7 - New Verdicts on the Printed Page

Summary

The chapter examines the state publishing sector’s recall and pulping of printed materials from the Cultural Revolution years. Targeting works linked to the “Gang of Four,” this process constituted an intrinsic part of the broader reckoning with the Maoist legacy and was therefore intimately connected with the political machinations of the immediate post-Mao era. Publishers and bookstores, cleansing their backlists and stockrooms of problematic titles, strengthened the idea that the second half of the 1970s would be years of sociopolitical course correction. Retrospectively altering the bibliographic record engendered many perils and uncertainties: This chapter analyzes the difficulties faced in an environment where official narratives concerning the Gang and the Cultural Revolution were constantly in flux. At the same time, the chapter draws attention to the sheer destructiveness and material cost of the process, with tens of millions of books gradually caught in the dragnet. The marriage between politics, print, and the state had never been stronger.