Step Toward Understanding

A Step Toward Understanding Popular Violence in China's Cultural RevolutionAuthor(s): Lu XiuyuanSource: Pacific Affairs, Vol. 67, No. 4 (Winter, 1994-1995), pp. 533-563Published by: Pacific Affairs, University of British ColumbiaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2759573 .

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A Step Toward Understanding Popular Violence in China's

Cultural Revolution Li! Xiuyuan

INTRODUCTION

A LTHOUGH the dream of establishing a museum of the Cultural A~evolution (CR) in China is still difficult to fulfill,' the dream of an international CR school (wenge xue)2 has come true. Even in the absence of such a title, numerous scholars all over the world have been studying the unprecedented historical movement, the "ten-year great calamity" (shinian haojie) of the Chinese people. This article seeks to join this theoretical discussion, to add the voice of an anthropologist-eyewitness,3 and to highlight the violent characteristics of the CR, which were among the factors that held it together as a mass movement. This perspective emphasizes the role of the Chinese people as active agents, thus striving to understand the fundamental causes of the CR. In this article, I will first describe violent scenes and various contradictions/conflicts during the CR, and then through the examination of different approaches and theoretical orientations in both Chinese and Western literature (though I have no intention to attempt a comprehensive review) I will show what had been accomplished in the past in order to indicate the weak area in our studies. In the second half of the article I will develop an inadequately addressed dimension and introduce my argument.

I Prominent Chinese novelist Ba Jin once suggested establishing a museum of the Cultural Revolution so that the bitter lessons could be remembered from generation to generation. In a CCP directive, however, this suggestion was prohibited from being mentioned again. See Zeng Huiyan, "Interview with Gao Gao, the Author of A History of the Decade of China's Cultural Revolution, "Jiushiniandai Yuekan (The Nineties Monthly) (April 1987), p. 67.

2 Developing a Chinese CR school to study this historical event was advocated by several people, such as Shao Yanxiang and Tan Lifu, and represents a common wish among Chinese people. See Wang Nianyi, Dadongluan de Niandai (Years of great turmoil) (Zhengzhou: Henan Renmin Chubanshe, 1988), p. 1; Wang Xuewen, Zhonggong WenhuaDa GemingShilun (On the history of the Chinese Communist Cultural Revolution) (Taibei: Institute of International Relations, The National University of Politics, 1989).

3 I was a high school student in Beijing when the Cultural Revolution started. Coming from an intellectual family background, I actively participated in the CR and in 1969 voluntarily went to Yanan, one of the revolutionary base areas and one of the poorest regions in the countryside. This article is a serious reflection related to my own life experiences.

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Although two decades have passed, the violent scenes of the Cultural Revolution are still so vivid in Chinese memory that it seems as if they happened yesterday, and many Chinese still feel the wounds. Their memories are mainly from the period of 1966-1968, the most random and violent years of the Cultural Revolution.4

A BRIEF RETROSPECTIVE OF THE VIOLENCE DURING 1966-1968

There was an escalation of violence from 1966 to 1968. Responding to Mao Zedong's call for "Sweeping Away All Monsters and Demons" (hengsao yiqie niu guei she shen, class enemies of all descriptions), the campaign of "Destroying the 'Four Olds"' (po sijiu, i.e., old ideas, cultures, cus- toms, and habits) raised the curtain on the CR mass violence. Thousands of "Red Guards" (hong weibing), comprising youths from family backgrounds of "five red types" (hong wu lei, i.e., workers, poor and lower-middle-class peasants, revolutionary cadres, revolutionary soldiers, and dependents of revolutionary martyrs), were the protagonists in this social drama. They brought the revolution from the schools into society and brought violence into the ordinary lives of many urban, as well as some rural, people. During the summer of 1966, the "Red Guards" ransacked the homes of the "seven black categories" (hei qi lei, i.e., landlords, rich peasants, counterrevolutionaries, evildoers, rightists, capitalists, and reactionary intellectuals) to search for counterrevolutionary evidence and to confiscate their property. These "class enemies" were criticized and denounced at public meetings and paraded in the streets bearing humil- iating labels. Their hair was cut into various extreme styles by the Red Guards to humiliate them. They were beaten and tortured, and were forced to do physical work as "labor reform" (laodong gaizao) in the cities or were sent to the countryside. Many were killed by abuse and violence. In some of the worst areas of the countryside, not only the "class enemies"

4 There are different opinions about the end of the CR. See Lynn White, Policies of Chaos (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), p. 4. Hong Yung Lee's The Politics of the Chinese Cultural Revolution: A Case Study (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1978) and Liu Guokai's A Brief Analysis of the Cultural Revolution (1980), in Anita Chan, ed., Chinese Sociology and Anthropology (Winter 1986-87) all cover the three-year periodization from 1966 to 1968. In his book Lishi de Yibufen (A part of history) (Tianyuan Publishers, Wan-hsiang Book Co., 1993), Zheng Yi shows a similar opinion. For him, the CR actually stopped around August 1968, and the later years were a period of inertia after Mao lost control. I will analyze their opinions later. For most Chinese, these are different periods within the CR, and the CR ended in 1976 with the smashing of the "Gang of Four," the major members of the "Central Cultural Revolution Group":Jiang Qing, Wang Hongwen, Yao Wenyuan, and Zhang Chunqiao. In her recent article "Dispelling Misconceptions About the Red Guard Movement: The Necessity to Re-examine Cultural Revolution Factionalism and Periodization," Anita Chan provided a powerful argument about the three-year Cultural Revolution periodization which politicized the issue. See The Journal of Contemporary China (Fall 1992), pp. 61-85.

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Popular Violence In China's Cultural Revolution

themselves but also their family members were executed.5 Within the climate of "Red Terror," many people resorted to suicide to avoid the torture and killing. Suicide was called "dreading punishment for one's crime" and "alienating oneself from the people," but by giving up their lives, these suicides showed their resistance to the inhumane physical and spiritual treatment so many were forced to undergo.

Numerous ancient sites and historical relics were damaged due to being "Four Olds." Churches and abbeys were attacked, and the nuns and monks were expelled. The old names of streets, schools, department stores, and product brands were changed to revolutionary ones; for example, Yangwei ("raise power/prestige") Road, where the Russian embassy was located, was renamed Fanxiu ("Anti-revisionism") Road. "Bourgeois tastes" were also included within the scope of "sweeping away." "Bourgeois bizarre attire" (zichanjieji qi zhuang yi fu), such as close-fitting or wide trouser legs, pointed-toe or high-heeled shoes, or long hair, were attacked. People in such attire not only were stopped on the streets and criticized, but also often were "revolutionized" - the high heels or pointed toes of shoes were cut off; trousers were destroyed with scissors; long hair was clipped on the streets or in barber shops. The ordinary lives of numerous Chinese people were threatened and disrupted.

But the most important enemies, the focus of the CR, as Mao said, were those in power who were taking the capitalist road, namely, the "capitalist roaders" (zou zi pai). They were leaders on many different levels. Through denouncing the "Work Teams" and party organizations that tried to control order by nailing new "rightists" and through annulling the black materials they put in people's dossiers, as well as through attacking the "blood pedigree theory" (xuetonglun), the campaign "Criticizing the Bourgeois Reactionary Line" (pipan zichanjieji fandong luxian) mobilized a broad cross section of people, especially those of "grey" and "black" family origins, to join the struggle against the "capitalist roaders." The "capitalist roaders" were treated just like the "old enemies," and the attacks on them drew more ordinary Chinese into the violence. This policy was surprising and extremely difficult to accept by people who had long represented the revolution and who had criticized others. I think it

5 In Daxing County, the suburbs of Beijing, from August 27 to September 1 of 1966, 325 people with "black" class labels and their family members were killed; the eldest was 80 years old, the youngest was only 38 days old, and 22 households were erased. See Gao Gao and Yan Jiaqi's Zhongguo "Wenge"Shinianshi (A history of the decade of China's Cultural Revolution), p. 75; Wang, Dadongluan de Niandai, p. 70. In Zheng Yi's Lishi de Yibufen, he mentioned some similar massacres which happened in Liangxiang town, the suburbs of Beijing, and Dao County, Hunan Province. Everyone from the families with "black" class labels in a village of Liangxiang were buried alive; and everyone from the "black" families in Dao county were beheaded by using large grain cleavers. See "Shenmo Shi Hongweibing, Shenmo Shi Taizidang?" (What is the Red Guard, what is the Prince Party?) Jiushiniandai Yuekan (The Nineties Monthly) July 1992), pp. 92-93; and Liu Binyan, "An Unnatural Disaster," The New York Review, April 8, 1993, p. 3.

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is likely that, as a Western journalist claims, the suicide rate among these ex-bourgeois leaders was much higher than that of "old enemies" during the initial eruption of the CR.

From 1967 to 1968, there was a long period of "fighting between factions" (paixing douzheng or da paizhang), reasons for which will be mentioned later. In contrast to the situation at the beginning of the CR, after 1966 most people could join the Red Guards, previously a privilege of the "five red types." Red Guards within each city or unit divided themselves into two opposing groups, often called the "rebel faction" (zaofan pai) and the "conservative faction" (baoshou pai or baohuang pai). They debated and fought not only orally and in writing, but soon also with sticks, fragments of bricks, and finally guns. More and more people died in the fighting. Additionally, during the early half of 1968, often backed by military officials, conservative groups launched a crucial suppression of the rebels all over the country. The better-situated the conservatives were, the worse the suppression was. In the worst provinces of Guangxi and Guangdong, leaders of rebel groups were arrested, paraded, humiliated, and then killed or maimed. "The United Headquarters of Proletarian Revolutionary Factions" in Guangxi killed their counterpart student rebels of the "April 22 Group" in a mass execution after their surrender or capture. Accused as behind-the-scene supporters of the rebels, "class enemies" and their offspring were executed in large-scale and extremely brutal ways. The most barbaric cannibalism - eating enemies - was done in Guangxi as the way to demonstrate intense "class feeling. "6

How many people died during the Cultural Revolution? Estimates vary from one million to twenty million. In Guangxi province, based on Zheng Yi's field research, the "unnatural deaths" during the CR are officially estimated at ninety-thousand but are said among the populace to be at least twice that number. According to national officials, about one hundred million people (one-tenth of the country's population) suffered during the CR. Regardless of the precise numbers, it is certain that the trauma and impact on the Chinese people as a whole was immense.

Why did the Cultural Revolution occur? Why did so many Chinese show such a political enthusiasm to fight, even to kill, one another? What caused the mass violence and national madness during the CR? These questions are seriously considered and reflected upon by both the Chinese people and scholars abroad.

6 See Liu Binyan, "An Unnatural Disaster," The New York Revzew, April 8, 1993, p. 3; Liu Guokai, A Brief Analysis, pp. 120-23. The cannibalism in Guangxi is recorded in Zheng Yi's eighth letter to his wife from his book Lishi de Yibufen, especially in detail in his unpublished manuscript Hongse Jinianbei (Red memorial), according to Liu Binyan's article.

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MULTIPLE INTERPRETATIONS

The events of the CR brought worldwide attention. There is more writing about it abroad than about any other important event in PRC history, including the 1949 Revolution and the 1958 "Great Leap Forward." However, most of the writing, from both Chinese and English sources, is descriptive. Published descriptions are either narrations of the events in particular places by Westerners who were there in 1966-1969,7 reports of experiences by "Red Guards" or "victims",8 or memoirs (huiyilu) of "black figures" and victimized top leaders as well as descriptions by famous scholars, their children, relatives or acquaintances.9 As personal narratives and graphic descriptions, they brought detailed information to a broad public who did not participate in the CR and provided food for thought for scholarly research. These play-by-play narrative accounts, however, cannot take on the tasks of theoretical research.

CR Studies in China

Within the PRC, it is not difficult to notice the sharp contrast between memoirs and scarce theoretical analyses. Although the Central Committee of the CCP has completely repudiated the CR, every publication about it has to be examined carefully and kept within the confines of the official CCP line.'0 Published memoirs about the so-called true face (zhen xiang) of important events during the CR are thus not value-free descriptions but crucial steps in the rewriting of history; therefore, they

7 Victor Nee, The Cultural Revolution at Peking University (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1969); Neale Hunter, Shanghai Journal: An Eyewitness Account of the Cultural Revolution (New York: Praeger, 1969); William Hinton, Hundred Day War: The Cultural Revolution at Tsznghua University (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972).

8 Liang Heng, Son of the Revolution (New York: Knopf, 1983); Gao Yuan, Born Red: A Chronicle of the Cultural Revolution (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987); Liang Xiaosheng, Yzge Hongweibing de Zibai (The confession of a Red Guard) (Chengdu: Sichun Wenyi Chubanshe, 1988); Lo Fulang, Morning Breeze: A True Story of China's Cultural Revolution (San Francisco: China Books & Periodicals, 1989); Luo Ziping, A Generation Lost: China Under the Cultural Revolution (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1990); Zhai Zhenhua, Red Flower of China (New York: Soho Press, 1992).

9 Zhou Ming, Lishi zai Zheli Chensi: 1966-1976 NianJishi (Here history is lost in thought: True record of the years 1966-1976) (Beijing: Huaxia Chubanshe, 1986); Yu Haocheng ed., Shinian Qiyuan Lu (Record of the ten years of strange cases) (Shanghai: Qunzhong Chubanshe, 1986); Tan Zongji et al., Shinian hou de Pingshuo: "Wenhua Da Geming" Shilun Ji (A critique ten years later: Articles on the history of the "Great Cultural Revolution") (Beijing: Zhonggong Dangshi Ziliao Chubanshe, 1987); Huang Zheng et al., Zai Lishi de Danganli (In the historical archives) (Shenyang: Liaoning Daxue Chubanshe, 1988); Zhong Kan, Kang ShengPingzhuan (Critical biography of Kang Sheng) (Beijing: Hongqi Chubanshe, 1982); Zhang Yunsheng, Maojiawan Jishi (Factual record from Maojiawan: The memoirs of Lin Bao's secretary) (Beijing: Chunqiu Chubanshe, 1988).

10 According to a CCP document, books and articles on the CR cannot be published, distrib- uted, or broadcast without being examined by the censor system. See Zeng Huiyan, "Interview with Gao Gao," p. 67.

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need to be looked at with a critical eye. Given the political surveillance, rather than engaging in direct discussions and analyses, several Chinese intellectuals have given voice to their reflections through writing histories of the CR. Yan Jiaqi and Gao Gao's Zhongguo "Wenge" Shinian Shi (A history of the decade of China's Cultural Revolution) (1986), the first openly published book-length history of the CR, is a conservative but careful description of important events during the CR and is based on various written materials collected by Yan Jiaqi since the beginning of the CR. This compromised account, the result of calculated self-censorship under political pressure and an account not satisfying to the authors themselves, still had a hard time getting published." Wang Nianyi's Dadongluan de Niandai (Years of great turmoil) (1988), another book-length, openly published history of the CR, is also a description of important events during the CR. Differing from the former author, Wang Nianyi shows much clearer value judgements'2 through the whole text, especially in the introduction and conclusion. In contrast to the former book, which includes no references to identify its sources, Wang Nianyi's book is full of foot- notes and statistics and even shows hints of textual research and confir- mation. Seemingly serious scholarship, the book, however, openly reverses some historical "facts" 13 and thus exposes important information. Its completely different publishing fate'4 seems equally telling. Identifying with the current official line on the CR, Wang Nianyi's account represents the voices of CCP senior officials and their children or so-called prince

"I Distribution of the book was prohibited immediately after its publication. Yanjiaqi, the direc- tor of the Research Institute of Political Science of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, was put on the black list by the deputy secretary of Beijing Municipal Party Committee, Xu Weicheng, during the movement of "Anti-Bourgeois Liberalization." See ibid.

12 Differing from Yan and Gao's purely descriptive style, Wang openly discusses and criticizes Mao's mistakes and shows his opinions everywhere, though carefully following the official line. In contrast, Yan and Gao imply their political and theoretical orientations through their descriptions, which do not identify with the official line on some important points. The differences between the two books can be found by examining how they treat a series of important events, such as the "February Adverse," the "Ferreting Out May 16," and the "Purifying Class Ranks" as well as the events around Old Red Guards. Differing from Yan and Gao's objective record of the "Ferreting Out May 16" and the "Purifying the Class Ranks," which suppressed the rebels and hurt numerous innocent people, Wang mentions them only lightly with a few lines but gives more than ten pages to describing the "rebellion" of the old marshals in what he calls the "February Resistance."

13 For example, his descriptions about "Western City Pickets" (xi jiu) and "Capital Red Guards Joint Action Committee" (lian dong) as well as Tan Lifu as representatives ofjustice during the CR are completely different from the historical facts I remember. These distortions are all related to the evaluation of "Old Red Guards," more precisely about the history of children of high officials or the future prince party. The difference can be easily found in comparison with Yan Jiaqi's version and Liu's Brief Analysis.

14 As a professor at the National Defence University and with some personal connections with Hu Qiaomu and Liao Gailong, Wang Nianyi had two personal conversations with Hu Qiaomu about the CR; Liao Gailong, the vice president of the standing committee at the CCP Party History Research Association, also did the preface for the book. I did not hear of any trouble about the publication and the distribution of the book.

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party. As a reference book for the CR,15 it requires a careful and critical reading.

Using literary forms, Chinese writers have been in the vanguard of national reflection. After 1976, immediately following the end of the CR, numerous literary works were published - novels and short stories called "scar literature"' 6 -that reflect painful experiences during the CR. These works touch various perspectives of lives during the CR: the social dramas played out within families and social relationships; the experiences of city students in the countryside; the unusual life roads of "rightists" sent to remote frontiers or the poor countryside; and so on. Such writing on the CR, however, was short lived. It disappeared under the "public opinion" of "looking forward" (xiang qian kan). Dissatisfied with the situation, Feng Jicai started his ambitious project of One Hundred People's Ten Years in 1986. Differing from the historians who stress record- ing the historical facts of this calamity, he as a writer pays attention to revealing the souls of the victims. In contrast to the histories focusing on top leaders and big events, his oral history tries to show the causes of the unprecedented catastrophe through representing the mental histories of one hundred ordinary people during the CR. These personal testimonies disclosing the complicated motivations and mentalities of the participants, of different class origins and political status, thus provide significant information for understanding the causes of the CR. Unfortunately, after publishing his proposal of the book in the People's Daily and several initial oral histories in literary magazines, FengJicai had a period of diffi- culty, though countless readers wrote to encourage him to be their

15 With a fairly high evaluation, this book is regarded as having "all the potential for becoming a standard reference work on the Cultural Revolution." See "Booknotes," CCP Research Newsletter, no. 3 (Summer 1989), pp. 57-58.

16 The name "Scar Literature" was generated by the short story "Shang Hen" (The Scar) (1987) by Lu Xinhua. This story describes the spiritual scars caused by the CR in the hearts of a mother and her daughter. Xiao Hua, a high school girl from Shanghai, left her mother for the countryside to make a clear break because her mother had been accused of being a traitor during the CR, and "traitor" was such an ugly image in her mind, due to what she learned from literature and education. The writer depicted Xiao Hua's intricate mentality - a painful confrontation between personal feelings and disciplinary ideologies within a youngster's mind. Nine years later, the young woman learned that her mother had been rehabilitated. However, they never saw each other again because her mother died just before their reunion. Lu Xinhua was an undergraduate student in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at Wuhan University, China when she published this short story.

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spokesman. The only published volume, containing twenty-five personal stories, tells of the heaviness of the political pressure.'7

No matter how intense the political surveillance, it still has not stopped reflections by participants in the CR. Wang Xizhe's "Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution" (1980) and Liu Guokai's A Brief Analysis of the Cultural Revolution (1980), as well as Zheng Yi's letters on the CR in his book A Part of History (1993), represent the alternative voices challenging the official line on the CR. As dissidents' works, Wang Xizhe's and Liu Guokai's articles, however, could be published in China only as underground materials barely known by the Chinese public, though well known overseas. Finished in the summer of 1990 during his exile in China as a fugitive afterJune 1989, Zheng Yi's book could be published abroad only very recently. Since indirect accounts such as Yan Jiaqi's purely narrative history and Feng Jicai's personal stories have met with such difficulties, direct analyses that dare to go beyond the confines. of the official line and examine the essential problems underlying the movement necessitate that their authors have the courage of political dissidents. Without free speech as the precondition for critical thinking, reflections by its broad participants are missing from the study of the CR. As someone hopelessly said to FengJicai, the taboo area of the CR must wait to be written by the next generation or studied by outsiders. Since the handful of critical analyses of the CR by Chinese appear either as underground dissident articles in China and are only publicly accessible abroad or as papers published abroad by those who live there, now there is the phenomenon of "the CR in China but the CR school abroad" (wenge zai zhongguo, wengexue zai guowai), which the Chinese people do not want to see.

The Theoretical Reorientation in the CR School

In the past three decades, studies that, in Lynn White's words, "stand back from the passions of the CR to ask what caused it" have developed significantly. From the pure Maoist-Revolutionary model, which

17 See Feng Jicai, "The Preface of One Hundred People's Ten Years," in Yang Liu, ed., FengJicai: Series of the Selection of Chinese Contemporary Writers (Beijing: Renmin Wenxue Chubanshe, 1991), p. 406; and his 'Juebu Fengqi de Shiming" (The mission never giving up), Dangdai (The Contemporary), no. 1 (1989), p. 4. His twenty-five stories are contained in Yibaige Ren de Shinian (One hundred people's ten years) (Nanjing:Jiangsu Wenyi Chubanshe, 1991), and fourteen in its English version, Voices From the Whirlwind: An Oral History of the Chinese Cultural Revolution (New York: Pantheon Books, 1991).

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romanticizes the aim of the CR as Mao's pursuit of socialist idealism,'8 to Maoist-Individual-Fault topology, which emphasizes Mao's physiological or psychological elements in generating the CR,'9 and from various elaborated versions of the influential model "Two Line/Power Struggle"20 to

18 Richard Pfeiffer, for example, views the CR as a movement in pursuit of purity, an "authen- tic" revolution through which Mao intended to create a new governing superstructure. See his "The Pursuit of Purity: Mao's Cultural Revolution," Problems of Communism, vol. 18, no. 6 (1969), pp. 12-25. Hong Yung Lee believes that the CR was Mao's strategy to destroy the bureaucratization of the party and the restratification of Chinese society that emerged after CCP came to power in 1949, and to revolutionize the superstructure through mass mobilization. See his The Politics of the Cultural Revolution: A Case Study (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1978).

19 Robert Lifton, for example, explains the reason for Mao's launching the CR as an "activist response" to his own anticipated death. For Lifton, the intra-psychic needs of Mao in his late years influenced his behavior, which was "no longer in touch with the actualities of the world." See his Revolutionary Immortality: Mao Tsetung and the Cultural Revolution (New York: Vintage Books, 1968), p. 32. Mao's biographer Ross Terrill also stresses Mao's willfulness and senility in causing the CR, which meant that he "lost all collegial sense" and ended with a "fractured vision." See his Mao: A Biography (New York: Harper and Row, 1980), pp. 324, 366.

20 In contrast to the consensus model which dominated Chinese political studies before 1966, and influenced by Chinese political self-characterization during the CR, a conflict model of "Two Line/Power Struggle" was adopted and modified gradually into different versions and has become a pervasive influence upon the analyses of the origins of the CR. See Lucian Pye, The Dynamics of Chinese Politics, pp. 43-46; Frederick Teiwes, Leadership, Legitimacy and Conflict in China: From A Charismatic Mao to the Politics of Succession (Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1984), pp. 4-6. James C. F. Wang's annotated bibliography on this subject, which can become a volume in itself, demon- strates the fact. This line of thinking is also popular among the ordinary Chinese people and is influential in Chinese literature. It can be found in both Yanjiaqi's and Wang Nianyi's histories of the CR and Chinese dissidents' articles as well as papers written by overseas Chinese. See the group of papers by Chinese visiting scholars in Zhishifenzi (The Intellectual) (Spring 1986), a special edi- tion about the CR published on its two decades' anniversary. This viewpoint is especially explicit in Wang Xizhe's article "Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution," in which he systematically analyzes the struggle between the lines of reform and counterreform in Chinese national leaders from the Eighth Party Congress of 1956 to the Third Plenum of 1978. Wang Xizhe pays special attention to the relationship between the dispute within the Chinese Communist Party and the context of the debate within the international Communist movement. The Chinese reformers in the Central Committee designed for China thus echoed the anti-Stalinism of Yugoslavia's Tito and the Soviet Union's Khrushchev. Regarding Mao as being a Stalinist after 1956 and having a political plan to establish a despotically radical agrarian socialism, Wang Xizhe argues that Mao's project of "anti- revisionism" and the emphasis on proletarian dictatorship were not intended to create an "authen- tic" democratic governing superstructure but to maintain a Stalinist bureaucratic totalitarianism. The English version of the article can be found in Anita Chan et al., eds., On Socialist Democracy and the Chinese Legal System: The Li Yizhe Debates (Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1980).

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the critiques of its simplistic dualism,2' studies of the origins of the CR, with their predominant focus on the top, have become more and more sophisticated in the complexity of theoretical models/topologies and their increasing richness of detail.

Although the inquiry into the origins of the CR has intensively explored the elite level, work on its local dimensions has lagged far behind. Unquestionably, Mao as a charismatic leader, the different opinions within the decade among the national leaders, and the ideological divergences in the international Communist movement are all important causes of the CR. These models, however, do not touch the key feature of the CR's mass violence. Yes, Mao played a key role in initiating the CR. But if there was no people's response to Mao's call, the Cultural Revolution would not have occurred at all. The key question is: Why did the people respond so enthusiastically to Mao's call? Or, why could the CR occur in the 1960s but not now? In order to answer these kinds of questions, our studies have to shift attention from the elite politics prior to the CR to the CR as a process of mass movement. This perspective emphasizes that Chinese people were not passive objects simply manipulated by Mao and central leaders but active agents/participants who transformed their environments in the process. Their motivations and behaviors during the CR, which were derived from pre-CR contexts and embedded in the contradictions and dilemmas hidden in the Chinese social reality, have to be scrutinized to understand the fundamental causes of the CR.

Along with the increasing theoretical sophistication of the analyses of the CR has developed the alternative dimension of local approach. A group of scholars are turning their attentions away from the elite politi- cians, their personalities, their conflicts, and their social ideals toward an alternative focus on common urban people. Instead of looking for the immediate reasons for the eruption of the CR, they seek the main long- term causes underneath the CR process.

Criticizing the "totalitarian" theoretical model, which "views the CR as a power struggle within the elite which has no real effect on the interests

21 The polarized model of "Two Line/Power Struggle" has been attacked by a number of Western analysts since the mid-1970s. Andrew Nathan, for example, criticizes the simplistic view of the dualism, which ignores various combinations and the common ground of different policies and thus gives the misleading impression of their irreconcilable disagreements. He argues in favor of pursuing a careful examination of the actual range of variations with complexities and refine- ments. See "Policy Oscillations in the People's Republic of China: A Critique," The China Quarterly (December 1976), pp. 720-33. Denying the existence of two such opposing lines, Frederick Teiwes offers an alternative interpretation centering on Mao's changing role and shifting views as the key to Chinese leadership politics, and gives a sociological explanation of the divergent tendencies in Mao's thought and his predominant leadership within the party. See Leadership, Legitimacy, and Conflict in China: From A Charismatic Mao to the Politics of Succession (Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1984). Believing only such a figure could attempt a CR, Teiwes, as well as other analysts, such as Michel Oksenberg, has developed a more sophisticated Mao-centered approach.

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of the various social groups at the mass level," Hong Yung Lee, in The Politics of the Chinese Cultural Revolution: A Case Study, advocates a different approach that will take into account the great complexities and broad issues of the CR. In his three-year periodization of CR history from 1966 to 1968, Hong Yung Lee pays attention not only to the political relationships among the various actors at the elite level (army, government, party, Mao, and Central CR Group) but also to the factionalism within mass organizations in order to explore the interrelationships between conflicts at the elite level and those at the mass level. By focusing on the vertical and horizontal cleavages, he attempts to recapture the dynamics of the mass movement by showing, on the one hand, how Mao and the central leaders manipulated the masses so that the mass factional struggles reflected the conflicts among the elite, and on the other hand, how the warring factions of Red Guards, manifesting previously latent conflicts in society before and during the CR, influenced elite politics and affected the course of the CR. Emphasizing that "the ambitious goals of the CR could be achieved only through the mobilization of China's masses," Stanley Rosen points out that "outside observers seldom subjected the organizations formed by the Chinese masses to the same scrutiny they reserved for the Chinese leadership."22

Red Guards, the mass organizations that greatly affected the course of the CR, inevitably demand the attention of the locally oriented group of analysts. Focusing on adolescents or secondary school students, these scholars trace the roots of the behaviors and factions of Red Guards to the social contexts of pre-Cultural Revolution China. From a socio-psychological perspective, David Raddock, in his book Political Behavior of Adolescents in China: The Cultural Revolution in Kwangchow (1977), focuses on the interplay between psychological growth and political development, especially through examining the relation between family socialization variables and individual attitudes toward political participation during the CR. From a different angle - the educational system - scholars Anita Chan, Stanley Rosen, andJonathan Unger have made important contributions to this local dimensional approach through scrutinizing student Red Guards in Canton.23 In his book Red Guard Factionalism and the Cultural Revolution in Guangzhou (1982), Stanley Rosen structurally

22 Stanley Rosen, Red Guard Factionalism and the Cultural Revolutzon in Guangzhou (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1982), p. 1.

23 As a group of analysts with overlapping interests and focusing on a common geographical area, they shared interview materials and wrote articles together. See Jonathan Unger, Education Under Mao: Class and Competition in Canton Schools, 1960-1980 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), p. xi. Anita Chan, Stanley Rosen andJonathan Unger, "Students and Class Warfare: The Social Roots of the Red Guard Conflict in Canton," The China Quarterly, no. 83 (September 1980), pp. 397-446.

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analyzes the interrelation between factions of Red Guards and the educational system of the past. He delineates a behavior pattern in which the better one's class background was, the more eager one was to join the Young Communist League, and the more prestigious or higher level (senior orjunior) the school one attended was - in short, the more competitive one was in trying to get into a university before the CR - the more actively one would participate in the CR. The inherent contradictions of pre-CR educational policies, which included three criteria - academic achievement, class origin and political performance - for student promotion and university recruitment, created cleavages among students and were therefore responsible for student factionalism during the CR. In addition, he points out the split between children from cadre and worker- peasant families. That the latter either could be grouped with the former into Old Red Guards as "five reds" or could join rebels as "children of the laboring people" who were opposed to the "special privileged" children of cadre in fact reveals the existence of status groups within the class. Like Hong Yung Lee, Stanley Rosen views the conflict between the two factions as warfare between underprivileged social groups and better-off social groups with opposite attitudes towards the status quo. The rebel students, however, according to Stanley Rosen as well as Anita Chan and Jonathan Unger, were not those from "bad" family backgrounds, as Hong Yung Lee asserts, but were mainly children given middle-class labels who were led by children of the intelligentsia.

Jonathan Unger's Education Under Mao (1982), another analysis of Red Guard factionalism in the context of the pre-CR educational system, examines the educational structure in the dynamic setting of growing tensions in Guangzhou before the CR, from the baby boom in the 1950s and the economic depression in the early 1960s to the contradiction between the increase in senior schools and the decline in university enrollment as well as the pressure for students to settle in the countryside. Focusing on shrinking opportunities in the educational system and the increasingly serious crisis in Guangzhou's job market, he shows how competition for future careers influenced local schools and student behaviors. The academic track of senior high schools - complicated by the strengthened "class line"; frustration over political activism; being the only realistic means of reaching higher; being valued because of traditional psychic regard for a higher education; and by the practical consideration of middle- and bad-class parents who saw that professional skills would protect their children in the future - became a severely competitive field. The violence in the CR thus "reflected the competition and conflicting interests of different groups of students over questions of upward mobility."24

24 Unger, Education Under Mao, p. 135.

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It is noteworthy that Unger raises the issue of the clash between interests and values and argues that conflicts between values taught and students' own pragmatic career interests posed a dilemma to the students. Since the ideology taught is basically seen as a restrictive force, or as in Anita Chan's sense, norms/authority imposed upon the subjects, the dimension of values is vague and underdeveloped.

The complicated mentality of the Red Guard generation and the ideological environments around them are emphasized and explored in Anita Chan's book Children of Mao (1985), again an analysis of Red Guard factionalism in the context of the pre-CR educational system though extending into personal and social contexts. Focusing on the students' activism in their political socialization at school, Chan traces the Red Guards' factionalism back to, in her terms, their "official activism" and "unrecognized activism" before the CR through carefully examining the life experiences of four types of young political activists: the conforming activist Ao, the purist activist Bai, the rebellious activist Chang, and the pragmatic activist Deng. Being driven by different needs, both Ao, who blindly conformed to the norms/authority, and Bai, who embraced the values/ideals so wholeheartedly that he was not afraid to challenge authority, joined the Communist Young League and became official activists. However, Chang, who internalized the values but rebelled against the norms/authority, and Deng, who conformed to the norms and values but only to the extent that they did not go against his self-interests, did not externalize their activism as the system expected and therefore remained unrecognized. Though of the same middle-class origins and from a common ideological setting, they were attracted to differing ideas, literary imagery, heroic models, and ways of commitment and ded- ication, and they developed different attitudes toward norms/authority and values/ideals that led one to become an "official," and the other an "unrecognized," activist - reinforced by particular family environments, personal experiences, unique temperaments, and other individual factors. The CR thus provided an opportunity for both kinds of activists to prove their "superior" purity and revolutionary devotion. The differing political status within the social structure of pre-CR official activism and unrecognized activism led to different reactions and conflicting factions of Red Guards during the CR.

Alternative Chinese voices challenging the official interpretation of the CR have emphasized the local dimension as well. Underscoring the significance of objective social expressions over Mao's subjective motives in analyzing the movement, Liu Guokai, a Democracy Movement activist, in his A Brief Analysis of the Cultural Revolution (1980) tries to provide a comprehensive analysis of the three-year-periodization of CR history by exploring the interwoven relations among various social agents at both the elite and the grass-roots levels. As a main line running through the

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chronological history of the CR, the oppositional relationship between the conservative faction and the rebel faction of Red Guards is analyzed from theoretical foundations to compositions and motivations with a moral evaluation. An effort is made to derive their motivations/mentalities from both general patterns and exceptional cases of factional align- ments. The bitter factional contests, however, for Liu Guokai are not mainly problems of "fanatic loyalty for Mao" or a ''class superiority complex" but of power and interests between "the have-had-it-sweet faction" (tiantou pai) and "have-had-it-bitter faction" (kutou pai), who fought for their additional gains and their legitimate rights respectively. As a counter-discourse to the official line of the CR, which attempts to "paint over the history," he speaks up for the victims, both rebels and those who have been assigned negative class labels, by analytically documenting the historical process to show how the former was utilized and then betrayed and how the latter had been targeted repeatedly as "the most unfortunate people politically in Chinese society. "25 Recorded here is the invisible history beneath the official accounts, from the brutal events of the 1967 "February Crackdown" and the Great Suppression ofJuly 1968 to the suppressive campaigns of "Cleaning Out the Class Ranks" (1968), "One Hit and Three Antis" (1970), as well as "Ferreting Out the Elements of the May 16 Group" (1971), in which millions of rebels and innocent people were persecuted and executed.

In A Part of History (1993), an epistolary autobiography produced during his exile in China as a fugitive afterJune 1989, Zheng Y1 recollects the CR as he confronts the Pro-Democracy Movement. He raises a notion of two CRs - Mao's/the dominant one and the people's/the subordinate one - and stresses the significance of the latter.26 For Zheng, the causes of the CR as a violent mass movement are not what the public regards as Mao's plot plus the people's ignorant cult of Mao but are rather Communist corruption and oppression since 1949 and the cruel dictatorship of the Old Red Guards during the initial stage of the CR. The immediate cause for the populace fanatically following Mao was their life- and-death experiences during the CR, in which they were reliberated twice by Mao from the persecution of the "blood pedigree theory" during the summer of 1966 and during the suppression of the military forces in the spring of 1967. Emphasizing the opposition of the two Red Guards, Zheng claims that as the soul of the people's CR, the later/rebel Red Guards, who represented the people's will and rebelled against political

25 See Liu, Brief Analysis, pp. 99-100, 128, 146. 26 See Zheng Yi, "Taowang Shengya Gouqile Yidun Huiyi" (The evoked memories from the

exile), Jiushiniandai Yuekan (The Nineties Monthly) (June 1992), pp. 91-95; "Mao Zedong de Wenge he Renmin de Wenge" (Mao Zedong's CR and People's CR),Jiushiniandai Yuekan (August 1992), pp. 94-99.

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oppression, thus clashed with the initial Red Guards, who promoted the "blood pedigree theory" and the decadent ideology of feudal privilege and hierarchy. For him, the Cultural Revolution was a movement in which Mao and the populace utilized each other. While Mao consciously made use of the populace for his political purges, the masses, who were driven by their own interests, also unconsciously and passively took advantage of Mao's reputation to oppose corrupt officials to gain their legitimate rights. Though people misunderstood Mao and took him as their savior, Mao consciously made use of people's antiprivilege mentality to reach his own aims, and then ruthlessly suppressed the populace when he discovered their independent tendencies to free themselves from his control. Zheng points out that what the current power holders fear and want to "repudiate totally" is precisely the democratic elements in the people's CR, though they are willing to accept the first CR in which Mao made use of the populace. Through identifying the relationship between Old Red Guards during the CR and the current "Prince Party," the author continually targets the privileged rank and the official line on the CR. For him, the studies of the second CR and the interaction between the two CRs are keys in our understanding of the CR. It is interesting to notice that, though Zheng intentionally analyzes the CR from the perspective of interests and social structure, the reality of people's ambiguous mentalities during the CR and their incredible bravery when fighting for their own interests and ideals are disclosed between the lines of his descriptions, especially in his early short story Maple (1979). This tragic story describing a pair of lovers who respectively belonged to two oppositional student groups, fought for their beliefs, and died in an armed battle during the CR, reveals the "value dimension" in motivating popular violence.

Calling it a "social conflict model," Yang Xiaokai represents the locally orientated dimension and interest-oriented approach in his well- known article "Whither China?" written during the CR, which targets the privileged class of "red capitalists," and in other papers on the CR written abroad. The CR for him is a power struggle at the elite level with divergent policies since 1959 and a conflict at the mass level between conservatives and rebels, based on independent political interests.27 Since it is a civilian, rather than a peasant, movement in nature, the fundamental

27 See Yang Xiaokai, "Ping Zhongguo 'Wenge' Shinian Shi" (Critiques of A History of the Decade of China's Cultural Revolution), Zhengming (The Contending) (August 1990), pp. 69-70. Anita Chan has discussed the "Social Conflict Model" or the rebels' paradigm and the official "Power-Struggle Model" in two different versions: the Maoist paradigm, which places Mao and the masses on one side and the Dengists on the other, and the Dengist paradigm, which places the Gang of Four and their small clique on one side and the Dengists and the masses on the other. See her "Dispelling Misconceptions about the Red Guard Movement: The Necessity to Re-examine Cultural Revolution Factionalism and Periodization," The Journal of Contemporary China (Fall 1992), pp. 61-85, 70.

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cause of the CR as a mass movement is the political persecution of civilians by party bureaucrats. Playing the card of the popular will, Mao made use of the problem of human rights/free association to proceed with his "court struggle." Civilians might have also made use of "court struggle" to pursue their human rights. Among the three periods of the CR, what the populace resented were the first period - the "Red Terror," and the third period - the military suppression of the rebel movement. But the most significant phase of the CR, the second period, from September 1966 to June 1968, in which rebels opposed the political persecutions, suggests a breakthrough to a more authentically socialist vision. Calling the CR a meaningless calamity and an "ultra-leftist" movement, what Chinese officials today want to "repudiate totally" is just this rebel movement.28

From a similar perspective, these Chinese dissidents/Democracy Movement activists trace the CR as a mass movement to the unjust political system, thus giving credit to the rebel movement, which fought for the interests and legitimate rights of the people, though pointing out the complexity of the notion of "rebels."29 Paying attention to the historical continuity from the CR to the present, they all identify a relationship between Old Red Guards, who were promoters of the "blood pedigree theory" and persecutors of innocent people but who are now portrayed as the victims and representatives of the correct line during the CR, and the current power holders and the "Prince Party." The activists also pin- point the antidemocratic nature of the contemporary official intention to "repudiate totally" the CR. With such an interest-oriented emphasis, the complexities of the mentalities and motivations of the populace, though touched upon, have not yet been opened up to scrutiny and analysis.

This social conflict model is elaborated and theorized about in Lynn White's book Policies of Chaos: The Organizational Causes of the Violence in China's Cultural Revolution (1989). Departing "from the 'totalitarian model"' and intending to answer the key question "why high leaders and ideal notions were followed in such a singularly, unusually violent way by so many people," White attempts to capture the individual motives and mentalities of the urban Chinese before and during the CR by looking at "the CR in terms of personal or concrete interest."30 Through a

28 See Yang Xiaokai, "Zhongguo Wenhua da Geming dui Shehuizhuyi de Tupo" (A breakthrough of the Cultural Revolution to the socialist system), Zhishifenzi (The Intellectual) (Spring 1986), p. 16; and his "Liusi Xingwu: Wei Wenge ZaofanpaiFanan" (Reflections on June 4th: Reversing the verdict for the Cultural Revolution rebels), Zhongguozhzchun (China Spring), no. 8 (1990), pp. 42-45.

29 Yang Xiaokai rebuts the title of his article "Reflections on June 4th: Reversing the Verdict for the CR Rebels," which the editor added to the paper, and discusses the complexity of the notion of rebels in another paper, "Geming Shouxian Sile, Caineng Wansui" (The revolution has to die first to live long), Zhongguozhichun (China Spring), no. 11 (1990), pp. 55-57. See also Liu, BriefAnalysis, which discusses the complicated motives of some rebel leaders, their relation with the "Central CR Group," and mistakes.

30 The citations from White, Policies of Chaos, pp. 46, 23, 42.

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"behavioral" approach that systematically surveys the years prior to the CR from the different angles of workers, managers, students, and residents in Shanghai, White traces the causes of the CR to the administrative policies used in the entire pre-1966 history of the PRC. Reinforcing one another, the administrative policies, including class labelling, monitoring, and political campaigns,3' constituted a powerful control over people's lives, and thus were responsible for the CR as a violent mass movement.

Unlike many "political scientists who view power narrowly, thinking it most naturally resides at the top of a system," White emphasizes that power resides with the people at the bottom. The CR as a mass violent movement embodied the people's power and resistance to the dominance over them. The forcefulness of the mass movement in the CR serves to disclose the power of the people or "the weak. "32 The CR provided a channel for the people to manifest their accumulated tensions and conflicts within daily life as well as an occasion to change the situation by political action. The common people thus were not only victimized but also played an active part in transforming their own culture in the process.33 White interprets the phenomenon of two large mass coalitions emerging in every major city by 1967 in this light. The division of factional groups, for him, is more than a matter of ideological divergences; he believes they were rooted in the historical context of administrative policies involving concrete interests.

31 Although class labelling did not describe China's actual classes involved in the current forces and relations of economic production but rather the economic status of one's family origin before the Liberation, this labelling, as the most important strategy for political control, functioned as a political strategy. By atomizing the masses, dividing large groups of people against one another, and legitimating the opposition to the system, the leaders could easily control such a big population with the traditions of strong authority in lineages. The second strategy, imposing dependence, reinforces the first one. Since all individuals are controlled by officially designated bosses or monitors, they are enmeshed in hard-to-change patronage networks. Economic shortages and housing tensions as well as knowledge of the existence of secret files in the personnel or security depart- ments of all units raise the "value" of the monitors' power and encourage dependence. The old Chinese idiom "The county magistrate is not as important as the direct boss" (xianguan buru xianguan, using homonyms with different tones), a pet phrase among contemporary Chinese, reflects the patron-client relationship. This policy, however, bred both adulation and resentment of the patrons. Numerous political campaigns after 1949 constitute the third control strategy. Through these campaigns, more and more new "enemies" were produced, and more and more "black materials" were put into people's files. Constant surveillance and political pressure threatened people and forced them to comply with state policies.

32 White, Policies of Chaos, pp. 323, 9. For White, the "weapons of the weak," which have been studied byjames Scott in a small village, can also explain very large political events.

33 Kay B. Warren, "Interpreting La Violencia in Guatemala: The Many Shapes of Kaqchikel Silence and Resistance in the 1970s and 1980s," in The Violence Within: Cultural and Political Analyses of National Conflicts (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1992); and her The Symbolism of Subordination, 2d ed. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989), p. 6.

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DEVELOPING ANOTHER DIMENSION

Using this local-dimensional approach, the group of analysts, both Western and Chinese, who identify with the "social conflict model" have provided a powerful explanation and a new dimension in understanding the fundamental causes of the mass violence in the CR. Paying special attention to "concrete interests," they see people's political behavior during the CR as the demonstration of accumulated tensions resulting from the repressive system. In other words, they regard mass violence during the CR as revealing conflicting interests in relation to the socio-political structure. The issue of value/meaning has not gained enough attention, though several analysts, especially Anita Chan, have touched on it in different degrees. Here I want to emphasize and develop the inadequately addressed "dimension of value" which contributes to the ambiguous and complicated mentalities of urban Chinese during the CR.

The Double Feature of the Dominance

The interest-driven explanation illuminates only part of urban dwellers' thinking during the CR. Political persecution and the use of educational or administrative policies as restrictive/suppressive forces are only a matter of punishment, in Foucault's terminology, but this punishment "topology" is not sufficient to explain the CR's mass violence. Following this topology, if the Chinese people had lived under suppressive conditions whose nature they clearly recognized, the history of the CR would have been much different. Under this theory many phenom- ena would remain inexplicable. For example, why were there debates and different factional groups within single families? Why after the CR did the Chinese people have the common feeling of awakening from a dream? And why did the pro-democracy mass movements not happen before the CR?

The key question is, Did most people ever doubt or question the administrative policies or the polity? And did those who were threatened by the administrative policies ever doubt them consciously at that time? The answer is probably no. This paradoxical situation discloses another perspective of the strategies of government control: not only administrative policies or punishment but more important, ideological education, or discipline in Foucault's terminology, which idealizes/internalizes the administrative policies. As in Gramsci's concept of hegemony rather than authoritarianism, that which is hegemonic prefers persuasion to force. And as in Foucault's notion of discipline, we are considering a new type of power which is no longer negative, unlike punishment or prohibition, which involves power-as-law from outside, but has become positive and constructive, a self-discipline from inside. The "disciplinary dimension," or the internalization of ideology, is what I intend to develop here. This

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ideological dimension does not consist of ideological norms around national leaders or the ideological divergences within the international Communist movement. The disciplinary dimension/internalization of ideology pays attention to the mentalities of common people, who are active agents constantly pursuing meaning/value, to see how these ideologies become a disciplinary power that can control people's consciousness or unconsciousness on the most local/individual level and can reinforce government policies. Since it is impossible to have politics without meaning, the issue of value has to be emphasized here. Instead of a break between punishment and discipline in Foucault's technologies of power, I would argue that the "doubleness" of dominance, which combines punishment with discipline, in fact created the complexity and ambiguity of the mentalities of most urban Chinese by the CR, and resulted in mass violence during the CR.

Heavy emphasis on the reaction of the "superstructure" to the "economic infrastructure," on the importance of personal initiative, and on the acceleration of social change through constant revolutions in ideology characterized Mao's Left line after the Liberation and was exempli- fied by "The Great Leap Forward," which attempted to replace economic law with revolutionary ideology and zeal. Mao and other party leaders paid much attention to the inculcation of the people with Communist idealism and ideology. Education in class, in collectivity, and in patriotism had penetrated the mass media and even primary-school textbooks. Embodied in the slogan "the power of models is immeasurable" (bangyang de liliang shi wuqong de), ideological reformation was usually conducted and reinforced by powerful imagery appealing to people's emotions rather than to their minds. As Mao said to Andr6 Malraux, "Revolution is a drama of passion; we did not win the people over by appealing to reason, but by developing hope, trust and fraternity."34

Heroes and heroines such as Huang Jiguang, Dong Cunrui, Liu Hulan, and many underground CCP members, all of whom sacrificed their lives for the birth of the new China, as well as Lei Feng, Jiao Yulu, and others like them who wholeheartedly served people and died after Liberation have been held up by the party as examples for people to emu- late. Characters in Russian novels who showed amazing willpower and noble morality were especially attractive to the youth. People who devoted their whole lives to noble causes and died in a meaningful way were admired. The common characteristic of all of these figures is related to the Chinese traditional moral value of "sacrificing one's own interests for the sake of others" (sheji weiren), which was invested with new meaning for

34Andre Malraux, Anti-Memoirs, trans. Terence Kilmartin (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968), p. 360.

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the proletarian enterprise. The heroism that transcends ego and the spirit of devotion were embraced by the younger generations, vividly represented by the writer Liang Xiaosheng in his autobiographical novel The Confession of A Red Guard.

In fact, awareness of people's concern with meaning prescribes that dominant ideology/disciplines must possess some "charming" qualities, either representing some interests of the subordinate or applying the spirit of beauty and morality. As Clifford Geertz points out, "The function of ideology is to make an autonomous politics possible by proving the authoritative concepts that render it meaningful, the suasive images by means of which it can be sensibly grasped."35 In other words, the role of ideology is "to legitimate a social order by idealizing it."36 "People," "state," and "unselfishness"- used in the rhetoric of the noble, the moral and the beautiful, and represented by role models - have the power to arouse passion, especially when they conform to a culturally accepted tra- dition of collectivity. As Tani Barlow points out, "A chief success of 'Maoism' was its ability to mount discourses that categorized and deployed political subjects in relation to the state/nation or guo. 37

Consequently, the individual with desires and will is supposed by the Maoists to be evil. People's ideas and selves are expected to be transformed through Marxism and Maoism and other Communist disciplines. By the tools of criticism and self-criticism (or punishment and discipline, in Foucault's terms) advocated by Mao, through constantly "laying bare one's thoughts," "reporting one's thoughts," "fighting relentlessly every fleeting thought of selfishness" (hendou sizi yishannian), and "making a revolution in one's deep soul" (linghun shenchu nao geming), one should "remold one's soul with proletarian ideology" so that one will "view the interests of Party, State and People as the highest aim."

Thus, the process of a people pursuing meaningful lives and noble ideals becomes, at the same time, a successful process of normalization. In the process of reformation, especially through confession, John Freccero points out, one destroys the former self, a self with desire and will, the self as sinner, and resurrects a self as saint.38 The reconstructed new self, though a subject, is subjected by otherness. Thus, an alienated

35 Clifford Geertz, "Ideology As a Cultural System," in The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), p. 218.

36James Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), p. 338.

37Ann Anagnost, "Transformations of Gender in Modern China," in Sandra Morgen, ed., Gender and Anthropology (Washington, D.C.: American Anthropological Association, 1989), p. 319.

38John Freccero, "Autobiography and Narrative," in Thomas C. Heller et al., eds., Reconstructing Individualism (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1986), pp. 16-20.

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soul becomes a docile object.39 Therefore, there is a split personality, a power struggle within individuals - a conflict between conscious disciplinary ideology and personal feeling/unconscious protective resistance as well as conscious reflexivity on the most local level.

Some literary works after the CR, such as Lu Xinhua's "The Scar" mentioned earlier (see footnote 16), describe vividly the complicated and contrary feelings. Having been learned from educational media, ugly imagery of exploitive classes such as landlords and capitalists and of political reactionaries such as traitors and spies was prominent in people's minds, and it conflicted with personal feelings and intimate relationships among family members. Gazes, indifference or silences from the public and the changeable human relationships reflecting the internalized ideologies further pressured the people from families labeled "bad" into the predicaments. Their painful experiences of wanting to redefine their identities embody the confrontation between disciplinary ideology and personal feelings. Since class feelings should surpass humanitarian feelings, by breaking intimate relationships with loved ones (parents or spouse), one could keep or change one's individual identity to "revolutionary" status. The behavior of redefining one's identity not only exter- nalized the internalized administrative policies but also reflected the desire to resist the power control upon oneself. Therefore, an individual's active involvement in the CR usually was the result of very complicated motivations: both the disciplinary power to answer Mao's call and interest-driven/unconscious resistance, even conscious reflection (for a few people) to the administrative policies after 1949. Double-control strategies complicated the mentalities of many people during the CR.

Discipline and punishment reinforce and confirm each other. Being guided by Mao's theories of class struggle and continuous revolution, more and more hypothetical or created enemies were ferreted out in political campaigns, such as the "Hu Feng counterrevolutionary group" in the campaign of "Suppression of Counterrevolutionaries" the bourgeois intellectuals and rightists in 1957, and the capitalist roaders in the CR. The created "signifier" gradually became "signified." The fiction that a class struggle seemed to be growing within Chinese society in turn veri- fied Mao's theories, reminding one of Michael Taussig's analysis of the

39 From Michel Foucault. The short story "Ban Zhuren" (The homeroom teacher) (1977) by Liu Xinwu reveals this normalization among Chinese high school students during the CR. For him, the serious problems in the younger generation were not to be found only in the "hooligan-type" children but also, more importantly, in the "good-type" students. The main character, Xie Huimin, a student leader, was honest but without her own mind. She sincerely believed, without questioning, what she was told and did what she was told to do. The writer pointed out the dangerous consequence of this kind of blind, mindless obedience. Although the work accuses primarily the "Gang of Four," the object of attack, in my view, was, to use Foucault's term, the disciplinary strategy of the government.

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politics of ideology or the power of consciousness in creating the colonial hegemony of the rubber boom in his book Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man (1987) wherein he suggests that the fictional/ideological imag- ination and the real/social reality regenerated each other and fused together. The existence of Taiwan's Chiang Kai-shek, the emergence of international "anti-Stalin" revisionism in Yugoslavian Titoism and Soviet Khrushchevism, and the dangerous threat of capitalist countries encir- cling the socialist ones were propagandized as manifestations of class struggle as well. Class struggle was made even more concrete by con- structing the "Third Front" and digging underground tunnels in prepa- ration for coming war in cities. The theory of class struggle also became more convincing to many through constant propaganda about the superiority of the socialist system over the capitalist system, and about the sagacity and farsightedness of Mao in the historical policy struggles of the party. The struggle became an even greater mission when the CCP announced that the international revolutionary center had shifted to Beijing and that the task of maintaining the socialist system had fallen on the shoulders of the Chinese people. Although it did not reflect the economic relationships in Chinese society after Liberation, the theory of class and class struggle, including the theme of hidden conspiracies, as Andrew Walder points out correctly, had penetrated people's minds and became not only the official rationale but also an integral part of the world view of the common people.40 In confronting the CR, which Mao had initiated, people had a sense of historical mission to defend Mao's revolutionary line and the socialist system. What the CR became was not only an insane struggle but a drama of passion, as Ellen Judd sensitively points out, in which millions of people pursued a hopeful vision able to touch their souls.4'

A closed world and centralized system fostered a dichotomous way of thinking because people had no idea about the outside world or the alter- natives it presented. A polar answer, black or red - or as Anita Chan and

40 Andrew Walder, "Cultural Revolution Radicalism: Variation on a Stalinist Theme," in New Perspectives on the Cultural Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, The Council on East Asian Studies, 1991), p. 45.

41 Ellen R. Judd, "Dramas of Passion: Heroism in the Cultural Revolution's Model Operas," in New Perspectives, p. 265. Many people were deadly serious about carrying out the revolution, as many Red Guards recollected, such as the one in Feng Jicai's oral history. See "A Senior Red Guard's Apologia," in Voices from the Whirlwind (New York: Pantheon Books, 1991), pp. 63-104. The story of the well-known unjust verdict concerning LiJiulian, a student leader of Rebel Red Guards inJiangxi Province, and her more than six hundred supporters is fairly telling. At first, she and her comrades who died calmly in the armed struggle during the CR thought that they were fighting for their ideals/principles. Later she was imprisoned and also sentenced to death for her ideals/principles, because she recognized the nature of the CR through the process of the CR, then came to oppose it. See Hu Ping, "Zhongguo de Mouzi" (China's eyes), Dangdai (The Contemporary), no. 3 (1989), pp. 7-72.

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Popular Violence In China s Cultural Revolution

Jonathan Unger call it, the "Manichean world view" - replaced multiple possibilities during the CR. The theories of class and class struggle that underlined the government's administrative policies were planted in this ideological soil. As basic Marxist principles, people never doubted them. Although people were hurt by the administrative policies, they usually traced the problems to themselves and enmeshed themselves in self-criticism or self-discipline.42 The numerous public exhibitions of class education, which demonstrated the cruel exploitations of landlords and capitalists, made persons from these family backgrounds feel guilty, though they themselves may have been innocent. Facing the government policy of labelling, they usually blamed their family origins instead of questioning the fundamental policy itself, especially when the party added to this labelling a dynamic dimension: paying attention to the political behavior of a person from a bad family background (zhongzai zhengzhi biaoxian). This dichotomous way of thinking cultivated radically anti-humanitarian behaviors that reinforced the strategies of punishment or the administrative policies. The seemingly insane/irrational event of cannibalism in Guangxi province during the CR, in which people ate "class enemies" to demonstrate their intense "class feeling," was derived from this rationale, which it merely represented in an extreme way in a specific social context.43

During that unusual period, people's characters and morals were seriously tested. While some people threw themselves into the movement for a noble cause and/or for their legitimate rights/interests, others betrayed their friends/family members for the sake of their personal safety or

42 For example, in Anita Chan's Children of Mao, the purist activist Bai did not question the basic tenets of the class line or class struggle even after his family class background was reclassified as "bully landlord," though he realized that his future was doomed. Also, like the high school student from the capitalist family background in FengJicai's oral history, his family was forced to move out of their nice house, and a high-ranking official moved in. Furthermore, his home was ransacked and bank accounts were frozen during the CR. Instead of suspecting the policies, he hated his family connections, because it was his inherited family label that persisted in making him look inferior, no matter how hard he struggled to prove his activism. See FengJicai, "A Modern Rouge Et Noir," in Voicesfrom the Whirlwind, pp. 157-67.

43 The brutal cannibalism of persecuting rebels and people with black class labels was incited by some military officials, who again used the "class struggle" as the flag. There were three stages in its development, during which those cannibals lost more and more humanitarian feeling. The killers and cannibals were awarded economic benefits or political promotions. Punishment and discipline were thus intertwined. See Zheng Yi's eighth letter to his wife from his book Lishi de Yibufen and a book-length record of the cannibalism in his unpublished manuscript Hongse Jinianbei (Red memorial), according to Liu Binyan's article "An Unnatural Disaster," in The New York Review, April 8, 1993, pp. 3-6.

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persecuted honest people out of personal revenge or in hope of promotion.44 The multiple interests and values, from noble ideals and morals to legitimate rights and interests as well as selfish or even unspeakable aims, clashed and interwove. The complicated mentalities and motivations are summarized in the following words of FengJicai: "What pushed the tragedy of the CR were not only remote historical culture and direct socio-political reasons; human beings' weaknesses, grudges, cowardice, selfishness, vanity, as well as goodness, bravery, honesty, sincerity, were all mobilized and became horrible impetuses."45 Depending on the particular personal contexts, the two strategies - punishment and discipline - defined the different attitudes among the people in the CR. Since these two strategies intertwine and reinforce each other as well as becoming complicated by individual moral factors, the mentality and motivation of the Chinese urban people at the beginning of the CR were fairly complex and ambiguous, and very different from states of mind at the end of the CR.

The Internal Dynamics of the Administrative Policies

The double strategies of punishment and discipline were also reflected in the internal disagreements or dynamics of the conception of the administrative policies, especially the fundamental one - class policy. That is to say, even class labelling, which was included in the punishment model discussed above, was not simply a suppressive force or a fearful instrument of control but also possessed the power to transform and change. Because of its hybrid sources, "class" is a category with living political significance.

If we examine class labelling in the historical process, we find that these labels were not based merely on pre-1949 economic conditions but were derived from various references before and after 1949. Some of these categories were economic (landlords, poor peasants, lower-middle peasants, middle peasants, rich peasants, workers, capitalists, urban poor people); some of them were political (revolutionary cadres, revolutionary soldiers, revolutionary martyrs, antirevolutionaries, rightists, capitalist

44 For example, in FengJicai's oral history of the CR, a technical cadre in a factory who always observed management rules before the CR was persecuted during the CR. His persecutors took the CR as an opportunity not only to take their revenge but also to achieve their own ends to become full-time employees or to transfer to office work. See "Avenger," in Voicesfrom the Whirlwind, pp. 28-37. In another story of his, 'The 3,650 Days of a Couple," an honest workshop leader who was from a working-class background but never ingratiated himself with the cadres was regarded as not being close to the party and was persecuted during the CR. Since a military representative was after his wife, the revolutionary committee refused for a long time to admit its mistakes and to rehabilitate him. See ibid., pp. 105-27.

45 Author's translation, from FengJicai, 'The Preface of 'One Hundred People's Ten Years,"' in Yang Liu, ed., FengJicai: Series of the Selection of Chinese Contemporary Writers (Beijing: Renmin Wenxue Chubanshe, 1991), p. 408.

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roaders, reactionary intellectuals); two were occupational (free professionals and employees); and one was judicial (evildoers). While some of the categories (revolutionary cadres, revolutionary soldiers, revolutionary martyrs, free professionals, and employees) were confined to pre-1949 experiences, the rest were created alongside political movements and judicial practices after 1949. They were, however, divided into two opposite camps: the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.

These class labels, as Lynn White has pointed out in his Policies of Chaos, conform to Weber's status groups, not classes. Differing from Weber's cultural concept of status, which is "represented by special styles of life," I would suggest, however, that China's "five red types" or "seven black categories" are identified by a political "positive or negative, social estimation of honor." The major difference between Weber's economic notion of class and his cultural concept of status can be seen in the following paragraph: "[W]ith some over-simplification, one might thus say that classes are stratified according to their relations to the production and acquisition of goods; whereas status groups are stratified according to the principles of their consumption of goods as represented by special styles of life." Because status is a way of life that defies economic interests, therefore, says Weber, "both propertied and propertyless people can belong to the same status of group."46 (Italics mine.) People from different classes, such as an officer, a civil servant, and a student, can possess the same status, since upbringing and education create a common style of life. Despite having a common degree of political honor, not all of China's "five red types" nor all of China's "seven black categories" necessarily shared the same life style. Although political privileges certainly influenced their access to the economic and cultural opportunities, it was apparent that poor peasants, workers, and revolutionary cadres of the "five red types" had fairly different life styles and cultural activities. The gap in living standards between the city and the countryside, as well as the power and privileges of officials, complicated the picture. There were in fact different kinds of collective group consciousness within the "red" and the "black" class categories. "Class" in China was a political notion derived from a strange mixture of Marxist structural class theory and feudal blood pedigree theory as well as political agent/performance.

Consequently, "class" in China did not represent a fixed notion but a complicated political process. The meaning of "class" - the old notion stressing economic "class origin" before 1949, and the new dimension emphasizing an individual's current political behavior and attitude - has continually changed according to the situations of post-1949 Chinese

46 All above citations from Max Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interbretive Sociology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968), pp. 937, 932.

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politics. During the early and mid-1960s the central leadership varied the relative weight attached to the two standards at different periods, and the variations were clearly embodied in the educational system - the "liberalization" of 1960-61; the emphasis on family origin during 1963-64; and the reorientation to the behavioral criterion in 1965.47 The two disparate political principles, class origin and political behavior, were combined in the 1960s into one "class policy," which said, Pay attention to class origin (you cheng/en lun), but do not pay exclusive attention to class origin (bu wei chengfen lun); put the major stress on political behavior (zhong zai zhengzhi biaoxian). By adding the dynamic dimension of political behavior, this problematic policy became more acceptable. The effect of the two-sidedness of the "class policy" with the room for change was reflected in various strategies through which people from "bad label" families redefined their identities. For instance, some children from such families were adopted by their "revolutionary" relatives; some people were divorced from their bad-label spouses; some youngsters from bad-label families broke off the relationship with their parents or wanted to marry those from "red" family backgrounds, and some people from bad-label family backgrounds tried to join the CCP.48 During the CR, facing intense political pressure, many people from "bad" and middle class family backgrounds wanted to show their revolutionary nature and change their political status by going to the poorest countryside or actively involving themselves in the political movement. Thus many people's radical behavior and their enthusiasm in the CR embodied the complex of internalized disciplinary ideology and the desire to redefine their identities in resistance to the control over them. Like Weber's Protestants, the people from "grey" or "black" class families could change their identities only by self- salvation - hard work, asceticism, or active involvement in political activities.49

47 See Gordon White, The Poldtzcs of Class and Class Origin: The Case of the Cultural Revolution (Australia: The Australia National University, 1976).

48 For example, the high school student from the capitalist family background in FengJicai's oral history of the CR broke off the relationship with his family and went to the countryside to free himself from the burden of his family label. It was, however, still difficult to escape from the shadow of his family background. Resenting his fate and wanting his value to be recognized, he married a girl whose parents were high-ranking officials, thus obtaining an immediate change of fate. See FengJicai, "A Modern Rouge Et Noir," in Voices from the Whirlwind, pp. 157-67. Among my class- mates and friends, there are many vivid and painful stories about these strategies.

49 For example, a high school student in Feng Jicai's oral history was prevented from joining the initial Red Guards because of his grandfather's history. Instead of questioning the "theory of blood lineage," he signed up first to go to the countryside, and instead of going to Heilongjiang's state farm, he asked to go to Inner Mongolia, where living conditions were harder, in order to prove himself. See Feng Jicai, "They Who Have Suffered Greatly," in Voices from the Wzhrlwind, pp. 3-27.

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The double features of the "class policy" created internal contradictions and complexities. The conflicts and disagreements that were implicit in the ambiguous notion of "class policy" were fully represented by the conflict between Old Red Guards/conservatives and rebels during the CR. When the CR started, following the birth of Old Red Guards and the campaign "Destroying the 'Four Olds,"' which targeted "class enemies" in the classic sense, the notorious couplet "If the father is a hero, the son is a good chap; If the father is a reactionary, the son is a bad egg" became well known. The horizontal scroll "basically so" was also created by Old Red Guards who based the "class policy" exclusively on class origin. Amidst the climate of "Red Terror," the people were interrogated everywhere concerning their class origins. Hospitals refused to treat those with bad class labels. The children from "black" and even "grey" family origins were attacked and called "sons of bitches" (gou zaizi). The Young Communist League was accused of being an "impure" organization because it possessed members from ordinary and bad class backgrounds. Even for those from worker and poor-peasant families, class origins were traced back three generations to determine the degree of purity. Hierarchical structure was also found within groups of Old Red Guards, symbolized by the material quality and the size of their armbands in accor- dance with their fathers' ranks. All this evidence demonstrated that the dynamic dimension of political behavior had been cancelled from the "class policy" and that class origin became the only criterion. When the ambiguous but dynamic "class line" was replaced by the undisguised "blood pedigree theory," completely blocking mobility within the system, the seeds of doom were planted. Without the support of the disciplinary ideology tempered by some qualities of charm or meaning/value, the absurdity of the class policy became evident.

As the most sensitive and provocative issue that related to everyone's fate, class policy was a central concern during the CR, and the debate around it was especially intense. The people from "grey" and "black" family backgrounds became confused and desperate when their limited right of mobility, which had been sanctioned by Mao's dynamic dimension of political behavior, was denied them. Therefore, when Yu Luoke's article "Origin Theory" (chushen lun) appeared, which was a diametrical argument against the "blood pedigree theory," it immediately caught the people's attention and quickly spread. Supported by selected quotations from Mao and resorting to the dynamic dimension of political behavior in class policy, this influential article rebutted the absurd theory as a "new type of racism" and argued that class "origin is no criterion for judging whether or not a youth is revolutionary. The only standard is behavior. "50 Attacking

50 Yu Luoke, "Origin Theory," pp. 90, 81. The English version is available in the appendix of Gordon White's book, The Politics of Class and Class Origin, pp. 71-93.

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the "blood pedigree theory," the campaign "Criticizing the Bourgeois Reactionary Line" promptly mobilized these people to join the struggle against the "capitalist roaders." Being reliberated by Mao from the persecution of the "blood pedigree theory," they believed more strongly in the righteousness of Mao's revolutionary line and thus became more devoted to Mao's call. Consequently, the two-sidedness of the class policy was divided into two oppositional camps - those supporting the "blood pedigree theory"/class origin criterion versus those supporting "origin theory"/political behavior. These then constituted the foundations of the two opposing groups of Red Guards. Old Red Guards targeted the classic sense of "class enemies," conceptualized primarily in terms of old class categories and enemies and embodied in the campaigns of "Destroying the Four Olds" and of criticizing the bourgeois agents and academic authorities in educational institutions. Born from criticism of the "blood pedigree theory," rebel Red Guards, however, embraced Mao's expanded notion of "class struggle" and spearheaded capitalist roaders. Although not even radical leaders in the Central CR Group dared challenge the taboo area of class policy, rebel Red Guards sought egalitarian rights for all youth through the cancellation of class policy. Being incited by some external factors, such as Jiang Qing's slogan "literary attack and armed defence" (wengong wuwei) and support from military officials, the clash between the two groups of Red Guards with their contrary complexes of interests and beliefs gradually escalated into massive violence. The situation intensified into a cataclysm, exposing the hidden contradictions and manifesting the accumulated tensions as well as providing an occasion for the people to change the situation by political action. As a special circumstance in which multiple interests and values clashed and interwove, the CR demonstrated the will and power of the people as well as the internal complexity and dynamics of ruling policies.

Symbolism during the Cultural Revolution

The emphasis on the dynamic role of ideology in promoting social change was developed to the extreme in the symbolism of the Cultural Revolution. Lynn White notices that "purely symbolic changes were thought to have power for human betterment." The characteristics of the CR can be perceived through its symbolism. As the symbol of revolution, red became the dominant and ubiquitous color. The covers of Mao's quotations, which everyone had to carry, were red. The various badges with Mao's image were red. The flags, the "Red Guard" armbands, the painting of the sun as the symbol of Mao everywhere on the walls; all were red. People referred to red in the naming of their factional groups, such as "Red Flag," "Red Warriors," "Red Guard Army," and "Scarlet Guard." Other group names, such as 'jing Gang Shan," "Yanan," and "East Wind,"

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which were related to revolutionary base areas (genjudi) in CCP history and other revolutionary symbols, were red in a conceptual sense. In addition, numerous old names of streets, schools, and department stores were replaced by revolutionary names. The Red Guards even wanted to change the international traffic signs; they ordered that cars and people should go along the "Left" side of the street instead of the "Right" side, and that the red light should mean "go" and the green light "stop." This was reversed only with Premier Zhou Enlai's persuasion. The Red Guards wanted to change everything all over the country into red and even cried: "Long live red terror!"

The concept of revolution was not only related to the symbol red but also to masculinity as opposed to femininity. As Mao said, "Revolution is not entertaining the guests, writing articles, painting, or embroidering. It cannot be refined, easy, gentle, and modest. Revolution is violence. It is the violent action of one class overthrowing another class." Domesticity and tranquility are thus viewed as feminine; violence and involvement with the outer world are regarded as masculine. The songs and dances of the CR were uniformly vigorous and powerful in rhythm and style. The masculine was also reflected in fashion. As the symbol of armed revolution, army uniforms were popular, and there was little distinction between men's and women's clothing. Everyone wore blue or yellow suits. Women wore a plain, short-cut hair style just a little longer than men's. Some female students even had bald heads and imitated men's gestures to show their "revolutionary" spirit. Romantic love and sexuality, which were considered bourgeois, became a taboo area in such a "revolutionary" atmos- phere. All movies with love affairs were called "bourgeois" byjiang Qing and criticized. In the eight model operas (yangban xi) that she advocated, none of the heroines or heroes have any trace of a family. The perpetual theme of love was criticized, because one should have only proletarian class affection and revolutionary relationships. This erasure of gender differences, however, was not simply a manifestation of gender equality or an "assault on Confucian ideology," as Ann Anagnost has asserted,5" but, more important, a symbolic representation of the dominant concept of revolution as a process of normalization.

Popular Mentality at the End of the Cultural Revolution

It is useful to look at the people's behavior during events at the end of and following the CR to see the very different mentality developed in the CR process. The "democratic wall" (minzhu qiang) in Beijing at the end of the 1970s and the 1989 pro-democracy movement, as well as the

51 Ann Anagnost, 'Transformations of Gender in Modern China," in Morgen, ed., Gender and Anthropology, p. 323.

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voluntary mass movements against the "Gang of Four" that happened during early 1976, were all symbols of the people's awakening and demonstrations of the people's power. After the death of their highly respected premier Zhou Enlai, students, intellectuals, workers, and local residents voluntarily gathered in Tiananmen Square in bone-chilling wind beneath the Memorial of People's Heroes. A power struggle ensued between the people and the "Gang of Four," using cultural symbols as tools. Thousands of wreaths and countless white paper flowers had been made by the people; numerous poems and stories denouncing the "Gang of Four" were posted and recited. Although the "Gang of Four" continually removed and destroyed the wreaths and poems by exerting their power, people made the wreaths bigger and heavier until finally they made them in steel and welded them in place. Although this "April 5th" movement was suppressed and accused of being a "counterrevolutionary" event by the "Gang of Four", with Mao's consent, the populace just did not agree with this judgement. The post-CR campaigns, such as "Anti- Spiritual Pollution" and "Anti-Bourgeois Liberalization" in which intellectuals resisted consciously, and the student pro-democracy movement in Tiananmen Square in 1989, which was supported by intellectuals, workers, and Beijing residents, demonstrated a very different mentality and consciousness of the people from that at the beginning of the CR. As in the Chinese saying "things will develop in the opposite direction once they become extreme" (wuji bifan), the extreme situation during the CR catalyzed the awakening of the people's consciousness. The Chinese populace has learned the lessons from its painful experiences of violence and disorder during the CR. When these people measured things through the lens of what they were taught and discovered the inconsistency between the official rhetoric and the reality during the CR process, the dominant ideology, as James Scott demonstrated, turned into the weapon of the "weak"/people to challenge the ruling class. As Liu Guokai claimed, the CR widened the people's horizons and deepened their understanding of the existing regime through the big character posters which exposed scandals of bureaucrats, especially through the CR process in which Mao and central leaders used the people to attain their own aims. Cadres thus lost their former prestige, and the existing regime lost its former holy lus- tre. Indeed, mature ways of organizing thoughts and perceptions came from the disorder and confusion that arose from inconsistency and uncer- tainty.52 Once the people recognized that their sincerity had been deceived and used, their faith in the polity and its ideological system was

52 Barbara A. Babcock, "Arrange Me into Disorder: Fragments and Reflections on Ritual Clowning," in John J. MacAloon, ed., Rite, Drama, Festival, Spectacle: Rehearsals Toward A Theory of Cultural Performance (Philadelphia: A Publication of the Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1984), p. 122.

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essentially destroyed. The Chinese people have gained a better understanding of their government and one another through the social drama. Although this understanding is still limited and obscure, the calamitous Cultural Revolution paradoxically has become a great enlightenment.

CONCLUSION

The mass violence during the CR, which was related to the fundamental cause of the CR, was the consequence of the people's responses to the double strategies of punishment and discipline in government control. Although government policies/punishment hurt many people and created tensions and conflicts among social groups, their repressive nature was not recognized by the people because of their support of the disciplinary process, which idealized/legitimated and internalized the dominant ideology and policies. During the special circumstance of the CR, all hidden contradictions/conflicts surfaced and accumulated tensions were manifested. Multiple motivations of interests and values, from noble ideals and morals to legitimate rights and interests as well as selfish or even "unspeakable" aims, were summoned to the battle field, leading to the mass violence of the CR. The double aspects of dominance were combined and developed to an extreme during the CR. Every punishment was explained by Mao's discourses, and ideological reform resorted to force and violence. Old Red Guards' and conservatives' persecution of "class enemies" and rebels, and even the phenomenon of cannibalism were legitimated by the rationales of the theory of "class struggle" and Mao's teaching. Rebel targeting of "capitalist roaders" was also based on Mao's expanded version of the "class struggle" of continuous revolution. Criticism in public meetings, parades in the streets, beatings and torture were thus indispensable scenarios of "ideological reform." This intertwin- ing of punishment and discipline was especially reflected in the fanatical worship of Maoism that led to discrimination against dissidents. One could easily be accused of being an active counterrevolutionary if she/he questioned any practice of the CR or even merely unwittingly damaged a picture of Mao. The very name "Cultural Revolution," seemingly a strange integration, precisely suggests this double feature of the dominance.

Princeton University, April 1994

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