Reflections on the Cultural Revolution in China

Abstract

T IS NOW MORE THAN A YEAR since the first phase of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was launched at the end of June i966. There are earlier dates at which preliminary manifestations can be detected, but the month of July saw the first active phase. It is therefore a convenient moment to assess just what this movement was intended to achieve, and how far such aims have been attained. After much bewilderment at the unexpected nature of the earlier phases, the opinion of most foreign observers seems now to have settled on the view that the Cultural Revolution is the work of Mao Tse-tung, the concrete manifestation of his Thought-at least in its later form. The aim is therefore to disrupt the routine pattern of administration and conduct which was forming in the Communist Party hierarchy; also to give to the new generation, who knew not the Revolution of I946-48, a movement in which they can participate themselves, bear the main share of the activity, and feel that they, too, are revolutionaries who have carried forward something of the great heritage of the Long March and the War of Resistance. A further aim appears to be the reconstruction of the governing political machine in a manner differing sharply from the original character of the Communist Party in China, or anywhere else. To achieve these aims the Red Guard movement was called into being and was directed at first against persons and institutions identified, very arbitrarily, with old-fashioned ways of living, thinking, and conduct. These habits were denounced as revisionist, taking the capitalist line, and were attacked, often with a certain amount of violence and harsh treatment. Abruptly, after a fortnight or so of attacks upon bourgeois intellectuals and professional men, the Red Guard activity was switched to direct attacks upon the Party hierarchy, including the most senior members, the Head of the State, Liu Shao-ch'i, and the Secretary of the Communist Party, Teng Hsiao-p'ing. Some figures only a degree or so less eminent were personally denounced and driven from office. These included Lo Jui-ch'ing, Chief of the General Staff, Lu Ting-yi, head of the Propaganda Department, and P'eng Chen, Mayor of Peking. The Peking branch of the Party came under special attack, and almost all its leaders were displaced. On the other hand the highest targets, Liu Shao-ch'i and Teng Hsiao-p'ing, although reviled and demonstrated against for a full year, still seem to hold their offices, even if it is impossible to estimate whether they can perform any significant functions.