S23: Farewell to Revolution

• May 16: Cultural Revolution begins; Beijing leaders purged as “anti-Party group.”
  
• Summer: Red Guards form in elite schools; “Destroy the Four Olds” campaign erupts.
  
• Aug 5: Mao publishes Bombard the Headquarters, targeting Party leadership.

• Aug 8: CCP officially launches Cultural Revolution, targeting “capitalist roaders.”
  
• Aug 18: Mao first welcomes 1 million Red Guards at Tiananmen; 8 more rallies follow.
  
• Sept 5: “Great Link-Up” begins—students travel nationwide for free to spread revolution.
  

• Oct 1: Mao and Lin Biao declare “two-line struggle” — Party elites now the real enemy.
  
• Dec 9: Workers and peasants officially join the revolution; nationwide chaos ensues.

• Jan 6: Shanghai rebels seize power; “January Storm” sparks nationwide “seizure of power.”
  
• Feb: “February Countercurrent” — senior leaders (e.g., Chen Yi) oppose chaos; quickly crushed.
  

• Jul 20: Wuhan Incident — military turns on leftists, sparking national military intervention.
  
• Summer–Autumn: Factions and armies clash in violent armed struggles across China.
  
• Late 1967: Military takes control of most provinces; revolutionary committees form as new local governments.

• Jan: “Cleanse the Class Ranks” begins — mass executions and purges.
  
• Jul: Mao condemns Red Guard factionalism; worker and military propaganda teams take over schools.
  
• Jul–Aug: “516 Group” crackdown targets former rebel groups; all independent organizations dissolved.
  

• Nov–Dec: Revolutionary committees established nationwide.
  
• Dec 22: Mao orders “Up to the Mountains, Down to the Villages” — 16+ million urban youth sent to rural areas to be “re-educated.”

• How to succeed Mao?
• How to evaluate Mao and his rule?
• How to reform the CCP?

• 1965-1966: 1 million+ ethnic in Chinese massacred in Indonesia during anti-communist purge following coup against General Suharto
• 1967-08: Burning of British Embassy
• Dual adversary strategy, struggling against two hegemons: the “imperialists” (United States) and the “social imperialists” (USSR)
• Support for insurgencies and military struggles in Third World countries

• Ministry of Foreign Affairs disbanded; all ambassadors recalled with the exception of Egypt
• 1965: buildup of American military forces in Vietnam
• 1968-08: Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, followed by nuclear build-up along Sino-Soviet border
• 1969-03: Sino-Soviet border conflicts

• 1971-09: Lin Biao’s plane crashed over Mongolia
• Lin Biao discredited as ultra-leftist who distorted Mao’s intentions and drove it to excess
• Military leadership arrested; purge of PLA from politics and public life
• Return to civilian administration, led by Zhou Enlai; Deng Xiaoping rehabilitated

• How could Mao’s chosen successor have fled China after an abortive coup?
• How could China realign with the United States, after thirty years of denouncing it as the primary enemy?
• Could the party still be trusted? What should people believe?

Mao Zedong:

• The Soviet Union as “main contradiction”; America as secondary threat

Richard Nixon:

• Progressive withdrawal of US forces in Vietnam
• China not as a rogue actor, but in need of being “brought in from the cold” in twilight struggle against Soviet Union

Chronology:

• 1971-04: “Ping Pong diplomacy”
• 1971-07: Kissinger’s secret trip to China
• 1972-02: Nixon’s visit to China

Significance:

• Transformation of China from Communist threat to quasi-ally
• Security triangle: China as swing player between two superpowers
• China safe from both US and Soviet attacks

• Mao’s physical decline: Heart attack in 1972; in poor health and seclusion till end of life
• Zhou Enlai: Cancer diagnosis in 1972

Gang of Four

• Continuation of Maoist line: political mobilization, class struggle, egalitarianism
• Control of propaganda and cultural apparatus
• Upper hand from mid-1973 to spring 1974
• “Criticize Lin Biao, Criticize Confucius” campaign as allegorical vehicle for attacking Zhou and Deng

Deng Xiaoping and Zhou Enlai

• Economic growth, stability, educational progress, pragmatic opening to the West
• Revival of “Four Modernizations” (of agriculture, industry, science and tech, and defense)
• Control over executive organs of political system
• Deng stripped of all positions in April 1976, after Zhou Enlai’s death and mass demonstrations

• 1976-01-08: Zhou Enlai’s death, triggering mass protests at Tiananmen Sqr
• 1976-07-28: Tangshan Earthquake, resulting in 242,000 deaths
• 1976-09-09: Mao Zedong’s death
• 1976-10-06: Arrest of Gang of Four

• 27.2 million victims, including 1.73 million deaths
• Most victims not the result of mass insurgency, but political and military authority
• 17 million sent-down youth
• Party-state bureaucracy weakened and divided
• Crisis of legitimacy: 3 million+ citizens awaiting rehabilitation

• Harbingers of a progressive future
• Antithesis of the Four Olds (Old Ideas, Old Culture, Old Customs, and Old Habits)
• Examples: “Model operas”, “Barefoot doctors”, “Sent-down youth” campaign, including the Cultural Revolution itself

• Chinese medicine revived from stigmatization as “feudal” or “unscientific”
• Three folk resources: folk remedy, folk medicinal herbs, and folk drugs
• Foundation of rural public health system
• Combining Western and Chinese medicine

• Pioneering scientist who developed the world’s first hybrid rice varieties in the 1970s and contributed to the Green Revolution
• Increased rice yields significantly, helping to alleviate hunger and improve food security.
• Advocated for the importance of sustainable farming practices alongside high-yield crops.

• Discovered artemisinin, derived from the sweet wormwood plant, in the early 1970s.
• Developed dihydroartemisinin, a more potent derivative of artemisinin, significantly improving malaria treatment.
• Received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2015; the first Chinese woman to receive a Nobel Prize in science.
• Continued her research and advocacy for traditional medicine and its integration with modern science.

• Not tension between “pro-science” and “anti-science” factions
• “Combining indigenous methods with foreign methods”
• Emphasis on “home-grown policies”: local inventions and experimentations
• Instead of relying on trained experts, mobilization of peasants, rural cadres, women, youth

• A system of both tremendous strength and startling instability
• Spasmodic: lurching from one politically induced crisis to another
• Individual responsibility vs. collective guilt
• Utopian ideal vs. violent reality

Mao’s stated goal vs. methods

• Mao opposed the bureaucratic totalitarianism of the Stalinist system, yet he successfully launched the Cultural Revolution by fully utilizing that same system’s immense mobilization capabilities.

Mao’s desire for a “Paris Commune” vs. his own position:

Mao envisioned a system where officials and citizens were equal and interchangeable. But he was a supreme, almost divine, leader.

Claim of mass movement vs. manipulation:

While the Cultural Revolution appeared to be a spontaneous mass movement, it was also orchestrated and controlled by Mao, with strict limitations on genuine independent thought or action.

Violence of “restoring order” vs. “chaos”:

The official phase of “restoring order” through Revolutionary Committees involved far greater and more systematic violence than the chaotic factional fighting among the masses, yet this state-sanctioned violence was often downplayed.

Mao’s goal to prevent capitalist restoration vs. outcome:

Mao’s efforts to prevent capitalist restoration through the Cultural Revolution ultimately accelerated the very “revisionism” and “bourgeoisie restoration” he feared, making later reforms easier.

Had Mao died in 1956, his achievements would have been immortal. Had he died in 1966, he would still have been a great man but flawed. But he died in 1976. Alas, what can one say?

• A system of both tremendous strength and startling instability
• Spasmodic: lurching from one politically induced crisis to another
• Individual responsibility vs. collective guilt
• Utopian ideal vs. violent reality

• Who is the narrator, Xiao Huizi? What is her life story?
• What does she remember about the Mao era? How does it compare with other accounts?
• Have her memories changed? If so, how?
• Individual memory vs. Collective memory: Is there a difference?

• Who are the main characters?
• What happened to them?

How is history presented in the film? What changed / didn’t change from one period to the other?

• Final years of the Cultural Revolution
• Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979
• Reform and opening up

• Romantic relationships, sexual desires, and clandestine affairs: What was considered acceptable or not, and why?
• Why can’t Liu Feng have desire? Freedom and repression of sexuality among Red Guards

• Is there a gendered difference in romance and sexuality?
• Where’s the relationship between private life and political life?
• Rae Yang: “Red Guards Had No Sex” vs. Kristen Ghodsee: “Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism”

• What is the family background of He Xiaoping? How did it shape her life?
• “The Cultural Revolution destroyed Chinese families” – Did it?
• “The dance troupe is our family” – Is it?
• He Xiaoping and Liu Feng: Another kind of family?

• Why a dance troupe?
• How does art serve politics?
• What scenes might have been removed before its public screening in China? Why?
• Who is the intended audience of the film? What might be their reactions?

• How did the film handle narratives of trauma and violence?
• Svetlana Boym: “The twentieth century began with utopia and ended with nostalgia.” Explain in the context of the film.
• What explains nostalgia for the Cultural Revolution in China today?

• What happened to the dance troupe after the Mao era?
• Who were the “winners” / “losers”? Why?

• Vietnam’s shift in allegiance from China to the Soviet Union: mutual defense treaty in November 1978
• Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia and overthrow of the Khmer Rouge — China’s Maoist ally
• Fear of Soviet invasion: 1.5 million PLA troops along Chinese-Soviet border
• Three-way struggle: China, Vietnam, and the Soviet Union

• Deng Xiaoping’s meeting with President Jimmy Carter, two weeks before China’s entry to war.
• Goal: Secure America’s backing and neutralize the Soviet Union’s potential military invasion of China.
• Appeal to America’s other strategic goals: defeating the Soviet Union, exiting the Vietnam quagmire, and disarming Pyongyang’s nukes.

• Deng Xiaoping sought to consolidate his control over the military.
• Deng also wished to diminish the power of Hua Guofeng, Mao Zedong’s chosen successor.

• Primary goal: not territorial conquest
• Retaliation against Vietnam while minimizing its exposure to a potential two-front war with both Vietnam and the USSR
• Demonstration of military strength
• Realignment with the United States

Loss

• Unable to achieve its goal of removing Vietnam from Cambodia, as Vietnam’s occupation lasted until 1989.
• Heightened Vietnam’s animosity toward China.
• Peace negotiations between China and Vietnam didn’t occur until 1991, after the fall of the Soviet Union.
• Exposed the PLA’s poor performance

Win

• Prevented a Soviet invasion from the north due to U.S. support.
• Helped Deng Xiaoping gain power within the CCP.
• US Support: establishment of Beijing embassy in 1979, in the middle of the war
• Prompting a military modernization drive.