* An earlier version of this paper was presented to the Midwest Seminar on Modern China. Research support was provided by the East Asian Institute and the Research Institute on Communist Affairs (now the Research Institute on International Change) of Columbia University, and by the Center for Asian Studies of the University of Illinois.

1. “Inequality and stratification in the People's Republic of China,” The China Quarterly (CQ), No. 64 (1975)Google Scholar;

2. A brief description is in Kuochun, Chao, Agrarian Policy of the Chinese Communist Party 1921–1959 (Bombay: Asian Publishing House, 1960), pp. 122–24Google Scholar; A more detailed account is Hinton's, WilliamFanshen (New York: Vintage Books, 1968)Google Scholar;

3. “Decisions concerning the differentiation of class status in the country-side,” in Blaustein, Albert P. (ed.), Fundamental Legal Documents of Communist China (South Hackensack, N.J.: Fred B. Rothman and Co., 1962), pp. 290–324Google Scholar;

4. These of course are the opening words of Mao's, “Analysis of the classes in Chinese society,” and the first lines in the Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1967)Google Scholar;

5. Among the exceptions were inhabitants of non-Han areas which were exempted from land reform, as well as persons in some districts where land reform was never carried out. See the “Revised later ten points of 1964,” in Baum, Richard and Teiwes, Frederick C., Ssu-Ch'ing: The Socialist Education Movement of 1962–1966 (Berkeley: University of California, Center for Chinese Studies, 1968), p. 110Google Scholar;

6. Limited, but economically significant holdings were retained for several years in private hands, especially in agriculture, where private plots were an issue throughout the next decade. Trees, tools and livestock were also often under private ownership, with consequences for rural income patterns. On this subject, see Walker, Kenneth R., Planning in Chinese Agriculture: Socialization and the Private Sector, 1956–1962 (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1965)Google Scholar; In industry, former capitalists were given shares in the newly nationalized firms, the “public-private joint enterprises.” These shares did return interest at a fixed rate and were held until 1967. See Tse-tung's, Mao comments at a meeting of business representatives in 1956, in Miscellany of Mao Tse-tung Thought, Joint Publications Research Service (hereafter JPRS 61269–1 and 61269–2, pp. 41–45Google Scholar; See also Donnethorne, Audrey, China's Economic System (New York: Praeger, 1967), pp. 145–47Google Scholar; In spite of these remnants of private ownership of the means of production, the undermining of the ch'eng-fen system was nonetheless severe. Private ownership after 1956 existed only in a markedly truncated form.

7. T'ao Chu observed in 1955 that more rural Party members had risen in economic status than had non-Party peasants, a phenomenon which further limited the Party's incentive to reclassify the populace, for such a policy would have worked to the disadvantage of the Party's own rural cadres. See Chu, T'ao, “The great development of agricultural co-operativization in the new areas and the problem of guaranteeing quality,” Hsueh-hsi (Study), No. 12 (1955), p. 8Google Scholar; Note also Mao Tse-tung's “Introductory note to how the dominant position passed from the middle peasants to the poor peasants in the Wutung agricultural producers' co-operative of Kaoshan township, Changsha county,” in which he cautions that the Party's new interest in dividing upper and lower middle peasants is an analytical procedure, which “does not mean undertaking another differentiation of classes in the rural areas,” a fact which should be publicly explained to the peasants. Selected Readings from the Works of Mao Tse-tung (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1971), p. 427Google Scholar;

8. See Min, K'ang, “Can classes naturally be transformed?” Chin-lin jih-pao (Kirin Daily) 16 11 1957Google Scholar; and Kuang-i, Li, “How to understand correctly the problem of capitalists' ‘taking off hats,’” Shih-shih shou-ts'e (Current Affairs Handbook), No. 24 (25 12 1956), pp. 17–19Google Scholar;

9. See especially Shao-ch'i's, Liu Political Report in Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, VoL I (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1956), p. 15Google Scholar; For a later acknowledgment by Mao that he had agreed with Liu in 1956, see Long Live Mao Tse-tung Thought, translated in Current Background, No. 891 (8 10 1969), p. 72Google Scholar;

10. Jen-min jih-pao, 18 September 1956.

11. See Barnett, A. Doak, Cadres, Bureaucracy, and Political Power in Communist China (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967), especially pp. 39–47 and 190–93Google Scholar; See also Vogel, Ezra F., “From revolutionary to semi-bureaucrat: the ‘regularization’ of cadres,” CQ, No. 29 (1967), pp. 36–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar;

12. Mao, , “On the correct handling of contradictions among the people,” Selected Readings, pp. 432–79Google Scholar;

13. An article in Hsrüeh-hsi magazine posed the question, “Must we still use the method of class analysis in handling contradictions among the people?” See the article by this title by Chih-ta, Wen in No. 12 (1958), p. 32Google Scholar; What is surprising is not the affirmative answer given, but the fact that such a question could even be raised. By 1962, as Mao was placing class again high on the agenda of the Party, there were open attacks on the applicability of the idea of class struggle. See Kahn, Harold and Feuerwerker, Albert, “The ideology of scholarship: China's new historiography,” in Feuerwerker, (ed.), History in Communist China (Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1968), pp. 2–3Google Scholar;

14. See Hsueh-shih, Hung, “The reactionary theory of ‘combining two into one’ as seen in Anhwei rural class struggle,” Hung-ch'i (Red Flag), Nos. 23–24 (December), in JPRS, 28359 (19 01 1965), p. 45Google Scholar; Feng-chen, Han, “How to carry out class education of young children,” Chung-kuo ch'ing-nien (Chinese Youth (1 08 1964)Google Scholar; Chen, C. S. (ed.), Rural People's Communes in Lienchiang, (Stanford: Hoover Institution Publications, 1969) No. 83, pp. 96–98Google Scholar;

15. Hsueh-shih, Huang, “The reactionary theory of ‘combining two into one’ as seen in Anhwei rural class struggle,” p. 44Google Scholar;

16. Baum, and Teiwes, , Ssu-Ch'ing, p. 110Google Scholar; I have slightly modified the translation after comparison with the Chinese text.

17. Indications of alterations of class designation are quite fragmentary, but the limited evidence suggests the possibility of unsystematic, local decisions for modification. Widescale reclassification of large numbers of people would surely better be known. Similarly, there had been no general reclassification during the 1950s, in spite of regulations which permitted them. In 1956 it was claimed that 80·5% of the landlords and rich peasants of Ch'ang-chin Special District of Shansi had changed their designations. Jen-min jih-pao (People's Daily), 26 September 1956. But I have found no other evidence of such extensive modification of class designations, although other reports from Shansi and Kwangtung suggest smaller-scale changes. See Hsin-hua pan yueh-k'an (New China Semi-monthly), No. 3 (1957), pp. 66–67Google Scholar; and Shang-yu (Upstream), Nos. 17–18 (1959), p. 48Google Scholar;

18. Many shadowy areas have now been illuminated by Baum, Richard, in Prelude to Revolution (New York: Columbia University Press, 1975)Google Scholar;

19. Mao, , Miscellany, p. 351Google Scholar;

20. On the complexity of rural income, see Whyte, , “Inequality and stratification,” and Parish, William L. Jr, “Socialism and the Chinese peasant family,” Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. XXIV, No. 3 (05 1975)Google Scholar;

21. Most recently this is being acknowledged in China's English-language publications, where class names are explained for foreign readers. For example, a note in Peking Review, Vol. 17, No. 34 (23 08 1974), p. 15Google Scholar; explains that “The term ‘poor and lower-middle peasants’ used in our articles does not imply their present economic conditions but refers to their class status during the land reform.”

22. Mao, , “Democratic centralism” (30 01 1962), in Chairman Mao's Selected Writings, transl. in JPRS, 50792 (23 06 1970), pp. 45–46Google Scholar;

23. Baum, and Teiwes, , Ssu-Ch'ing, p. 120Google Scholar;

24. Mao, , “The origins of machine guns and mortars,” (16 08 1959), in Chairman Mao's Criticism of the Antiparty Clique, p. 73Google Scholar;

25. Mao, , “The origins of machine guns and mortars,” p. 74Google Scholar;

26. Mao, , Miscellany, p. 306Google Scholar; Mao's, comment about cadre children is clarified by another passage in this same work: “The children of our cadres are a source of deep concern to us. They have no experience in life and society. Yet they put on airs and think highly of themselves. We must educate them not to rely on their parents and on martyrs, but entirely on themselves,” p. 273Google Scholar;

27. See, for instance, Mao's, comments about Marx in Miscellany, pp. 99–199Google Scholar;

28. And this is what the Soviet Party did. Note the derision of Chinese usages of class in “Open letter from the CPSU Central Committee to Party organizations and all Communists of the Soviet Union” (14 July 1963), in Griffith, William E., The Sino-Soviet Rift (Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1964), p. 310Google Scholar; This is perhaps why so much of Mao's theorizing is first presented to private forums, often never publicly published, or else transmitted to the public in somewhat diluted form.

29. This definition is Lenin's, which may be found in Cheng-yao, Kung, “Strengthening Party concept and accepting Party leadership,” Hung-ch'i, No. 1 (1 01 1970)Google Scholar; in SCMM, No. 672 (26 01 1970), p. 89Google Scholar;

30. JPRS 36453 (13 July 1966), pp. 89–93.

31. Mao Tse-tung ssu-hsiang wan suil (no place of publication: 1969), p. 602.

32. Writing Group of the Shantung Provincial Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, “Adhere to the method of class analysis, correctly understand the struggle between the two lines,” Hung-ch'i, No. 13 (4 12 1971)Google Scholar; in SCMM, No. 719 (23 12 1971), p. 18Google Scholar;

33. “In branch construction one must grasp line education,” Jen-min jih-pao, 26 February 1971.

34. See Munro, Donald, “The malleability of man in Chinese Marxism,” CQ, No. 48 (1971), pp. 609–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar;

35. Chien, Li, “Attach importance to the revolution in the superstructure,” Peking Review (24 08 1973), p. 5Google Scholar;

36. Schwartz, Benjamin I., Communism and China: Ideology in Flux (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968), p. 21CrossRefGoogle Scholar;

37. Mao, , Miscellany, p. 316Google Scholar;

38. Quoted in “Never lose direction,” Peking, Ching-kang-shan (23 01 1967)Google Scholar;

39. This innovation has been given new theoretical depth in the recent discussion of “bourgeois right.” See Wen-yuan's, Yao “On the social basis of the Lin Piao anti-Party clique,” Peking Review, Vol. 18, No. 10 (7 03 1975), pp. 5–10Google Scholar; and Chun-chiao, Chang, “On exercising all-round dictatorship over the bourgeoisie,” Peking Review, Vol. 18, No. 14 (4 04 1975), pp. 5–11Google Scholar;

40. JPRS, 36435 (13 July 1966), p. 69.

41. The words are from Fu-chih's, Hsieh denunciation of this incident, in “Summary of proceedings of 13th plenum of Peking municipal revolutionary committee” (15 May), Canton Wen-ko t'ung-hsun (Cultural Revolution Bulletin), No. 16 (07 1968)Google Scholar; in Survey of the China Mainland Press, No. 4225 (25 07 1968), pp. 12–13Google Scholar;

42. See, for instance, “The theory of family background,” by the Peking research group on family background, in Chung-hsueh wen-ko pao (Middle School Cultural Revolution News) (special edition) (02 1967)Google Scholar;

43. Mao, , Wan sui (1969), pp. 602–603Google Scholar;

44. Quoted in Chang, Parris H., “Provincial Party leaders' strategies for survival during the Cultural Revolution,” in Scalapino, Robert A. (ed.), Elites in the People's Republic of China (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1972), p. 515Google Scholar; For an account of a similar effort to protect T'an Chen-lin in February 1967, see “T'an Chen-lin stirs up the ‘February black wind’ in the agricultural departments,” Peking, Chin-chun pao (Marching Paper), 20 03 1972Google Scholar; in Survey of the China Mainland Press, Supplement, No. 178 (18 04 1967), pp. 35–36Google Scholar;

45. Chao-ch'eng, Feng, “How I learn the ‘dividing one into two’ viewpoint,” Hung-ch'i, No. 4 (31 03 1970)Google Scholar in SCMM, No. 680 (27 04 1970), p. 94Google Scholar;

46. Bell, Daniel, in Marxian Socialism in the United States (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), pp. 82–85Google Scholar; discusses an American debate on family background prior to the First World War.

47. Casella, Alexander, “The Nanniwan May 7th Cadre School,” CQ No. 53 (1973), p. 155Google Scholar;

48. For instance, “Do well the work of uniting with and educating easily educable children,” Jen-min jih-pao, 21 April 1972; Canton, Radio, BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, Pt. III (4 06 1971)Google Scholar; “The system of grades and Lin Piao's plot to restore capitalism,” Li-shih yen-chiu (Historical Studies), No. 3, (1975)Google Scholar;

49. Gerth, H. H., and Mills, C. Wright (eds.), From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (New York: Galaxy Books, 1958), p. 274Google Scholar;

50. Wakeman, Frederic Jr, History and Will: Philosophical Perspectives of Mao Tse-tung's Thought (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), p. xiGoogle Scholar;

51. Gramsci, Antonio, The Modern Prince and Other Writings (New York: International Publishers, 1957), p. 113Google Scholar;

52. In Doolin, Dennis J. (ed.), Communist China: The Politics of Student Opposition (Stanford: Hoover Institution, 1964), p. 37Google Scholar;