1 Kung-chuan, Hsiao, Rural China: Imperial Control in the Nineteenth Century (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1960), p. 5.Google Scholar

2 Ibid. p. 412.

3 The effects of such social attitudes on political communication have been discussed in more detail in my article, “Communication Patterns and the Chinese Revolution,” The China Quarterly, No. 32 (October–December 1967), pp. 88–110.Google Scholar

4 The relationship between Chinese attitudes towards authority and social integration is explored in detail in my study, “Mao's Effort to Reintegrate the Chinese Polity: Problems of Conflict and Authority in Chinese Social Processes,” in Barnett, A. Doak (ed.), Chinese Communist Politics in Action (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1969), pp. 271–361.Google Scholar

5 These attitudes towards social conflict are discussed further in ibid., esp. pp. 286–293, 302–309.

6 This pattern of social conflict is discussed in ibid. Part I.

7 “1916,” in Hsin ch'ing-nien (New Youth), Vol. I, No. 5 (January 1916), p. 3.Google Scholar

8 Cited in Maurice Meisner, Li Ta-chao and the Origins of Chinese Marxism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967), p. 98.Google Scholar

9 Snow, Edgar, Red Star Over China (New York: Grove Press Black Cat Editions, 1961), p. 124.Google Scholar

10 Ibid. p. 125.

11 Ibid. p. 126. (My italics.)

12 Ibid. pp. 126–127.

13 Translated in Schram, Stuart R., The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung (New York: Praeger, 1963), p. 101.Google Scholar

14 Ibid. pp. 101–102.

15 These differences in political orientation between Ch'en and Li are documented and analysed in detail in Meisner, , Li Ta-chao and the Origins of Chinese Marxism, pp. 21–25, 38–39, and passim.Google Scholar

16 Evidence that Ch'en objected to Comintern policies, even as he submitted to the movement's discipline, is discussed by both Meisner, ibid. pp. 218–219, and Schram, Stuart, Mao Tse-tung (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1967), p. 84. One can only speculate as to whether Ch'en, had he been a more assertive personality, might have organized a more forceful Party opposition to these doubtful Comintern policies.Google Scholar

17 Snow, op. cit. p. 165.Google Scholar

18 Ibid.

19 Cited in Schwartz, Benjamin I., Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964), p. 48.Google Scholar

20 These aspects of Li's political world-view are discussed in detail in the study by Meisner, , Li Ta-chao and the Origins of Chinese Marxism, passim.Google Scholar

21 P'eng Pai, “Hai-feng nung-min yün-tung” (“The Hai-feng Peasant Movement”), in Ti-yi-t'zu kuo-nei ko-ming chan-cheng shih-ch'i ti nung-min yün-tung (The Peasant Movement during the First Period of Domestic Revolutionary War) (Peking: Jen-min ch'u-pan-she, 1953), p. 40.Google Scholar

22 Ibid. p. 49.

23 Ibid. p. 54.

24 Ibid. p. 56.

25 A detailed discussion of this early effort at peasant mobilization will be found in Eto, Shinkichi, “Hai-lu-feng—The First Chinese Soviet Government,” The China Quarterly, Nos. 8, 9 (October–December 1961; January–March 1962), pp. 161–183, 149–181.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26 Cited in Hofheinz, Roy Mark, The Peasant Movement and Rural Revolution: Chinese Communists in the Countryside, 1923–7 (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1966), pp. 281–282.Google Scholar

27 See Swarup, Shanti, A Study of the Chinese Communist Movement (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), pp. 261–263.Google Scholar

28 Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung (SW) (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1961–1965), Vol. I, pp. 47–48.Google Scholar

29 Snow, op. cit. p. 165.Google Scholar

30 P'eng Pai, op. cit. p. 52.Google Scholar

31 The role played by the Red Army as a testing ground for new forms of political organization has received all too little attention. It appears that the function and organizational roles associated with political mobilization and control, which in time were applied to the civilian population in China, developed out of the role of army political instructors. See Johnson, Chalmers A., Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power: The Emergence of Revolutionary China, 1937–1945 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1962), esp. pp. 82–83.Google Scholar

32 Mao, , “Some Questions Concerning Methods of Leadership” (1943), in SW, Vol. III, p. 118.Google Scholar

33 Mao, , “The Struggle in the Chingkang Mountains” (1928), in SW, Vol. I, p. 91.Google Scholar

34 Party efforts to develop new habits of political communication are discussed in my article, “Communication Patterns and the Chinese Revolution,” loc. cit. esp. pp. 105–108.Google Scholar

35 Shao-ch'i, Liu, “On the Intra-Party Struggle,” in Compton, Boyd (ed.), Mao's China, Party Reform Documents, 1942–44 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1966), p. 214.Google Scholar

36 SW, Vol. III, p. 118.Google Scholar

37 Ibid.

38 This conviction is expressed in Mao's report, “On the Great Victory in the North-west and on the New Type of Ideological Education Movement in the Liberation Army” (1948), in SW, Vol. IV, pp. 211–215.Google Scholar The same attitude was expressed by General Liu Po-ch'eng, political commissar of the Eighth Route Army, in a 1945 interview with Belden, Jack: “… war is an emotional struggle carried on through political consciousness. Morale is composed of hatred, love, revenge, and confidence in victory.” (From China Shakes the World (New York: Harper and Row, 1949), p. 344. A description of the su k'u or “speak bitterness” meetings is contained in pp. 346–347.)Google Scholar

39 It is a legitimate question just how much credit should be given to Mao for having formulated the Party's leadership style. Early Party documents on leadership represent, to some extent, collective decisions. My own feeling is that Mao drew upon the successes and failures of other Party leaders in formulating his own leadership style; and that he articulated a technique of political mobilization which was both effective and acceptable to his colleagues in the context of the struggle for power.Google Scholar

The extent to which emotional mobilization is rather personally a Maoist technique, however, is most clearly revealed in the contemporary Cultural Revolution. This upheaval is not only in form a clear example of Mao's style of political participation, but as well it seems to have grown (in part) from the leadership's conflict over the most appropriate way to promote change in the post-revolutionary period. (Some of these issues are discussed in the conclusion of this analysis.)Google Scholar

40 The following quotes are drawn from Hinton, William, Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1966), pp. 112–116. (My italics.)Google Scholar

41 Mao, , “Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art” (1942), SW, Vol. III, p. 79.Google Scholar

42 Mao, , “The Present Situation and Our Tasks” (1947), SW, Vol. IV, pp. 170–171.Google Scholar

43 Shou-tao, Wang, “P'i-p'an Li Tzu-hsi szu-hsiang, chia-ch'iang kan-pu szu-hsiang chiao-yü” (“Criticize the Li Tzu-hsi Type of Thinking, Strengthen Cadres' Ideological Education”), in Fan-tui pu wen cheng-chih ti ch'ing-hsiang (Oppose the Deviation of Ignoring Politics) (Tsinan: Shan-tung jen-min ch'u-pan-she, 1952), pp. 51–52.Google Scholar

44 “The Mind of Li Tzu-hsi, a Village Cadre,” Ch'ang-chiang jih-pao (Hankow), 2 September 1951Google Scholar, translated in Survey of the China Mainland Press (SCMP), No. 182 (26 September 1951), pp. 14–16.Google Scholar

45 The importance attached by Mao to emotional manipulation as a way of maintaining the linkage between Party and people is revealed in the following remark by his long-time supporter Jen Pi-shih in a discussion of the land reform process: “The communists must not forbid or prevent the masses from getting even with those who have oppressed them and whom they hate. Instead, they should sympathize with them or they will be cut off from them.” (Cited in Chen, Jerome, Mao and the Chinese Revolution (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), p. 297.)Google Scholar

46 A general description of the mass campaign or yün-tung as an organizational form, and a review of major campaigns during the 1950s, will be found in C. Yu, Frederick T., “Campaigns, communications, and development in Communist China,” in Lerner, Daniel and Schram, Wilbur (eds.), Communication and Change in the Developing Countries (Honolulu: East-West Center Press, 1967), pp. 195–215.Google Scholar

47 Even in the operation of Communist China's legal system, emotional manipulation is seen as appropriate to the inculcation of new norms of justice (this in great contrast to western legal processes, where every effort is made to insulate judicial decisions from emotional pressures). A Peking publication, Current Affairs Journal, noted, in April 1951, that activists were to arouse popular feelings of outrage and indignation at public trials: “The masses can be stimulated right from the beginning, then slacken somewhat to allow time for ideological fermentation, and finally become tense again so that the feeling of indignation can last until the end of the meeting and forever.” (Cited in “Public Trial Rallies,” China Topics, 20 May 1968, p. 3.)Google Scholar

A description of the evolution of Chinese Communist judicial practices, and their close relation to mass agitation, will be found in Leng, Shao-chuan, “Pre-1949 Development of the Communist Chinese System of Justice,” The China Quarterly, No. 30 (April–June 1967), pp. 93–114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

48 Chia, Yu, “Tsai t'u-ti kai-ko kung-tso chung ying-tang tsen-yang ch'ufa-tung ho tzu-chih ch'ün-chung” (“How One Ought to Proceed in Mobilizing and Organizing the Masses in the Work of Land Reform”), Hsüeh hsi (Study), No. 12 (1951), p. 31.Google Scholar

49 Ibid. p. 33.

50 Ibid. p. 32.

51 For an example of Party instructions to its branch secretaries on how to organize “tiger-smashing teams,” see “Mi-ch'ieh kuan-hsi ch'ün-chung, ‘ta-hu’ ta-ti ch'eng-kung” (“Establish Intimate Relations with the Masses, ‘Smash the Tiger’ Completely”), in Chih-pu sheng-huo (Party Branch Life) (Tientsin), No. 18 (16 March 1952), p. 7.Google Scholar

A description of how the Party used “tiger beaters,” specially trained activists, to arouse worker hostility towards their managers is contained in Loh, Robert and Evans, Humphrey, Escape from Red China (New York: Coward-McCann, 1962), esp. p. 85.Google Scholar

52 “Tsen-yang tang kung-ch'ang chih-pu ti mi-shu” (“How to Be the Secretary of a Factory [Party] Branch), in Chih-pu sheng-huo, No. 28 (25 August 1952), p. 20.Google Scholar

53 An article in People's Daily of 1 August 1953Google Scholar gives the Party membership in the spring of that year as a rounded 6,000,000. The 1953 census, taken in April of that year, gives the Mainland population as 582,603,417. Lewis, John in Leadership in Communist China (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1963), cites slightly different figures, but with essentially the same import for the ratio of Party membership to population. See also his detailed discussion of the social composition and growth of Party membership, pp. 108–120.Google Scholar

54 In mid-1955 Po Yi-po gave some idea of the level of state penetration when he detailed the number of government supported workers “separated from production” in a Shantung hsien. Those engaged in Party mass relations, finance and trade, political-legal work, cultural and education work, labour union and management activities, farm and forestry work, hsiang administration, and teachers totalled 9,068 of a total hsien population of 825,000. This is a ratio of full-time state workers to population of just over 1 per cent. This data is cited in Chu-yuan, Cheng, “Lun ta-lu ti hsin t'ung chih chieh-chi” (“On the Mainland's New Ruling Class”), Tzu kuo (Motherland) (Hong Kong), Vol. XVIII, No. 4 (1957), p. 105.Google Scholar

55 Wen-pin, Feng, Yi-k'ao chi-chi-fen-tzu lien-hsi ch'ün-chung, t'ui-tng kung-tso (Rely on Activists in Linking up with the Masses, and Promoting Work) (Peking: Ch'ing-nien ch'u-pan-she, 1952), p. 1.Google Scholar

56 Ibid. p. 2.

57 Yu Chia, loc. cit. p. 33.Google Scholar

58 Chih-hua, Chao, Chin-fu, Kuo, and Yu, Kung, “The Fountainhead of Heroic Acts and Noble Character—On Lei Feng's Study of The Works of Mao Tse-tung,” Kwang-ming jih-pao (Peking), 5 March 1963Google Scholar, translated in SCMP, No. 2950 (1 May 1963), p. 7.Google Scholar

59 “Chieh-fang-chün pao Publishes Inscriptions [by Party Central Committee leaders] for the ‘Learn from Lei Feng Campaign,’” New China News Agency, 6 March 1963, in SCMP, No. 2937 (13 March 1963), p. 10.Google Scholar

60 “Learn From Lei Feng Through Concrete Action of Boosting Output and Practising Thrift,” Kung-jen jih-pao, 13 March 1963Google Scholar, translated in SCMP, No. 2952 (3 April 1963), p. 5.Google Scholar

61 Feng Wen-pin, loc. cit. p. 3.Google Scholar

62 Ibid.

63 Yu Chia, loc. cit. p. 33.Google Scholar

64 “Why Should One Want to Enter the Party?” Chih-pu sheng-huo, No. 29 (10 September 1952), p. 26.Google Scholar

65 A penetrating essay on the transformation of the role of the Party cadre—which influences the motivational appeals of such a position—since Liberation will be found in Vogel, Ezra F., “From Revolutionary to Semi-Bureaucrat: The ‘Regularisation’ of Cadres,” The China Quarterly, No. 29 (January–March 1967), pp. 36–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

66 “Report on the Rectification Campaign,” 23 September 1957, translated in Communist China, 1955–59: Policy Documents with Analysis (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962), p. 358.Google Scholar

67 It might be noted that Mao has long felt the Chinese people to possess “latent” or “intrinsic” energy as a result of their oppression by various social authorities. As he wrote in 1919: “Our Chinese people possess great intrinsic energy. The more profound the oppression, the greater its resistance; that which has accumulated for a long time will surely burst forth quickly.” Translated in Schram, , The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung, p. 106. The problem has always been how to “liberate” and harness that energy to Party purposes.Google Scholar

68 Hsing-fu, Hsi, “Expanding Inner-Party Democracy is a Necessary Step for Developing the Activism of Party Members,” Chih-pu sheng-huo, No. 15 (1956), p. 8.Google Scholar

69 Ibid. This point of view was subsequently expressed by Mao Tse-tung himself in a more systematic and “official” manner in his early 1957 speech “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People.”

70 Ibid. p. 6.

71 Quoted in Myrdal, Jan, Report from a Chinese Village (London: Heinemann, 1965), p. 259.Google Scholar

It should be stressed that the promotion of group criticism appears to be an important technique for the political mobilization of the peasantry in any country—reflecting the universal qualities of peasant life. A Central American guerilla leader described this process to a reporter from the United States: “We would like everyone to take part [in group meetings] and criticize, especially the campesinos. It helps to incorporate them into the struggle. If you only knew how hard it was in the first guerilla unit we formed. Not one of them would criticize me. … I stood for authority, the church, the government, the patron. Finally a bunch of them got together; hombre, they really let me have it, cut me to pieces. If you only knew how good that made me feel. To see them, in that moment, break free after centuries of slavery.” Howard, Alan, “With the Guerillas in Guatemala,” The New York Times Magazine, 26 June 1966, p. 25.Google Scholar

72 Cited in Current Scene (Hong Kong: U.S. Consulate General), Vol. V, No. 13 (15 August 1967), p. 4.Google Scholar

73 While reluctance to assume positions of low-level Party or government leadership emerged as a problem during the late 1950s, the failures of the Great Leap Forward brought this matter to a head. The combination of mass unrest and leadership dissatisfaction was particularly intense, and many low-level operatives began to feel that to be a cadre was to ch'ih k'uei. The “Lien-chiang” documents of 1962–63 reveal extensive dissatisfaction: discharged soldiers did not want to assume cadre responsibilities; a report from one Party meeting indicated that almost 25 per cent. of the membership of a Party branch in rural Fukien did not want to assume the responsibilities of leadership; and approximately 8 per cent. of the basic-level hsien cadres wanted to resign. Cited in Baum, Richard and Teiwes, Frederick C., “Liu Shao-ch'i and the Cadre Question,” Asian Survey (Berkeley: University of California Press), Vol. VIII, No. 4 (April 1968), p. 325.Google Scholar

With the even greater turmoil, violence and uncertainty of the Cultural Revolution the “question of cadres”—of reluctance to assume responsibility, administrative passivity, or resistance to higher-level directives—has threatened the very foundations of political control. An article of late 1967 in People's Daily noted with concern the “common idea” that “It does not pay to be a cadre. He has to work very hard and must survive the purge. From now on I have no more desire to become a cadre, especially a leading cadre. What I ask only is that I be given some specific work.” Cited in Current Background, No. 849 (11 March 1968), p. 19.Google Scholar

74 “Basic Responsibilities of Propaganda Work at Present,” Chih-pu sheng-huo, No. 3 (1955), p. 17.Google Scholar

75 Various techniques used by Party and government cadres to elicit the “voluntary” co-operation of the citizenry are discussed by Vogel, Ezra in “Voluntarism and Social Control,” in Treadgold, Donald W. (ed.), Soviet and Chinese Communism (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1967), pp. 168–184.Google Scholar

76 See Klein, Donald W., “A Question of Leadership: Problems of Mobility, Control and Policy-making in China,” Current Scene, Vol. V, No. 7 (30 April 1967), esp. pp. 4–5.Google Scholar

77 Te-chang, Ma, “We Cannot Continue to Blame the Masses for Their Backwardness,” Chih-pu sheng-huo, No. 3 (1956), p. 18.Google Scholar

78 See McClelland, David C., The Achieving Society (Princeton: D. Van Nostrand, 1961), esp. pp. 46–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

79 It might be added, however, that I realize that appeals to hatred and indignation do not represent the only motivational basis of political life in post-1949 China. The Communists have sought to use patriotism, appeals to the collective good, and even material incentives, in enlisting popular support for their policies—as well as various coercive sanctions. My point is that manipulation of hostility and aggressive instincts has been a particular inclination of this elite; and that Mao Tse-tung, in particular, sees this as a justifiably “revolutionary” form of motivation. Other appeals, to be sure, have been tried; but Mao, again and again, has returned to the motivational basis which he feels won the Party such popular support and success in its pre-Liberation struggles.Google Scholar

80 Shao-ch'i, Liu, “Work Report of the C.C.P. Central Committee Delivered to the Second Session of the Eighth National Party Congress,” 5 May 1968, translated in Current Background, No. 507 (2 June 1958), p. 11.Google Scholar

81 Inasmuch as I have stressed in this analysis that emotions of aggression are the central element in Mao's conception of political motivation, it is worth looking at how this influences his view of institution-building. Several writers have called attention to the “military ethos” as a central element in Mao's personality (see, for example, Schram, , Mao Tse-tung, p. 41).Google Scholar The martial spirit seems to have had such attraction for Mao because this is the one area of human activity where sentiments of hostility and indignation can legitimately be translated into disciplined and purposeful action. In contrast with Confucian social practice, “bad feelings” need not be supressed—producing personal humiliation and a feeling of ineffectualness—nor are they likely to burst forth in uncontrolled destructiveness, hun-luan. Hostility, if released with discipline, can produce a feeling of “personal value,” and attain political ends (cf. “A Study of Physical Education”).

The “military ethos” in Mao's thinking, however, must be seen in conjunction with his fear of “the purely military viewpoint”—the expression of aggression without political objective. The history of the T'ai-p'ing rebels, and the warlord era, held for Mao the lesson of the danger of military action without higher (political) purpose. The Party must “control the gun.”Google Scholar

The debate over the role of the military in post-1949 China undoubtedly reflects Mao's personal view that institutional means must be found to bring together the motivational element (aggression) and political discipline, or else China will have, as in the past, a passive population ruled by an oppressive elite. The militarization of the peasantry through the organization of the communes (see Schurmann, Franz, Ideology and Organization in Communist China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966), pp. 479–482), and the ideal of the Paris Commune as a political instrument embodying an armed populace which was briefly resurrected during the Cultural Revolution, seems to be Mao's institutional solution for merging political purposes and motivation. But as we know from the purgings of P'eng Teh-huai and Lo Jui-ch'ing, there remain those who do not agree with Mao.Google Scholar

82 Shao-ch'i, Liu, loc. cit. p. 12. I have modified the translation in minor ways on the basis of the Chinese text, which can be found in Hsin-Hua pan-yüeh-k'an (New China Semi-monthly), No. 11, 1958. (My italics.)Google Scholar

83 This statement evidently reflects a continuing line of opposition to Mao's activist agricultural policies that the Chairman had ridiculed in the summer of 1955 with the image of comrades burdened with “endless anxiety,” “tottering along like a woman with bound feet.” (See Mao, , “On the Question of Agricultural Cooperation,” in Selected Readings from the Works of Mao Tse-tung (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1967), p. 316.)Google Scholar

84 If we may accept as legitimate Red Guard revelation of the contents of P'eng Teh-huai's “Letter of Opinion” criticizing Maoist policies in 1959, it is interesting to note that in an effort to blunt Mao's likely defensiveness at this criticism, P'eng tried to play on Mao's fear of political passivity, and his predilection for mass activism: “Inability to get rid of the [present] situation of passivity … will hinder our efforts to catch up with and surpass Britain. …” “The present discussion will … enable us to turn the passive situation into an active one in certain respects …” “… the problem [of worker-peasant disaffection] is political in character. It is the key to whether we can mobilize the broad masses to continue the great leap forward in the future.” (“P'eng Te-huai's So-called Letter of Opinion to Chairman Mao at the 1959 Lushan Conference,” Ko-ming ch'uan-lien (Revolutionary Liaison) (Peking)Google Scholar, translated in SCMP, No. 4032 (2 October 1967), pp. 2–3.)Google Scholar

85 En-lai, Chou, “A Great Decade,” in Ten Glorious Years (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1960), pp. 56–60.Google Scholar

86 The uncertain progression of these mass movements is discussed in Baum, Richard and Teiwes, Frederick C., Ssu-Ch'ing: The Socialist Education Movement of 1962–66 (Berkeley: Center for Chinese Studies, 1968).Google Scholar Other good accounts of developments in this period will be found in Bridgham, Philip, “Mao's ‘Cultural Revolution’: Origin and Development,” The China Quarterly, No. 29 (January–March 1967), pp. 1–35;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Charles Neuhauser, “The Chinese Communist Party in the 1960s: Prelude to the Cultural Revolution,” ibid. No. 32 (October–December 1967), pp. 3–36.

87 See my analysis in the conclusion of “Mao's Effort to Reintegrate the Chinese Polity,” loc. cit. pp. 341–346.Google Scholar

88 A summary of these charges will be found in “Growing Mass Movement to Criticize and Repudiate the Book on ‘Self-Cultivation’ of Communists,” Peking Review, No. 17 (21 April 1967), pp. 12–15.Google Scholar

89 See the Hung ch'i article by Pen-yu, Chi, “Patriotism or National Betrayal?' translated in Peking Review, No. 15 (7 April 1967), esp. pp. 12–16.Google Scholar

90 See the Editorial Department of the People's Daily, “Evidence of the Crime of the No. 1 Party Person in Authority Taking the Capitalist Road in Advocating the System of Capitalist Exploitation,” in Peking Review, No. 17 (21 April 1967), pp. 7–10.Google Scholar

91 See the Editorial Departments of Hung Ch'i and the People's Daily, “Along the Socialist or the Capitalist Road?” in Peking Review, No. 34 (18 August 1967), esp. pp. 15–16.Google Scholar

It might be noted that Mao's conception of political motivation based on hatred seems to shape Chinese perceptions of international relations. A recent article noted: “The heroic Vietnamese people will never be intimidated by the U.S. aggressors' wanton bombings; they will turn their hatred into strength and strike back at the U.S. gangsters with fiercer and well-aimed blows.” (“Johnson's ‘Brinkmanship’ is Doomed to Failure,” in Peking Review, No. 36 (1 September 1967), p. 30.)Google Scholar An analysis of this point is developed in my article, “America's Revolutionary Alliance with Communist China,” Asian Survey, Vol. VII, No. 12 (December 1967), pp. 831–850.Google Scholar

92 Resentments and frustration among the younger generation at blocked channels of upward educational and career mobility seem to have played no small part in the “activism” of the Red Guards. See China News Analysis (Hong Kong), Nos. 634 (28 October 1966), 636 (11 November 1966).Google Scholar

A more recent People's Daily editorial notes hopefully: “After going through the storm of this great revolution, the proletarian revolutionaries and the broad masses bitterly hate the handful of top capitalist roaders within the Party and cherish even greater love for the proletarian headquarters.” (“Unite Under the Leadership of the Proletarian Headquarters Headed by Chairman Mao,” translated in Peking Review, No. 32 (9 August 1968), p. 7.)Google Scholar

93 This is now revealed explicitly in the efforts at Party rebuilding which have begun following the Twelfth Plenum. See “Absorb Fresh Blood From the Proletariat: An Important Question in Party Consolidation,” Red Flag (Peking), No. 4 (1968)Google Scholar, translated in Peking Review, No. 43 (25 October 1968), pp. 4–7.Google Scholar

94 The Editorial Departments of People's Daily and Red Flag, “On Khrushchev's Phony Communism and Its Historical Lessons” (14 July 1964)Google Scholar, translated in Current Background, No. 737 (17 July 1964).Google Scholar

95 On the eve of the Cultural Revolution claims made for the efficacy of “the thought of Chairman Mao” in solving China's social problems had acquired ludicrous proportions. From selling watermelons to playing championship ping-pong, Mao's thought held all the keys to outstanding success. A caricature of Mao's belief in the efficacy of aggression-driven activism appeared in a People's Daily article entitled “How to Play Ping-pong.” The author was Hsü Yin-sheng, a member of China's world championship ping-pong team; and the article, introduced by both the editor of the paper and the senior general Ho Lung, asked the question: “The People's Liberation Army (PLA) trains its troops with class feelings, so how should we bring class feelings to the play of ping-pong? … The PLA brings an attitude of hostile confrontation (ti-ch'ing kuan-nien) to troop training … [so] if we think of a ping-pong ball as Chiang Kai-shek's head, with each smash of the paddle what power will be generated!” People's Daily, 17 January 1965, p. 2.Google Scholar

The ridicule which such claims for Mao's thought evoked in the western world evidently reflected the intentions of the authors of such exaggerated claims, for within two years the editor of the People's Daily had been purged and Ho Lung was under attack. And not long thereafter Hsü Yin-sheng and two team-mates were reported to have been killed by Mao's Red Guards. Such ridicule of Mao's political values, and personal power, seems to have provoked much of the bitterness of the Cultural Revolution struggle.Google Scholar

96 See, for example, “Plant the Great Red Flag of Mao Tse-tung's Thought on All Battle Fields, Show Unlimited Loyalty to the Proletariat's Great Leader Chairman Mao,” People's Daily, 4 March 1968, p. 1.Google Scholar

97 In the restructuring of Party institutions, the problem of cadres becoming bureaucrats who will “cut the Party off from the masses” is being confronted in new forms of work and study training institutions. See the People's Daily editorial, “Liuho ‘May 7’ Cadre School Provides New Experience in Revolutionizing Organizations,” translated in Peking Review, No. 41 (11 October 1968), pp. 23–24.Google Scholar