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Bases of Power in Chinese Politics: A Theory and an Analysis of the Fall of the “Gang of Four”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Lowell Dittmer
Lowell Dittmer
Affiliation:
University of California, (Berkeley)
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Abstract

This paper sets forth a preliminary theory of the substructure of Chinese politics. Power is based on an influential constituency in China as elsewhere, but here there are two types of such constituencies: the formal, consisting of an actor's bureaucratic colleagues and subordinates, which exerts formal power [ch'üan-li]; and the informal, consisting of interested family members, long-term friends, and protégés, which exerts informal influence [shih-li]. The support of the former may be relied upon during “nonantagonistic contradictions”; but if the contradiction becomes “antagonistic,” only the informal base is likely to be of any avail, because of the severe sanctions applied to any associate of an “enemy of the people.” The “Gang of Four” could be considered as “favorites” of Mao Tse-tung, inasmuch as their narrow and shallow “backgrounds” afforded them no constituency, formal or informal, aside from the Chairman himself. Their political actions were characterized by exclusive loyalty to their patron and by a disregard for the formal rules of the game. Sensitive to the long-range untenability of their positions, the Four sought to expand their base by appealing to the masses through the media and by building an incipient bureaucratic constituency. Their ultimate failure may be attributed not only to their ineptitude at base-building, but to the inherent limitations of their positions in an increasingly determinate bureaucratic-political game.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , October 1978 , pp. 26 - 60
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1978

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References

1 Tse-tung, Mao, “On Contradiction,” in Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, I (Peking: Foreign Languages Press 1965), 336Google Scholar; emphasis added. Many years later, Mao made the following highly critical comments on Stalin's Economic Problems of Socialism (1952): “From the beginning to the end, this book of Stalin's has not touched upon superstructure. It has not considered man. It saw things but not man.” Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan-sui [Long Live Mao Tse-tung's Thought] hereafter cited as Wan-sui (1967), 156. Unless otherwise noted, translations from the Chinese are my own.

2 There are two conceivable reasons for this heavy emphasis on the importance of the ideological superstructure. First, those who look at Chinese history from the perspective of the 20th century as a whole and from the perspective of Chinese tradition cannot help but be impressed by the salience of ideology. Those who look at Chinese politics at close range in a shorter time frame will tend to downgrade its importance. Second, the scarcity of reliable sources inclined earlier analysts to seize upon the most readily available data—i.e., the works of Mao. The large volume of materials to have emerged since then, particularly since 1966, naturally directs our attention to the darker side of politics.

3 The Chinese authorities have subsequently maintained that supporters of the Gang of Four fomented unrest in a number of cities, but this seems to be an oversimplification of a situation that has sporadically characterized China's industrial sector ever since the Cultural Revolution. Cf. Weggel, Oskar, “‘Bewaffnete Unruhen’ in China: Wirklichkeit oder Propagandamunition im Kampf gegen die ‘Vier’?” China Aktuell, vi (February 1977), 46–56Google Scholar.

4 The New Year's People's Daily-Red Flag-Liberation Army Daily joint editorial (January 1, 1973) revealed that after ten good years, the harvest of 1972 had fallen short by 4%, mainly because of drought. China had to buy five million tons of grain in 1972, chiefly from Canada. Industrial growth had not increased at the pace expected, either.

5 Much of the following is based on interviews conducted in Hong Kong with refugee (or legal emigrant) informants from the People's Republic of China in the spring of 1977.

6 For Weber, the distinguishing property of authority is legitimacy, which refers to the probability of compliance without resort to coercion. But according to my Chinese informants, ch'üan-li without shih-li commands less legitimacy (in this sense) than shih-li without ch'iian-li. Cf. Lloyd I. Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, “Modern and Traditional Administration Re-examined: A Revisionist Interpretation of Weber on Bureaucracy,” unpub. paper presented at International Political Science Association, Montreal, August 23, 1973, pp. 17–24.

7 For example, the client public of the Central Committee's Department of Culture and Propaganda is China's community of intellectuals; the client public of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee is the city of Shanghai, etc.

8 Tang Tsou has called attention to the importance of the “transformation of informal rules, groups and processes into formal ones” in his “Prolegomenon to the Study of Informal Groups in CCP Politics,” China Quarterly, No. 65 (March 1976), 98–114.

9 Cf. Whitson, William, “The Field Army in Chinese Communist Military Politics,” China Quarterly, No. 37 (January-March 1969), 1–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Whitson, , The Chinese High Command: A History of Communist Military Politics, 1929–1971 (London: Macmillan 1973)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The general accuracy of the Field Army hypothesis was borne out by the pattern of purges following the fall of Lin Piao; the overwhelming majority of those affected had been Lin's close followers since the days of the Fourth Field Army. However, as William Parish has pointed out, the Field Army loyalty system has greater impact on recruitment patterns and factional behavior during a crisis than during more stable periods. See Parish, , “Factions in Chinese Military Politics,” China Quarterly, No. 56 (October-December 1937), 667–99Google Scholar; and Whitson's gracious reply, “Statistics and the Field Army Loyalty System,” China Quarterly, No. 57 (January-March 1974), 146–48Google Scholar.

10 These sentiments have been memorialized in two collections, Hung-ch'i p'iao-p'iao [The Red Flag Waves] (Peking: Chinese Youth League 1958)Google Scholar, and Hsing-huo liao-yuan [A Single Spark Can Light a Prairie Fire] (Peking: People's Publishers 1962)Google Scholar.

11 There seems to be some continuity of the ties referred to in the traditional Chinese bureaucracy as the five t'ung (same) relationships: t'ung chung (same surname, therefore presumptively the same ancestors), t'ung chu (same clan or kinship network), t'ung hsiang (same native place, which may be district, county, or province), t'ung hsueh (attendance at same school, or study under same teacher, not necessarily at the same time), and t'ung shih (members of the same department or having similar career affiliations). Cf. Andrew J. Nathan, “'Connections' in Chinese Politics: Political Recruitment and Kuan-hsi in Late Ch'ing and Early Republican China” (paper delivered at the 87th Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, New Orleans, December 1972).

12 The commemoration of various anniversaries and some holidays may be used to celebrate the prominence and solidarity of those involved in the original event. For example, December 9, the anniversary of the founding of the 1935 student movement in Peking, became an occasion to give high visibility to the Liu Shao-ch'i/P'eng Chen group. During the Cultural Revolution, Mao's 30-li, 65-minute swim in the Yangtze (July 16, 1966), the posting of Mao's first big-character poster (August 5), and the formation of the Red Guards (August 18) all became affairs to remember. During the early 1970's, however, the sole commemoration of the Cultural Revolution's “new-born things” was the anniversary of the writing of Mao's article, “Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art” (May 23, 1942); on that date, Chiang Ch'ing presented her latest revolutionary theatrical works. The celebration of anniversaries of the Cultural Revolution in 1976 seemed to presage a radical effort to revive it (e.g., on May 16, the 10th anniversary was commemorated by a joint article by the editorial departments of People's Daily, Red Flag, and Liberation Army Daily, and the 10th anniversary of Mao's meeting with Red Guards on August 18 was celebrated in many cities and provinces). The first anniversary of Chou En-lai's death (January 8, 1977) became an occasion for big-character posters calling for the rehabilitation of Teng Hsiao-p'ing, Chou's former heir apparent.

13 According to Doak Barnett, there are about ten vertically integrated “general systems” [hsi-t'ung] with representatives on the State Council and in the Departments of the Central Committee, including “political and legal affairs” (or “internal affairs”), “propaganda and education” (or “culture and education”), “industry and communications,” and “finance and trade.” See Barnett, , Cadres, Bureaucracy, and Political Power in Communist China (New York: Columbia University Press 1967), 8Google Scholar. A Politburo member who controls a functional system seems able to initiate the drafting of an authoritative central document concerning that issue area on his own authority. Cf. Lieberthal, Kenneth, Central Documents and Politburo Politics in China, Michigan Papers in Chinese Studies, No. 33 (Ann Arbor, Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1978)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Cf. Allison, Graham T., Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (Boston: Little, Brown 1971)Google Scholar, and Halperin, Morton H., Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy (Washington, D. C: The Brookings Institution 1974)Google Scholar.

15 Parish (fn. 9) presents evidence that formation of an independent kingdom was the most telling charge against Yang Ch'eng-wu when he was purged in the spring of 1968; Mao made the same charge against Lin Piao: “When soil is too compressed it cannot breathe. If you mix in a little sand, then it can breathe. The staff of the Military Affairs Committee was too uniform in its composition, and needed to have some new names added. This is mixing sand in the soil.” “Summary of Chairman Mao's Talks with Responsible Comrades at Various Places During His Provincial Tour: From the Middle of August to 12 September 1971,” in Schram, Stuart, ed., Chairman Mao Talks to the People, Talks and Letters: 1956–1971 (New York: Pantheon 1974), 295Google Scholar.

18 Red Guard tabloids have indicated that inhibited coordination and friction between parallel units arose as a consequence. For example, when a member of the Ministry of Petroleum was criticized by a provincial Party committee chairman, Yü Ch'iu-li (then Minister of Petroleum) allegedly retorted: “This man belongs to my ministry. Who dares to touch a hair on his head?” “Fundamental Criticism of the Collected Crimes of Yü Ch'iu-li,” in Hsien-feng [the Reef] (published by the United Committee of Revolutionary Rebels in the First Ministry of Machine Building, Peking, January 1967), 5. Lii Cheng-ts'ao, then Minister of Railroads, allegedly refused to work with Lin Piao on the question of troop transport because Lii was a friend of Lo Jui-ch'ing, whose security bureau was at this time in rivalry with the PLA. “Down with Lü Cheng-ts'ao, the Biggest Friend of the Capitalists in the Railroad Ministry,” Hung-t'ieh-tao (a Red Guard periodical, February 1967), 4.

17 Mao, “Talk at the Ch'engtu Meeting” (March 1958), in Wan-sui (fn. 1, 1969), 167.

18 An annotated index of central meetings is provided in Lieberthal, Kenneth, Research Guide to Central Party and Government Meetings in China, 1949–1975 (White Plains, N.Y.: International Arts and Sciences Press 1976)Google Scholar.

19 Similar informal arrangements can be made at lower echelons of the administrative apparatus to accommodate changes in the roster of participants. For example, the “administrative conference” [pan-kung hui-i] appeared at all levels at the beginning of the 1960's and became an important leadership forum. By combining the Party leadership with selected professionals from various offices, it permitted decisions to be made in small groups outside the cumbersome Party committee. The Red Guards called this an “underground Party committee” [ti-hsia tang-wei] and complained that it regularly enabled “White” professionals to convert Party members to their opinions. See Report on the Seventh Ministry of Machine-Building, in “Down with Liu Hsiian, the Capitalist-Minded Traitor and Agent in a Responsible Party Position,” Fei-ming ti, May 20, 1967, p. 3.

20 In May 1953, Mao issued a directive, ostensibly in criticism of Liu Shao-ch'i and Yang Shang-k'un, that “From now on, all documents and telegrams sent out in the name of the Central Committee can be dispatched only after I have gone over them, otherwise they are invalid.” Selected Works, V (Peking: Foreign Languages Press 1977), 92; emphasis in original. In 1966, he again complained about his lack of control of the policy process: “I was not satisfied with the Wuchang Conference; I could do nothing about the high targets. So I went to Peking to hold a conference, but although you met for six days, you wouldn't let me hold mine for even a single day. It's not so bad I am not allowed to complete my work, but I don't like being treated like a dead father.” “Talk at the Report Meeting” (October 24, 1966), trans, in Schram (fn. 15), 266–67.

21 Lieberthal (fn. 18), 11–12. In all, P'eng Chen's downfall can be delineated as a sequence of ten meetings.

22 “Investigate P'u An-hsiu” (a Red Guard pamphlet), in Tsu-kuo, No. 89, August 1, 1971, p. 2.

23 Liu T'ao, “Rebel Against Liu Shao-ch'i, Follow Chairman Mao to Make Revolution for Life—My Preliminary Self-Examination,” Chingkangshan, December 31, 1966; trans, in Current Background, No. 821, March 16, 1967, pp. 1–25. Liu T'ao's revised self-criticism is translated in Gigon, Fernand, Vie et mort de la révolution culturelle (Paris: Flammarion Éditeur 1969), 201–14Google Scholar.

24 People's Daily, July 21, 1971. Ch'en Po-ta in turn revealed incriminating information about Lin Piao, linking him to the “May 16 Group.”

25 Cf. Ginneken, Jaap van, The Rise and Fall of Lin Piao (Harmondsworth, England: Pelican 1976)Google Scholar. Lin Li-heng is perhaps better known by her nickname, Tou-tou.

26 Cf. Nathan, Andrew, “A Factionalism Model for CCP Politics,” China Quarterly, No. 53 (January-March 1973), 34–67Google Scholar. Nathan's model seems to fit the Cultural Revolution very well, but in my view he tends to overgeneralize it. Cf. Tang Tsou's critique (fn. 8), and Nathan's reply in the same issue.

27 Kuo, Thomas C., Ch'en Tu-hsiu and the Chinese Communist Movement (South Orange, N.J.: Seton Hall University Press 1975), 206–16Google Scholar.

28 Cf. Kau, Michael Y. M., The Lin Piao Affair: Power Politics and Military Coup (White Plains, N.Y.: International Arts and Sciences Press 1975)Google Scholar.

29 The provincial leadership manifested their lack of enthusiasm by failing to convene plenary sessions of their Party committees to support the campaign, failing to send work teams to the local levels, and failing to carry campaign polemics in the provincial media they controlled. Only four provincial units (Heilungkiang, Sinkiang, Shanghai, and Peking) held inter-unit criticism rallies.

30 According to the Taiwan CNA, 15 of the 2g provincial First Party Secretaries were attacked in local wall posters in connection with Teng.

31 Cf. An, Tai Sung, The Lin Piao Affair (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books 1974)Google Scholar. My refugee informants also expressed considerable skepticism about the chiu i-san shihchien [September 13th Incident].

32 Chang Ch'un-ch'iao joined the Party during the Long March and in his writings supported the Red Army during the Second World War. After the Liberation, he became Director of the East China General Branch of the New China News Agency in March 1950, Director of the Shanghai Liberation Daily in May 1954, a member of the Shanghai Party Municipal Committee in June 1958, and of its Standing Committee in April 1959; he became Director of the Propaganda Department of the Shanghai Committee in April 1963, and a member of the Secretariat of the Committee in March 1965.

Chiang Ch'ing claims to have joined the Party in Tsingtao in 1932, though there is reason to doubt that she actually became affiliated before her marriage to Mao in Yenan in 1940. In 1948 she became head of the Film Office of the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee (known after April 1949 as the Central Film Administrative Bureau). But when this body was dissolved at the Second National People's Congress in September 1954, Chiang Ch'ing retired from the cultural scene until 1962. In 1963 she began to appear as First Lady (she accompanied Mao to entertain Madame Sukarno), and in September 1964 she was elected a deputy (from Shantung) to the Third NPC.

Yao Wen-yüan, born in 1925 in Shao-hsing, Chekiang, spent his entire career as a writer on ideological/cultural themes, never holding any important administrative positions until joining the Central Cultural Revolution Group in October 1966.

Wang Hung-wen, born in 1937 to a poor peasant family in Kirin, joined the PLA as a youth and served after discharge as a junior cadre in the Security Department of the Shanghai No. 17 Cotton Textile Factory, where he became involved in mobilizing worker support for Chang Ch'un-ch'iao's power seizure in Shanghai in January 1967. Thus, until 1966, the base of the Four was limited to Shanghai; according to the most recent findings, their support was never very strong even there. Cf. Walder, Andrew, Chang Ch'un-ch'iao and Shanghai's January Revolution, Michigan Papers in Chinese Studies, No. 32 (Ann Arbor, Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan 1978)Google Scholar.

33 Cf. Ming pao, December 27, 1976, p. 1, for a complete list of the “cabinet” allegedly submitted by the Four.

34 Rasputin was of course the most notorious of imperial Russian favorites, but his peasant origins and charismatic powers made him atypical. More characteristic were Alexander Mikhailovich Bezobrazov and Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich, both of whom advised Tsar Nicholas in the Siberian exploits that were to culminate in the Russo-Japanese War. For a study of the role of the favorite in the formulation of Russian foreign policy, cf. Dittmer, Helen, “The Russian Foreign Ministry Under Nicholas II, 1894–1914,” Ph.D. diss. (Department of History, University of Chicago 1977), 211–50Google Scholar.

35 The classic pattern for such figures is to eliminate rival claimants by assassination in order to put their own children in the line of succession. References to Chiang Ch'ing as the “Empress Dowager” had already become popular in Canton at the time of Mao's death. After her fall, the analogy formed the basis for her public indictment: like Tzu Hsi, she was accused of squandering state resources for her own pleasures. Cf. David Bonavia in Far Eastern Economic Review, Vol. 94, No. 45 (November 5, 1976), 17Google Scholar.

36 Cf. Oksenberg, Michel C., “Policy Making Under Mao, 1949–1968: An Overview,” in Lindbeck, John, ed., China: Management of a Revolutionary Society (Seattle: University of Washington Press 1971), 94Google Scholar.

37 Vladimirov, Peter, The Vladimirov Diaries (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday 1975), 12Google Scholar, 83, 101, 143–44, 155–57; see also Witke, Roxane, Comrade Chiang Ch'ing (Boston: Little, Brown 1977), 224Google Scholar.

38 Cf. Hua-min, Chung and Miller, Arthur C., Madame Mao: A Profile of Chiang Ch'ing (Hong Kong: Union Research Institute 1968)Google Scholar.

39 Witke (fn. 37), 224.

40 Chiang Ch'ing, “New Arts of Socialism Occupy All Theaters,” Hung-se wen-i, May 20, 1967.

41 Wan-sui (fn. 1, 1967 and 1969), I, II, III, passim. It is, however, conceivable that she participated in private discussions, or participated anonymously in these recorded sessions: 139 of the 222 total responses to Mao (63%) in the January 1960-December 1965 period were made by “XX” [kmo-mo], a much higher proportion than between January 1966 and December 1968 (7%). During the latter period, Chiang Ch'ing made 14% of the identified Chinese responses to Mao.

42 Chiang Ch'ing, “Do New Services for the People,” Tung-fang-hung, June 3, 1967. She illustrated her conception of her gatekeeping responsibilities in the following account: “One day a comrade gave the Chairman a copy of Wu Han's Biography of Chu Yuan-chang for him to read. I said, ‘Don't, the Chairman is very tired. The author only wants a fee for the manuscript or a name for himself. Let him publish it. We'll review and criticize it after publication. I want to criticize the same author's “Hai Jui's Dismissal,” too.' “Chiang Ch'ing (fn. 40).

43 Hsin Pei-ta, May 30, 1967.

44 Chung (fn. 38).

45 By 1968, eight revolutionary yang-pan hsi (model theatrical productions) had been staged, including four Chinese operas, two ballets, the Yellow River Piano Concerto (for which Chiang Ch'ing gave special dispensation to use a Western piano), and “The Rent Collection Courtyard,” a series of sculptural tableaux done in socialist realism.

46 Chiang (fn. 40).

47 Cf. Lieberthal (fn. 13).

48 For example, Ch'en Po-ta's vigorous protest at the Party meeting in early June at which the “Eight Articles of the Central Committee” were approved (most of them designed to keep student activities under close supervision) was overruled by Liu Shao-ch'i, who chaired the meeting. And when the case of the rebel K'uai Ta-fu's resistance to the work teams was brought up in a high-level Party meeting in early July, K'ang Sheng came out in defense of K'uai; he argued that “forbidding K'uai Ta-fu to bring his complaint to the Central Committee at least is not in accord with state law and is in contravention of Party regulations,” but he was overruled. Cf. “Down with Liu Shao-ch'i—Life of Counterrevolutionary Revisionist Liu Shao-ch'i,” Red Guard pamphlet, trans, in Current Background, No. 834 (August 17, 1967), 27.

49 For example, when Kao Hsiang, who later became leader of the Canton Third Headquarters, visited Peking on June 24, 1966, he wrote a letter back to his friends in Canton saying that the chief target was the power-holders taking the capitalist road in the Party. Hong Yung Lee, “The Political Mobilization of the Red Guards and Revolutionary Rebels in the Cultural Revolution,” Ph.D. diss. (Department of Political Science, University of Chicago 1973), 110–20.

50 Mao gave authoritative sanction to this practice by making a number of public appearances at the outset of the movement, before reverting to his customary seclusion. He also initiated public criticism of the central leadership in his first big-character poster. The fact that this poster is dated August 5 suggests that he decided to take this step, the significance of which he cannot fail to have realized, after things had not gone his way during the first stage of the Eleventh Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee (August 1–12, 1966). The first of the Red Guard demonstrations, which were seen as a way of putting direct pressure on the Central Committee, occurred on August 10, while the Plenum was still sitting; Mao attended and urged those present to carry the Cultural Revolution through to the end. Peking Review, No. 33 (1967), 9; see also Maitan, Livio, Party, Army, and Masses in China (London: NLB 1976), 99–101Google Scholar.

51 Still the most articulate and systematic of these discussions is the manifesto by Sheng-wu-lien (a Hunanese rebel organization), reproduced and annotated in Mehnert, Klaus, Peking and the New Left: At Home and Abroad (Berkeley: University of California, Center for Chinese Studies 1969)Google Scholar. See also Wang, Ting, ed., Li I-che ta-tzu-pao [The Big-Character Poster of Li I-che] (Hong Kong: Ming Pao Yueh-k'an 1976)Google Scholar.

52 Cf. Burton, Barry, “The Cultural Revolution's Ultra-Left Conspiracy : The ‘May 16 Group,’” Asian Survey, xi (November 1971), 1029–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For definition of “value-added,” see Smelser, Neil, Theory of Collective Behavior (New York: Free Press 1963)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

53 Yao Wen-yüan's article, “The Working Class Must Exercise Leadership in Everything,” Red Flag, No. 2 (August 1968), heralded and legitimated the dispatch of these propaganda teams to demobilize the radical factions. When completion of the establishment of Revolutionary Committees at the provincial level was celebrated on September 7, 1968, Chiang Ch'ing spoke after Chou En-lai, noting caustically that she had been informed only at the last moment that the meeting would be held, and making a final plea for leniency to the Red Guards. No further speeches by Chiang Ch'ing have been published, though her model theatrical productions continued to receive favorable notice.

54 The “four great weapons” [ssu ta wu-ch'i] that Wang Hung-wen proposed in his report on the revision of the Party Constitution at the Tenth Congress in 1973—”big blooming and contending, big-character posters, and big debate” [ta-ming, ta-fang, ta-tzu-pao, ta pien-hua]— were also included in the Constitution of the Fourth National People's Congress in 1975. However, in the nationwide study of the NPC documents, the “four great” were ignored: People's Daily made reference to them in only one of its hundreds of articles (January 24, 1975, p. 2). In the provinces there was a general silence, except in Shanghai and the Northeast.

55 Kuang-ming jih-pao, December 14, 1976, and January 22, 1977; as cited in Hong Yung Lee, “The Politics of Cadre Rehabilitation since the Cultural Revolution” (un-pub. 1977), 41.

56 The Mass Criticism Group of Peking University and Tsinghua University, “Lin Piao and Doctrines of Confucius and Mencius,” Red Flag, No. 2 (February 1974), 8–16Google Scholar; Yao Wen-yuan, “Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the Renegade Lin Piao,” Peking Review, June 27, 1975, p. 8.

57 See, for example, Wang Hung-wen's speech to a meeting of the Party Center on January 14, 1974, at the time of the launching of the campaign to Criticize Lin Piao and Confucius. “The real problem is to be found in our own ranks, [among] cadres who, after seven or eight years, still misunderstand the Cultural Revolution,” he warned. “There are places where the Criticize Lin Piao and Confucius movement has not gotten off the ground. … It is necessary to train millions of successors of the revolution, but in the regions, particularly in the army, there is great resistance to this. I propose to seek out young men aged about 30 to become the commanders of the Great Military Regions.” Chung-kung yen-chiu, No. 96 (December 1974), 93–100.

58 Thus, although the percentage of mass representatives on the Central Committee increased from 26% at the Ninth CC to 34% at the Tenth, most of these representatives no longer appeared after August 1973, and none were able to gain positions of real influence. Part of the reason was the lack of a provincial base: none of the mass representatives at the Tenth Party Congress were First or Second Party Secretaries of the provincial Party committees, and 28 of the total of 48 did not even have positions on the Standing Committees of their provincial Party committees. Similarly, although in preparation for the Fourth NP C in 1975 the radicals managed to place no less than 90 leftists on the Presidium (whose chief function is to elect the NP C Standing Com -mittee), only 31 of these were actually elected to the Standing Committee, and only one of the 12 vice-premiers on the State Council (viz., Chang Ch'un-ch'iao) was a radical, while three others could be considered radical associates.

59 For example, the Four were not given prominent roles at either the Fourth NPC in January 1975 or at the first Tachai conference in September 1976. They evidently responded by attending (or sending their proteges to attend) meetings to which they were not invited, then seizing the floor to give speeches denouncing the capitalist-roaders in the Party.

60 See Dittmer, “The Radical Critique of Political Interest, 1965–75,” unpub. paper delivered at the Workshop on the Pursuit of Interest in the PRC (Ann Arbor, Mich.), August 1977.

61 The initial strategy had been to set up new mass associations to replace the old ones that had become bureaucratized. But the various assemblies (viz., Workers' Assemblies, Poor-and-Lower-Middle Peasants' Associations, and so forth) began to languish following the Ninth Congress, when organizational energies were shifted to the convention of various types of activists' meetings. In the absence of Party congresses and people's congresses, these mass meetings served many of the same functions.

Beginning with their recovery of influence in 1973, the civilian radicals proceeded to introduce a series of model organizations in rapid succession. Whether because they had no organizational or coercive apparatus to back up to their adjurations, or because the new organizations themselves provided inadequate intrinsic rewards to participants, none of these initiatives ever became the sort of institutionalized model for emulation that Tachai or Tach'ing had become.

62 Cf. Bradsher, Henry, “China: The Radical Offensive,” Asian Survey, xiii (November 1973), 989–1001CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also Martin, Helmut and Bartke, Wolfgang, Die Massenorganisation der Volksrepublik China, Mitteilungen des Instituts für Asienkunde, No. 62 (Hamburg: Institut für Asienkunde 1975), 145–54Google Scholar.

63 Teng Hsiao-p'ing opposed the militia from its inception in 1973, encouraging only its defense and production tasks to the exclusion of class struggle. (Cf. People's Daily, June 19, 1976; Hofei Radio, April 6 and June 19, 1976; Harbin Radio, August 25, 1976; Shanghai Radio, June 19, 1976; and Peking Radio, June 20, 1976.) Teng's fears of conflict between armed factions were borne out in Chekiang province in 1974–1975, when armed clashes occurred between militia groups in Hangchow, Wenchow, and Chinhua. The militia was officially disbanded in March 1975, but hostilities continued until July, when Teng sent in the army to disarm the militiamen. Though the militia seemed to re-establish its reputation by restoring order at the T'ienanmen riots in April 1976 (whereupon the radicals called for its use in “struggle against the bourgeoisie in the Party”), militia units were disarmed and kept under military surveillance. They apparently played no role in helping to alleviate the effects of the Tangshan earthquake in July 1976, and did not react adversely when the Four fell three months later.

64 Lieberthal (fn. 13).

65 For example, when moderate revisions of Cultural Revolution educational innovations surfaced at the Tenth Congress, the educational authorities immediately abolished the cultural college entrance test and readmitted those candidates who had been rejected after failing to pass the test.

66 There seems to have been an understanding at the center that both sides in the “debate” pursued from 1973 to 1976 should have equal access to the media. Thus, when the radical journal Study and Criticism [Hsiieh-hsi yii p'i-p'an] was first launched in Shanghai in September 1973, the cover bore Mao's inscription of the title. But on January 16, 1974, Mao's inscription was replaced by one by Chou En-lai. It seems unlikely that Mao withdrew his imprimatur at his own initiative, or that the radicals would withdraw it; there must have been strong pressure from the moderates that the Chairman's support should not obviously be given to one side.

Moreover, it seems that the most authoritative categories of communication were off limits to the radicals and could only be employed when a consensus had developed among the leadership. For instance, when the campaign to criticize Lin Piao and Confucius began in February 1974, and again when the campaign to study the theory of proletarian dictatorship was launched in February 1975, or to study Water Margin in late August 1975, they were all heralded by People's Daily editorials and Red Flag commentaries, by Party committee meetings, mass rallies, editorials, and commentaries in local newspapers and on provincial radio stations, signifying elite consensus. But during the campaign to criticize Teng Hsiao-p'ing, only one editorial or commentary on the movement appeared in People's Daily or Red Flag between January 2 and April 5, and this editorial (in People's Daily, February 24, 1976) devoted equal space to the need to criticize the capitalist-roaders and the need to promote spring planting. Many articles appeared in People's Daily, Kuang-ming jih-pao, and Red Flag, but nearly all were signed by individuals or criticism groups, and only a few by low-level official organizations and equally low-level PLA units; there were no reports of Party meetings, mass rallies, or editorial comments from the provinces.

67 Fang Yen-liang, “Going Against the Tide Is a Marxist-Leninist Principle,” Red Flag, No. 1 (December 1, 1973), 23–27.

68 Yünnan Radio, April 30, 16, and 28, 1976; Kiangsi Radio, May 3 and 5, 1976; Honan Radio, April 25, 27, and 28, 1976; Chekiang Radio, April 25, 1976; Kwangsi Radio, April 10, 1976; Hunan Radio, April 28, 1976; Hupeh Radio, April 10, 1976; Shensi Radio, April 10 and May 7, 1976; and Szechuan Radio, May 9, 1976, all reported serious incidents against local Party leaders and stressed the need to suppress counterrevolutionaries.

69 One article emphasized that the “masses” should be involved in “exposing the dark side from the lower level upwards.” Nan Yii, “The Vast Masses of the People Must Be Relied upon to Consolidate Proletarian Dictatorship,” People's Daily, March 16, 1975, p. 2. Five days later, an article emphasized that the Communist Party must lead all other organizations. Li Hsin, “The Proletarian Dictatorship Is Led by the Communist Party,” People's Daily, March 21, 1975, p. 2.

70 Cf. Survey of the People's Republic of China Magazines, No. 926 (May 23, 1977), 8–30.

71 According to my refugee informants, participants in the study groups did not even bother to conceal their apathy: “During the meeting, people would do other things—write letters, knit, chat—sometimes the chatting was louder than the person making the report, and the leader would have to ask people, ‘Don't talk so loud!' People would go to sleep. Some people didn't even bother to attend.”

72 Because of the location of the radical base at the lower echelons, some young leftists were able to achieve spectacular rises. Chang Li-kuo, a former Red Guard, became vice-chairman of the Hupei Revolutionary Committee in 1968, for example, and in 1973 became secretary of the Communist Youth League in the same province.

73 The first and most basic wage legislation had accompanied the currency reform introduced on June 16, 1956. Since that time, there have been four further adjustments of wages, in which the system of bonuses played a central and controversial role. During the economic relaxation of 1956, wages were raised by 14.5%, only to be cut back during the Great Leap Forward; in the early 1960's wages were raised again, but during the Cultural Revolution they were cut. After the fall of Lin Piao there was another period of relaxation during which bonuses and other disputed material incentives reappeared, and toward the end of February 1975 a central document inviting further concessions on wage revisions and work grades was reportedly circulated among Party and government cadres. The radicals' campaign to consolidate the dictatorship of the proletariat successfully blocked these plans. Cf. Chen, Chien-jen, Die Lohnstruktur in der Volksrepublik China (Bern 1972)Google Scholar.

74 In most places, the debate was confined to a few higher institutes of learning and to individual departments within these institutes. The major participating schools tended to be confined to Peking, Shanghai, and Liaoning provinces, and only Shanghai permitted big-character posters in the public places as well as in the schools. This reduced scale of mobilization in 1975 and 1976 contrasts starkly with the nationwide reaction to Mao's first big-character poster in August 1966.

75 In the spring of 1974, the ban on public display of posters was briefly challenged for the first time since the Cultural Revolution. The Criticize Lin Piao and Confucius Movement was intensified in February, following publication of the February 2 editorial in People's Daily, “Carry the Criticize Lin Piao and Confucius Movement Through to the End.” According to an edict sent down in February for implementation of the movement, it was not permitted to criticize leaders by name, to engage in armed struggle, to conduct illegal “link-ups” [ch'uan-lien], to take revenge, or to post big-character posters in the streets. But on May 5, Mao said: “I see nothing wrong with posting big-character posters in the streets, and if foreigners want to read them, fine; if the Chinese want to read them, even better.” Thus on May 18, the center issued its Chung-fa No. 18, permitting cadres to be criticized by name and posters to be posted in the streets. The first critical poster appeared opposite the door of the Peking Revolutionary Committee on June 13, and was followed by many others. This “blooming” lasted less than a month before it was curtailed by Chung-fa No. 21 on July 1, which for the first time acknowledged that the movement was having an adverse effect on industrial production. Wang En, “What Does the Promotion of Big-Character Posters Mean?” Chan-wang, No. 299 (July 16, 1974), 9–11; and “The Changing Political Situation of the Chinese Communists in 1974,” ibid., No. 311 (January 16, 1975), 9–11.

76 Mao made his last public appearance to the Chinese masses in May 1971, and his last appearance to Chinese leaders in August 1973; thereafter his only appearances were to foreign guests, accompanied by a few selected Chinese leaders. Consequently, audiences with subordinates not on familiar terms with him were sharply reduced. His relationship with Chiang Ch'ing reportedly cooled after 1973, but many of his other personal retainers (such as Mao Yiian-hsin) sympathized with the radicals.

77 In July 1974, at the tenth anniversary of the Peking Opera Festival, Chiang Ch'ing was hailed as an “expounder of Mao Tse-tung's Thought,” an honor previously reserved to Lin Piao and Chou En-lai alone. People's Daily, July 16, 1974.

78 Brief quotations from Mao figured in the campaign literature of the Criticize Lin Piao and Confucius Movement, the Movement to “Go against the Current,” the Movement to Consolidate the Dictatorship of the Proletariat and Criticize the Bourgeois Right, and the Movement to Criticize Water Margin.

79 Cf. Rush, Myron, How Communist States Change their Rulers (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press 1974)Google Scholar.

80 Most notably, Chiang Ch'ing's interviews with Roxane Witke, through which she apparently hoped to build an international reputation for herself similar to that created for Mao by Edgar Snow.

81 Hua's position is superficially similar to that of Hsiang Chung-fa, who served as a figurehead Party secretary from 1930 until his death a year later at the hands of the KMT. But Hua's political environment is more stable, and his more solidly based colleagues are old (at this writing, Yeh Chien-ying is 79; Li Hsien-nien, 72; Teng Hsiao-p'ing, 74) and seem to support him as one who can maintain stability and policy continuity after their deaths.