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The Radical Students in Kwangtung during the Cultural Revolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Extract

The Cultural Revolution was a large-scale self-examination by the Chinese of their political system, involving all the ruling groups as well as the whole population. Not only specific policy issues but also social. economic and political institutions and their value premises were subjected to this examination. Hoping to reverse the trend towards social restratification based on Party bureaucratism, Mao sought to build a mass consensus on the future direction of the revolution. However, in the process of “freely mobilizing the masses,” some social groups found that their interests called for a radical restructuring of the Chinese political system, while those of others lay in the status quo. As the Cultural Revolution (CR) unfolded, the masses and the elite further divided among themselves over the various issues: elite groupings took conservative or radical positions, and formed coalitions with corresponding sections of the masses. Consequently, the division between the radicals and the conservatives cut through both the elite and the masses and set in motion forces that gave the Cultural Revolution its distinctive character.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1975

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References

* I am deeply indebted to Professor Tang Tsou for his generous intellectual guidance and for his valuable suggestions, both specific and theoretical. I am also grateful to the Center for Chinese Studies of the University of California, Berkeley, for its financial support and to Mr John Service for his criticisms and suggestions.

1. Most of the literature on the CR deals mainly with the conflict among the elite. For example, see Hsiao, Gene T., “The background and development of ‘The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution,’Asian Survey, VII, No. 6 (06 1967), pp. 389404CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bridgham, Philip, “Mao's Cultural Revolution in 1967: the struggle to seize power,” The China Quarterly (CQ), No. 34 (1968), pp. 637CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Rice, Edward, Mao's Way (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972).Google Scholar

2. For instance, see Tsou, Tang's three articles, “Revolution, reintegration and crisis in Communist China,” in Ping-ti, Ho and Tsou, Tang (eds.), China in Crisis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), pp. 277347Google Scholar; “Western concepts and China's historical experience,” World Politics, XXII, No. 4 (07 1969), pp. 655–91Google Scholar; and “The Cultural Revolution and the Chinese political system,” CQ, No. 38 (1969), pp. 6391.Google Scholar

3. The motto of the conservative organization was: “Were the T'i tsung and Hung tsung present, the monsters and freaks would cease to think of reversing the world.” Jen-wu yü ssu-hsiang (Peoples and Ideas), 15 10 1968, pp. 3032.Google Scholar

4. Two of the three high-ranking cadres criticized by the conservatives were Li Erh-chung, a member of the standing committee of the South-Central Bureau, and Po Hui-chi, a secretary of the Canton Municipal Party Committee. Both men appeared to be intellectuals rather than Party bureaucrats: Li was the director of the South-Central Branch of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Ho worked as a director of the Department of Higher Education in 1958 and was identified as a deputy director of the Propaganda Department of the South-Central Bureau.

5. Chung-ta chan-pao (Combat News of Chungshan University), 11 01 1968.Google Scholar

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7. Kwangchow hung wei ping (Kwangtung Red Guards), No. 2 (28 08 1968).Google Scholar

8. This discussion of class is indebted to Tang Tsou for his emphasis on “differential distribution of power” as the central issue in the CR. See Tsou, Tang, “The Cultural Revolution and the Chinese political system.”Google Scholar

9. For instance, Dahrendorf defines Marx's notion of class purely in economic terms. See Dahrendorf, Ralf, Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1959).Google Scholar

10. For this interpretation of class, see Ollman, Bertell, “Marx's use of ‘class,’American Journal of Sociology, 03 1968, pp. 573–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar According to Ollman, the central determinant of class is not necessarily economic position, but any kind of relative inequality if it is serious enough to create a permanent social cleavage in a given society.

11. Donald Munro deals with the problem of class consciousness and class origin from the perspective of the malleability of man. See Munro, Donald, “The malleability of man in Chinese Marxism,” CQ, No. 48 (1971), pp. 609–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12. Schwartz, Benjamin, “A personal view of some thought of Mao Tse-tung,” in Johnson, Chalmers (ed.), Ideology and Politics in Contemporary China (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1973), pp. 352–77Google Scholar Also, for a similar interpretation, see Wakeman, Frederic, History and Will, Philosophical Perspectives of Mao Tse-tung's Thought (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1973)Google Scholar and Starr, John, “Conceptual foundations of Mao Tse-tung's theory of continuous revolution,” Asian Survey, XI, No. 6 (06 1971), pp. 610–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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15. Mao revealed his worry about the widening gap between the elite and the masses in his interview with Malraux: “The truth is that if the contradictions due to victory are less painful than the old ones, luckily they are almost as deep. Humanity left to its own devices does not necessarily re-establish capitalism, but it does re-establish inequality. The forces tending toward the creation of new classes are powerful. Khrushchev seemed to think that a revolution is done when a communist party seized power – as if it were merely a question of national liberation.” See Malraux, André, Anti Memoir (New York: Rinehart and Winston, 1968), pp. 6970.Google Scholar For Mao's five requirements, see China News Analysis, 16 10 1964, p. 3.Google Scholar

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19. Chung-hsueh wen-ko pao (Middle School Cultural Revolution News), No. 6 (1 04 1967).Google Scholar Donald Munro suggests that Liu strictly adhered to class origin in his “Later revised Ten Articles” of Ssu-ch'ing, whereas Ch'en Po-ta and Kuan Feng, members of the CRSO, emphasized the malleability of man through education even before the CR. See Munro, , “The malleability of man.”Google Scholar

20. One may argue that the Party had lost much of its direct control over the CR by August (at least after the llth Plenum) of 1966. But in my opinion, the Party still exercised its influence over the CR through the students which it had mobilized.

21. Hsin kang-yuan (Steel Institute News), 3 06 1967.Google Scholar

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23. Instead of questioning the accountability of the Party for the criticized educational system, the students demanded that the Party's authority in deciding who would be admitted into the schools be further strengthened. For instance, they said: “If [the Party] certainly wants to admit some students to the college, then [we] ask the Party itself to select [the students] directly from the high-school graduates. Everything of us belongs to the Party and people, and we will do whatever the Party instructs us to do without any discussion.” Kuang-ming jih-pao (Kuang-ming Daily), 18 06 1966.Google Scholar For the students' criticism of the existing educational system, see also News from Chinese Regional Radio Stations, No. 162 (23 06 1966), pp. 1415.Google Scholar

24. If this interpretation of the nature of the educational reforms is correct, then it is obvious that the students from bourgeois families were not in a position to participate in the movement. Though we do not have first-hand data on the radicals' response to the issue, the response of the Cultural Revolution Small Group may well represent their view too. “Concerning the question of educational reform, the center is in the act of drawing up a scheme and for the time-being, the schools, instead of considering the question of educational reform, must seize power and dig out revisionism.” See “The wrong must be redressed,” SCMP (Supplement) (S), No. 161 (17 07 1967), pp. 312.Google Scholar

25. Obviously, to limit the targets as narrowly as possible was in the interests of the Party organization which was always one step behind the Maoists in terms of targets: i.e. the Party organization moved to attack Wu Han's academic position only when the Maoists began to attack his political errors and it attacked bourgeois authorities only when the Maoists began to attack “black gangs”; similarly, it moved to attack the “black gangs” only when the Maoists began to talk about the “power holders.” In the recent cultural campaigns the Peking regime has made two points clear: that the intellectuals per se are not the major targets and that the children of the high-ranking cadres are not going to be exempt from attack though they may not constitute the most important targets. See New York Times, 16 02 1974Google Scholar, and Jen-min, 29 01 1974.Google Scholar

26. Chieh-fang pao (Liberation News), 03 1968.Google Scholar

27. Liu Shao-ch'i is reported to have said that “the primary task in promoting cultural revolution in middle schools is to examine the teachers and school staff members.” See “The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution: a record of major events,” TCC, No. 420, p. 21.Google Scholar Also for this point, see Chieh-fang pao, 03 1968Google Scholar, Pa-i feng pao (August 1 Hurricane), 03 1968Google Scholar, Chung-ta hung-ch'i (Red Flag of Chungshan University), 30 04 1967.Google Scholar For the official view, see Kuang-ming jih-pao, 7 04 1967.Google Scholar

28. “The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution,” pp. 21 and 24.Google Scholar The five red categories refer to workers, middle peasants, cadres, armymen and martyrs.

29. Hung-chün chan-pao (Red Army Combat News), 8 03 1968.Google Scholar

30. “The wrong must be redressed,” pp. 312.Google Scholar When the conservative students from the five red categories argued that the revolt of the students with a bad family background, who were not very enthusiastic about the organized Party movement, but were enthusiastic about the CR, was “class revenge,” the Maoists replied: “Whatever their aim and origin, bold exposure of problems means response to the call for the Party and Chairman Mao. If the questionable person rises up and devotes himself to revolution, those whose origin is not good should be more than welcome to express problems and devote themselves to the revolution.”

31. The “anti-interference campaign,” precipitated by the now famous “18 June incident” of Peking University, represented the Party organization's attempt to maintain its control over the rising student movement by turning the whole CR on any students who criticized the way in which the work teams operated. For more detailed discussion, see Lee, Hong Yung, “The Political Mobilization of the Red Guards and Revolutionary Rebels in the Cultural Revolution” (Chicago: University of Chicago Ph.D. Dissertation, 1973), pp. 8389.Google Scholar

32. Li Hsueh-feng, the first secretary of the New Peking Party Committee reportedly said: “The backgrounds of anti-work teams are complicated: counterrevolutionaries, black gangs, conservative bourgeois authorities, their defenders and rightist students came out to seize the leadership power of the work teams, taking advantage of chaos.” See “The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution,” p. 19.Google Scholar The campaign appeared to be a widespread official policy at that time. See Peking Geology Institute, Tung-fang hung pao (East is Red News), 14 10 1967Google Scholar; and Tsinghua University, Ching-kang-shan (Chingkang Mountain), 1 01 1967.Google Scholar

33. “The wrong must be redressed,” pp. 312.Google Scholar

34. This point was admitted by the conservative as well as the radical Red Guards. The radicals denounced the initial groups of Red Guards as conservatives: “Generally speaking, the Red Guard organizations established earlier in the various schools followed the pattern of the old work teams and old Revolutionary Committees. Among them there are a handful of responsible persons who were deeply saturated with Tan's characteristics and who implemented the bourgeois reactionary line.” See Shou-tu hung-wei-ping chan-pao (Capital Red Guard Combat News), 10 02 1967.Google Scholar The Red Guards themselves admitted this point. “Why? Why are we, the children of revolutionary cadres, revolutionary martyrs, those small generals who shook August, left behind by the Great January Revolution?” Hsiang-chiang p'ing-lun (Hsiang-chiang Review), 02 1967.Google Scholar Besides these statements from the Red Guards there is ample evidence that the students who were mobilized by the work teams constituted the initial groups of Red Guards. For detailed discussion, see Lee, , “The Political Mobilization of the Red Guards,” pp. 214–36.Google Scholar

35. Ko, Ch'u, Luan-shih hsün-yü (Travelling the Troubled World) (Hong Kong: Tzu-kuo chou-kan, 1969), p. 5.Google Scholar

36. “Liu Shao-ch'i's daughter writes to expose her father,” CB, No. 821 (16 03 1967), p. 25.Google Scholar

37. Ping-tuan chan-pao (Combat News of Fighting Corps), 27 04 1967Google Scholar; Pei-ching p'ing-lun (Peking Review), 04 1967.Google Scholar

38. Kuang-ming jih-pao, 7 04 1967.Google Scholar

39. The five black categories refer to landlords, rightists, rich peasants, reactionaries and bad elements.

40. “Chin-chi hu-yueh” (“Urgent notice”) (handbill), 26 08 1966Google Scholar; “Tsui-hou t'ung tieh” (“Last notice”) (handbill), 23 08 1966.Google Scholar

41. “Order” in “Red Guard Handbills,” SCMP(S), No. 157 (2 11 1966), pp. 2831.Google Scholar Karnow reported that “seven kinds of blacks” were banned from riding buses, entering restaurants, attending the cinema, even strolling through the parks. Karnow, Stanley, Mao and China: From Revolution to Revolution (New York: Viking Press, 1973), p. 214.Google Scholar Also, an ex-Red Guard reported that the Peking railway station was crowded with people from the five black categories waiting for trains to the rural areas under the super vision of the Red Guards. Se Ko, Ch'u, Luan-shih hsün-yü, pp. 89.Google Scholar

42. Ch'un lai (Spring Coming), 6 05 1967.Google Scholar

43. For the United Action Committee, see “What the commotion of the United Action Committee has explained,” SCMP(S), No. 183 (16 05 1967), pp. 1424Google Scholar; Chiao-kung chan-pao (Combat News of Educational Workers), 11 02 1967Google Scholar; and Peking Geology Institute, Tung-fang hung pao, 3 03 1967.Google Scholar

44. There is ample evidence that the initial Red Guards continued to attack the bourgeois class defined economically. For instance, in the Kwangtung Pearl River Film Studio the conservatives struggled 21 persons, only one of whom was a Party member and all of whom could be considered to be intellectuals, whereas the radicals concentrated their attack on 14 persons, 13 of whom were Party secretaries or standing committee members. See Chao, Wang, Kwangchow t'ien-ying-chieh te tsao-fan-che (The Rebels of the Kwangtung Pearl River Film Studio) (Hong Kong: Chung-pao chou-kan, 1969), pp. 3334 and 4144.Google Scholar Also see Hung-chiin pao (Red Army News), 8 03 1968.Google Scholar Some members of the initial Red Guards cut the hair of teachers with bad class backgrounds so that they could be easily distinguished from the others. In another case the initial Red Guards stipulated that students with good family backgrounds should enter the class room through the front door, while students with bad family backgrounds should enter through the back door. See Chung-hsueh wen-ko pao, 2 02 1967.Google Scholar At one point an urgent notice was posted by Bethune Blood Donation Station declaring that the “seven bad elements” would not be allowed to donate blood, because their blood had lost revolutionary character. See Current Scene, Vol. V, No. 9 (31 05 1967), p. 2.Google Scholar

45. Peking Aviation Institute, Hung-ch'i (Red Flag), 7 01 1967Google Scholar; Peking Geology Institute, Tung-fang hung pao, 24 10 1967.Google Scholar

46. Tung-fang hung pao, 24 10 1967.Google Scholar

47. Chih pa ch'un lai pao (Only Report the [Coming] Spring), 22 03 1967.Google Scholar

48. “A talk by Comrade Chiang Ch'ing to the Red Guard fighters on August 6, 1966,” CB, No. 830 (26 06 1967), pp. 2426.Google Scholar

49. Chih pa ch'un lai pao, 22 03 1967.Google Scholar

50. For the conservatives' view, see Tung-feng pao (East Wind News), 26 12 1967Google Scholar, and for the radicals' view, see Chih pa ch'un lai pao, 22 03 1967.Google Scholar

51. Tung-feng pao, 26 12 1967.Google Scholar

52. In one extreme case, the radicals attempted to distinguish ch'eng-fen from chih-wu (job description) in order to protect those who had served the KMT in the past but joined the radicals during the CR.

53. “Ch'en Po-ta's speech at political consultative auditorium,” TCC, No. 394 (10 05 1967), pp. 913.Google Scholar

54. Peking Review, No. 41 (7 10 1966), pp. 1518.Google Scholar

55. CCP Documents of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, 1966–1967 (Hong Kong: Union Research Institute, 1968), p. 89.Google Scholar

56. It was the first rally organized by the radical minority of students struggled by the Party Committee. See “Chiang Ch'un-chiao's speech to the revolutionary students from Fukien,” TCC, No. 394 (10 05 1967), p. 26.Google Scholar

57. For the revolt in the First Headquarters, see Hung-wei-ping, 26 10 and 8 11 1966.Google Scholar For the revolt in the Second Headquarters, see Tung-fang hung (East is Red), 6 12 and 9 12 1966.Google Scholar

58. The description of the radicals' behaviour hereafter is mostly based on data from Kwangtung. The reason for this is that, because of the disintegration of the initial conservative Red Guards in Peking in December 1966, we do not have much data on the conflict there between the radicals and conservatives in 1967, whereas in Kwangtung the initial conservative Red Guards survived and challenged the radicals in 1967. Moreover, in Kwangtung the cleavage between the radicals and the conservatives was clear-cut. In my opinion the Kwangtung CR was typical of the nature of the movement in the regions.

59. Kuang-chou hung-wei-ping (Kwangtung Red Guards), 28 08 1968.Google Scholar

60. Kuang-tung chan-pao (Kwangtung Combat News), 22 04 1967.Google Scholar

61. “Comment on ‘January 22 Power Seizure Struggle,’” SCMP, No. 3921 (18 04 1967), pp. 917.Google Scholar

62. Hung-se pao tung (Red Riot), 27 02 1967.Google Scholar

63. Chao Tzu-yang was suspended from the post in March 1967. See “Important activities of political pick pocket Chang Ken-sheng,” SCMP, No. 4126 (27 02 1968), pp. 113.Google Scholar

64. Kuang-chou hung-wei-ping, 10 02 1967.Google Scholar

65. For the Military Affairs Commission's order banning the exchange of experiences between the PLA units and civilian radicals, see “Notification by the Military Commission of the Central Committee,” Selections from Chinese Mainland Magazines (SCMM) Supplement (S), No. 17 (15 01 1968), p. 42.Google Scholar Under this order, the Kwangtung PLA disbanded the chien chün feng, the radical organization of the PLA.

66. A Red Guard newspaper revealed that when the Kwangtung radicals asked Ch'en Po-ta: “We want to seize military power. Is it possible?” Ch'en said: “Welcome.” T'i-yü chan-pao (Physical Science Combat News), 18 03 1968.Google Scholar

67. Tung-fang hung, 11 02 1967.Google Scholar The Military Affairs Commission (MAC) endorsed the suppression of the radicals by the Fukien PLA. See The Collection of Important Documents of the Chinese Communist Cultural Revolution (Taipei: Studies on Chinese Communism, 1973), p. 67.Google Scholar The Centre (Chung-kung chung-yang) criticized the Fukien PLA (ibid. p. 156) and finally the Fukien PLA underwent a self-criticism, admitting that it was wrong to disband the radical organization in April 1968 (ibid. p. 159).

68. For the list of children of PLA leaders active in the Ism Red Guards, see Hsin nan-fang (New South), 28 07 1967Google Scholar, and “Who led the Ism Guards astray?” Union Research Service (URS), Vol. 48, No. 24 (23 09 1967), pp. 337–50.Google Scholar In addition to these facts, there are various indications that the children of cadres were active in conservative organizations. For instance, the MAC warned the PLA leaders to supervise their children properly. “Order of the Military Affairs Commission of the Central Committee,” SCMM(S), No. 17 (15 01 1968), pp. 3435.Google Scholar Chiang Ch'ing was compelled to explain the CRSG's view on class backgrounds to the PLA leaders. See “To make a new contribution for the people,” Issues and Studies, Vol. VI, No. 10 (07 1970), pp. 8291.Google Scholar Also, after the Wuhan incident, Lin Piao specifically warned the PLA leaders not to take class background as a criterion for judging the revolutionary and conservative. Lin Piao chuan-chih (Special Collection on Lin Piao) (Hong Kong: Tzu Lien, 1970), pp. 106107.Google Scholar

69. News Items from Chinese Provincial Radio Stations, No. 197 (9 03 1967), pp. M1–M22.Google Scholar

70. Ibid.

71. “The counterrevolutionary crimes of the ‘August 1 Fighting Corps,’” SCMP, No. 3905 (23 03 1967).Google Scholar The MAC order reads: “They openly agitated all those who have been criticized to rise together to seize power and reverse the verdict.” “They also enlisted into their organization the landlord, rich peasant, counterrevolutionary, bad element and rightist … with vain attempt at counterrevolutionary restoration. …” “… in places where they had power, they spread the words that they would strike down all Party members, CYL members and activists in studying Chairman Mao's work and openly changed the verdict on the puppet army officers and five categories elements.”

72. Bennett, Gordon A. and Montaperto, Ronald M., Red Guard: The Political Biography of Dai Hsiao-ai (New York: Doubleday, 1971), pp. 166–80Google Scholar; “Who led the Ism Guards astray?”

73. China News Summary, 16 03 1967.Google Scholar

74. “Ten major differences,” URS, Vol. 50, Nos. 11 and 12 (2 02 1968), pp. 166–80.Google Scholar

75. The leaders of the Red Garrison Command reportedly said: “At present, the Red Garrison Command will replace the Bureau of Public Security and in future will replace the Military Control Commission.” San-chün lien-wei chan-pao (Combat News of Army Three Branches Joint Committee), 13 09 1968.Google Scholar For the radicals' response to the slogan, see also Chung-ta hung-ch'i, 7 08 1967.Google Scholar

76. For the official order for educational reform and the “reopening of class,” see The Collection of Important Documents of the Chinese Communist Cultural Revolution, p. 125.Google Scholar

77. Chiao-yü hao chiao (Educational Bugle), 12 1967.Google Scholar For the conservatives' response to the educational reform, see Hsiao ping (Small Soldier), 9 11 and 24 December 1967.Google Scholar

78. Hung-ch'i p'ing-lun (Red Flag Review) and Kang pa-i chan-pao (Steel August 1 Combat News) (combined issue), 02 1968.Google Scholar

79. Hsiao ping, 9 and 24 12 1967.Google Scholar

80. Kang pa-i chan-pao, 01 1968.Google Scholar

81. Pa-i feng pao, 01 and March 1968Google Scholar, Kuang-ya 8. 31, 03 1968Google Scholar, T'iao chan (Challenge), 03 1968.Google Scholar

82. Hung-ch'i p'ing-lun and Kang pa-i chan-pao (combined issue), 02 1968.Google Scholar

83. Ibid.

84. Hung-ch'i p'ing-lun, 1 01 1968.Google Scholar

85. Hung-se tsao-fan-che (Red Rebel), 06 1968.Google Scholar

86. “Another batch of high-ranking black advisors including Wu Ch'uan-ping and Ch'en Chia-pao is thoroughly finished,” SCMP. No. 4340 (17 01 1969), pp. 1316.Google Scholar

87. For the radicals' view on this issue, see Kang pa-i chan-pao, 02 1968Google Scholar; Ko-ming wen-i chan-pao (Combat News of Revolutionary Literature), 15 05 1967Google Scholar; and for the conservatives' view, Wen-i hung-ch'i (Red Flag of Literature), 15 04 1967.Google Scholar

88. For instance, the radicals wanted to rehabilitate those who were disciplined in the “anti-rightist campaign” of 1957 and in Ssu-ch'ing, those who were disciplined by the Party organization for various reasons such as for being “provincialists,” and those who were correctly branded as “monsters and freaks” by the Party Committees at the first stage of the CR.

89. Among the 47 newspapers selected as samples from each faction (“East Wind” and “Red Flag”) I found 17 articles dealing with rehabilitation in the newspapers published by the Red Flag, but none in the newspapers published by the East Wind.

90. Chieh-fang pao, 03 1968.Google Scholar

91. For the order for the rehabilitation by the Kwangtung Military Control Commission, see SCMP, No. 4151 (2 08 1968), p. 6Google Scholar and for the complaints of the radicals, see SCMP, No. 4119 (5 02 1968), pp. 15.Google Scholar

92. Though Chou En-lai imposed the official policy which favoured the conservatives, his personal sympathy seemed to lie with the radicals rather than with the conservatives who had less direct contact with the central leaders. He arranged the ratio of representatives of the factions in favour of the Red Flag, which he allowed to sign its name before the East Wind in the negotiated agreement, and sent his personal investigation teams to observe the implementation of the negotiated terms. Later it was the East Wind that attacked these investigation teams and Chou En-lai himself.

93. For the self-criticism of the Kwangtung PLA, see Feng, Hai, A Brief Account of the Cultural Revolution of Kwangtung (Hong Kong: Yu Lien Yen Chiu, 1971), pp. 241–44.Google Scholar

94. Bennett, and Montaperto, , Red Guard, pp. 167–80.Google Scholar

95. Feng, Hai, A Brief Account of the Cultural Revolution of Kwangtung, p. 350.Google Scholar

96. Ibid. pp. 296–97.

97. Bennett, and Montaperto, , Red Guard, p. 208.Google Scholar

98. This figure is drawn from the various Red Guard newspapers.

99. This figure is based on the list of standing committee members given in Feng, Hai, A Brief Account of the Cultural Revolution of Kwangtung, p. 350.Google Scholar

100. Hung-se tsao-fan-che, 01 1968Google Scholar; Kuang-chou kung-jen (Kwangtung Workers), No. 34, in SCMP, No. 4208 (28 06 1968), p. 13.Google Scholar

101. Ibid.

102. The radicals' attack on the conservative forces was implicit. For example, they argued that “most dangerous enemies at present are not those dogs in the water but those dogs who have not fallen into the water and who are still holding power and biting people …” and that “the old order and the old system which were smashed in the movement have been revived.” SCMM, No. 626 (9 09 1968), pp. 1323.Google Scholar

103. Hsiao-ping, 9 12 1967.Google Scholar

104. “Whither, the general faction?” TCC, No. 430 (16 11 1967), pp. 16.Google Scholar

105. “Central leaders on opposition to rightist deviation,” SCMP, No. 4187 (28 05 1968), pp. 14.Google Scholar

106. China News Summary, No. 215 (11 04 1968), pp. 47.Google Scholar Chang Ch'un-ch'iao also said: “It is a mistake to discuss only alliance and not the question of right and wrong. A mistake is a mistake, and a conservative organization is a conservative organization.” SCMP, No. 4220 (18 07 1968), p. 4.Google Scholar

107. China News Summary, No. 219 (9 05 1968), pp. 18Google Scholar; No. 220 (16 May 1968), pp. 1–5.

108. In order to compare the response of each faction to the radical call of the CRSG, I have examined 21 Red Guard newspapers from the East Wind and 18 newspapers from the Red Flag published after April 1968. The Red Flag carried 12 articles, whereas the East Wind did not carry even one article in response to the campaign against the “four rightist trends.”

109. The Collection of Important Documents of the Chinese Communist Cultural Revolution, pp. 7782.Google Scholar

110. For Wu, , see Chung-ta chan-pao, 4 08 1968.Google Scholar For Mou, , see Kuang-chou hung-tai-hui (Kwangtung Red Guard Congress), 11 08 1968Google Scholar, and Chan chung-nan (Combat South), No. 23 (08 1968).Google Scholar

111. Hung-se tsao-fan pao, 9 02 1967.Google Scholar

112. “Gist of forum Comrade Ch'en Po-ta had with the revolutionary faculties and students of middle school,” TCC, No. 401 (19 06 1967), pp. 3851.Google Scholar

113. Chung-hsueh wen-ko pao, 21 02 1967.Google Scholar

114. Far Eastern Economic Review, 29 04 1972, p. 29.Google Scholar

115. By elite school I refer here to three different types of school. One type is the boarding schools for the children of cadres, of which there were around 30 in Peking at the time of the CR. This kind of school was initiated before 1949 to take care of the education of the cadres' children at the time when the Party cadres were not paid salaries. However, such schools expanded in spite of the government instruction of 1959 to abolish them. One Red Guard newspaper claimed that two thirds of the 30 boarding schools were established after 1955, the year when a salary system was established for the cadres (Ch'un lai, 13 04 1967).Google Scholar The second type of the elite school consisted of middle schools attached to various universities. The third type of elite school was made up of the schools selected as models for the special educational experiments. The Party concentrated its financial and manpower support on these experimental schools which started in 1961.

116. Chih pa ch'un lai pao, 26 02 1967.Google Scholar

117. Jen-min, 12 12 1965.Google Scholar See also White, Lynn T., “Shanghai polity in the Cultural Revolution,” in Lewis, John W. (ed.), The City in Communist China (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press), pp. 325–70.Google Scholar

118. Gardner, John, “Educated youth and urban-rural inequalities, 1958–66,”Google Scholar in Lewis, , The City in Communist China, pp. 235–86.Google Scholar

119. Emerson, John Philip, “Manpower training and use of cadres,”Google Scholar in Lewis, , The City in Communist China, pp. 183214.Google Scholar

120. Ibid.

121. Though we do not have definitive evidence, it is highly likely that bourgeois students were more probably being sent to the rural areas. Gardner seems to imply this point too (in “Educated youth and urban-rural inequalities”).

122. Ch'un lai, 16 May 1967. It is interesting to note that even after the CR the cadres could still use their position to give their children preferential treatment in this matter. See Jen-min, 29 01 1974.Google Scholar

123. “Chin-chi t'ung-chih” (“Urgent notice”) of the Peking Second Middle School, 26 August 1966.

124. For the activities of this group in the CR, see Chih-nung hung-ch'i (Red Flag Supporting Agriculture), 7 10 1967 and 6 January 1968Google Scholar; Ko-ming ch'ing-nien, 10 10 1967Google Scholar; 32111 Chan pao (32111 Combat News), 31 10 1967.Google Scholar

125. For detailed discussion on the widening gap between official ideology and the actual operation of the Party organization, see Lee, , “The Political Mobilization of the Red Guards,” pp. 97118.Google Scholar

126. For instance, see Jen-min, 19 06 and 1 July 1966Google Scholar; Peking Review, No. 28 (8 07 1966), pp. 2830.Google Scholar

127. Jen-min, 5 and 15 06 and 1 July 1966Google Scholar; Peking Review, No. 28 (8 07 1966).Google Scholar Also see SCMM(S), No. 20 (18 03 1968)Google Scholar, for the radicals' challenge to the work teams on the basis of official ideology.

128. Hung-wei-ping (Peking: Foreign Languages Institute), 24 10 1966.Google Scholar

129. Studies on Chinese Communism, Vol. II, No. 5 (05 1968), pp. 7893Google Scholar; Hung-wei-ping, 25 11 1966.Google Scholar

130. Chieh-fang pao, 03 1968.Google Scholar

131. The clearest example of the two mediums of communication and the radicals' reliance on direct contact with the Centre as well as their own judgement was the incident of the “Letter from Peking.” Kao Hsiang, who became the leader of Canton Third Headquarters, wrote a letter to his friends in Canton in June 1966. In this letter, he specified the Party Committees as the main targets of the CR. Not surprisingly, the Party organization suppressed the letter, denouncing those students involved as “political ambitionists” who wanted to seize political power from the Party. Hung-ch'i pao (Red Flag News), 24 06 1967.Google Scholar

132. The characteristics of the radical workers were similar to those of the radical students, with the probable exception that the grievances of the workers were more concerned with economics and more easily recognizable than those of the students. Generally speaking, contract workers, temporary workers, unskilled workers, labourers, apprentice workers, workers (or students) in the half-study half-work programmes, and workers in small factories such as those for handicrafts constituted the backbone of the worker radicals.

133. For the ideology of the “ultra-leftists,” see China News Summary, No. 189 (28 09 1967), pp. 15.Google Scholar

134. Bittner, Egon, “Radicalism and the organization of radical movement,” American Sociological Review, Vol. 28, No. 6 (12 1963)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and “Radicals,” International Social Science EncyclopediaGoogle Scholar; Lipset, Seymour M., Political Man: The Social Basis of Politics (New York: Doubleday, 1963).Google Scholar

135. “Whither, the general faction?” TCC, No. 430, pp. 16.Google Scholar

136. Bittner, , “Radicalism”Google Scholar and Lipset, , Political Man, pp. 92 and 101.Google Scholar