New Perspectives on State Socialism in China (review)

Abstract

Reviews 393 certainly remain an indispensable too] for the study ofthe Northern Song's Learning ofthe Right Way for years to come. Even for those who do not read German, the translators' identification ofmore than a diousand allusions to classical texts hidden in the Zhengmengwill be ofgreat usefulness. Their new translations ofmany philosophical terms will be a challenge to everyone working in the vast field ofthe Learning ofthe Right Way. Hans van Ess University of Heidelberg Hans van Ess is an assistantprofessor ofChinese studies specializing in Han and Song thought and literature. Timothy Cheek and Tony Saich, editors. New Perspectives on State Socialism in China. Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1997. xiii, 422 pp. Hardcover $62.95, isbn 0-7656-0041-2. As its title suggests, this anthology—the product of a conference held at Colorado College in June 1993—was conceived as a piece ofrevisionist history addressed to China's pre-Cultural Revolution period, focusing specifically on the 1950s. In their search for new perspectives, the editors field a mix ofestablished and younger scholars, whose articles have in common an exceedingly rigorous exploitation ofnew scholarly resources. This self-consciousness in the exploitation of sources is demonstrated by an unusually voluminous use of footnotes and by a separate section devoted to "Sources and Methods." This gives the collection a value as a reference work transcending its contribution to historical scholarship. In terms of content, the editors' approach, in their wide-ranging and illuminating introduction and conclusion, is that of the fox in the Aesop's fable who sees many little things, rather than that of the hedgehog who sees one big thing (e.g., an argument to the effect that the socialization ofthe means ofproduction was ill advised and ill conceived). Nonetheless, it does not require an enormous inferential leap to generalize from their comments and from the chapters themselves that despite its impressive economic achievements, the decade was not all it was chalked© 1998 by University up tQ be The chapters were selected to provide a fairly comprehensive thematic as well as chronological coverage ofthe decade. The opening chapter by Cheng and Seiden relates the story ofthe founding ofthe household registration or hukou ofHawai'i Press 394 China Review International: Vol. 5, No. 2, Fall 1998 system and the organization ofbasic units (danwei) in the early 1950s, making clear that these institutional expedients were not only intended to keep the peasantry out ofthe cities but also to suppress their living standards to the benefit of the urban workforce. Indeed, the Great Famine subsequently described by DaIi Yang may have differed only in degree from the deprivation previously endured. Mazur's chapter aims to redress the previous preoccupation with Chairman Mao by looking at the United Front via the exemplar ofWu Han, a distinguished intellectual who served as vice mayor of Beijing until becoming Mao's first target in the Cultural Revolution. Julian Chang's chapter on the founding and operation of the Central Propaganda Department provides an unusually thorough survey of both Chinese and Soviet source materials, amplifying our previous knowledge of this slice of CCP history in detail (if not in essence). David Shambaugh's attempt to "bring the soldier back in," that is, to integrate more successfully the study of the military into "civilian" political science, reminds us that the regime relied at least as much on its monopoly ofviolence as on revolutionary charisma even during the period when its radical reforms were most welcome. Reinforcing some established inferences (such as Whitson's Field Army thesis), Shambaugh nevertheless punctures our picture of Mao as a detached theorist (he evidently micromanaged the Korean War and Taiwan Straits confrontations), Peng Dehuai as a military modernizer, or Lin Biao as a radical opposed to modernization. Whereas the first section, on "mechanisms of control," is addressed to the early 1950s, the second canvasses the mid- to late 1950s. The long chapter by Teiwes and Sun covers the period in 1956 and 1957 when Mao acquiesced and apparently even supported a period of CCP consolidation and "opposing rash advance ." This is interesting not only because it belies our conception of Mao as a restless radical, but because Mao himselflater renounced the...