The Chinese Communist Party in the 1960s: Prelude to the Cultural Revolution

Abstract

The recent events in China are surely drama of the highest order, but at times it has seemed that the actors themselves were not entirely sure who was writing the lines. In fact what we seem to be witnessing is a form of commedia dell'arte: improvisation within a certain tacitly understood framework. The cultural revolution appears to have taken new turns and to have broken into new channels precisely because the actors have been faced with new and unforeseen circumstances as it has run its course. No faction in the struggle has been able to impose its will on the Party or the country by fiat; new devices and stratagems have been brought into play in what has looked like desperate attempts to gain the upper hand. It has clearly been a battle of the utmost seriousness, but there appear to have been limitations on the resultant chaos. Economic disorganisation does not seem to have occurred on the scale of the later stages of the Great Leap Forward. Nor, despite the clashes, confusion and bitter infighting, have new centres of power, totally divorced from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) itself, arisen. The cultural revolution has been pre-eminently a struggle within the Party.