Software Engineering IT 242 CASE STUDY
Software Engineering
IT242
Semester 2 – 2019/2020
College of Computing and Informatics
Introduction
The case study is about the analysis of the students’ understanding in analyzing a given scenario and practical skills to apply concepts and build diagrams studied in IT242 (Software Engineering). The case study consists of five parts. Students are required to answer all of these parts based on the below scenario.
Your team has been asked to develop a mobile application for ordering groceries. The mobile application will manage the whole process of searching, buying, and delivering groceries from different groceries stores. Customers have to register and login to their accounts in order to access services provided in the mobile application. After login, customers can search for groceries, then add wanted items to the cart. After that, customers can place an order by paying the amount needed. The mobile application will also allow customers to track their orders. After receiving their orders, customers will be able to rate the service provided. Finally, if a customer faced an issue or had any complaints, the mobile application will allow them to file a complaint to system administrators.
Groceries store owners can also register and login to the system, which will allow them to manage their stores details. In addition, store owners will be able to manage the products available in their stores (e.g. add new product, change the price of a product …etc.). The system will allow groceries store owners to view and change the status of an order so when an order gets shipped, groceries store owners can change the order status to shipped.
The mobile application will allow Drivers to register and login to the system. The system will assign orders to drivers. Drivers will be able to view assigned orders and change the order status after delivering an order. The mobile application should allow System admins to login to the system. System admins can approve registration of groceries store owners and Drivers. System admins will be able to view complaints and respond to them. In addition, System admins will be able to view reports about the service rating.
Deliverables
The parts of this case study yield many outputs. These outputs will be the means of evaluation of each part of the case study. On or before the due date, the group leader (selected by the students’ group) must upload only one Word-format document to the Blackboard.
Based on the given scenario, answer the following parts.
Part One
8 Marks
Learning Outcome(s): LO2
Questions of this part analyze the students’ understanding in analyzing the given scenario to build use case diagrams and write detailed use case description studied in chapters 8, and 9 of IT242.
1.1 Draw a use-case diagram for the given scenario (4 Marks)
1.2 By using the template below, provide detailed use-case descriptions for the following use cases:
• customer files a complaint (2 Marks)
Use Case name:
ID:
Important level:
Use Case Descriptions:
Created By:
Last Updated By:
Date Created:
Date Last Updated:
Primary Actor:
Trigger:
Type:
Major input
Description
Source
Major outputs
Description
Destination
Major steps
Information for steps
• Driver makes a delivery (2 Marks)
Answer
Part Two
8 Marks
Learning Outcome(s): LO3
Questions of this part analyze the students’ understanding in analyzing the given scenario and practical skills to build Swimlane diagrams studied in Chapter 9 of IT242.
2.1 The following paragraph depicts the activity of ordering from a grocery store using the mobile application. Draw a Swimlane Diagram for the given activity. (8 Marks)
The process starts when the customer logins into the system. The system verifies his/her credentials. If correct, he/she can proceed otherwise the system shows an error message. The customer views all the available stores that he/she is supposed to order from them, selects one of the stores, and add items that he/she wants to buy to the shopping cart. The customer checkouts and pays through credit card. After that, credit card details are verified by the bank. If not correct, the system shows an error message otherwise it will send a notification to the store owner to prepare the order. The store owner receives the notification, prepares the order and changes its status on the system to ready for delivery. The system assigns the order to one of the drivers, and then send a notification to this driver. The driver picks up the order and delivers it to the customer. The process ends here, the driver changes the order status to delivered.
Answer
Part Three
8 Marks
Learning Outcome(s): LO2 and LO3
Questions of this part analyze the students’ understanding in analyzing the given scenario and practical skills to build Class diagrams studied in chapters 8, 10 and 12 of IT242.
The management of the groceries ordering system would desire to have a database system to keep track of orders, customers, drivers and stores. Read the following paragraph to answer the given questions.
The system maintains four users’ information. For each user, the system keeps a unique ID, name, login, password, address, contact number, category (Grocery Owner, admin, customer and driver) and status (approved by admin or not). Each Grocery Owner has an address and name of the store. He can view one or more order also it can manage one or more product. Each order has an order ID, amount to pay, status and rate service. An order can be managed by one grocery owner and one admin. A single order is associated with one or more product. The product details to be stored are reference, quantity and price. A product can be processed by one grocery owner. Each driver can view and change the status of one or more order. An order can be assigned to one driver only. Each customer can make one or more order and fill zero or more complaints. Each complaint has a complaint ID, title, body and date. A complaint can be handled by one admin. Each admin can approve registration of store owners, drivers, and customers. He can view reports about the service ratings.
3.1 Draw a Class diagram for the given database. The diagram must show all classes, relationships between classes, and multiplicities. (8 Marks)
Answer
Part Four
8 Marks
Learning Outcome(s): LO5
Questions of this part analyze the students’ understanding in analyzing the given scenario and practical skills to build Sequence diagrams studied in Chapter 11 of IT242.
4.1 The management of the groceries ordering system would like to have an online process to deal with customers’ delivery. Draw a Sequence diagram for the below flow of events. You are required to identify relevant objects and methods according to the given steps. (8 Marks)
Flow of Events to deliver an order:
1. A customer checks-out his/her cart using the system.
2. The system notifies the store owner that a customer made an order.
3. The store owner changes the order status to “Ready”.
4. Once the store owner changes the order status, the system sends a notification to the customer.
5. Once the system sent the notification to the customer, it also assigns the order to an available driver.
6. The driver accepts the delivery.
7. Once the driver delivered the order, he/she changes the order status to “delivered”.
8. After that, the customer gets a notification from the system to rate the service.
9. When the customer rates the service, the system sends a notification to the system admin.
Answer
·
Part Five
8 Marks
Learning Outcome(s): LO3
Questions of this part analyze the students’ understanding in analyzing the given scenario and practical skills to write test cases studied in Chapter 7 and Chapter 22 of IT242.
5.1 For the following user interface (sign up), write 3 possible test scenarios of a sign up test case. (8 Marks)
Use the test case template below to answer this question.
Test Case ID
###
Test Case Description
Created By
Reviewed By
Version
QA Tester’s Log
Tester’s Name
Date Tested
Test Case (Pass/Fail/Not Executed)
S #
Prerequisites:
S #
Test Data
1
1
2
2
3
3
4
4
Test Scenario 1
Verify …..
Step #
Step Details
Expected Results
Actual Results
Pass / Fail / Not executed / Suspended
1
2
3
4
5
Test Scenario 2
Verify …..
Step #
Step Details
Expected Results
Actual Results
Pass / Fail / Not executed / Suspended
1
2
3
4
5
Test Scenario 3
Verify …..
Step #
Step Details
Expected Results
Actual Results
Pass / Fail / Not executed / Suspended
1
2
3
4
5
Answer
End of Questions
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Download by: [University of Liverpool] Date: 27 September 2017, At: 14:18
Journal of Modern Chinese History
ISSN: 1753-5654 (Print) 1753-5662 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rmoh20
The “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution”:
China’s modern trauma
Thomas Heberer
To cite this article: Thomas Heberer (2009) The “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution”:
China’s modern trauma, Journal of Modern Chinese History, 3:2, 165-181, DOI:
10.1080/17535650903345379
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Published online: 11 Dec 2009.
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ARTICLE
The ‘‘Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution’’: China’s
modern trauma
Thomas Heberer*
Institutes of Political Science and East Asian Studies, University Duisburg–Essen
This paper examines and analyses the causes and consequences of the Cultural Revolution
in China. This great twentieth century Chinese trauma cannot be detached from Mao as a
person. He was its initiator and – as a charismatic leader – stood above the people and the
party, and in the consciousness of the majority of the people was perceived as a great,
compelling leader. This paper traces the historical setting, the causes, the process and the
consequences of this tremendous political and social movement. In addition, the role of
Mao and the concepts of his followers are scrutinized. Finally, the issue of whether or not
the Cultural Revolution should be classified as a ‘‘revolution’’ is discussed.
Keywords: Cultural Revolution; Mao Zedong; political culture; Chinese road to devel-
opment; revolution
‘‘The great proletarian cultural revolution now unfolding is a great revolution that touches
people to their very souls and constitutes a new stage in the development of the socialist
revolution in our country, a deeper and more extensive stage.’’ With this sentence began the
‘‘Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CCCPC) concerning
the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution’’ of August, 1966.1 Fifteen years later the party
leadership declared this period to be a ‘‘ten-year catastrophe, which had led to national
chaos.’’2 Nothing demonstrates more clearly the political contrast that accrued during this
period in China.
When the Cultural Revolution began in 1966, in fact a new, even though tragic, chapter in
the history of China, as well as in the history of socialism had begun. For the first time a
Communist leader (Mao Zedong) called for publicly attacking and actually destroying the
party, its elites and the structures and institutions of the state. All this took place in the name of
the proletarian revolution and the fight against bureaucratic and neo-capitalist structures. It also
awakened hopes in the West because for the first time a reformation process in a socialist
country seemed to get under way in the sense of Marxist’s original ideas: a reformation from
within, by the ‘‘masses’’ and supported by a supposed humanitarian revolutionary leader.
Journal of Modern Chinese History
Vol. 3, No. 2, December 2009, 165–181
*Email: thomas.heberer@uni-due.de
1Zhonggong zhongyang [The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China], Zhongguo
gongchandang zhongyang weiyuanhui guanyu wuchan jieji wenhua dageming de jueding [Decision
of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CCCPC) concerning the Great Proletarian
Cultural Revolution] (Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1966), 1.
2Zhonggong zhongyang, Guanyu jianguo yilai dang de ruogan lishi wenti de jueyi [Resolution on
Certain Questions in the History of Our Party since the Founding of the People’s Republic of China]
(Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1981).
ISSN 1753-5654 print/ISSN 1753-5662 online
# 2009 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/17535650903345379
http://www.informaworld.com
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The idea of creating a new socialist man through a ‘‘mass revolution’’ and overthrowing
the bureaucratic layer that seemed to be responsible for the corruption of socialism in the
Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and the hope for a more humane socialism had made the
Cultural Revolution not a pure Chinese project. Mao’s call for ‘‘swimming against the tide’’
inspired not only the majority of Chinese young people, but also the political left and many
intellectuals in industrialized Western countries. China (and its Cultural Revolution) was
celebrated as a new beacon of socialism and model for liberation of the people. A flood of
writings seized on Chinese propaganda and traced a development that existed only in the
heads of Western intellectuals. They believed that in China a new utopia was under
construction.
Western Leftists idealized the Cultural Revolution and translated its ideas into the
context of their own countries: ‘‘rebellion is justified’’ became one of the most important
slogans of that time. ‘‘We educated ourselves by way of rebelling,’’ a brochure of the ‘‘ Red
Cells and the General Students’ Committee’’ at the German University of Kiel in 1972
declared. ‘‘Break with traditional ideas radically,’’ a brochure of the Sinology Working
Group of the University of Frankfurt proclaimed in 1974. ‘‘Half the Sky, Women’s
Liberation and Children’s Education in China,’’ one of the cult books by the French writer
Claudie Broyelle during the 1970s, enthused over the ‘‘socialization of the mother’s func-
tion,’’ the takeover of children and a ‘‘new concept of love.’’3 Joshua Horn’s ‘‘An English
Surgeon in People’s China’’ described the ‘‘revolutionary organisations in health care’’ and
the revolutionizing of doctor–patient relationships.4 In the mid-1970s, a German play about
the Chinese school system began with a teacher who entered the class intending to check the
students’ homework. The pupils stayed at first irreverent, sitting and continuing their talking
about ‘‘the revolution,’’ then they turned toward the teacher and criticized her as a ‘‘bour-
geois authority,’’ a ‘‘representative of the capitalist way in education’’ and finally they forced
her to undergo self-criticism.5 Not only in China, but also here in Germany one intellectual
model was of a Chinese student, who handed in a blank examination paper with a marginal
note stating that he was a worker and had therefore no time to prepare for the examination (he
was later nominated a vice-minister of the Ministry of Education). Charles Bettelheim,
Professor of the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes in Paris, was a pioneer of economic
idealism, which glorified the working relationships in factories.6
Therefore the significance of the Cultural Revolution reached far beyond China. Mao’s
mass line, where the masses did not symbolize the real people, but the ‘‘idea of a moral
energy with supranational attractiveness,’’7 seized students and intellectuals outside China
because it promised power and change and seemed to point a way out of the frozen socialism
of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union and an escape from the assumed authoritarian
circumstances in their own countries. The pursuit of creating a ‘‘new man’’ gratified the
needs of someWestern intellectuals in the 1960s, especially since they had found it neither in
the writings of Karl Marx nor in those of the leftist psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich.
This introductory explanation is intended to suggest the global significance of the
Cultural Revolution. However, the following article is not about an historic footnote, but
3Claudie Broyelle, Die Hälfte des Himmels. Frauenemanzipation und Kindererziehung in China
(Berlin: Klaus Wagenbach, 1974).
4Joshua S. Horn, An English Surgeon in People’s China (London: The Hymlyn Publishing Group,
1969).
5German–China Friendship Association, ed., Erziehung in China (Bremen, 1973).
6Charles Bettelheim, Cultural Revolution and Industrial Organization in China: Changes in
Management and the Division of Labor (New York: New York University Press, 1974).
7G€unther Roth,PolitischeHerrschaft und pers€onliche Freiheit (Frankfurt (Main): Suhrkamp, 1987), 105.
166 Thomas Heberer
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rather is an attempt to explain the causes and consequences of the Cultural Revolution in
China. This twentieth century Chinese trauma cannot be detached fromMao as a person. The
American historian John K. Fairbank once wrote that without the dual role of Mao as a
revolutionary leader (in his self-conception) and as a new emperor (from the aspect of
power) the Cultural Revolution cannot be understood. As a charismatic leader, he stood
above the people and the party, and took up the cult figure position in the consciousness of
the majority of people. 8 This function of Mao will be discussed at the end of this paper.
I. Political culture and culture revolution
In the analysis of social and political phenomena a basic question was brought forward: that is,
to what extent can we actually understand other processes in other cultures with our scientific
rationality and categories developed from western patterns? The French Sinologist Marcel
Granet once raised the question of whether Chinese characters could actually be translated into
our own perceptions.9 Moreover, the single Chinese characters are the result of multi-layered
tradition that has grown in the course of centuries. In our context this is valid not only for the
Chinese concept of ‘‘culture’’ (wenhua), which traditionally was related to people mastering
the rites, classical music, classical writings and rules of Confucian culture. It is similarly valid
for the Chinese concept of revolution, which differs fundamentally from the European
concept. The former encompasses the Confucian perception that the ruler does not possess a
right to rule but a ‘‘mandate from heaven,’’ which he can be deprived of if the ruler does not
fulfill his obligations. ‘‘Revolutions’’ (meaning a change of mandates, geming, the word still
used today for revolution) were in fact a legitimate tool in Chinese state theory. If harmony,
meaning social balance, no longer obtained, if the ruler was unable to act as a regulator of
social processes any more, he could forfeit his mandate. In that case uprisings occurred, and
even tyrannicide was justifiable. In Chinese history, periods of social unrest and political
conflicts followed periods of social harmony and rest. Historians call this interaction the
dynastic cycle.10 This term indicates that even radical upheavals did not generate a change of
the basic structures of society (in the sense of a revolution), but, as the sociologist Barrington
Moore once argued, they were rather rebellions, which brought new dynasties into power and
reestablished the original Confucian ruling system or left it widely untouched.11
In this context, the so-called Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) changed nothing in principle,
because it altered neither the basic power structure nor the social system on which it was based.
Nevertheless it offered something new: it was not a movement plotted from the bottom up, the
charismatic leader (Mao) initiated it rather from the top down. It was also not a revolt supported
by the peasants, the social group which still makes up the majority of the Chinese population.
Rather, fringe groups at first were affected by it. It was also not led by a revolutionary party, but
Mao’s charisma stood behind it. He was still seen as the inviolable leader.
If we refer to the traditional content of the Chinese concepts of culture and revolution, a
special meaning seems to lurk behind the ‘‘Cultural Revolution’’: namely that ancient
Confucian-classical culture should be deprived of its right (mandate) to exist. The ancient
or ‘‘old’’ culture and the ways of thinking and behaving associated with it should be wiped
out. ‘‘Proletarian’’ stood for an anti-Confucian and new or ‘‘modern’’ culture, corresponding
8John K. Fairbank, Geschichte des modernen China 1800– 1985 (Munich: dtv-Verlag, 1989), 316–17.
9Marcel Granet, Das chinesische Denken (Frankfurt (Main): Suhrkamp, 1985), 19–37.
10See, for instance, C.Y.C. Chi and N.D. Lei, ‘‘Famine, Revolt, and the Dynastic Cycle: Population
Dynamics in Historic China,’’ Journal of Pop Economics 7 (1994): 351–78.
11Barrington Moore, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making
of the Modern World (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966).
Journal of Modern Chinese History 167
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to Mao’s concepts of culture and modernity. Accordingly, the Cultural Revolution can be
classified as an anti-traditional movement.
II. Historical starting point
In themid-1950s themajority of party leaders believed that therewas nomore class antagonism
after the nationalization of enterprises and the collectivization of agriculture, but merely
contradictions among the people. This point of view was declared the official line by the
Eighth Party Congress of theCPC (1956). There wasmassive criticism on the political situation
mainly from intellectuals in early 1957 (The Hundred Flower Campaign), which caused a
rethinking: Mao and his supporters were convinced that the class struggle would continue to
exist, primarily in the ideological field. In the anti-rightist campaign that followed, at first
intellectuals were the targets of political assaults. It was believed that the intellectuals had non-
revolutionary or counterrevolutionary ideas in their minds and therefore constantly had to be
criticized and reeducated. The workers and peasants in contrast were classified as ‘‘poor and
blank,’’ as pure-minded and hencemalleable toMao’s revolutionary concepts. ‘‘The population
of 600 million in China,’’ said Mao in 1958, ‘‘has two peculiarities; they are, first of all, poor,
and secondly blank. . . A clean sheet of paper has no blotches, and so the newest and most
beautiful characters can be written on it, the newest and most beautiful pictures can be painted
on it.’’12 This concept was a crucial factor for the ‘‘Great Leap Forward’’ (1958–1960), a
disastrous attempt tomodernizeChina throughmassmobilization in just a few years. The social
costs of this erroneous belief were enormous: about 20–30 million people starved to death.
The inner-party criticism on the policy of the Great Leap and Mao’s leadership strength-
ened his believe that within the Communist Party large counterrevolutionary forces were
struggling to fight his ‘‘Chinese way’’ of development. Those forces represented the class
enemy, the Bourgeoisie. Accordingly he warned in 1962: ‘‘Never forget class struggle.’’13 The
development in the Soviet Union after 1956 (criticism on Stalin and his personality cult, along
with a certain degree of liberalization) and the return of more market-oriented, competition-
oriented and private economic activities in China in the early 1960s nourished his vision of a
‘‘capitalist restoration.’’ He assessed the developing social differentiation as polarization and
the beginning of a recurrence of classes. In May 1964 he asserted: ‘‘One third of all basic units
are not in our hands,’’ and at the end of that year: ‘‘How many of our industrial enterprises are
led by a capitalist management? One third? The half? Or more?’’He spoke for the first time of
the existence of a ‘‘bureaucratic class’’ inside the Communist Party. In January 1965 he
declared in the politburo that the main targeting objects in the future would be ‘‘those within
the party who are in authority and are taking the capitalist road.’’14
Initially science and culture stood in the focus of criticism, domains where there was
more freedom since the early 1960s. Concurrently, after the fiasco of the Great Leap
Forward, increasing criticisms of Mao and his leadership occurred in the disguise of
historical events, figures and allusions. Hence, Mao believed that bourgeois power was
concentrated here. For the first time the idea of a ‘‘Cultural Revolution’’ emerged and was
justified by reasoning that it was about a ‘‘revolution in the superstructure’’ with the goal of
creating a ‘‘new man.’’ This would comprise a revolution in the ideological field and require
a permanent education and reeducation process.
12Mao Zedong, Mao zhuxi yulu [Quotations from Chairman Mao] (Beijing: People’s Publishing
House, 1969).
13Mao, Mao zhuxi yulu.
14Helmut Forster-Latsch and Jochen Noth,Chinas weg in die Moderne. Anders alsMoskau? (Frankfurt
(Main): Sendler, 1986), 135–36.
168 Thomas Heberer
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III. Principle reasons
Besides the aforementioned historical factors there are essentially five strands of causes and
conflicts:
(1) Economic conflicts: the existence of rival, antithetical concepts of development, which
included, for instance, the main political and social emphasis (class struggle or
economic development; development through mass mobilization or by means of
technology and raising the educational level of the population), the priorities of
development (technicalization or collectivization), the ownership system (ownership
diversity or a one-sided nationalization) or the incentive system (moral or material
incentives). The different positions congregated into two fractions. Mao and the then
Head of State Liu Shaoqi stood at the top of two diverging fractions, respectively.
(2) Political conflicts: such as a different assessment of priorities. Mao stood for the
opinion that class struggle must take the lead. Liu contrarily believed that the
problem of class struggle had largely been solved, and therefore economic devel-
opment had to be put in the foreground. Those different political concepts and the
attempts of both factions to enforce their concepts politically resulted in a struggle to
create a political power base for concept enforcement.
(3) Social reasons: increasing employment problems and the discontent of urban youth
with their compelled dispatch to rural areas in order to solve those same employment
problems became socially explosive. There was also dissatisfaction with regard to the
education system. It was based on a strict selection which gave preference to children
from political and intellectual elites to the disadvantage to those from worker and
peasant families. Additionally, career prospects for university graduates worsened.
Furthermore, rural contract laborers in urban enterprises were also dissatisfied because
they felt like second-class citizens. They could obtain no permanent residence permit
in urban areas, were socially discriminated against and were paid lower wages than
urbanites. In addition, unlike the urban workers they were not integrated into the
national social welfare system. There was also dissatisfaction among young workers
and young apprentices. They had to do the hardest jobs, but were badly paid in return.
Poorer peasants in turn were dissatisfied because the household contract management
established in 1962 brought few if any benefits to them. Finally, therewas considerable
dissatisfaction about the increasing dimension of corruption, bureaucratic orientation
and privileges of leading cadres. With this in mind, the Cultural Revolution could be
labeled a ‘‘fringe group revolt,’’ meaning that socially discriminated against or
disappointed people felt enthusiastic over the ‘‘new revolution’’ proclaimed by Mao
and his supporters who favored those groups and instigated them to ‘‘rebel.’’
(4) Ideological reasons: Mao’s concept of Socialism, for example his viewpoint of the
role of class struggle as a driving force in social development or his concept of a
necessary and successful re-education through permanent revolutions andmassmove-
ments associated with his image of mankind and the belief that a ‘‘newman’’ could be
created by political mass movements, also played a salient role. Mao held the opinion
that China could cast off its economic backwardness and achieve the level of devel-
oped capitalist countries by means of comprehensive mass mobilization. ‘‘After a
successful revolution,’’ he wrote, ‘‘it is not very problematic to push for mechaniza-
tion. The main problem lies in the reeducation of the people.’’15
15Mao Tse-tung, ‘‘Das machen wir anders als Moskau!,’’ ed. Helmut Martin (Reinbek: Rowohlt,
1975), 29.
Journal of Modern Chinese History 169
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(5) Individual factors related to Mao as a person: his individual experience of power,
his concept of power, his military-strategic and egalitarian world image, finally his
separation from the real situation and facts, the personality cult promoted by him as
well as his leadership style (his unwillingness to accept criticism or opposition, his
reliance on political intrigues in order to consolidate and expand his power) are also
essential considerations in order to understanding his thinking and acting. Mao, the
sociologist G€unther Roth once noted, wanted ‘‘to enforce an identity of the party
with himself and therefore did not shy away from the destruction of the existing
party apparatus.’’16 He wanted to use his charisma to change the ‘‘mandate’’
according to his will. Already after the failure of the Great Leap Forward he had
threatened that if other party leaders were not in line with his opinions, he would
withdraw to the countryside and lead the peasants in overthrowing the government.
‘‘If the Liberation Army will not follow me, I will found a new Red Army,’’ he had
intoned. With this statement he underscored a view of himself as a charismatic and
outstanding autocrat.
Finally, Mao desired that his developmental model should be forced through by the
Cultural Revolution and that his opponents and intellectual critics should be eliminated
once and for all. By recruiting new social forces in the form of representatives of his
development model or new elites loyal to the person of Mao, the old political elites would
be replaced by a new one. New foci concerning the fields of education (manual labor prior
to spiritual education, political training prior to professional knowledge, practice prior to
theory) were to guarantee the cultivation of a young generation with absolute loyalty
towards Chairman Mao.
That unsatisfied parts of the population could be made to play an instrumental role in
effecting the Cultural Revolution, lies on the one hand in Mao’s position as a charismatic
leader (he possessed almost unlimited authority inside the party and among the population),
and on the other hand in the international situation (conflicts with the Soviet Union,
international isolation of China, and China’s aspiration for the leading role in the world
communist movement). Moreover, there were also the so-called social contradictions and
nationalist sentiments (such as the search for a distinct Chinese development model as a role
model for both the Chinese and world revolutions) which inspired people.
The initiation of the Cultural Revolution was facilitated by the organizational struc-
tures of the Communist Party, to which every individual was subjected: people’s commu-
nes and production teams in rural areas and the danweis in urban areas, the enterprise units
and dwelling units, which constituted working and living spaces, as well as social and
political entities. All of these were greatly exploited as organizations of political control.
The various political campaigns throughout the 1950s and the early 1960s, in which all
social groups were embroiled, had in fact already eliminated a considerable portion of
critics and opposition to the CP regime. In the first half of the 1950s, the land reform
movement broke down the opposition of the rural elites; the campaign to suppress
counterrevolutionaries eradicated many political opponents. The ‘‘Five Anti’s
Campaign’’ was directed against entrepreneurs and businessmen. The criticism of Hu
Shi was directed against artists and writers. In the second half of the 1950s, the Campaign
against the Rightists broke down intellectual, free thinking and critical forces inside as well
as outside the party. An ideological campaign to study Mao’s idea within the armed forces
during the first half of the 1960s saw soldiers swearing personal loyalty to Mao and to his
16G€unther Roth, Politische Herrschaft und pers€onliche Freiheit (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1987), 92.
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concepts. And finally, the Socialist Education Movement of 1964/65 was directed against
those who opposed Mao’s strict collectivization and supported more liberal policies in the
rural areas.17
IV. The pathway of the Cultural Revolution
His increasing isolation within the party leadership in the mid-1960s, caused by the afore-
mentioned failure of the Great Leap Forward and his insistence on class struggle and
campaigns of political criticism instead of giving priority to economic development and
improving the living conditions of the population, made Mao think about a new political
movement, which should both consolidate his power (and his political program) and finally
help to enforce it. This movement, the Cultural Revolution, began at first in the realm of
literature and art with a criticism of the drama Hai Rui’s Dismissal from Office. In it, the
renowned dramatist Wu Han portrayed the fate of an upright and incorruptible official in the
Ming Dynasty, who was wrongly dismissed by an emperor due to an intrigue. Mao scented
an attack on him behind it and linked the drama’s content to the dismissal of Marshal Peng
Dehuai in 1959, who was a critic of the Great Leap Forward and former minister of defense.
But the criticism campaign initiated by Mao brought only indeterminate results, so that his
feeling of political isolation was further strengthened.
Mao demonstrated his comeback to the political stage with a symbolic, sensational swim
in the Yangtze River18 at the beginning of 1966. In May of that year a document of the
Central Committee of the CPC mentioned for the first time that class struggle between
socialism and capitalism existed also within the Communist Party and that the representa-
tives of the bourgeoisie had attempted to usurp power in party and state. It called for a strong
fight against these representatives within the party and in all social spheres. An enlarged
conference of the Politiburo dismissed four Politburo members and 13 members of the
secretariat. Mao had pushed this step through by individually talking to other party leaders.
A Central Cultural Revolution Group was established, which in principle took over the tasks
of the Politburo and the Central Committee.
The first ‘‘big-character poster’’ appeared now at Peking University, which criticized the
‘‘bourgeois trends’’ in the educational system as well as university lecturers and demanded
the overthrow of all Mao’s opponents. This first large-character poster was strongly sup-
ported by Mao and may even have been launched by him. A plenum of the Central
Committee on 1 August 1966 approved the execution of a ‘‘cultural revolution’’ with only
a narrow majority. The major part of Mao’s opponents were prevented from attending and
accordingly replaced by ‘‘revolutionary teachers and students.’’ During the conference Mao
hung up a large-character poster, in which he called upon the participants to ‘‘bombard the
headquarters.’’ This was directed against party leaders reluctant to follow his line. At the
same time he called upon the youth to rebel against all ‘‘authorities.’’ Red Guards organiza-
tions arose among dissatisfied young people.19 While Mao openly called upon the people to
participate actively in the Cultural Revolution, the booklet Quotations from Chairman Mao
was published. Mao’s ‘‘closest comrade-in-arm,’’ Marshal Lin Biao, wrote in the preface
that in order to really master Mao’s ideas ‘‘it might be best to memorize some of his maxims
17Compare Richard Baum, Prelude to the Revolution, Mao, The Party, and the Peasant Question,
1962–66 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1966).
18Mao demonstrated with this action that the strength of (his) human will overcomes all contradictions,
man could steer his fate himself.
19On the details of the Cultural Revolution: Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, Mao’s
Last Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006).
Journal of Modern Chinese History 171
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and to study and apply them repeatedly.’’20 The arbitrarily selected quotations replaced in the
following years the reading of other books and even of Mao’s Collected Works themselves.
In 1966 the watchword ‘‘the whole land must become a big school of Mao Zedong thought’’
was formulated, and the ‘‘little red book’’ was considered the sole, true source of ideas. The
ideological makings of a fanatical totalitarianism ominously revealed itself. Thirty years
later, a former schoolboy told of what effects the quotations had wrought at that time. When
his classmates visited the zoo in Beijing and were asked by a zookeeper to keep quiet during
their visit in order not to frighten the animals, they shouted then at the zookeeper Mao’s
maxim that ‘‘a revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or
doing embroidery; a revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class
overthrows another one.’’ Thereafter the zookeeper shrank back without a word. Quoting
Mao was most adequate to hector elderly people and to silence them.21
The Red Guards initially emerged in middle schools and universities. In 1966/67 they
carried forward the Cultural Revolution in all parts of the country. Since Mao personally
supported the establishment of such organizations and because a directive of the Central
Committee had determined that their actions should be protected without any hindrance, social
arbitrariness spread out everywhere. Officially, the function of the Red Guards was ‘‘to
destruct the Four Olds’’ (old customs, old culture, old habits, and old ideas). As no definition
of ‘‘old’’was given, the Red Guards selected the targets of their attacks themselves. What had
initially begun with mildly humorous actions such as renaming street signs or shifting the
functions of traffic lights (red = free run, green = stay), quickly became more serious.
The ‘‘Program of Beijing’s Red Guards’’ prescribed the following:
l Every citizen should work
l Portraits of Chairman Mao should be hung everywhere
l Mao’s quotations should be installed everywhere on advertising signboards
l Luxury restaurants should be closed, taxis abolished
l Revisionist titles and office names must be eliminated
l Loudspeakers should be mounted in all streets, so that correct behavior might be
conveyed to the people.22
The arbitrariness suddenly turned into terror. Unpopular, suspected or denounced per-
sons or critics were – in Mao’s name – arbitrarily arrested, tortured or killed by members of
the Red Guards. No private space existed any longer. The chaos devolved into a kind of civil
war when ‘‘rebel organizations’’ engaged in bloody combat with one another inMao’s name.
The history of Ken Ling (pseudonym) is well known. This 16-year-old youngster became a
leader of the Red Guards in the east China seaport city of Xiamen and was entrusted with the
control of 146 industrial firms. He set up a bloody regime of terror in the area under his
control and later fled to Taiwan, where he wrote down his story (‘‘I was Mao’s little
general’’).23 Social cracks ran through families, residential areas, firms and schools. Rung
Chang, a female Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution, described the procedure of Red
Guards in her imposing family history:
20Lin Biao, preface to Mao zhuxi yulu, new ed. (Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1969), 2.
21Shi Ming, ‘‘Schlagt ihm den Hundeschädel ein,’’ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, May 11, 1996.
22Bundeszentrale f€ur Politische Bildung, ed., ‘‘Informationen zur Politischen Bildung – Die
Volksrepublik China’’ (Bonn, 1983), 15–16.
23Ken Ling, Maos kleiner General. Die Geschichte des Rotgardisten Ken Ling (Munich: dtv-Verlag,
1974).
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As soon as I was pressed into the room with the others, my nostrils were filled with the stench of
feces, urine, and unwashed bodies. The room had been turned upside down. Then I saw the
accused woman. She was perhaps in her forties, kneeling in the middle of the room, partly
naked. . . Her hair was in a mess, and part of it seemed to be matted with blood. Her eyes were
bulging out in desperation as she shrieked: ‘Red Guard Masters! I do not have a portrait of
Chiang Kai-shek!24 I swear I do not!’ She was banging her head on the floor so hard there were
loud thuds and blood oozed from her forehead. The flesh on her back was covered with cuts and
bloodstains. I was so frightened that I quickly averted my eyes. Then I saw her tormentor, a
seventeen-year-old boy named Chian, whom up to now I had rather liked. He was lounging in a
chair with a leather belt in his hand, playing with its brass buckle. ‘Tell the truth, or I’ll hit you
again,’ he said languidly. . . My feeble protest was echoed by several voices in the room. But
Chian cast us a disgusted sideways glance and said emphatically: ‘Draw a line between
yourselves and the class enemy’. Chairman Mao says, ‘Mercy to the enemy is cruelty to the
people!’ If you are afraid of blood, don’t be a Red Guard!’. . . Outside the door, I saw the woman
informer with the ingratiating eyes. . . As I glanced at her face, it dawned onme that there was no
portrait of Chiang Kai-shek. She had denounced the poor woman out of vindictiveness. The Red
Guards were being used to settle old scores.25
What is described here was not only an individual case. It was the everyday life of terror
and arbitrariness which ran rampantly throughout the first phase of the Cultural Revolution
and affected every individual person. The number of dead is unknown today, but many
people were driven mad by terror and torture. Officially 34,000 dead were announced, but in
truth it may be more than four million. The ‘‘trauma literature,’’which began to appear at the
end of 1970s and the beginning of 1980s, made an initial attempt to review the past, but it is
today still in its infancy.
The writer Ba Jin elucidated the mental consequences of the Cultural Revolution in a
self-analysis:
It happened inAugust and September of 1966.My frame ofmindwas very odd at that time. Later I
said that I seemed to be hypnotized, even that expression might not be accurate. My head became
so confused that I couldn’t think independently any more. I only felt that I had fallen into the water
with a heavy burden of sin on my back. I wanted to save myself, but sunk deeper and deeper.26
The Cultural Revolution proceeded by no means without resistance. Those who had profited
from the economic policies in the early 1960s (skilled workers, part of the peasantry)
stood considerably against the Cultural Revolution at first and resisted it. There was also
resistance from the cadre side, particularly among many leading cadres. In almost all
provinces there appeared walkouts, strikes and attacks on Red Guards. The rural areas and
the peasantry were at first less concerned, they took the advantage of the anarchic state of
affairs to acquire more economic freedom. In many regions there appeared spontaneously
the reintroduction of markets, land allocations, the reemergence of private economic activ-
ities and the disbandment of collectives by dissatisfied peasants. In 1967/68, attacks on state
purchasers and Red Guards, who wanted to revolutionize the villages occurred in 21
provinces. In 1967 resistance reached such a degree that the leaders of the Cultural
Revolution had to ask the army for support in order to prevent its collapse. It became an
important reason for the conflicts in the following years, which led to a civil war-like
situation. Rival ‘‘rebel organizations’’ combated each other across the country, where both
24Chiang was president of China before 1949. After being defeated by the Communists he fled to
Taiwan where he was president of the Republic of China until his death.
25Jung Chang, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China (London: Harper Perennial, 2004).
26Quoted in Mark Siemons, ‘‘Der Traum ist tot, der Schrecken bleibt,’’ Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitung, April 4, 1992.
Journal of Modern Chinese History 173
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sides grotesquely declared themselves to be supporters of ‘‘Chairman Mao’’ and his ideas. A
big-character poster hung up by Li Yizhe,27 which also became prominent outside China,
and the protest movement in early 1976, both calling for an end to the oppression, indicated
that the resistance against the Cultural Revolution had in no way been totally broken.
However, party, state and the judicial systems had in fact disintegrated. A state of
arbitrariness and anarchy prevailed. Schools and universities were closed for years, educa-
tion and science were ostracized, intellectuals persecuted (as ‘‘stinking number nine’’).28
Ethnic minorities were forcibly assimilated. Foreign contacts were possible only for selected
individuals. China became a totalitarian police state isolated from the rest of the world.
In order to get a grip on the chaos and to avoid a famine and to restart industrial
production again, Mao asked the army to step in to restore order at the beginning of 1968.
The influence of rebels and Red Guards organizations was gradually pushed back with the
help of the army, the sole state agency that was still functioning and had not been included in
the political conflict initiated byMao. The ‘‘rebels’’were sent to villages for reeducation. As
urbanites they were not used to the hard work in the countryside. The peasants regarded them
as useless nebbishes. Accordingly, they were not welcomed by rural people. Where Red
Guards resisted being sent to rural areas, bloody clashes with the armed forces occurred,
leading in part to a high number of casualties. For a long time, these young people were
considered a ‘‘lost generation,’’who had to spend their youth in remote and poor rural areas,
received no professional training, and disappointedly streamed back into cities as protesting
social groups at the end of the 1970s.
The armed forces succeeded finally in taking power at the regional and local levels. They
attempted to re-establish the party and state structures by setting up ‘‘revolutionary commit-
tees,’’ in which representatives of the army, ‘‘the masses,’’ various rebel fractions and
‘‘revolutionary cadres’’ were required to take part. The Ninth Party Congress of the CPC
in 1969 finally approved the program of the group aroundMao. Minister of DefenseMarshal
Lin Biao was elected as Mao’s deputy. For the first time in the history of communist parties,
the successor of a leader was written into a party constitution while the leader was still alive.
The actual winner at the party congress was the armed forces. Nine out of 25 politburo
members and almost half of the members of the Central Committee now came from the army.
The party congress determined at the same time to re-establish and reorganize the party and
state structures.
A new opposition to the Maoist group arose among the military forces related to Lin
Biao. Lin stood for the militarization of all areas of life and society. When Mao from 1970
onwards commenced to gradually push back the power and influence of the armed forces,
some people under Lin Biao attempted to eliminate Mao through a coup d’état to seize
power. This attempt failed. According to official information sources, Lin Biao crashed in
Outer Mongolia while attempting to escape to the Soviet Union.
But the suffering of the people was not yet over. Factional strive among party leaders
continued between those who wanted to perpetuate the Cultural Revolution, and those who
wanted to re-establish order, to enhance economic development, and to open China to
foreign countries and the world market. The proponents of a permanent revolution still
held the upper hand. They continued to transform the consciousness of the people by
perpetuating political and mass campaigns: there were campaigns against Lin Biao, against
Confucius, and finally against Beethoven or, for instance, the Italian filmmaker
27Li Yizhe, Helmut Opletal, and Peter Schier, China: Wer gegen Wen? (Berlin: Rotbuch, 1977).
28The ninth category after landlords, rich peasants, counterrevolutionaries, bad elements, Rightists,
renegades, enemy agents and ‘‘capitalist roaders.’’
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Michelangelo Antonioni. These campaigns were geared towards supporting the aims of the
Leftist proponents of the Cultural Revolution: to carry through their political concepts and to
eliminate their opponents.
The main target in the first half of the 1970s was Premier Zhou Enlai who took a rather
pragmatic stance and desired to restore political stability and economic development. He and
his concepts were the targets of several campaigns. The Left saw him as the ‘‘Confucius of our
time.’’ Beethoven was criticized because Zhou enjoyed his music, Antonioni was criticized as
he had obtained permission from Zhou to shoot a documentary film in which he had shown,
with no ill-will intended, the shady side of China at that time. Consequently that film was
heavily criticized by the Left and Zhou was blamed for giving Antonioni permission.
The year 1976 was a crucial year in various respects, in which quite a few events stood in
the focus: in January the popular and lovable Zhou Enlai passed away. In April during Tomb
Sweeping Day (Qingming), large, spontaneous memorial demonstrations took place at
Tian’anmen Square in the heart of Beijing and also in other cities. The government’s attempt
to criminalize these demonstrations led to open protest and finally to the demonstrators’ violent
dispersion with an unknown number of casualties. Grassroots political anger was chiefly
expressed in poems which were written by thousands of people and spread nationwide. The
following poem, one of many which were passed around at the time, provides a sample of the
feelings and hopes of many people during the final stage of the Cultural Revolution:
In my grief I hear demons shriek;
I weep while wolves and jackals laugh.
Though tears I shed to mourn a hero,
With head raised high, I draw my sword.
China is no longer the China of yore,
And the people are no longer wrapped in sheer ignorance;
Gone for good is Chin Shih Huang’s feudal society.
We believe in Marxism–Leninism,
To hell with those scholars who emasculate Marxism–Leninism!
What we want is genuine Marxism–Leninism.
For the sake of genuine Marxism–Leninism,
We fear not shedding our blood and laying down our lives;
The day modernization in four fields is realized,
We will come back to offer libations and sacrifices.29
Awave of arrests swept across the country. The event was officially labeled the Tian’anmen
Counter-Revolutionary Incident. Deng Xiaoping was held responsible and was for the
second time removed from all his posts and a new campaign against rightist deviationism
commenced. In September 1976 Mao died; several days later the Gang of Four, including
Mao’s wife Jiang Qing, was arrested. In a public trial they were some years later sentenced to
long terms of imprisonment.
This marked the end of the Cultural Revolution. Its protagonists had defied every attempt
at reorganization and the orientation of policies towards economic problems. The part of the
party leadership who themselves had become victims, or who considered themselves to be
the victims of the Cultural Revolution, now declared that the policy of permanent Cultural
Revolution would continuously lead to crises. The unrest of the spring of 1976, which had
opposed the policies of the Cultural Revolution, had already indicated that the endurance of
the people was exhausted.
29‘‘Die Wahrheit €uber den Tian’anmen-Zwischenfall,’’ Peking Rundschau 48 (1978): 14–15.
Journal of Modern Chinese History 175
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Deng Xiaoping, general secretary of the CPC prior to the Cultural Revolution and the
most important surviving party leader of the older generation, was rehabilitated in 1977 and
returned to power. He had twice been discredited and removed from office: at the beginning
of the Cultural Revolution in 1966 and in the spring of 1976. Most people saw in him the
guarantor of a new order. He took the lead in replacing those transitional leaders who
unceasingly wanted to adhere to ‘‘Mao’s line’’ from the period of the Cultural Revolution
and opposed far-reaching economic reforms. They were removed during the Third Plenary
Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the CPC in December 1978. A new party
leadership supporting economic reforms, was appointed. The same conference determined
that the focus of the Party should be shifted from class struggle to economic modernization.
It initiated the first steps toward reforming the economic system.
Why could the protagonists of the Cultural Revolution, after a decade of dominance, be so
easily eliminated and why could this ‘‘revolution’’ be so easily ended?Momentum accruing in
three spheres seems to be crucial for that: the political, the economic and the social spheres.
The continuous conflict due to the arbitrariness and chaos facilitated by an aging Mao and his
retrenched ability tomake decisions, as well as the dissatisfaction of the political elites, most of
whom were dishonestly deprived of power at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, led to
the emergence of counter-elites. They used the short power vacuum after Mao’s death to seize
control. The political paralysis had at the same time led to an economic decline and deficien-
cies and shortages in the supply of products needed for daily life. In 1976, the economy
reached its lowest level since the Great Leap Forward with negative growth rates. The priority
on heavy industry dictated byMao led to a drastic decline in light industry, the service industry
and the living standards of the people. The supply situation was catastrophic. It was reinforced
by a severe crisis in agriculture, where there were no incentives or motivation for peasants at
all. Therefore, the Cultural Revolution – from an economic point of view – constituted the
most serious economic crisis since the Great Leap Forward at the end of the 1950s. And finally,
the discontentment among the people was enormous. The protest demonstrations in the spring
of 1976 were an expression of the immense dissatisfaction with the desolate economic
situation, the everyday shortages, the permanent political campaigns and inner-party power
struggles. Concurrently, all of this encouraged the counter-elites to change the situation
quickly and decisively after Mao had passed away.
V. The consequences
The conjectural, heavily propagandized goals (creating a new man, abolishing bureaucracy,
etc.) were not attained. A total centralization of the political and economic spheres, similar to
the Stalinist-era in the former Soviet Union, had prevailed. The existing juridical instruments
(law, the courts) were abolished, a state of lawlessness and arbitrariness existed. The
abolition of markets and the private sector led to serious supply shortfalls. Intellectuals
and cadres were periodically sent to rural areas for ‘‘reeducation,’’ and were no longer
available for continuous service in science, technology, economic and societal develop-
ments. The disrespect of intellectual education and science led to the conversion of schools
and universities to de facto factories and workshops. The consequence was a considerable
deficiency of education among youth and the lack of a qualified labor-force. The peasantry
was subjugated to centralized dictation: they had no rights concerning the organization and
implementation of cultivation. Private economic activities, peasant markets and handicraft
production were strictly prohibited. The vast amount of unpaid labor which peasants had to
provide could be interpreted as a hidden form of forced labor. In urban and rural areas wages
were paid according to ‘‘political awareness,’’ something which was hard to measure and in
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the final analysis awarded the highest income to yes-men and opportunists. Nationwide
‘‘models’’ (villages, firms) required uniform emulation, leading to the neglect of regional,
local or branch particularities. In one serious case the press reported that a party secretary of a
People’s Commune in the lowland plain of Northeast China had in the mid-1970s visited the
national model village Dazhai in a northwest mountainous area. In order to fully copy this
model, she ordered mountains to be built in the plains of her home region so as to precisely
copy the terraces in Dazhai. Other repercussions included infringement upon, the class of
cadre and the forced assimilation of, ethnic minorities. China was totally isolated diplo-
matically and was economically separated from the world market. Besides political, social
and ethnic problems, it is important to note that the Cultural Revolution affected every
person. Nobody escaped from it, either as a victim or an offender.
Finally, Mao’s vision was the result of traditionalist ideas about ruling and power,
coupled with a leadership cult, for which Stalin and others provided the model. The ‘‘cow
monsters and snake demons’’ (niugui sheshen) which Mao wanted to ferret out through the
Cultural Revolution, were not annihilated by it, but rather created by it. Perhaps the Russian
anarchist Mikhail Bakunin was right, when he objected that intellectuals would construct
ideologies and give politics precedence over economy in order to bring themselves to power.
At least with Mao, this certainly was the case.
VI. The role and concept of Mao
A first critical evaluation by the party leadership of the Cultural Revolution and Mao’s role
took place in 1981. In the ‘‘Resolution of the Central Committee of the CPC Concerning
Some Issues in the History of the Party,’’ a detailed assessment of the recent history of the
party was performed for the first time since the end of the Cultural Revolution. The Cultural
Revolution was assessed as follows:
l It was responsible for the most severe setbacks and the heaviest losses since 1949.
l It represented an entirely erroneous appraisal of the prevailing class relations and the
political situation within the Party and state.
l It absolutely could not come up with any constructive program, but rather could only
induce grave disorder, damage and retrogression in its train. History has demonstrated
that the Cultural Revolution was initiated by a leader laboring under misapprehension
and was capitalized upon by counter-revolutionary cliques.
Mao, although the actual initiator of the Cultural Revolution, was widely protected in the
evaluation.
Comrade Mao Zedong was a great Marxist and a great proletarian revolutionary, strategist and
theorist. It is true that he made gross mistakes during the ‘cultural revolution’ but, if we judge his
activities as a whole, his contributions to the Chinese revolution far outweigh his mistakes. His
merits were primary and his errors secondary.30
And:
After all they were the mistakes of a great proletarian revolutionary.31
30Zhonggong zhongyang, Guanyu jianguo yilai dang de ruogan lishi wenti de jueyi, 39–41.
31Ibid., 28.
Journal of Modern Chinese History 177
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Not Mao, but the Gang of Four was blamed for all the degeneracy. It helped his wife Jiang
Qing little, when – during the defending process – she referred to Mao’s responsibility and
indicated that she stood in court on behalf of her husband.
Deng Xiaoping, the strongman after Mao, prevented profound criticism on Mao. A
condemnation of Mao would have challenged and called into question the goals and
successes which Mao stood for in the official historiography. In that case, both the Party
as such and the biographies of most party veterans would have been opened to repudiation or
at least negatively affected. In addition, a thorough criticism would also have affected Deng
himself and broached in general questions about the character of the party and its organiza-
tional principles. Deng understood that this would have been the first step toward the self-
destruction of the party itself. Therefore, an overall positive view of Mao as a person and of
his ‘‘contributions’’ had to be maintained. Deng considered the major contribution of Mao to
have been his guidance along a ‘‘Chinese road of development.’’
Mao was not against industrialization, he wanted in fact to catch up with and to ‘‘over-
take’’ the developed countries. But this should not be accomplished by imitation of foreign
models, but rather through a specific ‘‘Chinese way,’’ which would be superior at the same
time. This is illustrated by some of the mass movements initiated by Mao: peasants should
build backyard furnaces for steel production at the end of the 1950s so as to surpass Great
Britain in steel-making. He was in search of a development model which contrasted with
Western models (including that of the Soviet Union). Since modernization in developing
countries was often identified with Westernization, Mao’s search for an alternative was an
attempt to safeguard Chinese peculiarities. As in other developing countries, the trauma of
colonial intervention and exploitation by Western powers and the consequent aversion
arising against Western models and institutions constituted a fundamental point of departure
for the communist movement in China. In contrast with earlier concepts developed in the
nineteenth century such as importing modern Western technology, but not Western thought
to China, Mao reacted to the import of modern technology by uncoupling China from the
world market (‘‘relying on one’s own strength’’). Technological imports should and could be
superseded by the power of the masses. Upon hammering out a concept of total Sinification
of development, the negative aspects of Western developmental models, such as the pauper-
ization of large sections of the population, the uprooting of people and individualization at
the expense of society, could seemingly be avoided. Finally Mao wanted to safeguard
traditional Chinese structures. The ‘‘new man,’’ whom he wanted to create, should not be
self-aware, but compliant and sequacious. Mao attempted to set up the ideal of a self-
sufficient, unitary and egalitarian collective community, against Western models with their
negative impacts and effects. Poor though it be, life in Mao’s China was to be suffused with
meaning and the ideal of a communist vision. Mao believed that he had found a mode of
Chinese alternative development through the Cultural Revolution.
Therefore, theCultural Revolution can also be conceived as an attempt to respond toWestern
concepts of modernization. A community of national solidarity, as Mao imagined, required
maximum egalitarianism. All diverging trends, such as class and stratum, various ownership
forms, heterogeneous ethnic and religious movements, regional and local particularities and
family interests, were viewed as detrimental to such a community. The attempt at enforced
conformity of society through mass campaigns, the fight against any interests of distinct social
groups by means of political rectification or ‘‘class struggle,’’ as well as the limitation of the
division of labor all harken back finally to Mao’s vision of an ideal, which resulted from a
traditional understanding of harmony and a total pretension to power. Here it could be easily
argued through a quasi-Marxian logic that: the division of labor allowed a surplus product, a
surplus product could be acquired by a minority, who then rose to the position of a new ruling
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class and so undermined the social solidarity of the national community. Accordingly, the basic
reason for this evil, the division of labor, had to be limited rigorously.
When Mao, during the Cultural Revolution, appealed to youth to ‘‘swim against the
tide,’’ he by no means meant independent thinking, nor democratization of criticism nor
critical reflection on political positions. He had time and again massively attacked his critics;
critique was something that should only be directed towards his opponents. ‘‘Swimming
against the tide’’ did not mean questioning power per se or even Mao’s own power. Rather
the invitation was to attack the opponents of his ideas and concepts overtly.
Mao’s concept of the Cultural Revolution possessed significant affinities with political
traditions. The Sinologist Wolfgang Bauer pointed out once that the almost magic character
of books, the religious veneration of charismatic men, the idea that will and consciousness
can change reality, and the faith in a final paradisiacal final state had always held great
meaning in the Taoistic–messianic and chiliastic movements.32 The permanent interplay of
order and chaos was strange neither to Taoism nor to Confucianism and was completely
understood as an act of purification. It found expression symbolically in Mao’s words ‘‘The
world is in total chaos, the situation is excellent’’ (tianxia daluan, xingshi dahao), which
were often quoted during the Cultural Revolution. The idea of a permanent revolution, but
also other core phenomenon during the Cultural Revolution, such as the ‘‘Mao-Bible,’’ the
cult of Mao, the idea of voluntarily changing people’s minds and the imagining of a
communist Utopia, therefore have solid roots in the political culture of China. The applica-
tion of such traditional patterns, which were part and parcel of Mao’s ‘‘Sinification of
Marxism,’’ has made socialism (or better: its Sinicized interpretation) acceptable to large
sectors of the population.
The goal of Mao’s policies and his Cultural Revolution was industrialization without
modernization (contrary to the current policies which aim at modernization without wester-
nization). Yet, his modernization strategy has unintentionally created the prerequisites for
the reform process, because it weakened the potential hostility to modernization. The results
of Mao’s policies have concurrently generated a critical moment (criticism of Mao, of his
development model, and finally of the party and of the political system).
VII. From revolution to reform
The Cultural Revolution was ended not by a farsighted party leadership alone. It was rather
the obvious failure of Mao’s developmental model, the economic, social, political and
agrarian crises in the middle of the 1970s, characterized by declining agrarian revenue,
massive poverty and a growing potential for protest in the rural areas, which led to a debate
about the future coarse among the political elite. The perplexity of party leaders created a
vacuum, which gave the peasants room to maneuver. And they acted spontaneously, as had
happened time and again since the 1950s: in the poor areas of central and southern China the
land was divided by peasants. This resulted in returning to cultivation on a family basis.
When the party leaders recognized the success of these measures, it was implemented
countrywide as an agrarian economic reform after a short and conflicting debate among
the political elite. The Cultural Revolution was ended. The end went along with the
rehabilitation of tens of thousands of political prisoners, assumed ‘‘class enemies’’ and
‘‘rightists’’ exiled to the countryside, intellectuals and cadres. Larger political transparency,
the opening up to foreign investment and the world market, the establishment of a legal
system and a judiciary, relatively extensive personal freedoms, economic liberalization
32Wolfgang Bauer, China und die Hoffnung auf Gl€uck (Munich: dtv-Verlag, 1974), 567–69.
Journal of Modern Chinese History 179
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meaning the withdrawal of the omnipresence of the state from society, must also be under-
stood as the result of the experiences during the Cultural Revolution. The Cultural
Revolution resulted at the same time in the perception that revolution does not constitute a
suitable means for social change. In this way the revolution conquered the revolution.
That China after 1978 has undergone a relatively successful process of economic and
social change, which has been fundamentally different from the transformation processes in
Eastern Europe and in the former Soviet Union, is related to the special factors of Chinese
development, and indirectly also to the Cultural Revolution. This trauma functioned as a
negative experience for elites and the people. The Cultural Revolution led to the weakening
of the old, revolutionary elite and therewith also to the weakening of potential hostility to
reform. Even now the fear of social and political instability still prevails among the political
elites as well as among the common people, because instability is equated with Mao’s
political campaigns and particularly with the experiences of the Cultural Revolution and
therefore with chaos (luan).
The Cultural Revolution is over. A new version, as had been predicted by Mao, seems to
be unlikely. The process of coming to terms with it stands however yet at the beginning. The
Taiwanese writer Bo Yang in his work ‘‘The Ugly Chinaman’’ argued in respect to the
Cultural Revolution that:
The Cultural Revolution was a disaster unprecedented in the history of human civilization. The
Cultural Revolution not only left millions dead, it also crushed humanitarian values and defiled
the sanctity of the human spirit, without which there remains very little to separate men and
beasts. During China’s ‘ten-year holocaust’ people behaved like wild beasts. How can a people
which morally has fallen so deep ever rebound back?33
The collective process of mourning related to the Cultural Revolution, which is so important
for overcoming the traumata of a people, is still in the beginning stages. The political leadership
is still afraid that a radical criticism, which would have to commence with Mao himself, might
affect the Party as an organization and possibly tear it apart in a swirl of criticism. The thirtieth
anniversary of the Cultural Revolution in May 1996 and the fortieth anniversary in May 2006
did not witness any review of this event. Any intensive criticism was not permitted. In 2006,
TV dramas and films preferred to remind people of the positive sides: though a difficult time, it
was characterized in dramas by simplicity and honesty, and therefore was portrayed quite
positively in contrast with the extortionate morality of the market nowadays. The Cultural
Revolution serves as learningmaterial for ethic andmoral education, in the interpretation of the
party. It still remains the task of future generations to analyze and assess the experiences and
sufferings of the Cultural Revolution in a fundamental way and therefore to contribute to the
political and cultural understanding of those days, which shocked the world.
The final question is whether or not the Cultural Revolution was in fact a ‘‘revolution’’?
If not, what was it? The late sociologist Ralf Dahrendorf once called revolutions the
‘‘bittersweet moments of history.’’ Hopes flare up shortly and run quickly into disappoint-
ment and new grievances.34 This was also the case for China. The Cultural Revolution was
planned as a revolution by Mao and his supporters in the sense that it should fundamentally
alter and remodel the existing state of affairs, and consequently bring a break to continuity.
But in retrospect, it was not able to principally change the political structures in any enduring
way. The basic structures of the system remained widely the same during this phase.
33BoYang, The Ugly Chinaman and the Crisis of Chinese Culture, trans. and eds. Don J. Cohn and Jing
Qing (St. Leonards, NSW, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1992).
34Ralf Dahrendorf, Der moderne soziale Konflikt (Munich: dtv-Verlag, 1994), 13.
180 Thomas Heberer
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Therefore it entailed rather a radical mobilization of countervailing power in order to enforce
Mao’s political concepts. Unlike Stalin’s purges of the 1930s, it didn’t rest upon the state
apparatus, but on the actions of dissatisfied people (‘‘the masses’’). Not physical liquidation,
but forced mental reeducation gained priority. The results for the people were very similar,
but the end was different: Stalin was condemned in the Soviet Union and liberalized
socialism, which proved to be as rigid as the old model and little changed, finally collapsed.
In China, quite the contrary occurred: Mao’s leadership was criticized, but not (yet)
condemned. The trauma of the Cultural Revolution disembogued into a reform program,
which brought successful economic development and rapid social change. Therefore, it was
in fact a watershed in modern Chinese history.35
(translated from German by Zhang Wenhong)
Glossary
Ba Jin 巴金
Bo Yang 柏杨
Rung Chang 张戎
danwei 单位
Dazhai 大寨
Deng Xiaoping 邓小平
geming 革命
Hu Shi 胡适
Jiang Qing 江青
Ken Ling 凌耿
Li Yizhe 李一哲
Lin Biao 林彪
Liu Shaoqi 刘少奇
luan 乱
niugui sheshen 牛鬼蛇神
Peng Dehuai 彭德怀
Qingming 清明
Tian’anmen 天安门
tianxia daluan, xingshi dahao 天下大乱, 形势大好
wenhua 文化
Wu Han 吴晗
Xiamen 厦门
Zhou Enlai 周恩来
Chinese Language Bibliography
Mao Zedong 毛泽东,《毛主席语录》, 北京: 人民出版社, 1969年。
Zhonggong zhongyang 中共中央,《中国共产党中央委员会关于无产阶级文化大革命的决定》,
北京: 人民出版社, 1966年。
——,《关于建国以来党的若干历史问题的决议》, 北京: 人民出版社, 1981年。
35See the seminal work by Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals, Mao’s Last Revolution
(Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2006).
Journal of Modern Chinese History 181
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