The label “history” is conventionally used with at least two distinct meanings: history-as-actuality and history-as-record. The events lying beneath the abstraction termed the social and economic history of the Roman empire constitute the former; Rostovtzeff's Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire is an example of the latter. Our concern in this paper is with “history” in still a third sense. When an individual, through either intent or accident, comes to occupy a dominant position in the history of a people, a country or an institution, his personal views on history and the historical process assume significance for the historian. The Peloponnesian War, Commentaries on the Gallic Wars, The History of the Russian Revolution, and The Second World War are important sources not only as records of past events but also because Thucydides, Julius Caesar, Trotsky and Churchill were themselves involved in the making of history. The recorded views of such event-making individuals are of intrinsic, albeit uneven, value because the men had personal knowledge of the events described—because they were, in short, actors before they were authors.

This article discusses a Chinese Communist system of organisation which provides for participation in manual labour by members of China's intellectual and leadership elite. I have argued that the system represents a Chinese utilisation of Marxism for purposes of economic development. I have sometimes referred to the practice of adapting Marxist theory to perceived requirements of modernisation as “develop-mental Marxism.”

One significant trend in the Chinese political system in recent years has been the growth of complex bureaucratic patterns of social stratification, even within the ranks of the Party cadres in Communist China. The Party has tried in many ways to resist these trends—for example, by promoting physical labour by cadres, sending personnel to work in rural areas and taking such drastic steps as abolishing ranks within the army but as the égalitarian heritage of active revolutionary struggle has tended to recede into the background, deep-rooted authoritarian and bureaucratic predispositions—especially the tendency to differentiate people on the basis of rank—have reasserted themselves. Consequently, virtually all cadres in Communist China today can be labelled and placed fairly accurately in the hierarchy of power and prestige on the basis of seniority in the Party, salary grade and job rank. Significantly, while formal salary and job ratings are very important, informal ratings based on length of service in the Party appear to be of equal importance, and in fact the former tend to be equated with the latter. The growth of these patterns of social stratification has been a major factor contributing to the steady bureaucratisation of the regime and the erosion of the élite's revolutionary character.

The loess hills of northern Shensi below the great wall, unsurpassed in their poverty and primitiveness in all China proper, are a traditional haven for rebels. Remote from major provincial power centres, this rugged terrain provides ideal sanctuary for roving armed bands. Here Li Tzu-ch'eng launched his campaign to overthrow the Ming, only to be thwarted by the Manchus after taking Peking in 1644. Much of the region was devastated by Moslem rebels in the mid-nineteenth Century, and in the chaotic final years of the Ch'ing, t'u-fei, (bandits) formed from the ranks of the military, secret societies and a population frequently on the brink of starvation, roamed unchecked. One early twentieth-century British observer described the area's reputation this way: “In the mind of the average Chinese of the Eastern provinces…north Shensi is a nest of plunderers lost in a wilderness.”

Drawing a picture of China on the basis of personal experience alone presents several problems. First, “foreign experts” generally did not have access to much more material or information than did foreign journalists; when the movement began to make itself felt in foreign language institutes, in March or April, we were told categorically that it had nothing whatever to do with foreigners. Second, our outstanding advantage as observers–contact, and on the whole good relations, with students–was in general little exploited, in the beginning because we did not appreciate the importance of what was happening, and later, for fear of provoking our employers. Third, much of the most interesting “news” came as rumour from somewhere within the large body of foreigners living in the Friendship Hostel, and these sources were inevitably imprecise in their dating.