Organizer and Chair: Andrew G. Walder, Hong Kong University of Science and
Technology
Discussant: Elizabeth J. Perry, University of California, Berkeley
"New Trends of Thought" Among Radical Groups
Shaoguang Wang, Yale University
Most rebels of the Cultural Revolution were rebels, but not revolutionaries. Although they might have long been discontented with the establishment, few ever seriously thought about structural ways to overcome social maladies that had existed in the pre-CR China. They never questioned whether an old power structure with new power holders would be able to make any fundamental changes; and they had no idea about what they would do with their power. Instead, they were interested in power as such. The events of 1967 and 1968 clearly demonstrated that the primary concern of most rebel organizations was merely to maximize their own share of power. There were, however, a handful of clairvoyants who were trying not only to resume the bureaucracy but also to create a new society, a society modeled after the Paris Commune of 1871. What they were advocating then was called the "new trends of thought"" (xinshichao). By tracing the rise and evolution of xinshichao over the ten years between 1966 and 1976, this essay attempts to identify xinshichao theorists' main contributions and assess their impact on the course of the CR.
China's Public Security Forces During the Cultural Revolution
Michael Schoenhals, Stockholm University
This paper examines the involvement of China's public security forces-the so-called "Armed People's Police" (PAP)-in the early phase of the Cultural Revolution. It describes for the first time the hitherto unknown restructuring to which the PAP became subject in 1966, when for political and military reasons it was down-graded from a national organization with its own separate command structure to a number of independent "ordinary" army units fully integrated into China's military districts. The paper discusses the complex relationship between the PAP and the People's Liberation Army on the one hand and the Ministry of Security on the other, and sets out to explain the manifest political conservatism displayed by virtually all PAP units across China in 1967 by invoking a variety of aspects of their organizational past. By way of case studies dealing with events in the military districts of Shandong, Zhejiang, and Hubei, the paper illustrates with clarity the extreme harshness with which the central authorities punished the PAP for what were in effect quite serious cases of insubordination. It goes on to trace the ups and downs of the PAP in the early 1970s and concludes with a discussion of the relationship between the near-total demise of the PAP in the Cultural Revolution and its surprising resurgence in the wake of the death of Mao Zedong.
Anatomy of an Inquisition: Cleansing the Class Ranks, 1968-71
Andrew G. Walder, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Accounts of the Cultural Revolution usually end with the suppression of factionalism among red guard and rebel organizations and the slow rebuilding of party-state institutions beginning in 1968. They sometimes mention, but rarely examine, a campaign to "cleanse the class ranks" which, in combination with differently named suppression campaigns, unleashed a wave of violence and fear throughout the country that is still little understood, even among specialists. These campaigns involved the targeting of suspected enemies of the revolution, the extraction of confession through torture, and often death in torture chambers or through summary execution. It is now possible to document a scale of persecution previously unsuspected: the investigation and intimidation of millions, the torture of hundreds of thousands and the deaths of at least tens of thousands. This paper argues that these persecutions are not explicable simply as the carrying out of orders within a bureaucracy, and that they comprise a political movement just as surely as the red guard and rebels movements of the previous months. The paper examines official documents regarding the conduct of the campaign, the ways in which it was conducted locally, and highlights wide local variations in its scope and methods as clues to its causes.
Student Attacks Against Teachers: The Revolution of 1966
Youqin Wang, Stanford University
Employing personal observations and interviews with 80 former red guards and their victims, this paper documents a violent campaign of terror during the first weeks of the Cultural Revolution in Beijing's elite high schools. The bulk of the account details events in the Beijing Foreign Middle School. During this wave of terror students who were primarily from families of top civilian and military officials beat and killed teachers and principals of schools with a frequency not previously suspected. The paper documents through official records the death through beatings or torture of more than 1,000 teachers in early August 1966.