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Mao's Strategy for Revolutionary Change: A Case Study of the Cultural Revolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Hong Yung Lee
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Extract

This paper analyses Mao's revolutionary strategy as revealed in the Cultural Revolution. Defined as an analysis of ends and means, strategy stands between objective reality and action, linking one event to another in a chain of social causation. Since one's attitudes and ideology influence one's definition of the situation and one's selection of means and goals, these subjective elements constitute a large part of any strategy. This study of Mao's strategy therefore raises the following questions: what was Mao's role in the Cultural Revolution; what faults did he attribute to the pre-Cultural Revolution Chinese political system; what were his objectives in the Cultural Revolution; how did he actually lead themovement; and was there any discernible pattern in his leadership?

Mao's Role in the Cultural Revolution

The Cultural Revolution was certainly one of the most complex political events in the entire history of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It involved a large segmentof the general population and all ruling groups, both the government and the Party, from the Central Committee down to Party branches in the schools and factories. Moreover, a wide varietyof issues were raised, discussed and debated: broad ideological and political questions and more specific questions of economic, cultural and educational policy. To complicate matters further, the mass movement lasted more than two years, passing through a number of different stages. At each stage, new political groups emerged, leading groups changed, and tactics shifted, only to produce a new configuration in the next stage. Each stage, therefore, exhibited its ownunique features in terms of the dominant actors, issues and coalitions, and each stage forced the individual actor to reconsider his choice of tactics and coalition partners.

Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 77 , March 1979 , pp. 50 - 73
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1979

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