Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T20:32:13.388Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Anatomy of a Regional Civil War: Guangxi, China, 1967–1968

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 December 2021

Andrew G. Walder Open the ORCID record for Andrew G. Walder [Opens in a new window]
Andrew G. Walder*
Affiliation:
Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94350, USA
*
Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

During the violent early years of China’s Cultural Revolution, the province of Guangxi experienced by far the largest death toll of any comparable region. One explanation for the extreme violence emphasizes a process of collective killings focused on households in rural communities that were long categorized as class enemies by the regime. From this perspective, the high death tolls were generated by a form of collective behavior reminiscent of genocidal intergroup violence in Bosnia, Rwanda, and similar settings. Evidence from investigations conducted in China in the 1980s reveals the extent to which the killings were part of a province-wide suppression of rebel insurgents, carried out by village militia, who also targeted large numbers of noncombatants. Guangxi’s death tolls were the product of a counterinsurgency campaign that more closely resembled the massacres of communists and suspected sympathizers coordinated by Indonesia’s army in wake of the coup that deposed Sukarno in 1965.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Science History , Volume 46 , Issue 1 , Spring 2022 , pp. 35 - 63
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Social Science History Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ball, Patrick, Paul, Kobrak, and Spirer, Herbert F. (1999) State Violence in Guatemala, 1960–1996. American Association for the Advancement of Science.Google Scholar
Bu, Weihua (2008) Zalan jiu shijie: Wenhua da geming de dongluan yu haojie (Smashing the Old World: The Catastrophic Turmoil of the Cultural Revolution). Zhongwen daxue chubanshe.Google Scholar
Central Committee, Chinese Communist Party (1967) “Zhonggong zhongyang, guowuyuan, zhongyang junwei, zhongyang wen’ge guanyu Guangxi liangpai cujin geming da lianhe shitiao xieyi de piyu” (Instructions by the Central Committee, State Council, Central Military Commission and Central Cultural Revolution Group on the 10-point Agreement to Promote an Alliance of the Two Factions in Guangxi) zhongfa [67] 343, November 12.Google Scholar
Central Committee, Chinese Communist Party (1968) “Zhonggong zhongyang, guowuyuan, zhongyang junwei, zhongyang wen’ge bugao” (Proclamation of the Central Committee, State Council, Central Military Commission, and Central Cultural Revolution Group) zhongfa [68] 103, July 3.Google Scholar
Chen, Jian (1995) “China’s Involvement in the Vietnam War, 1964–69.” China Quarterly (142): 356–87.Google Scholar
Chen, Jian (2001) Mao’s China and the Cold War. University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, Myron L. (1968) “The Hakka, or ‘Guest People’: Dialect as a Sociocultural Variable in Southeastern China.” Ethnohistory 15 (3): 237–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dong, Guoqiang, and Walder, Andrew G. (2021) A Decade of Upheaval: The Cultural Revolution in Rural China. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Guangxi Cultural Revolution Chronology (1990) Guangxi wen’ge dashi nianbiao (Chronology of the Cultural Revolution in Guangxi). Guangxi renmin chubanshe.Google Scholar
Guangxi Local Annals Editorial Committee (1995) Guangxi tongzhi: jiaoyu zhi (Guangxi Comprehensive Annals: Education). Guangxi renmin chubanshe.Google Scholar
Guangxi Organization Department (1995) Zhongguo gongchandang Guangxi Zhuangzu Zizhiqu zuzhishi ziliao, 1925–1987 (Materials on the History of the Chinese Communist Party in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, 1925–1987). Guangxi renmin chubanshe.Google Scholar
Guangxi Party Committee (1987) Guangxi ‘wen’ge’ dang’an ziliao (Archival Materials on the Guangxi ‘Cultural Revolution’), 18 vols. Zhonggong Guangxi Zhuangzu Zizhiqu wenyuanhui, zhengdang lingdao xiaozu bangongshi.Google Scholar
Hashimoto, Mantaro J. (1973) The Hakka Dialect: A Linguistic Study of its Phonology, Syntax and Lexicon. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kuhn, Philip A. (1978) “The Taiping Rebellion,” in John K. Fairbank (ed.) Cambridge History of China: Volume 10: Late Ch’ing 1800–1911, Part 1. Cambridge University Press: 264–317.Google Scholar
Leong, Sow-Theong (1997) Migration and Ethnicity in Chinese History: Hakkas, Pengmin and Their Neighbors. Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, Xiaobing (2019) Building Ho’s Army: Chinese Military Assistance to North Vietnam. University Press of Kentucky.Google Scholar
Mackerras, Colin (1994) China’s Minorities: Integration and Modernization in the Twentieth Century. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nelsen, Harvey W. (1972) “Military Forces in the Cultural Revolution,” China Quarterly (51): 444–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ngagpo, Jigme (1988) “Behind the Unrest in Tibet.” China Spring Digest (1): 22–32.Google Scholar
Organization Department, CCP Central Committee (2004) Zhongguo gongchandang lijie zhongyang weiyuan da cidian (Historical Dictionary of Members of Successive Central Committees of the Chinese Communist Party). Zhonggong dangshi chubanshe.Google Scholar
Roberts, J. A. G. (1969) “The Hakka-Punti War.” PhD diss., University of Oxford.Google Scholar
Robinson, Geoffrey B. (2018) The Killing Season: A History of the Indonesian Massacres, 1965–66. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Ryan, William, Evers, Ellen R. K., and Moore, Don A.. (2018) “False positive poisson,” www.researchgate.net/publication/328399873.Google Scholar
Schoenhals, Michael (2005) “‘Why Don’t We Arm the Left?’ Mao’s Culpability for the Cultural Revolution’s ‘Great Chaos’ of 1967.” China Quarterly 182: 277–300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Warren (1996) Tibetan Nation: A History of Tibetan Nationalism and Sino-Tibetan Relations. Westview Press.Google Scholar
Song, Guoqing (2020) “'Healing the Wounds?’ Redressing State Crimes in Guangxi after the Cultural Revolution.” PhD diss., Albert-Ludwigs University, Freiburg.Google Scholar
Song, Yongyi, ed. (2002) Wen’ge da tusha (Massacres during the Cultural Revolution). Kaifang zazhishe.Google Scholar
Song, Yongyi, ed. (2016) Guangxi wen’ge jimi dang’an ziliao (Top Secret Archival Materials on the Cultural Revolution in Guangxi), 36 vols. Guoshi chubanshe.Google Scholar
Spence, Jonathan D. (1996) God’s Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan. Norton.Google Scholar
Strauss, Scott (2006) The Order of Genocide: Race, Power, and War in Rwanda. Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Su, Yang (2011) Collective Killings in China during the Cultural Revolution. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sutton, Donald S. (1995) “Consuming Counterrevolution: The Ritual and Culture of Cannibalism in Guangxi, China, May to July 1968.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 37 (1): 136–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tan, Hecheng (2017) The Killing Wind: A Chinese County’s Descent into Madness during the Cultural Revolution. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Unger, Jonathan (1984) “The Class System in Rural China: A Case Study,” in James, Watson (ed.) Class and Social Stratification in Post-Revolution China. Cambridge University Press: 121–41.Google Scholar
Valentino, Benjamin (2004) Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the Twentieth Century. Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Walder, Andrew G. (2009) Fractured Rebellion: The Beijing Red Guard Movement. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Walder, Andrew G. (2014) “Rebellion and Repression in China, 1966–1971.” Social Science History 38 (3–4): 513–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walder, Andrew G. (2015) China under Mao: A Revolution Derailed. Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walder, Andrew G. (2019) Agents of Disorder: Inside China’s Cultural Revolution. Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walder, Andrew G., and Chu, James (2020) “Generating a Violent Insurgency: China’s Factional Warfare of 1967–1968.” American Journal of Sociology 126 (1): 99–135.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walder, Andrew G., and Lu, Qinglian (2017) “The Dynamics of Collapse in An Authoritarian Regime: China in 1967.” American Journal of Sociology 122 (4): 1144–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walder, Andrew G., and Su, Yang (2003) “The Cultural Revolution in the Countryside: Scope, Timing, and Human Impact.” China Quarterly 173: 82–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yan, Lebin (2012) “Wo canyu chuli Guangxi wen’ge yiliu wenti” (I Participated in Handling the Problems Related to the Cultural Revolution in Guangxi), Yanhuang Chunqiu 11: 13–20.Google Scholar
Yang, Haiying (2014) Mei you mubei de caoyuan: Menggu ren yu wen’ge da tusha (Grasslands without Tombstones: Massacres of Mongols during the Cultural Revolution). Baqi wenhua chubanshe.Google Scholar
Zhai, Qiang (2000) China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950–1975. University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Zheng Yi (1996) Scarlet Memorial: Tales of Cannibalism in Modern China. Trans. by T. P. Sym. Westview.Google Scholar