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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2014
It was Mencius who taught that the people are justified in rebelling against a decadent dynasty. Since the Chou dynasty replaced the Shang at the dawn of China's history, successful rebellion has been the proof that the dynasty was decadent and the rebels not rebels but the new possessors of T'ien Ming, Heaven's mandate. For ‘Heaven sees as the people see and hears as they hear’.
1 Mencius Book I, part I, chapter V.
2 ‘Dialectics, the Algebra of Revolution’, Peking Review, 15 November 1960. Its essence lies in switching alliances and making others change sides, at the opportunemoment.
3 Chang Tung‐Sun argues in Yenching, Journal of Social Studies (I, no. 2, January 1949) that Chinese thought works by a non‐Aristotelian ‘logic of correlative duality’, based on an attitude he calls ‘omenism’, expressed in the Book of Changes. It emphasizes relations between signs without positing any underlying substance or law; this is because of its preoccupation with political thought, especially with the will of Heaven, supposedly expressed in natural phenomena but actually ‘justification for a revolution’ (pp. 177 ff.).
4 For an account of the ‘ideological remoulding’ technique, based on personal experience, see The Wilting of the Hundred Flowers by Mu Fu‐Sheng, London, 1962.
5 Wang An‐shih's bureaucratic policies, introduced in the 11th century with a view to establishing a perfect social order, bore a striking resemblance to certain modern measures; according to James T.C. Liu they brought more benefit to the state finances than to the common people, whom he had intended to help; his system failed when the bureaucrats degenerated into ‘manipulative’ types (Reform in Sung China, Cambridge, Mass., 1959, p. 115). According to Teng T'o and Co., Mao's cadres began like ‘benevolent grandmothers’ but ended as psychopaths in need of shock treatment – a hit on the head and ‘complete rest’.
6 See Peking Review, No. 25, 1966, pp. 7 ff.
7 See for example ‘Mao Tse‐tung’s thought – beacon of revolution for the world's people', Peking Review, No. 23, 1966, pp. 6 ff.
8 Kao Kang, the boss of industrialized Manchuria, made separate agreements with Stalin before Mao did in 1950, and was the advocate of Soviet methods of management; he initiated the ruthless purge of alleged counter‐revolutionaries in 1951 which deviated from Mao's method of rectification. Mao was not present at the CC meeting which deposed him. For details see John Wilson Lewis ‘Revolutionary Struggle and the Second Generation in Communist China’, China Quarterly, No. 21, January–March 1965.
9 An official organ on cultural matters.
10 See Peking Review, No. 25, 1966, p. 8 and No. 26, pp. 15 ff.
11 Smith, Arthur N. DD, Chinese Characteristics, Edinburgh, 1896, pp. 71, 73.Google Scholar
12 Lu Hsiln believed that the characteristics of Ah Q ‐ contempt for oneself and for others, the irrational ability to forget weakness and humiliation, the rationalization of actual defeat into ‘spiritual victory’ ‐ must be exposed and eradicated if China were ever to attain genuine independence in the 20th‐century world. In his writings he ‘dissected the neurotic psyche’ of contemporary China; hence Mao regarded him as the ‘supreme commander in China’s cultural revolution'. (Howard Boorman, ‘Mao Tse‐tung as historian’, paper for Conference on Chinese Communist Historiography sponsored by the China Quarterly, September 1964.)
13 See Schram, Stuart Political Thought of Mao Tse‐tung, Pall Mall Press, 1963, pp. 14, 72.Google Scholar
14 Nock, A. D. Conversion, London, 1933, p. 197.Google Scholar
15 See ‘ Long Live the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution’, Peking Review, No. 25, 1966, pp. 7 ff.Google ScholarPubMed
16 Foreign Minister Ch'en Yi, who studied in France like Chou En‐lai, has criticized himself for ‘bourgeois’ thoughts. During the revolutionary war he was associated with the wrong Army ‐ the New Fourth, instead of the famous Eighth Route Army whose veterans now occupy commanding positions.
17 This phrase was used by the party's former expert on cultural affairs, Chou Yang, in an important address to workers in philosophy and the social sciences at the end of 1963: it seemed at the time that his instructions on using historical research etc. to serve the world revolution were intended to take pressure off intellectuals and make them appear useful to the diehards: now he has been attacked as one who has ‘consistently refused to carry out Mao Tse‐tung’s line' for 24 years and was denounced by implication in a statement of Mao's made in June 1964. (Red Flag, 2 June 1966, Editorial note.)
18 See ‘ Wu Han and the Monk P’eng', China News Analysis, No. 606, 1 04 1966 .Google Scholar
19 See Teng Hsiao‐ping ‘The Great Unity of the Chinese people and the Great Unity of the Peoples of the World’ (written for Pravda in celebration of the Tenth Anniversary of the People's Republic of China), Foreign Languages Press (FLP), 1959, pp. 6–7 and the documents of the Lushan plenum (FLP, 1959), pp. 24 ff.
20 T'ien Han (b. 1898) is a playwright and wrote the words of the national anthem.
21 People's Daily, 1 February 1966.
22 Kuei, the word often used for non‐Chinese people.
23 ‘On Three Family Village’, Peking Review, No. 22, 1966 (reprinted from Shanghai Wen Hui Pao and the Liberation Army Daily of 10 May 1966).
24 Teng Hsiao‐ping, as note 19.
25 People's Daily, 18 December 1965.
26 Deputy Minister of Culture from 1954 to May 1965.
27 This was the title of an article by a research student who was sent to mix a large tank of human and animal manure; ‘at that time I had an open wound on my leg and was afraid of infection. But then I thought of the guidance of Chairman Mao one has to do what is hard to do. Another comrade rolled up his trousers and jumped in…’ After two hours his thoughts were ‘changed’.
28 Red Flag, 15 May 1966.
29 See I Stayed in China by Sewell, William G. Allen and Unwin, 1966, pp. 97 ff.Google Scholar ‘The small groups, seemingly so spontaneous and informal, were in fact organized most cleverly. At the heart was a meeting of the gan‐bu or cadres… so unobtrusive were the gan‐bu that had not [a Chinese friend] told me how the leadership contrived to keep the great machine in motion, and of the infinite pains taken to nurture what was believed to be the right kind of thoughts, I should not have realized how the system worked….'
30 Chou Yang, T'ien Han and others quoted in China News Analysis, No. 630, 23 September 1966.
31 Monkey, hero of the Chinese novel translated under that title by Arthur Waley (Penguins, 1961) ‘stands for the restless instability of genius’ (p. 8).