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Revolution and Reaction in the Chinese Countryside: The Socialist Education Movement in Cultural Revolutionary Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Richard Baum
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Extract

At the time the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) issued its now-famous Circular Notice of 16 May 1966, which roundly criticized Peking's Mayor P'eng Chen and thereby ushered in a dramatic new stage of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, a large-scale and intensive Socialist Education Movement was still being implemented systematically in the Chinese countryside.

Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 38 , June 1969 , pp. 92 - 119
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1969

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References

1 See Baum, Richard and Teiwes, Frederick C., Ssu-Ch'ing: The Socialist Education Movement of 1962–1966 (Berkeley: University of California Center for Chinese Studies, 1968).Google Scholar

2 See Baum, and Teiwes, , “Liu Shao-ch'i and the Cadre Question,” Asian Survey, Vol. VIII, No. 4 (April 1968), pp. 323–345Google Scholar; also Neuhauser, Charles, “The Chinese Communist Party in the 1960s: Prelude to the Cultural Revolution,” The China Quarterly, No. 32 (October–December 1967), pp. 3–36Google Scholar; and “Chung-kung te ‘Ssu-ch'ing’ yü ‘Wen-hua ta ko-ming’;” (Communist China's “Four Cleanups” and “Cultural Revolution”, in Fei-ch'ing yen-chiu (Studies on Chinese Communism) (Taipei), Vol. I, No. 1 (January 1967), pp. 23–31.

3 The following discussion is based on Baum and Teiwes, Ssu-Ch'ing.

4 Although the Socialist Education Movement was also conducted in urban industrial, commercial and cultural enterprises after 1963, it was, at the outset, predominantly rural in orientation. Since reliable data concerning the urban components of the movement are generally not available, the following discussion will focus exclusively on the rural aspects of the movement. As applied in the rural communes in the period 1963–64, the term “Four Cleanups” referred to the tasks of checking up on the account books and work-point allocations of basic-level cadres and investigating the disposition of collectively-owned grain and properties.

5 The major CCP policy directives which governed the conduct of the movement in this initial stage were the “Draft Resolution of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party on Some Problems in Current Rural Work,” dated 20 May 1963 (also known as the “First Ten Points”); and “Some Concrete Policy Formulations of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party in the Rural Socialist Education Movement,” dated September 1963 (also known as the “Later Ten Points”). The “First Ten Points” were reportedly drafted under the personal supervision of Mao Tse-tung, while the “Later Ten Points” were allegedly drawn up by the now-disgraced Teng Hsiao-p'ing. Both documents are translated and analysed in Baum and Teiwes, Ssu-Ch'ing.

6 The term “five category elements” refers to individuals whose family background is that of landlord, rich peasant, counter-revolutionary, “bad element” or unreformed rightist.

7 The major policy directives governing the conduct of the Socialist Education Movement in the latter half of 1964 were the “Organizational Rules of Poor and Lower-Middle Peasant Associations (Draft),” dated June 1964; and a revised draft of “Some Concrete Policy Formulations of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party in the Rural Socialist Education Movement,” dated 10 September 1964 (also known as the “Revised Later Ten Points”). The former document outlined the structure and functions of the newly-organized peasants' associations at the commune, production brigade and production team levels. The latter document, which was reportedly drafted by Liu Shao-ch'i, has come under heavy criticism during the Cultural Revolution for its allegedly erroneous orientation towards the question of rectifying basic-level rural cadres. For an analysis of these documents, and of the charges raised against Liu Shao-ch'i, see Baum, and Teiwes, , Ssu-Ch'ing; also Baum and Teiwes, “Liu Shao-ch'i and the Cadre Question,” loc. cit.Google Scholar

8 Note, for example, the following complaints raised by rural cadres in December 1964: “If the masses criticize the cadres, the cadres will not be able to lead them at all. It's all right for higher levels to criticize cadres, but if the masses do it things will become chaotic.…;” Radio Tientsin (Hopeh), 19 December 1964. “We are relying too much on the poor and lower-middle peasants.…What's the use of having cadres if the peasants are going to run things?” Radio Nanchang (Kiangsi), 18 December 1964.

9 The major policy directive governing the conduct of the movement after January 1965 was “Some Problems Currently Arising in the Course of the Rural Socialist Education Movement,” dated 14 January 1965 (also known as the “Twenty-three Articles”). During the Cultural Revolution this document has been hailed as the Maoist corrective to Liu Shao-chi's “poisonous” “Revised Later Ten Points” of September 1964 (see Jen-min jih-pao) (JMJP), 6 September and 23 November 1967. Specifically, the Maoists have claimed that the “Twenty-three Articles” served to “direct the spearhead” of the Socialist Education Movement away from the much-maligned basic-level cadres towards an (undisclosed) group of “people in positions of authority within the Party who take the capitalist road.” For an analysis of the veracity of this assertion, see Baum and Teiwes, “Liu Shao-ch'i and the Cadre Question,” loc. cit.

10 Although the Socialist Education Movement was specifically aimed at overcoming “spontaneous capitalist tendencies” in the villages, at no time did the movement envisage a wholesale retreat from private plots, free markets and piece-rate wage incentives per se. The so-called “Sixty Articles” on commune management which had been drafted in March 1961 and revised in September 1962, and which laid down relatively liberal rules for the operation of private plots and free markets in the communes, were never repudiated during the movement; indeed, they were repeatedly defended against the derogations of Party radicals. See, for example, JMJP, 7 April 1966. What was at issue during the Socialist Education Movement were the tolerable limits of private farming and material incentives; and on this question official policy fluctuated considerably in the three stages of the movement outlined above. For an interesting theoretical analysis of the CCP's attempt to manipulate normative, coercive and remunerative rewards and deprivations in the course of rural mass movements, see G. William Skinner, “Compliance and Leadership in Rural Communist China: A Cyclical Theory,” unpublished paper presented to the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., 8–11 September 1965.

11 For an early statement of the new definition of the Four Cleanups, see En-lai, Chou, “Report on the Work of the Government,” delivered to the First Session of the Third National People's Congress on 21 and 22 December 1964, in Peking Review, No. 1 (1 January 1965), p. 13.Google Scholar

12 See, e.g., Radio Changsha (Hunan); 1 and 5 February 1966; Radio Canton (Kwang-tung), 17 February 1966; Radio Wuhan (Hupeh), 2 March 1966; and Yang-ch'eng Wan-pao (Canton), 14 June 1966. For extensive documentation concerning the implementation of the Party committee “revolutionization” movement, see Current Background (CB) (Hong Kong: U.S. Consulate General), No. 779 (1966).

13 Radio Nanking (Kiangsu), 10 March 1966. During the Cultural Revolution a great deal of criticism has been directed at those so-called “bourgeois power-holders” who allegedly opposed giving prominence to politics and studying Mao's works during the Socialist Education Movement. For example, Li Ching-ch'üan, erstwhile First Secretary of the Southwest Regional Party Bureau, was quoted as having said: “What! Give prominence to politics? Better that we give prominence to fertilizer. Fertilizer can solve problems.” Radio Kweiyang (Kwei-chow), 28 June 1967. While this is no doubt an exaggeration of the original, nevertheless there is some reason to credit the argument that opposition to Mao-study was indeed relatively widespread among high-level Party officials at the Central Committee, Regional Bureau and provincial levels. See Bridgham, Philip, “Mao's ‘Cultural Revolution’: Origin and Development,” The China Quarterly, No. 29 (January–March 1967), pp. 16–19.Google Scholar

14 For an analysis of the main tenets of Maoist agrarian “orthodoxy,” and of the nature of the so-called “struggle between two roads” in agricultural policy, see Chang, Parris H., “Struggle Between the Two Roads in China's Countryside,” Current Scene (Hong Kong), Vol. VI, No. 3 (15 February 1968).Google Scholar

15 Note, for example, the allegation that “the class struggle between socialism and capitalism is being rekindled even in those areas which have gone through systematic socialist education. In these areas … class enemies have turned to ‘softening up’ tactics to corrupt our cadres…” Radio Lanchow (Kansu), 21 December 1965; my italics. In a rather rare display of candour, a major regional newspaper in October 1966 published, as its lead article, a story which explicitly admitted that the Socialist Education Movement had been relatively ineffective in resolving certain “old, great and difficult problems” in the Chinese countryside. The basic reason for this failure was said to be the fact that “the broad masses of cadres and peasants were not armed with the thought of Mao Tse-tung.” Hung-wei pao (Canton), 23 October 1966.

16 See Uhalley, Stephen, Jr., “The Cultural Revolution and the Aattack on the ‘Three Family Village’,” The China Quarterly, No. 27 (July–September 1966), pp. 149–161.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 Radio Wuhan (Hupeh), 29 June 1966 (my italics).

18 The following discussion is based in part on information supplied to the author by refugees from 14 widely separated rural communes in Kwangtung province. Wherever possible, interview data has been checked and correlated against official documentary sources and/or unofficial Red Guard materials.

19 In some rural areas, the launching of the Cultural Revolution apparently served to “freeze” regular administrative channels in both the Party and the government in the spring of 1966, with the result that political movements in these areas ground to a temporary halt. See Wylie, Ray, “Red Guards Rebound,” Far Eastern Economic Review, Vol. LVII, No. 10 (7 September 1967), pp. 462–466.Google Scholar

20 The first wall poster reportedly appeared on the campus of Peking University on 25 May. On 2 June, the People's Daily editorially approved the use of this technique; and on 20 June, Mao's personal approval was reported, also in the People's Daily.

21 Hung-ch'i (Red Flag) (Peking), No. 9 (July 1966), editorial, “Trust the Masses, Rely on the Masses.”

22 It should be emphasized that throughout the period of the Cultural Revolution, only a relatively small percentage of China's rural villages were directly affected by revolutionary violence of any kind. In general, the more remote the village the smaller the impact of the Cultural Revolution. For this reason, the major lines of argumentation and analysis which appear below should not be regarded as being uniformly applicable to the political situation in all—or even most—of China's rural areas. Unfortunately, it is impossible to determine on the basis of the limited amount of data presently available just how widespread and prevalent were the various phenomena described throughout this paper. With this caveat in mind, it may nevertheless be asserted that such phenomena were, prima facie, widespread and prevalent enough to affect significantly both the central formulation and local implementation of Party policies in the period under consideration.

23 A trend towards reinstating cadres who had been demoted or dismissed during the “small Four Cleanups” was apparently under way in some rural areas as early as April 1966. See Sing Tao Daily (Hong Kong), 20 May 1966. This trend was undoubtedly accelerated by the Party centre's call for launching “great debates” in the early summer of 1966.

24 A Hung-ch'i editorial of early June had indicated only that the Socialist Education Movement and the Cultural Revolution were to be treated as two distinct, though complementary, movements, with the central objective of each being “to ensure that Mao Tse-tung's thought is placed in the forefront.” Hung-ch'i, No. 8 (8 June 1966), p. 2. On the other hand, a provincial radio broadcast of 23 May had explicitly stated that the Cultural Revolution was an “important, integral part of the Socialist Education Movement.” Radio Sian (Shensi), 23 May 1966.

25 Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China Concerning the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1966).

26 Ibid. Article XIII.

27 Ibid.

28 Ibid.

29 See, for example, People's Daily, 1 September 1966.

30 Radio Changsha (Hunan), August 23, 1966.

31 The following partisan account of the emergence of two competing Red Guard factions within a single production brigade in suburban Peking is highly instructive in revealing the socio-economic bases of intramural conflict: “In August, when Chairman Mao openly signified his support for Red Guards…several poor and lower-middle peasant youths took the lead in organizing the ‘Poor and Lower-Middle Peasant Red Guards.’ They vigorously destroyed the ‘four olds’…and struggled against the bourgeois powerholders.… Frightened, [brigade Party branch secretary] Li Ch'un-ch'ang and his gang immediately called a meeting of the Party branch and decided to organize the ‘Red Guards of the Thought of Mao Tse-tung’…Everyone except the ‘five category elements’ was eligible for admission into this organization. Overnight it enrolled more than 90 members, many of whom were children of cadres and ‘relatives of the emperor.’ There were several leading cadres in the organization.… They were in reality the royalist guards of Li Ch'un-ch'ang and his gang.…” Nung-min yün-tung (Peking), No. 3 (22 February 1967), in Survey of the China Mainland Press (SCMP), No. 3910 (1967), pp. 9–10.

32 For an eyewitness account of an urban versus rural Red Guard confrontation in suburban Shanghai, and of the paralysing effect this had on production work within a local commune, see Wylie, , “Red Guards Rebound,” loc. cit. A rather detailed description of conflict between the “revolutionary peasants and cadres” of a Kweiyang production brigade and a work team dispatched by a higher-level Party committee is given in New China News Agency (NCNA) (Peking), 25 February 1968Google Scholar, in SCMP No. 4128 (1968), pp. 21–24.

33 Translated in CB, No. 852 (1968), p. 17.

34 Ibid. For a somewhat earlier statement of this new policy, see People's Daily, 7 September 1966.

35 CB, No. 852, loc. cit. (my italics).

36 Ibid.

37 Ibid.

38 Hung-ch'i, No. 12 (17 September 1966), pp. 13–14.

39 Ibid. (my italics). The Sixteen Point Decision of the Eleventh Plenum had contained a similar reservation, but had made no mention of the role of local peasants in determining the appropriateness of existing Four Cleanups arrangements.

40 It is interesting to note that when the Red Guards were officially rebuked and demobilized in the late summer of 1968, virtually the same deprecatory language was used. See, e.g., People's Daily, 12 September 1968.

41 People's Daily, 7 September 1966; also, Hung-ch'i, No. 12 (17 September 1966), pp. 13–14.

42 The duality of the slogan “grasp revolution, promote production” is indicated by the fact that the same slogan was used at the time of the “January Revolution” some four months later, to underwrite officially “power seizures” in the countryside. The tendency to place less emphasis on political and organizational rectification during the busiest agricultural seasons has been a prominent, recurrent feature of the CCP agrarian policy, particularly during periodic rural mass movements, when excessive political agitation might interfere with productive activities.

43 It is interesting to note that periodic upsurges of Mao-study in the rural areas in recent years have generally occurred during the busiest agricultural seasons, i.e., March–May and September–November. It may thus be argued that ideological study represents a basically conservative approach to the contradiction between production and politics, while political–organizational rectification (which generally receives stress in slack seasons) is a more radical approach.

44 See, e.g., Radio Chengchow (Honan), 24 November 1966. In conjunction with the increased stress on ideological indoctrination in this period, a JMJP editorial of 10 November ordered peasants to remain at their production posts during the day, while confining their revolutionary activities to “spare time” after meals and in the evenings.

45 See Hung-ch'i, No. 13 (1 October 1966), pp. 13–15.

46 Ibid.; also Hung-ch'i, No. 8 (8 June 1966), p. 2. Interviews conducted with numerous refugees have confirmed the fact that the rural Party apparatus per se (as opposed to individual Party members) did not come under concerted attack until the winter of 1966–67.

47 It was subsequently alleged that Four Cleanup work teams had conspired with higher level Party committees in the summer and autumn of 1966 to overthrow “several tens of thousands” of “good and relatively good” basic level cadres in Hunan province alone. See Ts'ui-hui tzu-fan-hsien (Destroy the Bourgeois Reactionary Line) (Canton), No. 1, February 1968, in SCMP, No. 4151 (1968), pp. 8–9.

48 “Draft Directive of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party on the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in Rural Districts” (15 December 1966), in CB, No. 852 (1968), pp. 31–32.

49 NCNA, 1 January 1967.

50 CB, No. 852, loc. cit.

51 Ibid.

52 See Radio Chengchow (Honan), 24 November 1966; also Hung-ch'i, No. 13 (1 October 1966), pp. 13–15.

53 See above, p. 101, n. 31.

54 SCMP, No. 4151, loc. cit.; also SCMP, No. 3910, op. cit. p. 14.

55 Note, for example, the following: “In December the directive of the Party centre concerning the Cultural Revolution in rural districts … greatly boosted the morale of the revolutionary rebels.… On the night the directive was proclaimed, the ‘Poor and Lower-Middle Peasant Red Guards’ waged a struggle against [brigade Party branch secretary] Li Ch'un-ch'ang.… Eventually, Li Ch'un-ch'ang was overthrown. The revolutionary rebels first seized the power of the No. 2 production team, and very soon after that they struggled against and overthrew Li Che, a power-holder who followed the capitalist road. They are now ready to seize power in the No. 1 production team and in the production brigade, but the powerholders have launched a new counter-attack. The poor and lower-middle peasants and revolutionary rebels … will surely win a great victory in the struggle to seize power.…” SCMP, No. 3910, op. cit. pp. 10–11. For a similar account of revolutionary activities in a suburban Canton commune, see Hung-se pao-tung (Red Riot) (Canton), Nos. 12–13 (8 July 1967), in SCMP, No. 4030 (1967), pp. 14–21.

56 See, e.g., Hung-ch'i, No. 4 (1 March 1967), pp. 49–50, and passim.

57 People's Daily, 27 January and 1 February 1967. As early as 11 January the Central Committee had acknowledged that “…a small handful of powerholders in the Party are inciting a few people, who are ignorant of the true facts, to indulge freely in economism and wage struggle against the socialist state.… They incite some of the masses to demand promotion and wage increases and to freely demand money and material supplies from the state. They incite the masses, who went to settle down in the rural villages a few years ago … to return to the cities to put forward unreasonable economic demands.…” “Notification by the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party on Opposition to Economism” (11 January 1967), in CB, No. 852, pp. 40–41.

58 “At present, some rural villages, enterprises and commercial units want to call back members of the Four Cleanup work teams for struggle.…” Central Committee Notice of 25 January 1967; see below, n. 59.

59 “Notification on Safeguarding the Achievements of the Four Cleanups Movement” (25 January 1967), in CB, No. 852, p. 52.

60 Ibid.

61 Ibid. This was the first official reference to Liu Shao-ch'i's “erroneous cadre policy” in the Socialist Education Movement. See above, p. 95, n. 7.

62 Ibid.

63 Hung-ch'i, No. 4 (1 March 1967), pp. 49–50.

64 Ibid.

65 Ibid.

66 Throughout the month of February the Party consistently hedged on this question by stating that in those areas where the Four Cleanups had been conducted, “most” of the surviving basic level cadres were “good” or “comparatively good.” See, e.g., Nan-fang jih-pao (Southern Daily) (Canton), 24 February 1967, in SCMP, No. 3904 (1967), pp. 12–13.

67 The “Twenty-three Articles” of January 1965 had stated that the Socialist Education Movement would be completed in one-third of China's villages by the end of 1967, and that the movement would be terminated nationally by 1970 or 1971. See Baum, and Teiwes, , Ssu-Ch'ing, Appendix F, Article XI.Google Scholar Although there are indications that the movement was accelerated somewhat in the winter of 1965–66 (with the advent of the Mao-study movement), official media reports in the summer and autumn of 1966 confirmed the fact that the Four Cleanups had been completed in only about one-third of the rural villages by the time the Cultural Revolution was inaugurated. See, e.g., Radio Changsha (Hunan), 29 July 1966.

68 In some areas it was alleged that as many as 70–85 per cent. of the basic level rural cadres had been wrongly purged during the Four Cleanups. See, e.g., NCNA, 18 April 1967, in SCMP, No. 3924 (1967), pp. 11–12; also Peking Review, No. 38 (15 September 1967), p. 26; and China Pictorial, No. 1 (January 1968), pp. 27–28.

69 See Neuhauser, Charles, “The Impact of the Cultural Revolution on the Chinese Communist Party Machine,” Asian Survey, Vol. VIII, No. 6 (June 1968), pp. 465–488.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

70 For a cogent illustration of the type of normative confusion engendered by the attempt to evaluate local power struggles solely in terms of proletarians versus capitalist roaders, see Baum, Richard, “A Parting of Paupers,” Far Eastern Economic Review, Vol. LIX, No. 1 (4 January 1968), pp. 17–19.Google Scholar

71 There is a certain similarity in this respect between the January Revolution of 1967 and the Russian Yezhovshchina of 1936–38. In both cases official encouragement to denounce “enemies of the state” tended to strengthen the hand of opportunist and/or career-minded elements who sought to make personal capital out of the purge by denouncing their superiors; and in both cases the chain of irresponsible denunciations tended to “overshadow and depress all the constructive enterprises of the state.” See Fainsod, Merle, How Russia is Ruled (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963), pp. 439–442.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

72 “Decision of the Central Committee, the State Council, the Central Military Commission and the Cultural Revolution Group under the Central Committee on Resolute Support for the Revolutionary Masses of the Left” (23 January 1967), in CB, No. 852, pp. 49–50. For a case study of PLA intervention in a rural factional dispute, see Baum, “A Parting of Paupers,” loc. cit.

73 “Order of the Military Commission of the Central Committee” (28 January 1967), in CB, No. 852, pp. 54–55.

74 “Notice of the CCP Central Committee on the Question of Dealing with Work Teams in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” (17 February 1967), in CB, No. 852, p. 80.

75 See, for example, NCNA, 25 February 1968, in SCMP, No. 4128 (1968), pp. 21–24; also Radio Tientsin (Hopeh), 12 December 1967.

76 Such attitudes as “it is unlucky to be a cadre”; “being a cadre offends people … when a campaign comes you get rectified again”; and “when we [cadres] are criticized we have no prestige” were reported to be widespread among basic level cadres in many provinces. See, for example, Radio Wuhan (Hupeh), 27 February 1967; also Radio Nanchang (Kiangsi), 20 and 28 February 1967.

77 “Letter from the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party to Poor and Lower-Middle Peasants and Cadres at All Levels in Rural People's Communes All Over the Country” (20 February 1967), in Peking Review, No. 9 (24 February 1967), p. 6.

78 Ibid. Throughout this period rural cadres were uniformly exhorted to “stand fast at their posts” and join with the “leading cadres,” militia members and “revolutionary peasants” in the creation of new “three-way alliances” (san chieh-ho) in the rural districts. See NCNA, 22 February 1967.

79 Nan-fang jih-pao, 24 February 1967, in SCMP, No. 3904 (1967), pp. 12–13.

80 Provincial radio broadcasts throughout March and April continued to cite numerous instances of anti-cadre struggles and leadership “paralysis” in the countryside. Such reports were almost always accompanied by fresh pleas to unify and consolidate the cadre ranks, and by assurances to the basic level cadres that they were not the legitimate targets of revolutionary repudiation. Such assurances were apparently honoured more in the breach than in the observance, however.

81 For an interesting variation on this formula, see Baum, “A Parting of Paupers,” loc. cit.

82 “CCP Central Committee Notice on No Seizure of Power in Production Brigades and Teams During the Spring Farming Season” (7 March 1967), in CB, No. 852, p. 94; see also JMJP, 13 March 1967.

83 Ibid. For a somewhat earlier statement of this policy, see Radio Nanchang (Kiangsi), 28 February 1967.

84 “In special districts and counties, no matter whether power has been seized or not, the leading cadres of PLA units must set up production leadership organs consisting mainly of the army and with the participation of local cadres and poor and lower-middle peasants, to be responsible for leading spring farming.…” Summary of Kweichow Military District Three-Level Cadre Meeting, Radio Kweiyang, 28 February 1967.

85 According to the reports of numerous peasant refugees, the summer of 1967 was, with a few notable exceptions, a relatively “orderly” period in the countryside.

86 From an average (estimated) monthly influx of 300–400 refugees in the early stages of the Cultural Revolution, the number swelled to a monthly average of 1,100–1,200 in the winter of 1967–68.

87 The last significant public reference to the “great achievements” of the Socialist Education Movement came on 23 November 1967, in a joint editorial published by Jen-min jih-pao, Hung-ch'i and Chieh-fang-chün pao. Interestingly enough, this editorial, which also contained the first (and only) official attack against Teng Hsiao-p'ing for his role in drafting the “Later Ten Points” of September 1963, marked the demise of Hung-ch'l's editorial staff. The journal was not published again until 1 July 1968, following the announced purge of Chi Pen-yü, Wang Li and Kuan Feng, members of the top editorial staff, as “ultra-leftists.”

88 See, for example, SCMP, No. 4151, loc. cit.; also NCNA, 28 February 1968; and Peking Review, No. 27 (5 July 1968), p. 15. A provincial radio broadcast of early April 1969 claimed that in the “early stages” of the Cultural Revolution, 98 out of the 182 brigade- and team-level cadres in a certain Kweichow commune were submitted to “cruel struggles,” while even those not so persecuted were forced to “stand aside without exception” in what was described as a “reign of white terror.” Radio Kweiyang (Kweichow), 1 April 1969.

89 See the collection of documents concerning the question of “reversal of verdicts” and “rehabilitation of cadres” in Survey of China Mainland Magazines (SCMM), No. 617 (1968), pp. 8–50. Note particularly the following report of a conversation held between members of the Joint Cultural Revolution Reception Centre of the General Office of the CCP Central Committee and representatives of a Kwangtung mass organization on 15 November 1967: “Question: Is it right or wrong for us to brand as “counter-revolutionaries” or “bad elements” those who have survived the Four Cleanups campaign …? Answer: It is wrong.…” (Ibid. p. 19).

90 Ibid. pp. 46–50; also SCMP, No. 4151, loc. cit.

91 The near-total absence of significant personnel changes in Party committees at the provincial, regional and central levels in 1965 tends to negate the Maoist argument that the “Twenty-three Articles” constituted a “decisive turning point” in the struggle between two roads—at least in the phenomenological sense. Mao's position of hegemony within the Party was apparently called into question for the first time at a Central Committee working conference in September 1965. See Bridgham, loc. cit. (note 13).

92 See above, p. 97, n. 13, and p. 98, n. 15; also Neuhauser, “The Impact of the Cultural Revolution,” loc. cit.

93 Note particularly the Party's February 1966 complaint that many leading cadres were “outwardly compliant but inwardly disobedient” with respect to Mao's dictum that politics must take command over production. See Radio Changsha (Hunan), 1 February 1966. Note also the July 1966 allegation that “the main reason why the anti-Party, anti-socialist, revisionist elements were able to conceal themselves for a considerable period of time was that they waved ‘red flags’ to oppose the red flag, carried the signboard of Mao Tse-tung's thought to oppose Mao Tse-tung's thought … and carried the communist banner to engage in anti-communist intrigues.…” Hung-ch'i, No. 9 (July 1966).

94 It is suggested that since the Socialist Education Movement was directly implemented by work teams dispatched by regular Party organs at the provincial, special district, county and municipal levels, the work teams themselves were “conservatively” oriented with respect to the question of attacking and repudiating “power-holders” in the period after 16 May. This hypothesis is consistent with the known facts concerning the activities of urban work teams in June and July 1966. See Baum and Teiwes, “Liu Shao-ch'i and the Cadre Question,” loc. cit.

95 In the light of the above developments, it is likely that in the period after 16 May, the Four Cleanup work teams, acting under the protective mantle of higher-level Party organs, tacitly conspired in the initiation of a counter-offensive against those dissatisfied elements in the countryside who were demanding the overthrow of the rural status quo—as represented by local Party committees and by the work teams themselves. The Maoist charge of “attacking the many to protect the few” undoubtedly refers to this type of pre-emptive, self-protective action. See, for example, “A Party Branch Secretary Grows Up in the Course of Class Struggle,” Peking Review, No. 27 (5 July 1968), pp. 14–16.