To the outside world the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution which convulsed the People's Republic of China from 1966 until 1969 looked like a whole society gone mad. An aging and seemingly demented revolutionary leader had unleashed a teenage rabble on the middle and upper-level leadership of the new China and paralyzed the economic, cultural and educational life of the largest nation on earth. Now, three years after the close of the Cultural Revolution, those of us who have been able in recent months to visit a more stable and tranquil China have come away with a different impression.