Cultural Transformation

Participation in mass mobilization was intended to contribute to what Mao called the "transformation of people."^[29] Three dimensions of such a transformation may be analytically distinguished: cognitive, attitudinal, and behavioral. The cognitive dimension refers to beliefs about how the world is constituted; the attitudinal dimension to relatively enduring predispositions and to the norms and values on which these are premised; the behavioral dimension to everyday practices. Post hoc interviews revealed considerable change in each dimension, though not necessarily in the direction intended by the leadership.

Cognitive Change

The cognitive impact of three different stages of mobilization will be examined separately: the (early) Cultural Revolution, the Criticism of Lin Biao and Confucius, and the late-Cultural Revolution movements (namely, "bourgeois rights," Water Margin , Criticism of Deng).

The thematic impact of the Cultural Revolution, as noted in the conclusion to chapter 4, was to persuade participants that revisionism was implicit in the nation's developmental pattern as it had hitherto proceeded and that "struggle" was necessary if this course were to be altered. Revisionism was clearly understood to mean bureaucratic authoritarianism and increasing stratification between mental and manual workers and between town and countryside, and a focus on economic growth, raising living standards, and material welfare at the expense of revolutionary values. Our informants generally accepted the truth of these themes, as well as the personal equation of revisionism with Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping, and the other "capitalist-roaders" (though as cadre rehabilitation accelerated in the course of the late Cultural Revolution, blame became increasingly circumscribed to Liu). But radical attempts in the late Cultural Revolution period to augment and elaborate upon these themes appear to have been much less successful.

The Criticism of Lin Biao and Confucius campaign seems to have failed either to establish an equation between Lin Biao and Confucius or to convince people of the depravity of the latter. The attempt to establish an equation between Lin Biao and Confucius may have been obfuscated

[29] Mao, "Concluding Remarks," pp. 90–100.

by the concurrent Aesopian attempt by the radicals to establish an equation between Confucius and Zhou Enlai, but in any case neither equation was widely accepted. Lin Biao was a more unequivocally negative reference point than the historically remote Confucius, even (if memory served these informants correctly) before news of his coup plot became public. Lin was "very stupid" (da bendan, da caobao ), and there was "no comparison" (mei fa bi de ) with the learned sage of yore.^[30] In the case of Zhou Enlai, on the other hand, the analogy was vitiated by the positive regard in which the Premier was still held (except by admirers of Confucius).^[31]

Attempts to denigrate the reputation of Confucius seem also to have failed, oddly enough in view of the fact that such criticism has been a facet of cultural modernity in China since the May Fourth movement.^[32] Whereas all informants understood the values and principles that Confucius represented, these were not held in disesteem. For the young he was no more than an object of mild curiosity. For the older generation he continued to exact deference or at most qualified reproof.^[33] Whether this reservoir of goodwill for the sage represents some underlying continuity of values or simply cultural nationalism could not be determined.

The Campaign to Study the Dictatorship of the Proletariat (or Criticism of Bourgeois Rights), the Criticism of Water Margin , and other campaigns during what was to prove the radicals' swan song were least successful of all in penetrating the masses' cognitions, to judge from our informants' responses. The basic thrust of these campaigns represented

[30] Representative of the former is the former cadre who revealed that although he wrote a big-character poster during the Criticism of Lin Biao and Confucius, he criticized only Lin Biao but not Confucius, "because I greatly respect Confucius." Informant no. 17. Representative of the more qualified position is the former central cadre who said: "His teachings were bad, too authoritarian. Worst of all is the doctrine of the li [lijiao ]. But his respect for learning is good." Informant no. 37.

[31] "Lin Biao has always been bad," contended a former Red Guard. "He was a fascist. He used only a suppressive method to change people's thinking." Informant no. 25.

[32] See Kam Louie, Critiques of Confucius in Contemporary China (Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, 1980); Tien-wei Wu, Lin Biao and the Gang of Four: Counter-Confucianism in Historical and Intellectual Perspective (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1983); and, of course, Joseph Levenson, Confucian China and Its Modern Fate: A Trilogy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968 ed.).

[33] "I only know that Confucius was a great sage [da shengren ] and a great educator who made a very great contribution to Chinese civilization," said a former kindergarten teacher. "This impression can never be changed." Informant no. 20. See also male informant, born 1944 in Guangdong, of lower-middle peasant family background, student individual class status, former CYL cadre, deputy secretary of the CYL general branch, and a member of the Standing Committee of the local RC during the Cultural Revolution. He worked in the headquarters of an enterprise engaged in construction of a hydroelectric power station. Emigrated to Hong Kong illegally because of "political problems" in 1972. Interviewed June 6, 1977 (hereinafter informant no. 13).

continuity with early Cultural Revolution themes, emphasizing egalitarianism and self-sacrifice (in the case of bourgeois rights) and fidelity to revolutionary values (in the Water Margin and Anti-Rightist Reversal of Just Verdicts campaigns), but the campaigns were more subtly argued, perhaps presupposing greater popular familiarity with Marxist texts and Chinese literature than proved warranted. In any case, a majority of these informants had no correct conception of bourgeois rights, which they diversely misconstrued as "the power of convention," "selfishness," "dictatorship," "class differentiation," and whatnot.^[34] The confusion that greeted the campaign to study Water Margin is perhaps understandable in view of the fact that Jiang Qing herself may have misconstrued Mao's intentions, but in any case most of our informants were baffled by Mao's sudden repudiation of the popular hero Song Jiang and did not know who he was supposed to represent on the contemporary political scene.^[35]

Attitudinal Change

Two of the most distinctive aspects of the Cultural Revolution as a form of mass attitudinal change (besides its emphasis on "struggle," that is,

[34] "Bourgeois rights are non-democratic, dictatorship. . . . They don't allow others to oppose them, don't allow them to go against the current. I think Mao himself was the biggest example of bourgeois rights—anyone who opposed him was knocked down!" Informant no. 15. "Bourgeois rights are formed by the habit of power [xiguan quanli ]. The structure of society produces man's need for power, wealth and status, extending even to the realm of abstract thinking and concepts." Male informant, born 1956 in Guangdong, free professional family background, student individual class status, sent down to a production and construction military camp (shengchan jianshe bingtuan ) in the Changjiang countryside. Migrated illegally to Hong Kong in November 1976 to get out of the countryside. Interviewed May 6, 1977. (Hereinafter informant no. 16.)

As far as the critique of selfishness underpinning the bourgeois rights campaign is concerned, considerable skepticism or even recalcitrance was evident. Several opined that this vice was "intrinsic" (benxing ): "Even small children understand how to eat well, dress well." Informant no. 37. "Only lazy people want equality," said a former Red Guard and sent-down youth. Informant no. 8. Although some warned against stratification, most were keenly interested in higher living standards. One interviewee manifested the contradictions with considerable sensitivity: "Although the Communist Party demands equality among the people, bourgeois rights are a product of objective reality. On the one hand, they are residues left over from before the Liberation. On the other hand, they are also needed by society nowadays. The objective reality of today's social organization is that, between the leaders and the led, there are differences in wages, differences in cultural levels, and a rather weak material foundation. . . . This, caused by objective reality and history, cannot be eliminated at the present stage. This is the fairness of unfairness because both society and masses need leaders." Informant no. 17.

[35] "All along I had thought Song Jiang was a righteous person, a heroic figure. I was confused when Song Jiang was criticized. I do not know whom Song Jiang was supposed to represent. I think he symbolized some kind of thought [mou yi zhong sixiang ]. . . . People were indifferent to it." Informant no. 38.

already alluded to earlier) were its glorification of manual labor as a transformative experience, and its idealization of closer relations between elites and masses. Change was achieved with respect to each of these aspects, but the degree and direction of change depended on the experience of participants, the most decisive criterion being whether the participant conceived himself/herself to have been a victim or beneficiary of the change at issue.

In terms of traditional Chinese conceptions of vertical mobility, manual labor represented an absence (or loss) of status, but from the Maoist (indeed, from the Marxist) perspective labor is the source of human value. Thus if elites (or their children) who had risen "above" manual labor were obliged once again to perform it, their haughty attitudes toward the working classes would be transformed. Although manual labor on a rather substantial part-time basis was introduced in all educational and administrative institutions, two categories of citizens were subjected to a more concentrated regimen: déclassé officials and radical youth.

The former were installed in "May 7 cadre schools," originally intended to facilitate greater contact with the working classes as well as to acquaint cadres with the concrete problems of production; however, cadres were soon insulated from the indigenous population, due to friction between cadres and peasants. Although "some cadres were very frightened," according to a former cadre, "afraid of hard work on the one hand and of the masses on the other," the situation was alleviated through subvention to such an extent that such schools were usually not economically self-sufficient. Recollections were not particularly bitter, sometimes even wistful:

I stayed in a May 7 cadre school for half a year, planting fruit trees and growing vegetables. The work there was easy and the living conditions were good. All the people there had made mistakes and they therefore tended to look down on one another. With good appetites, ample sleep, and fresh air, a lot of people gained weight after they came to the cadre school. Living happily together, many did not even want to return to their own work units.^[36]

One former inmate, who at times evokes Solzhenitsyn's Denisovich in her tributes to the solidarity induced by shared suffering, emerged with a new attitude toward manual labor that would have gratified Mao Zedong (cf. chapter 2):

The distaste one has for mud—with its usual mixture of phlegm, mucus, urine and faeces—vanished once we had taken off our shoes and socks and started walking around in the warm and yielding ooze. It was slippery and wet, but it

[36] Ibid.

did not seem at all "dirty." . . . The thought suddenly struck me: Is this what they mean about "changing your attitude" toward physical labor?^[37]

Whereas redemption through labor was quietly deemphasized in cadre rehabilitation after the fall of Lin Biao, it remained an important "career option" for China's urban youth throughout the Cultural Revolution decade; the most authoritative estimate places the number of participants in the "up to the mountains and down to the countryside" (shangshan xiaxiang ) campaign at 12 million, or about 10 percent of China's urban population.^[38] The transition was far more drastic for urban youth than for cadres, both because of the more sheltered previous experience of these youth and because of the harsher quality of the objective experience. Although production brigades received a certain subsidy to defray absorption costs, these youth were expected to become self-supporting settlers in this new subculture for the rest of their lives—this was to be no mere rite of passage in an urban career plan. A few no doubt succeeded in renouncing old aspirations and adapting to this new life style (unfortunately thereby eliminating themselves from this sample)—their success evoked an ambivalent combination of admiration and contempt from their confreres.^[39] But others found a way, albeit with some cognitive strain, to adapt recidivistic ambitions to their new environment. Two representative tales, the first a "success," the second a failure, may be recounted by way of illustration:

The daughter of a well-to-do Beijing Party cadre and enterprise director (changzhang ), having been active in the China Youth League (CYL), joined the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution and volunteered to go down to the countryside upon their demobilization in response to Mao's call for educated youth to do so. Although her father attempted to dissuade her, she opted for a remote and austere rural commune in Heilongjiang. After her second year there, she decided however it was "just too tough" for her, so she returned home, crying to her mother that she could endure no more. Her mother urged her to remain in Beijing illegally and they would support her, but her father felt that as a cadre this would place him in an awkward position. After a year's medical leave, she returned to her commune, but her objectives had changed. She strove to

[37] Yang Jiang, A Cadre School Life: Six Chapters , trans. Geremie Barme (Hong Kong: Joint Publishing Co., 1982), p. 33; also see p.36.

[38] Thomas P. Bernstein, Up to the Mountains and Down to the Villages: The Transfer of Youth from Urban to Rural China (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1977), p. 2.

[39] "We all admired her on the one hand, but privately said she was foolish on the other." Informant no. 15. On this general question, see Thomas P. Bernstein, "Communication and Value Change in the Chinese Program of Sending Urban Youths to the Countryside," in Godwin Chu and Francis L. K. Hsu, eds., Moving a Mountain: Cultural Change in China (Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1979), pp. 341–63.

join the Party, which was easy because of her background, and the second time members of the production team were chosen to be sent to the university she was selected: she was intelligent, exhibited a good attitude (biaoxian ), and had good cadre relations. She chose to study foreign languages, in order to minimize the chances of being sent back to the countryside, choosing Swedish because it was more distinctive (short supply, high demand) than English. She now cut herself off from political activities and did nothing but study. But when the first students were selected for a cultural exchange with Sweden, she was passed over because of her deficient political performance. So during her final two years in college, she became politically activist: she lived on campus, helped other students wash their clothes and clean the rooms in the morning (to develop better mass relations), and cultivated relations with the workers' propaganda team (which had responsibility for gongzuo fenpei —allocation of work assignments) by procuring expensive cigarettes for them through the "back door" and inviting them to her home to celebrate Spring Festival (Chinese New Year). When mass movements arose, she kept three objectives in view: (1) demonstrate activism, (2) avoid insulting cadres, and (3) avoid becoming a target. To realize these objectives, she kept her mouth shut during the opening stages of the campaign, expressing herself only when it became clear which direction the movement was taking and then writing a poster that merely synthesized officially acceptable views. She wrote well, and her posters were always lauded, though closer scrutiny would reveal that they contained nothing original. If the movement "became bad" (like the May 16th clique), she would quickly publish a self-criticism before others had begun to criticize her. As a result of her efforts, upon graduation she was assigned to work for the New China News Agency (NCNA), universally regarded by her peers as an excellent placement.^[40]

Comrade Xie (pseudonym) was the only son in a family of free professionals, and his parents had implanted in him a desire for an intellectual career. He did well in both studies and in student activities in high school and nourished a hope to be admitted to Qinghua University upon graduation. He had just received notification of his acceptance into the CYL, a significant breakthrough, on the eve of the Cultural Revolution. During the Red Guard movement he faced a dilemma when both parents came under attack for revisionist tendencies. He resolved it by "drawing a clear line of demarcation" and inviting Red Guards to come to his house and rebel against his mother. Throughout the movement he endeavored,

[40] Female informant, born 1956 in Hangzhou, of landlord family background, student class status, graduated high school before the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. Left Beijing legally (overseas Chinese family connections) in February 1976 (hereinafter informant no. 3).

in this compensatory manner, to be very "red," becoming a member of the radical Red Flag faction in Guangzhou. When his faction was suppressed at the end of 1968 and he was sent to the countryside, he was greatly dismayed and nonplussed. But he soon discovered opportunities to realize his old ambitions even within this austere new environment. He worked hard, cultivated cadre relations, becoming the production team's Mao Zedong's Thought adviser, rising to chief brigade adviser (zong fudaoyuan ). He also worked very hard, wearing only a pair of shorts so as to become brown in the sun (symbolizing) his transformation). He was thus one of the few sent-down youth to receive large quantities of money and food at the end of the year when profits were distributed. By way of cultivating mass relations he lived in a peasant household and developed good relations with the entire family, learning to speak fluent Hakka and sparking a romance with the family's eldest daughter. (At the same time, however, he maintained correspondence with his original intended, who had been sent down to a camp on Hainan Island.) These efforts finally bore fruit in 1973, when the Party branch selected him to go to college. But his plans were dashed by "one careless mistake":

I wrote to my girl friend on Hainan Island that I would be going to college. I also revealed in my letter that my hard work in the past five years and everything concerning my transformation was only for the purpose of getting out of the village to go to college. I don't know how but the peasant's daughter got the letter and read it before it was mailed. . . . She said that I had cheated her and was a rascal [liumang ]. I tried to get the letter back; the most damaging things I wrote in the letter had to do with my pretense at thought reform—all the love-talk was of minor importance. But . . . I was unable to get back my letter. What was more frightening, they took the letter to the Party branch! That was the end, everything about me was finished! Five years of hard work had all been wasted!

After vainly attempting to coordinate a joint escape with his girl friend on Hainan Island, Xie struck out on his own for Hong Kong. "I began as a true revolutionary but ended up as a phony," he concluded sardonically. "Such was the transformation of my thought."^[41]

These experiences, representative of any number that might be cited, illustrate the tenacity of individualistic ambition and seriously discredit any claim to the transformative potency of manual labor. Perhaps one reason for its inefficacy was the available counterexample of those who were still able to move upward by adapting to the changing skill market, making fools of those who had humbled themselves through labor. Appa-

[41] Male informant, free professional family background, student class status, migrated to Hong Kong illegally in August 1974. Born 1948 in Guangdong, refused to reveal more. Interviewed July 13, 1977 (hereinafter informant no. 7).

rently "ambitionists" who specialized in the manipulation of symbols were able to go far, as indicated by such popular sayings as "Liars can move up in the world" (shuo jiahua de ren neng shangqu ), and "Those who sing a high-pitched melody can climb" (diaozi gao de ren neng shangqu ).^[42] These hapless youth remained resentfully aware that radical elites who verbally endorsed the value of manual labor were able to avoid it. Aside from that, manual labor was in fact very "tough" (ku ), boring, perhaps inherently difficult to love.^[43] For whatever reasons, none of these youthful informants transformed their dread of physical labor by participating in it, and most came to abhor it all the more, though some gleaned sympathy for the peasants trapped in such fates.^[44] The contrast with the milder reaction of sent-down cadres deserves further consideration—perhaps their more thorough indoctrination inured them to hardship—perhaps also, their limited sojourn, and subsidized living standard, was less traumatizing.

With regard to relations between masses and elites, the mobilizational experience of the Cultural Revolution brought into view an ideal with which the masses had perhaps had little empirical experience but yearned for, nonetheless: "The purpose of the Cultural Revolution was to introduce democracy."^[45] This did not necessarily conjure up images of an electoral apparatus, multiparty legislature, or civil rights, but participants did hope for greater political equality between elites and masses and more freedom of expression.^[46] The early Cultural Revolution, as an explosive breakthrough from a high degree of constraint to unaccustomed freedom, seemed suddenly to actualize these repressed desires. "It was almost as if a frog jumped out of a well and saw the ocean—it almost drowned!"^[47] The big-character poster provided the means to penetrate and expose previously unapproachable elites under cover of anonymity; for many, the appearance of the first poster in their unit remained a memorable occasion.^[48] After the Red Guards had shown the way, "the masses were not as afraid of the leaders as they had been before,"^[49] and in fact "the leaders became afraid of the masses."^[50] Previously the attitude of the masses toward cadres (particularly Party cadres) had been "respect and avoidance" (jing er yuan zhi ), "daring to get angry, not daring to voice it" (gan nu bu gan yan ), fearing cadre retaliation. Though retaliation admittedly remained a risk, "masses became more daring in expressing

[42] Informant no. 7. Also male informant, born 1947 in Guangdong, of free professional family background, student individual class status, sent down to state farm during the Cultural Revolution after graduation from high school. Emigrated illegally in July 1974 to Hong Kong. Interviewed April 26, 1977 (hereinafter informant no. 22).

[43] Informant no. 3.

[44] Informant no. 25.

[45] Informant no. 36.

[46] Informants no. 9, 38.

[47] Informant no. 15.

[48] Informant no. 8.

[49] Informant no. 37.

[50] Ibid.

their opinions to the cadres,"^[51] and "Because of the Cultural Revolution, many leaders dared not retaliate against the masses."^[52] Cadres in fact often became quite ingratiating. In the words of a former medical technician in Zhengzhou:

Before the Cultural Revolution I didn't know who was the unit [Party] Secretary, didn't know who were the cadres. They didn't talk to us, didn't know our names, lived in separate residences [gao gan lou , or high cadre apartments]. . . . After the Cultural Revolution, they moved and lived in the same apartment building with us. They were closer to the masses. Their children played with ours, they walked around in the yard, talked with us, and if we had some problem, we could talk with them. They didn't necessarily solve your problems, but you could talk with them.^[53]

Activists, too, who had previously functioned as clandestine informants, felt vulnerable in this role after the critique of Liu Shaoqi's work teams (and especially of his wife's "Taoyuan Experience" during the "Four Cleans"), and became "more concerned with mass relations because they were afraid they might get struggled."^[54]

Despite a consensus among these informants that mass mobilization had resulted in greater political equality and more reciprocal elite-mass communication, this outcome was not deemed an unmixed blessing. Three complaints appeared most frequently: first, this was democracy without law, and the work norms and regulations that had previously obtained fell into desuetude.^[55] In this connection, cadre corruption, meaning specifically the informal allocation of favors (e.g., housing), became rife.^[56] Second, cadres often tended to backslide into old patterns of arrogance and authoritarianism. "Many cadres really changed. But many changed back. . . . It was a question of time."^[57] Third, democracy did not necessarily result in the elevation of merit. The new leaders might be more accessible but they were incompetent "good old boys" (lao hao ren ), whose concern for mass feedback impaired their leadership.^[58]

The tragic paradox was that greater political equality, in the context of an overwhelming emphasis on ideological conformity (yiyuanhua ), ultimately resulted not in expanded freedom of expression but in its sharp

[51] Ibid.

[52] Informants no. 23, 36.

[53] Informant no. 37.

[54] Informant no. 31. Also: "During meetings, they expressed their opinions [fayan ] more, wrote more big-character posters; during mass criticism, they made more criticisms. . . . Before, they were appointed by the leadership. Afterward, they were elected by the masses, had to receive a simple majority." Informant no. 37.

[55] After being rehabilitated, "veteran cadres tended not to make decisions with the speed and assurance they had in the past, because they were afraid and tried to protect themselves from criticism." Informant no. 35.

[56] Informant no. 22.

[57] Informants no. 22, 31, 36.

[58] Informant no. 35.

curtailment: "The Cultural Revolution had been expected to bring greater freedom but its actual consequences were just the contrary."^[59] Politics was "in command," but people tried to avoid discussing politics unless they were with close friends, relatives, or members of the same faction. The reason was that what could be said publicly was so limited that one might only repeat the same clichés. When informants were asked to reconcile reports of constrictive conformity with other reports (often from the same informant) of improved elite-mass contact and greater responsiveness to grievances, it was explained that the masses in effect practiced ideological self-censorship before voicing their suggestions to cadres.^[60]

After the Cultural Revolution, I obviously talked about politics more than before. I talked with all kinds of different peole. I talked in different political terms to people with different political viewpoints. I would not discuss my true feelings. What I talked about was all lies.^[61]

The rhetorical emphasis on rebellion and struggle in the context of pervasive ideological conformity led to some ironic consequences, such as "Holding high the red flag to oppose the red flag," or "The fleeing thief shouting 'Catch the thief!'" In fact very few of these informants thought that "going against the current" was praiseworthy, and even they knew it was not prudent. There was no legal distinction between "against the current" (fan chaoliu ) and "counterrevolutionary" (fandong ), some pointed out.^[62] None of the official models of such behavior were held in much esteem (particularly not Zhang Tiesheng). More valid exemplars were sometimes cited, such as Li Yizhe in Guangzhou or Li Chunsheng in Beijing, who were generally viewed as valiant but quixotic figures.^[63]

Behavioral Change

The attempt to transform everyday practice to conform to ideological precept had its most telling impact on routine meeting behavior and on workaday participation in the economy. In both realms, the impact was to promote more exacting conformity to prescribed routines, combined with progressive detachment of affect and covert resort to evasive maneuvers.

Chinese peasants have long complained that whereas the Nationalists imposed too many taxes (shui ), the Communists held too many meetings (hui ), but during the Cultural Revolution decade meetings were convened with redoubled intensity. "Study" (xuexi ) meetings were held

[59] Informants no. 21, 37.

[60] Informants no. 16, 31.

[61] Informant no. 22.

[62] Informants no. 16, 32, 34.

[63] Informants no. 4, 22.

twice as frequently as before, usually meeting at least two afternoons a week. Previously the texts studied were more intellectually challenging, at least for cadres and intellectuals, consisting for example of studies of the history of the Soviet Communist Party or Marxist political economy, but now they usually consisted of selections from Mao's Selected Works or the latest editorials from the "two papers and one journal" (liang bao yi kan —People's Daily , Red Flag , Liberation Army Daily ). After 1971, they consisted of more central documents (zhongyang wenjian ). Sometimes the reports were of great interest, such as the report following the first Sino-Soviet border clash, or Lin Biao's unsuccessful escape attempt, but usually the texts failed to hold the interest of the participants, who did not bother to hide their indifference (particularly if they were of good class background).

During the meeting, a lot of people would do other things—write letters, read novels, knit, chat—sometimes the talking was so loud you couldn't hear the report, and the leader would say, "Don't talk so loud!" People would fall asleep, and he would say, "Wake up, you!" Some people didn't even attend. Sometimes they took roll to control for this, but that was only temporarily effective.^[64]

During a movement, the normal meeting schedule was greatly intensified (jinzhang ). For the Criticism of Deng Xiaoping in 1976, workers in a technical agricultural machinery plant on Hainan met seven nights a week, in meetings lasting until 11 P.M.^[65] During the campaign to criticize Lin Biao and Confucius, political study was held six days a week, with all of Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday devoted to study. Thus workers lost their weekends, while management sacrificed half the work week to political activities. A new campaign would be signaled by the release of a packet of central documents and by publication of an editorial in the "two papers and one journal"; the provincial Party committees would then issue provincial documents to be dispatched to every locality, triggering a proliferation of local documents. Then rectification would commence. Big-character posters would appear—spontaneously during the early Cultural Revolution, usually composed by a writing committee (in careful adherence to central documents and editorials) thereafter. A campaign had its own dynamic, and the early phase was most dangerous, particularly for participants with bad class backgrounds or "historical problems," because of the need to identify criticism targets. If a self-

[64] Informant no. 37. See also Claudie Broyelle et al., China: A Second Look , trans. Sarah Matthews (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1980), p. 111, which is an account based on several years' residence in China during the Cultural Revolution decade.

[65] The intensity of the meeting schedule varied somewhat depending on the enthusiasm of the local cadres in charge, so the Hainan plant's schedule may have been exceptional.

criticism was submitted at this stage of the movement it stood less chance of being accepted than if submitted at the end. The terminal stages of a movement were marked by an emphasis on "unity," which might "put a mask on things for awhile."^[66]

Generally speaking, the campaigns of the Cultural Revolution decade fostered acute critical sensitivity to the failings of cadres and intellectuals and enhanced the power of the workers. Management was in effect deprived of the use of mobilization as a negative sanction as well as of any control over positive sanctions (due to the wage freeze and the "iron rice bowl"). The result was a precipitous decline in the morale of both management and labor and a corresponding increase in strikes (bagong ), slowdowns (daigong ), absenteeism (kuanggong ), and general "softness, laziness, disunity" (ruan , lan , san ).^[67] The most disruptive of these forms of labor indiscipline was the strike—which was also most severely sanctioned, hence least frequently encountered. Strikes did, however, affect industrial production in the second quarters of 1974, 1975, and 1976, creating particularly damaging bottlenecks in the transportation and heavy industrial sectors.

Perhaps most notorious was the series of strikes that hit the central industrial city of Hangzhou, beginning in 1972 and reaching a violent climax in late 1974 and 1975, when factional conflict resulted in fatalities, industry ground to a halt, and there were serious shortages. Official postmortems explain the Hangzhou strikes in terms of a conspiracy theory, assigning blame to one Weng Senhe, vice-chairman of the Zhejiang Trade Union Federation, former Revolutionary Rebel (also however sometimes described as a "plump, gray-haired cadre"), and radical "agent" for Wang Hongwen.^[68] But available eyewitness testimony suggests a rather different interpretation. If some of the strike leaders were former rebels, it should not be forgotten that there were "loyalist" as well as "radical" rebel factions; it seems unlikely that any "radical" rebels could have survived the military purges of the early 1970s with their leadership positions intact. The initiators of the strike were workers whose worldview may have more closely approximated that of Deng Xiaoping than that of the Gang of Four—they wanted bonuses and higher wages, which were taboo from the Maoist perspective.

The 1974 incident began in the spring, when workers at the Hangzhou Automobile Electric Machine Plant (HAEMP) requested resumption of the payment of "subsidiary wages" (fuzhu gongzi —equivalent to a bonus). But the factory Party committee rejected the request, even when it received the support of the municipal industrial bureau. When workers

[66] Informant no. 34.

[67] Squires collection.

[68] Ming Bao , January 3, 1977, p. 1; Hong Kong Standard , April 12, 1977, p. 16; etc.

at the Hangzhou Silk Factory (HSF) and the Hangzhou Construction Materials Factory (HCMF) heard of the HAEMP request they made similar demands, as did workers in the city and provincial coal mines. At this point one Zhu Wufu, one of the local faction leaders during the Cultural Revolution and now a member of the HCMF's Revolutionary Committee (RC), became engaged on behalf of the petitioning workers, and also recruited other members of his network. The strike began in the HCMF and spread to the HAEMP and the HSF and beyond, until at least half the city's industries had shut down. After Liu Di, minister of light industry, failed to resolve the dispute, Wang Hongwen himself came to Hangzhou. Contrary to what one might have expected had Wang conspired to foment the strike, Wang adopted a very hard line, putting strikers in jail.^[69] The workers split between those who supported the strike and those who opposed it, reflecting Cultural Revolution cleavages, and Wang's "simple and ruthless methods" only polarized the situation and caused the strike to spread further, and include some nonindustrial production, administrative, and educational units.

As a result of Wang's failure, Deng Xiaoping was sent to resolve the problem. He took a more moderate stance toward worker wage demands—no doubt partly because he could sincerely sympathize with them:

Once Deng Xiaoping arrived in Hangzhou, he stationed the PLA in the factories to protect the buildings and machines. He also assigned soldiers to take over the work posts directly, relying on the minority of the workers who had not joined the strikes to learn the techniques for running the machines and continue production. Deng Xiaoping also read some of Zhou Enlai's directives to the effect that the central government would investigate and discuss the workers' practical demands, and those with real difficulties would be resolved as soon as possible. He also pointed out that wage problems were the same all over the country and that it was impossible to solve the wage problems of Hangzhou's workers first—the whole country's wage problems had to be resolved, but they had to be resolved step by step.^[70]

Deng's more tolerant attitude toward practical demands allowed him to adopt a discriminating and pragmatic negotiating posture beyond the range of the radical Wang. In accord with the principle "leniency to those who are honest, harsh treatment to those who refuse" (tanbai congkuan , kangju congyan ), he succeeded in luring most of the workers back to work while subjecting the "ringleaders" (such as Zhu) to labor reform.^[71]

[69] Informant came to Hong Kong from Hangzhou in August 1976, and declined to divulge much information about himself, though he insisted he was actively involved as a member of the Hangzhou work force. Interviewed May 24, 1977 (hereinafter informant no. 40).

[70] Ibid.

[71] Ibid.

Far more common than strikes were various forms of slowdown (toulan ), which impaired production without anyone's publicly taking responsibility for doing so. "There have been continual slowdown strikes since 1968," reported a former member of a local RC Standing Committee.^[72] Just how much organization was behind such movements is problematic, because it remained invisible. Least organized was tuigong (absenteeism)—people would stay home because they were dissatisfied with their pay, or bored, or because they saw other people doing so (and getting away with it). Somewhat more openly organized was the daigong (slowdown), which consisted of stopping production in a plant while allowing workers to work on their private projects, drink tea, or sleep.^[73]

The slowdown or strike was sometimes related to factionalism, insofar as if one faction was in power the other would refuse to work.^[74] But factionalism if anything was even more pervasive than labor indiscipline, ranking among the most significant stigmata of the Cultural Revolution era on everyday life. In 1966–68 factionalism took the form of openly constituted fighting bands (zhandui ), into which much of society was mobilized into active or passive support. In 1969–71, punishment was meted out to identifiable zhandui , and in the 1971–76 period factions usually operated more clandestinely. Their core membership nevertheless harkened to the cleavages formed during the period of spontaneous mobilization, and members retained their ideological identity during subsequent movements. Estimates of the rate of factional participation varied considerably, but the consensus seems to be that there was a gradual decline and only a minority remained actively engaged. Each faction was likely to have representation on the unit RC, later perhaps even on the Party committee, and the unit activists (jiji fenzi ) were also likely to be split into factions; therefore, "to really be a good person was impossible."^[75] In some units conservatives held a majority, in others radicals; conservatives had the upper hand in most units following reconstruction of the Party, but particularly in those units in which intellectuals were strongly represented (schools—even PLA schools—hospitals, some government organs, many Beijing and Shanghai factories), radicals retained a preponderant influence.

The strongest motive for individual factional involvement seems to have been to acquire "greater power within the unit."^[76] If a person was "not too good" factionally speaking, others would not work for him. One could talk heart-to-heart only with other faction members. In some villages factional cleavages coincided with traditional rivalries between

[72] Informant no. 13.

[73] Informant no. 37.

[74] Informant no. 13.

[75] Informant no. 35.

[76] Informant no. 38.

family-name lineages, reviving clan feuds.^[77] Middle-aged workers and cadres—those with vested interests in the status quo—tended to join conservative factions, whereas younger workers, young intellectuals, "black elements," and ambitious cadres inclined to join radical factions. The faction leadership would attempt to recruit members from the political majority to decide issues of interest to them, and this middle majority was more ideologically flexible than the factional core (e.g., "I joined whichever faction had the largest organization").^[78]

The chief disadvantage of factionalism was of course that it tended to exacerbate intramural conflict. Factions might fight about anything—in one case there was even conflict in the formation of a factory soccer team, the best player in the plant having been excluded because he belonged to a weaker faction.^[79] Any policy the center failed to define precisely or left to subordinate organs to determine locally became an arena of factional conflict: the distribution of housing could occasion factional conflict, for example, or the recruitment of youth to be sent down to the countryside. If there were conflicting signals from the center indicating elite controversy, as in the spring of 1975 over wage policy, there was factional conflict anticipating and lobbying for desirable changes. By the same token, "what decided victory or defeat in factional struggles was central policy."^[80] Once central policy was set, the majority quickly fell into line, with the membership of the losing faction lapsing into temporary passivity.

Another informal escape mechanism used to cope with the everyday difficulties posed by permanent mobilization was "taking the back door" (zou houmen ). People took the back door because the demand for certain goods and services exceeded the supply, which might be artificially restricted, or rationed. Under these circumstances, those "gatekeepers" who controlled the supply of specific goods or services (e.g., truck drivers, doctors, carpenters, blacksmiths, salespersons, and most importantly

[77] Male informant, born 1940 in Guangdong of lower-middle peasant family background, lower-middle peasant class status. Had been a member of the CYL, received education up to grade four in primary school before becoming a peasant, also a class leader (banzhang ) in the militia. Illegally emigrated to Hong Kong in April 1977. Interviewed August 1–2, 1977 (hereinafter informant no. 10).

[78] Male informant, born 1946 in Guangdong, of worker family background, student class status (junior high school graduate), participated in a Red Guard faction during the Cultural Revolution, legally emigrated to Hong Kong in December 1976. Interviewed June 7, 1977 (hereinafter informant no. 14).

[79] Informant no. 37.

[80] A legal émigré from Guangdong (Xinhui), male, born 1948 of worker family background. Had been a CYL member, a Red Guard, and a junior high school graduate, before becoming a second grade worker in a small automobile repair and assembly factory in Guangzhou. Interviewed July 3, 1977 (hereinafter informant no. 24).

cadres—particularly personnel cadres) could use their discretionary power to allocate gifts and curry favor. All informants without exception had used the back door, and most considered it legitimate or at least necessary under the circumstances, though most tacitly agreed with the Gang of Four in deeming cadre privilege unjustified in view of the structural advantages of high position.^[81] Though back door transactions were certainly not unheard of before 1966, the Cultural Revolution had caused them to proliferate far beyond the original elite network, informants agreed, due primarily to the disintegration of formal institutions.^[82]

In sum, the late Cultural Revolution seemed to reveal the shadow side of the explosive emancipation its advocates glimpsed during the initial period. The cathartic breakthrough did not usher in the utopia but at best brought a fleeting sense of euphoria that soon gave way to an incessant, compulsive pounding, as campaign followed campaign in accelerating tempo. The cognitive insight into the necessary priority of the public interest was not denied, but merely gave way to boredom in the absence of available alternatives; later attempts to specify and elaborate this insight into a comprehensive philosophy eluded most of its audience. Behaviorally, participants conformed by exhibiting the types of action prescribed in the appropriate contexts, albeit with progressive detachment of affect and a rising coincidence of deviant extracurricular behavior. In their attitudes, participants often expressed vehement antipathy to values and norms they numbly affirmed at a cognitive level. The constant undulations of the polemical dialectic entailed that only those "targets" survived who were capable of utterly flexible opportunism. By the end of ten years of cultural transformation, the utopian vision revealed in the initial breakthrough had been almost completely obscured by tactical considerations.