The research and writing of this paper were supported by a research grant from the Swedish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSFR). I am indebted to Carol Lee Hamrin and Thomas Kampen for their valuable comments on an earlier draft.Google Scholar

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³ One of the few histories of the period to mention Xianzhen, Yang, and his ‘doubts…about the great leap’, is MacFarquhar, Roderick, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution 2: The Great Leap Forward (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), 320.Google Scholar

⁴ Zhang's, crucial 21 July Speech at Lushan is in Zhang Wentian Xuanji [Selected works of Zhang Wentian] (Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe, 1985), 480–506.Google Scholar For the circumstances that prompted himto make it, see Peisen, Zhang, ‘Zhang Wentian Lushan Fayan Sixiang de Youlai He Fazhan’ [Origins and development of the ideological content of Zhang Wentian's statement at Lushan], in Yanjiushi, Zhonggong Zhongyang Wenxian (ed.), Wenxian He Yanjiu 1985 Nian Huibianben [Documents and Research, 1985 annual selection] (Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe, 1986), 399–415.Google Scholar

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⁸ Guan, Shan (ed.), Yang Xianzhen Yanjiu Ziliao [Research materials on Yang Xianzhen] (Changsha: Hunan Renmin Chubanshe, 1987), 110–25. All statements pertaining to Yang's biography and career in the present text are, where not otherwise noted, based on this source.Google Scholar

⁹ For information on Yang's years in prison, see Cheek, Timothy, ‘The “61 Prisoners” Speak for Themselves: New Sources on CCP Prison Experiences from the 1930s’, forthcoming in CCP Research Newsletter, 1991.Google Scholar

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¹⁵ Ruoyu, Fan, Vice-President of the Central Party School, quoted in Ai Hengwu, 44–5.Google Scholar

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¹⁷ Ibid., 84–6.

¹⁸ Ibid., 84–5; 105. For an overview of events in China in the summer and autumn of 1958 at the high point of the ‘transition to communism’, see Schoenhals, Michael, Saltationist Socialism: Mao Zedong and the Great Leap Forward 1958 (Stockholm Föreningen for Orientaliska Studier, 1987), 66–127.Google Scholar

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²⁰ Ibid., 91.

²¹ Ibid., 84.

²² Ibid., 86–7.

²³ Ibid., 91.

²⁴ For an analysis of Mao's concept of ‘intellectual emancipation’ as part of the ideological foundation of the GLF, see Schoenhals, 23–39.Google Scholar

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³⁴ ‘Zai Kaifeng Shi de Baogao’ [Report in Kaifeng municipality], in Shoudu Pipan, 14.Google Scholar

³⁵ Shan, Guan, 321–8. Additional passages in Shoudu Pipan, 6, 8–9. 12–14, 26–8, 35, 38, 40, 50.Google Scholar

³⁶ Shan, Guan, 322.Google Scholar

³⁷ Ibid.

³⁸ Ibid.

³⁹ Ibid., 322–3. Incomplete text amended on the basis of Shoudu Pipan, 38.

⁴⁰ Ibid., 323. Incomplete text amended on the basis of Shoudu Pipan, 6.

⁴¹ Ibid., 324. Incomplete text amended on the basis of Shoudu Pipan, 27.

⁴² Ibid.

⁴³ Ibid., 321.

⁴⁴ Ibid., 323.

⁴⁵ Ibid., 322

⁴⁶ Xianzhen, Yang, Wode Zhexue ‘Zuian’, 112.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Shan, Guan, 322–7. Incomplete text amended on the basis of Shoudu Pipan, 12.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Ibid., 327.

⁴⁹ Pipan, Shoudu, 12–13.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Ibid., 13.

⁵¹ Shan, Guan, 328.Google Scholar

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⁵⁵ Quotes from this talk are in Pipan, Shoudu, 38–9, and ‘Chedi Qingsuann’, 2. It is not referred to or quoted anywhere in recent official publications by or about Yang. Entries for September and October 1959 are conspicuously absent from the chronology of Yang's life included in Guan Shan, 110–25.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Kan, Zhong (pseud.), Kang Sheng Pingzhuan [Critical Biography of Kang Sheng] (Beijing: Hongqi Chubanshe, 1982), 360. Kang's appointment to this post had taken place on 15 March 1957.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Xianzhen, Yang, Wode Zhexue ‘Zuian’, 81.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Ruoyu, Fan, quoted in Hengwu, Ai, 44.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Zhongguo Renmin Jiefangjun Gaodeng Junshi Xueyuan ‘Honglian’ Bingtuan (ed.), Da Junfa, Da Yexinjia, Da Yinmoujia Peng Dehuai Fangeming Zuixing Huibian [The collected counter-revolutionary crimes of the great warlord, great careerist and great schemer Peng Dehuai] (Beijing, 1967), 40–1.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Xianzhen, Yang, Wode Zhexue ‘Zuian’, 148–9.Google Scholar

⁶¹ For some amusing examples of Peng's ‘disrespectful’ references to the Party Chairman, see Zhongguo Renmin Jiefangjun, 6–9.Google Scholar