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Public Space for Memory in Contemporary Civil Society: Freedom to Learn from the Mirror of the Past?*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Mary G. Mazur
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Extract

On 17 May 1996 at the 30th anniversary of the beginning of the Great Cultural Revolution, a group of about 40 people met in the number two crypt at Babaoshan national cemetery on the western outskirts of Beijing where the ashes of China's highest elite are interred. They met at that particular time in memory of four men who had been declared traitors and enemies of the state in 1966 at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. In this crypt are kept the ashes of three of the men, Deng Tuo, Wu Han and Liu Ren. The ashes of the fourth, Liao Mosha, were scattered, according to his wishes, at the foot of a tree beneath the Great Wall.

Type
Research Notes
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 160 , December 1999 , pp. 1019 - 1035
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1999

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References

1. Information about the meeting from Ding Yuan. Also from Deng Yun and Deng Yanyan, son and daughter of Deng Tuo, both of whom were present at the meeting, through personal communication with the author. Sadly, Ding Yilan died in September 1998 in Beijing.

2. The rehabilitations of the men had been decreed by the Party in 1979.

3. People had gone to prison in 1992 for holding memorial meetings in opposition to government policy on such meetings. See He, Baogang, The Democratic Implications of Civil Society in China (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4. Mazur, Mary G., “A private ceremony to mourn Deng Tuo, Wu Han, Liao Mosha and Liu Ren,” The China Quarterly, No. 151 (09 1997), pp. 654–58.Google Scholar

5. Nanxing, Wu, Sanjia cun zhaji (Notes from a Three Family Village) published in Qianxian (Frontline), 1961–1964.Google ScholarCheek, Timothy, Propaganda and Culture in Mao's China: Deng Tuo and the Intelligentsia (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; MacFarquhar, Roderick, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution, Vol. 3, The Coming of the Cataclysm 1961–1966 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).Google Scholar

6. Information on the company from personal communication with Zhang Lina.

7. Information on publishing and the role of the agent from an interview August 1997 with the Editor-in-Chief of China Social Sciences Press, Wang Junyi; Zhang Lina as an agent; and the personal observation of the present author while arranging with Zhang for the publication of a book; also from discussion with Chinese colleagues who have published their own books over the past 20 years and been subject to the changing publishing situation.

8. Mazur], Ma Zimei [Mary G., Shidai zhi zi Wu Han (Son of His Times, Wu Han), trans, by Yuelin, Zeng et al. (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1996)Google Scholar; Tuo, Deng, Deng Tuo shiji (The Collected Poems of Deng Tuo) (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1993)Google Scholar; Mosha, Liao, Wengzhong zazu (Essays from Prison) (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1994).Google Scholar Although the biography of Wu Han is a Chinese translation of my biography of Wu Han, for the purposes of this discussion about public space it could be by anyone.

9. Renmin ribao, Beijing ribao, Beijing wanbao, Guangming ribao, Zhongguo qingnian dushubao, Beijing qingnian bao, Xinwen chuban bao, Wenhui bao and the Zhongyang dianshitai were all represented by reporters.

10. Son of His Times Publisher's Symposium Tapes, Beijing (26 05 1996)Google Scholar (hereafter called Symposium Tapes), transcribed and translated by Deng Yun and Su Zhi.

11. For one version see MacFarquhar, , The Origins of the Cultural Revolution, pp. 439–458.Google Scholar

12. Symposium Tapes. Zheng's thought that this book might not sell was mistaken. Within a year all 6,000 copies of the run were sold out, an interesting fact in observing the extent of public space and civil society in China.

13. Former members of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee attending were: Zhang Wensong, Zheng Tianxiang, Song Ting, Cui Yueli, Wu Weicheng, Li Jun and Su Shuangbi. Among the six Democratic League members attending were Tao Dayong and Jin Ruonian

14. See MacFarquhar, , The Origins of the Cultural Revolution.Google Scholar

15. Voices on the tapes reveal the deep feeling, as well as the strong opinions, of the speakers. First-hand accounts of the meeting to the present author by Sha Luyin, Yu Xixian and Deng Yun who were all present bear out the intensity of the opinions and feeling expressed.

16. Cui Yueli, Symposium Tapes. Italics added.

17. Tao Daying, Symposium Tapes. Italics added.

18. Shuangbi, Su, “Guanyu ‘Wu Han wenti’ xingzhi de gaoceng zhenglun”Google Scholar (“The high-level debate on the nature of the ‘Wu Han problem’”) in Yanhuang chunqiu (China's Past) (05 1997), pp. 28–37.Google Scholar The seeming anomaly of the title Deputy Editor-in-Chief probably indicates that Su was the managing editor under the chief editor. A historian and journalist, he had been an aide to Wu Han in the Beijing Historical Association and had assisted Deng Tuo in his efforts to counter the criticisms of Wu in late 1965.

19. For example see MacFarquhar, , The Origins of the Cultural Revolution.Google Scholar

20. Sheng, Kang, “1965.9 to 1966.5 – The great events of the struggle of the two lines on the cultural battle line,”Google Scholar u.p. For Kang Sheng's life, see MacFarquhar, , The Origins of the Cultural Revolution, pp. 290–96.Google Scholar Kang has been called by MacFarquhar, “the most cynical hit-man of Mao's Cultural Revolution swat team,” p. 296.Google Scholar

21. Shuangbi, Su, “The high-level debate,” p. 29Google Scholar, quoting from Sheng, Kang, “The great events.”Google Scholar

22. Shuangbi, Su, “The high-level debate,” pp. 28–37.Google Scholar

23. As quoted from Kang Sheng in ibid. p. 35. Italics added.

24. Ibid. p. 36. Italics added.

25. Ibid. p. 29

26. Information on the management of Yanhuang chunqiu from Ding Yilan and Du Daozheng through personal communication, March 1998.

27. Personal communication, 25 April 1998, from Sha Luyin after an interview with Su Shuangbi and Wang Hongzhi in Beijing, PRC on behalf of this author.

28. When we refer to “public space” or “public sphere” we are talking about a space in socio-political relations, in the polity, where no single governmental entity dominates, where only individuals and groups communicate and act. The actions of people in that sphere will accord with their culture and its values.

29. For a helpful survey of the literature on the nature of civil society in China see Cheek, Timothy, “From market to democracy in China: gaps in the civil society model,” in Lindau, Juan and Cheek, Timothy (eds.), Market Economics and Political Change (Boulder: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998), pp. 219–252.Google Scholar Two important collections of articles on civil society, pro and con, in China are Modern China, Vol. 19, No. 2 (04 1993)Google Scholar and Brook, Timothy and Frolic, Bernard (eds.), Civil Society in China (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1997).Google Scholar In these two volumes articles of special import include: Huang, Philip C.C., “‘Public sphere’/‘civil society’,” Modern China, Vol. 19, No. 2 (04 1993), pp. 216–240CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wakeman, Frederic, “The civil society and public sphere debate: Western reflections on Chinese political culture,” Modern China, Vol. 19, No. 2 (04 1993), pp. 108–138CrossRefGoogle Scholar; DesForges, Roger, “States, societies, and civil societies in Chinese history,”Google Scholar in Brook, and Frolic, , Civil Society in China, pp. 68–95.Google Scholar Also of particular interest are Kelly, David and Baogang, He, “Emergent civil society and the intellectuals in China,” in Miller, Robert (ed.), The Developments of Civil Society in Communist Systems (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1992), pp. 24–39Google Scholar; and three articles by Heath Chamberlain: “Civil society with Chinese characteristics? Review essay,” The China Journal, No. 39 (01 1998): pp. 69–81Google Scholar, “Coming to terms with civil society,” The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, No. 31 (01 1994), pp. 113–17Google Scholar, and “On the search for civil society in China,” Modern China, Vol. 19, No. 2 (04 1993), pp. 199–215.Google Scholar Two recent works make persuasive and salient contributions to the debate: Shi, Tianjin, Political Participation in Beijing (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1997)Google Scholar and He, Baogang, The Democratic Implications of Civil Society in China (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30. Seligman, Adam, The Idea of Civil Society (New York: The Free Press, 1992).Google Scholar

31. Hoare, Quinton and Smith, Geoffrey Nowell (eds.), Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci (New York: International Publishers, 1971)Google Scholar; Habermas, Jurgen, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991)Google Scholar; Brook, and Frolic, , Civil Society in China.Google Scholar

32. For examples see the work of Mote, F. W., “The growth of Chinese despotism,” Oriens Extremis, Vol. 8 (1961), pp. 1–41Google Scholar; Dardess, John W., Confucianism and Autocracy: Professional Elites in the Founding of the Ming Dynasty (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983)Google Scholar and Langlois, John D. (ed.), China Under Mongol Rule (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981).CrossRefGoogle Scholar Also see Wong, R. Bin, “Confucian agendas for material and ideological control in modern China,” in Huters, Theodore, Wong, R. Bin and Yu, Pauline (eds.), Culture and State in Chinese History, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997) pp. 303–325.Google Scholar

33. See Mazur, Mary G., “The United Front redefined for the party-state: a case study of transition and legitimation,” in Cheek, Timothy and Saich, Tony (eds.), New Perspectives on State Socialism in China (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1997), pp. 51–75.Google Scholar

34. Brook, Timothy, “Auto-organization in Chinese society,”Google Scholar in Brook, and Frolic, , Civil Society in China, pp. 19–45Google Scholar; Wong, , “Confucian agendas,” p. 324.Google Scholar

35. C. Wright Mills has dealt with the development of “public” in distinction to “mass” opinion in The Power Elite (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956), pp. 303–304.Google Scholar

36. He, Baogang, The Democratic Implications of Civil Society in ChinaGoogle Scholar, has an important discussion on what he sees as “semi-civil society” in the 1990s.