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China in Mid-1966: “Cultural Revolution” or Struggle for Power?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Ellis Joffe
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Extract

No observer of the Chinese political scene will argue with a frontpage headline in the New York Times of June 26, 1966, which said that a “titanic struggle” was taking place in China. This struggle has thrown China into turmoil and has already claimed the political careers of at least one senior Politburo member, two top Party propaganda officials (one of them an alternate member of the Politburo) as well as numerous Party and non-Party functionaries—and the full extent of the purge has yet to come to light. The Chinese themselves, with characteristic restraint, have proclaimed that “this great cultural revolution has no parallel in scale, in sweep, in strength or in momentum.” Whatever the final outcome of this “revolution,” it can be safely said that the Chinese political landscape will be considerably altered after it has run its unpredictable course.

Type
Recent Developments: The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 27 , September 1966 , pp. 123 - 131
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1966

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References

1 “Raise High the Great Red Banner of Mao Tse-tung's Thought and Carry the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution Through to the End,” Chieh-fang Chün Pao (Liberation Army Daily), June 6, 1966; in Peking Review, No. 29 (07 15, 1966)Google Scholar. For a very good survey and analysis of the campaign, on which I have drawn, see. Gittings, John, “The Chinese Puzzle; Cultural Revolution and the Dismissal of P'eng Chen,” The World Today, 07 1966, pp. 275–284Google Scholar. Most of the key articles relating to the final and most important stage of the campaign have been reproduced in Peking Review, Nos. 18–29. For a chronological survey prepared by the New China News Agency see Peking Review, No. 25 (06 17, 1966), pp. 15–18Google Scholar.

2 “Raise High,” p. 18.

3 Ibid. p. 17.

4 Ibid.

5 “Thoroughly Criticize and Repudiate the Revisionist Line of Some of the Principal Leading Members of the Former Peking Municipal Party Committee,” Hung Ch'l (Red Flag) editorial, No. 9, 1966Google Scholar; in Peking Review, No. 28 (07 8, 1966), pp. 30–32Google Scholar.

6 Ibid. p. 32.

7 Ibid. p. 30.

8 It is noteworthy that the army paper itself has underlined this fact. See “Raise High,” p. 18.

9 “Thoroughly Criticize,” p. 30.

10 In surveying the campaign, the Liberation Army Daily of June 6 listed a number of publications that took part in the campaign but ignored the role played by the People's Daily until June 1. See “Raise High,” p. 18.

11 “Turn Our Army Into a Great School in Mao Tse-tung's Thought,” liberation Army Daily editorial, August 1, 1966; NCNA-English, Peking, 08 1, 1966Google Scholar.

12 See Lin Pao's Letter of March 11, 1966, to departments in industry and communications. The letter was printed in People's Daily and all Peking papers on June 19. Peking Review, No. 26 (06 24, 1966)Google Scholar.