5 - The Party and the intellectuals

Summary

After 1949, the Party carried out a contradictory policy toward the intellectuals: On the one hand, it indoctrinated them in Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, which was imposed more comprehensively and intensively than Confucianism had been on the traditional literati. On the other hand, it tried to stimulate the intellectuals to be productive in their professions. This contradictory approach resulted in a policy that oscillated between periods of repression in which intellectuals were subjected to thought reform campaigns and periods of relative relaxation in which they were granted some responsibilities and privileges in order to win their cooperation in carrying out modernization.

These shifts were determined sometimes by internal economic and political factors and sometimes by international events. They also had a dynamic of their own. The Party pushed toward ideological conformity until the intellectuals appeared reluctant to produce; then it relaxed until its political control appeared threatened. In the intervals of relative relaxation, the Party fostered, or at least permitted, intellectual debate and discussion of Western ideas. It also allowed and at times encouraged criticism of the bureaucracy in order to root out abuses of the system.

THE HISTORICAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE INTELLECTUALS AND THE GOVERNMENT

Intellectuals in the PRC were heirs to the Confucian tradition of the literati's obligation to serve the state and to speak out when the government deviated from its Principles. It was not so much their right, as in the West, but their responsibility, to criticize governmental misdeeds. They saw themselves as the court of moral judgment. They were to lead the way to what ought to be instead of what was and were to do so regardless of personal consequences, even at the risk of punishment and death.