7, 14, 21-22, 57, 61,
164-65 Deng Xiaoping, 100, 111, 128, 129, Great Britain. See Britain 65-66
Cold war, 89-90, 142, 153 154-57,162-68, 176-84; Dengist Great Leap Forward, 99, 101- s, 108, India,2,29, 110,113,152
Collectivization. See Rural collectiviza- reforms and, ix, 164 110-11, 115, 119, 128, 154, 161, Industry, 94, 101, 110, 137, 154; com-
tion Ding Ling, 66-67, 105 167,171, 174; famine and, 106-7 munes and, 102, 104; post-Mao re-
Comintern (Communist Interna- Dong Biwu, 157 Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. form and, 172-74; Soviet path and,
tional), 18-19, 24, 30, 33-34, 36, "Down to the Countryside;' 134-36, 161 See Cultural Revolution 84-85, 93-94
46-47 Great War (First World War), 15 Intellectuals, 75, 86-89, 91, 95-97,
Communes, 102-3,111-12, 115, 168, Economy, 75-77,93-95,101-4, 137; Guerilla warfare, 35-36, 39-43, 55, 70, 112,157, 175; Cultural Revolution
175,180 developmental leap and, 102- 3; 72, 79, 82. See also "On Protracted and, 121, 123; Maoism and, 66, 68;
Communism, 48, 82, 110; Jiangxi So- Mao-era debates on, 83-87,93-95, War" post-Cultural Revolution restora-
viet base and, 41-45. See also Chi- 156; post-Leap restoration and, Guomindang (GMD; Nationalist Party), tion and, 160, 161, 180, 181
nese Communist Party; Lenin, 111-13, 154; post-Mao policies 13,24,38,42,45,62,66,76,78,81- "Iron women;' 104-5
Leninism; Maoism; Marx, Marxism and,161,162,167-76,18o-81 82,86,88,105,150,151,153;CCP

INDEX 195
194 INDEX
 Japan, Japanese imperialism, 3, 6, 7, 11, Li Min (Mao's daughter), 38, 52, 79, of, 4-7; as commodity, 181-82; cult 30-31, 58-59,62, 72, 85, 87-88,
12, 15-16, 21, 28-29,43, 45, 47, 120 of, 67-68,96, 115-16, 128, 145; 92,101-4,117-18,124,142
53-59,65-66,68-70,78,82,85, Li Na (Mao's daughter), 52, 79, 83, 120 Cultural Revolution and, 117-18, May Fourth Movement (1919), 14-17,
105, 137, 153, 174; Cultural Revolu- Lin Biao, 72, 78,109, 115-16, 121, 120, 124, 126-27, 130, 136-38; de- 29,66,162,178
tion and, 140-42; end of war and, 132-33, 138, 141, 143, 151, 155-56, cline and death of, 155-60, 184; dis- May Sixteenth Directive (1966), 121-23
70-71 167; fall of, 144-46 covery of peasants by, 29- 32; early May Thirtieth Incident (1925), 28-29,
Jiang Qing (Mao's third wife), 52, 79, "Linking up;' 131-32 education of, 5 -10; economic the- 38
83, 99, 103, 109, 120, 122-23, 125, Little red book, 116, 126, 141, 145, 181 ory and, 84, 91-95, 101-5, 107, 109, Media, 87, 97, 121-24, 130, 142-43,
128, 133, 149, 151-52, 154, 155-56, Liu Hezhen, 28 137, 171; First United Front and, 26, 148,161,178,180
159, 163, 167; arrest and trial of, 160 Liu Shaoqi, 70, 78, 109, 111, 124, 128- 29-32; Hu Feng affair and, 87; as Military. See People's Liberation Army;
Jiangxi Soviet base area, 40-46, 55 29,134,136-37,143,167 labor organizer, 22-23; legacy of, in Red Army
Jiang Zemin, 179, 180 Liu Songlin, 83 scholarship, ix-xi, 164-65, 181, Ming Dynasty, 30, 119, 120
Jinggangshan, 35-37,40, 47, 115, 131, Li Zhisui, 79 184; as liberal, 10-12; Lin Biao and, Miss Zhao's suicide, 16-18, 76
146 Long March, 47-49, 51, 53, 89, 111, 143-46, 151; Marxism and, 5, 6, 10, Miyazaki, Toten, 79
131,148,154 12-14, 18, 68, 91; Moscow visit of,
Kang Sheng, 154, 157, 167 Lord, Winston, 151 77-78, 99-100; Nixon and, 142- Nanchang, 42, 121
Kang Youwei, 6 Lumumba, Patrice, 114 44, 149- 52; relations of, with CCP, Nanjing, 30, 54, 56, 71
Khan, Yahya,149,150 Lushan Conference, 107-9, 119, 143- 37, 41, 95-97, 99, 103, 109, 112, "Nanjing massacre;' 55
Kissinger, Henry, 142, 149-52 45 115-16; Republican Revolution Nationalist imperialists. See Revision-
Kohso,Sabu,140-42 Lu Xun~ 17,28-29,65 and, 9-10; reassessment of, 166- ism
I(orea,3,7,82,105,109,114, 152,172 68; Second United Front and, 51- Nationalist Party. See Guomindang
Korean War, 82-83 MacArthur, Douglas, 82 72i world history and, x, 139-42. Nehru, Jawaharlal, 89, 110
Kosygin, Aleksei, 143 Malaysia, 113 See also titles of individual New Culture, 11,16-17
Krushchev, Nikita, 90-91, 99, 100, Malraux, Andre, 148 works by New democracy, 59-62, 74-75, 85-
105-6, 110-11, 114, 122, 128-29, Manchukuo,43 Mao Zedong Thought, 52-53, 75, 86,89,91
134,156 Manchuria, 1, 43, 45, 53, 71-72, 78, 82 114-16,122,133,166,168 New Fourth Army Incident, 69-70,
Manchus, 1, 9 Mao Zemin (Mao's brother), 4, 22-23, 111
Landlords, 30, 36, 44, 6o, 80-82, 112, Mao Anhong (Mao's son), 45 "New left;' 164, 181
79
127 Mao Anqing (Mao's son), 41, 70, 79 Mao Zetan (Mao's brother), 4, 22-23, New People's Study society, 10
Land redistribution: in Jiangxi Soviet, Mao Anying (Mao's son), 41, 70, 79, 83 36,46 New Youth (Xin qingnian), 11, 14, 23
44-46; in Yan'an, 59-60 Maoism, ix-x, 29, 36, 40, 44,65-67, Marco Polo Bridge Incident, 54-55 Nixon, Richard, in China, 141-42, 144,
Land reform, 80-82, 169-72 76, 84, 95, 115-16, 164-66, 168, Marcos, Imelda, 155 149-53
Language reform, 87, 115 184; Cultural Revolution and, 117, Maring. See Sneevliet, Hans Northern Expedition, 29-34
Laos, 114, 172 119, 162; economics and, 85,91-95, Marshall, George C., 71, n "Notes on A Critique of Soviet Eco-
Latin America, 114, 137, 139, 184 101-4; formation of, in Yan'an, 51- Marx, Marxism, 5-6, 10-18, 53, 61, nomics" (1956), 93-95
LeiFeng,116 53, 58-59, 60-62; revolutionary 65, 68, 8o-81, 86, 88, 94-95, 102;
Lenin, Leninism, x, 14, 52, 53, 108 culture and, 147-48. See also Mao Chinese revolution and, 31, 32; Chi- One-child policy. See Population
Liang Qichao, 6 Zedong Thought nese social situation and, 21-22, 28, "On Protracted War" (1938), 55-59
Liang Shuming, 87 Mao Rensheng (Mao's father), 4-6 156;orthodox,29,30 "On the Correct Handling of Contra-
Liberalism, liberals, 17-18, 164 Mao Yuanxin (Mao's nephew), 79, 120, Mass democracy, 61, 66, 129-31, 133, dictions among the People" (1957),
Liberation, 73 159,160 134 95-96
Li Dazhao, 14, 18, 34 Mao Zedong: at Beijing University, 13- Mass line, 58-6o, 66, 68, 74, 163, 167 "On the Ten Major Relationships"
Li Lisan, 39, 40, 42-43 14; in Canton, 26, 29-30; childhood Mass mobilization and mass politics, (1956), 93-95

196 INDEX INDEX 197

 ------·
Opium, 1- 3; elimination of, 76 Ping-Pong diplomacy, 149-50 Revisionism, 11 o- 12, 13 7 Shanghai Commune, 129-31
Opium War, 1-2 Political campaigns, 89 Revolution: economic development Shanghai Communique, 152-53
Politics, Maoist theory of, 57-65, 181 and, 83-84,94-95, 101-4; as proj- Shao Hua, 79
Pak~tan,149,150,152 Pol Pot, 165 ect, x, 15, 21, 115-18, 126; revolu- Shaoshan,1,4,S,27-28,1o7, 121,131
"Paper tiger;' 113, 114 Population, 85, 87, 171-72 tionary truth and, 75, 88, 95; Shenzhen,174
Paris Commune, 129 Prague Spring, 137 revolutionary will and, 37, 101, 124 Shimoneseki, 3
Paulsen, Friedrich, A System of Ethics, Privatization, 170-71 Revolutionary culture. See Culture of Silver, 2
12 Proletariat, 41, 61, 75, 85, 112, 127, 135, revolution Sino-Soviet Friendship Treaty, 78
Party, the. See Chinese Communist 157; Chinese revolution and, 21- Revolutionary internationalism, 139- Sino-Soviet split, 110-11, 142-43
Party 22; culture of revolution and, 63; 42,151 Sneevliet, Hans, 18
Peasants, 115, 135; categories of, 44- Northern Expedition and, 31, 33- Revolutionary literature. See Culture of Snow, Edgar, 5, 113, 143
45, 61, 92, 112, 127; civil war and, 34i post-Mao reforms and, 172-7 4; revolution; "Talks at Yan'an Forum Socialism, socialists, 9, 60-64, 85, 91,
71-72; Communist Revolution and, Shanghai Commune and, 129-31, on Art and Literature" 96,99,103,113,115,122,132,142,
21- 34; culture of revolution and, 134; Tian'anmen Social Movement Rightists (or "right opportunism"), 97, 176; economic laws and, 94-95; re-
63-64; everyday life of, 44-45; fam- and, 178-79 99,107,110-11,121,154, 156.See definition of, after Mao, 167-68,
ine and, 106-7; land reform and, Prostitution, 76, 176 also Anti-rightist campaign; 172-74, 183; transition to, 91-97,
80-82; as leaders of revolution, 30- Protracted war. See Guerilla warfare; Counter-revolutionaries 100-101, 103, 110
32, 36, 108; post-Mao reforms and, "On Protracted War" Romania, 110, 176 Socialist Education Movement, 115
168-71, 174-76; postwar stabiliza- Pu Yi, 43 Ruijin, 40, 41, 131 "Socialist imperialism." See Revisionism
tion and, 7s; socialist transition and, · Rural areas. See Agriculture; Land re- Social relations of production, 84, 94-
91-93, 101-3; War of Resistance Qing Dynasty, 1-10, 24, 43, 121 form; Peasants; Rural collectiviza- 95,lOO-l01,156,168
and,7o Qemoy and Matsu Incident, 105, 110 tion Society and Party relations, 90, 91
Peng Dehuai, 40, 42, 45, 78, 82-83, Rural collectivization, 91-93, 101-2; Society and social transformation, 17- 18
100, 107-9, 119 "Red and expert;' 103 de-collectivization and, 168-71 Song Qingling, 100
Peng Zhen, 110, 120-21, 136 Red Army, 35,38-41,42,43-48, 53- Rural reform after Mao. See Agricul- Soviet Union, 56, 61, 78, 83-85, 90-93,
"People, the": as political designation, 54, 67, 70, 157. See also People's ture: after Mao 99,100,102,106,110,113,137,
74-75, 93, 112, 167; as revolution- Liberation Army; Zhu-Mao Army Rural-urban migration, 174-76 142-45, 176. See also Russia
ary designation, 61-62, 95-97, Red Guards, 118-19, 125-28, 130-34, Rural-urban relations, 84-85, 93-95, Stalin, Stalinism, 24, 33-34, 36, 47, 52-
127-28 164,178,181 112, 132, 169-70 53,71,77-78,90-94,97,106
People's democratic dictatorship, 74- Re-education, 97 Russia, 77-78. See also Soviet Union Students, 14-16, 28-29, 111, 115,
75,168 Relations of production. See Social re- Russian Revolution (1917), 14, 18 123-27, 131-37, 140-42, 161,
People's Liberation Army (PLA), 75-76, lations of production Russo-Japanese War (1905), 7 176-8o
108-110,115-16,121,132-34, "Report on an Investigation of the Rustication. See "Down to the Coun- "Study of Physical Education, A;' 10-12
137-38, 142, 144-46, 154, 157, 158; Hunan Peasant Movement" (1927), tryside" Subjectivism, 88, 167
in Korean War, 82-83; Tian'anmen 30-32,81 Suharto, 113
Massacre and, 179-80; in Vietnam Republican Revolution (1911), 6, 7, 9, "Scar literature;' 161 Sukarno,89,113
war, 165-66 14,18 Self-reliance, 102, 104, 111, 170 Sun Yatsen, 6, 24, 27, 100
People's Republic of China (PRC), 74- "Resist America, Aid Korea." See Semi-feudalism and semi-colonialism
7s,86,143,149,152,165 Korean War ("the two semis"), 25, 57, 61 Taipings rebellion, 3
"People's war;' 72, 73 "Resolution on Certain Questions in Shaanxi Province, 47-48 Taiwan, 72, 78, 105, 144, 153, 168, 174,
"Permanent revolution;' 101-2 the History of Our Party ... ;· 166- Shanghai, 15, 17-18,23,27-28,34, 180
Philippines, 7, 105, 113, 155 68 38-39,40,64-66, 120, 122, 132- "Talks at the Yan'an Forum on Art and
Physical education, 10-12, 87 Restoration, 111-13 33,152 Literature" (1942), 62-64, 66, 67

198 INDEX INDEX 199

Tangshan earthquake, 157, 158 Women, 11, 16-17,22-23,26-27,
Thailand,113 32-33,45, 77, 92,104-5, 112, 123,
Third World, 89-90, 150-51, 153 127, 148, 170-75; Ding Ling on,
Tian'anmen Square Social Movement 66-68; marriage law and, 76
and Massacre (1989), 176-8o, 181 Women's Federation, 76-77, 172
Tibet,82, 110,184 Workers. See Proletariat
Treaty of Nanjing, 1, 2 Work Unit. See Danwei
Treaty of Shimoneseki, 3 World Trade Organization (wTo), 170
Truman, Harry, 71 WuHan, 121
"Twowh atevers," 160, 161, 162 Wuhan,121,125-26,132-33,143-44
Wu Peifu, 23
United Front: First ("bloc within";
1925-27), 23-26, 29-34, 71; Sec- Xiang River, 7, 155
ond ("bloc without"; 1937-45), 53- Xiang River Review (journaal), 14, 15, 16
55,61,68-70 Xi'an Incident, 54
United Nations, 150-51 Xiao Yu, 12, 13
United States, 2, 56, 70-72, 75, 77, 78, 85, Xin qingnian. See New Youth
"Xunwu Report;' 43-45
101, 105-6,110,114,128,137, 139,
142-44,149-50,164-65,174, 184;
Korean War and, 82-83; Shanghai Yan'an,'49, 53-72,74,76,78-79,84,
87,89,93, 105,111,113,122,131,
communique and, 152-53
"Unity-criticism-unity;' 113 135, 147-48, 154; mythology of,
51-52, 76
Ussuri River, 142
Yang Changji, 12, 13, 14
Yang Kaihui (Mao's first wife), 14, 18,
Versailles Treaty, 15, 16
22,26-27,38,41,52,79,83
Vietnam, 7, 89, 113, 137, 142-44, 152,
Yao Wenyuan, 120, 122, 131, 149
172; China's war with, 165-66 ·
Ye Qun, 145
Yuan Shikai, 9
Wang Guangmei, 129
Wang Hongwen, 129, 131, 149
Zhang Chunqiao, 122, 130, 131, 149
Wang Hui, xii, 176; interview with,
Zhang Hongtu, 182
164-65, 181
Zhang Xueliang, 54
Wang Jingwei, 56, 68
Zhang Yimou, 183
Wang Yuanhua, interview with, 64-66,
Zhao Ziyang, 179, 180
88-89
Zhongnanhai, 78-79, 106, 109, 120,
War of Resistance against Japan
123,151
(1937-45), 53-59. 61, 111
Zhou Enlai, 45-46, 54, 65, 68, 78, 89,
Warlords, 23, 26, 29-30. See also
111, 113, 134. 143. 145-46, 149-56,
names of individual warlords 162-63, 177; death of, 156-57
Wei Jingsheng, 164, 165 Zhou Yang, 88, 122
Wen Qimei (Mao's mother), 5, 14 Zhu De, 36, 40, 42, 45, 157
Whampoa Academy, 24 Zhu-Mao Army, 36, 38-41
White Terror, 33-35, 37, 41 Zunyi Confer.ence, 4 7

200 INDEX
Rebecca E. Karl is an associate professor of history and
East Asian studies at New York University. She is the
author of Staging the World: Chinese Nationalism at the
Turn of the Twentieth Century (Duke, 2002). She edited
(with Peter Zarrow) Rethinking the 1898 Reform Period:
Political and Cultural Change in Late Qing China (2002)
and (with Saree Makdisi and Cesare Casarino) Marxism
beyond Marxism (1996).

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Karl, Rebecca E.
Mao Zedong and China in the twentieth-century world:
a concise history I Rebecca E. Karl.
p. em.- (Asia-pacific: culture, politics, and society)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-o-8223-4780-4 (cloth: alk. paper)
ISBN 978-o-8223-4795-8 (pbk.: alk. paper)
1. Mao, Zedong, 1893-1976.2. Heads of state-China-
Biography. 3. China-History-1949-1976. 4. China-
History-Republic, 1912-1949. I. Title. II. Series: Asia-
Pacific.
DS778.M3K359 2010
951.05092-dc22
(B)
2010005250
 Throughout this lively and concise historical account of Mao Zedong's
life and thought, Rebecca E. Karl places the revolutionary leader's
personal experiences, social visions and theory, military strategies,
and developmental and foreign policies in a dynamic narrative of the
Chinese revolution. She situates Mao and the revolution in a global
setting informed by imperialism, decolonization, and third worldism,
and discusses worldwide trends in politics, the economy, military
Rebecca E. Karl
power, and territorial sovereignty. Karl begins with Mao's early life
is Associate Professor
in a small village in Hunan province, documenting his relationships
of History at New York
with his parents, passion for education, and political awakening dur- University. She is the
ing the fall of the Qing dynasty in late 1911. She traces his transition author of Staging the
from liberal to Communist over the course of the next decade, his World: Chinese Nation-
early critiques of the subjugation of women, and the gathering force alism at the Turn of
of the May 4th movement for reform and radical change. Describing the Twentieth Century,
Mao's rise to power, she delves into the dynamics of Communist or- also published by Duke
ganizing in an overwhelmingly agrarian society, and Mao's confron- University Press, and
tations with Chiang Kaishek and other nationalist conservatives. She a co-editor of Rethink-
also considers his marriages and romantic liaisons and their relation ing the 1898 Reform
to Mao as the revolutionary founder of Communism in China. After Period: Political and
analyzing Mao's stormy tenure as chairman of the People's Republic Cultural Change in
of China, Karl concludes by examining his legacy in China from his Late Qing China and
death in 1976 through the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Marxism beyond
Marxism .
''In this succinct and compact nauative of Mao's penonal and
intellectual development, Rebecca E. .Karl offen an impres·
sive exposition of the formation and evolution of the theory
and practice of the Chinese Revolution. Her analysis of ideo·
logical tenets in China's revolutionary movement is convinc·
ing and more sophisticated than other nauatives of Mao's life
and thoughi."-BAN WANG, author of Illuminations from the
Past: Trauma, Memory, and History in Modern China

"l.lebecca E. Karl has written a lively, readable account of

Mao's life and thought, showing how they fit into and affected
the twentieth-century world."-DELIA DAVIN, author of Mao
Zedong

ASIA-PACIFIC . Duke University Press

A Series Edited by Rey Chow, Box 90660
Michael Dutton, H. D. Harootunian, Durham, NC 27708-o66o
and Rosalind Morris www.dukeupress.edu

COVER: Mao Zedong, 1938 HULTON ARCHIVE / GETTY IMAGES