Fractured rebellion : the Beijing Red Guard movement / Andrew G. Walder.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Walder, Andrew G. (Andrew George), 1953-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Protest movements--China--Beijing--History--20th century.

Protest movements.

Student movements--China--Beijing--History--20th century.

Student movements.

Political violence--China--Beijing--History--20th century.

Political violence.

Social conflict--China--Beijing--History--20th century.

Social conflict.

China--History--Cultural Revolution, 1966-1976.

China.

Beijing (China)--History--20th century.

Beijing (China).

Beijing (China)--Social conditions--20th century.

Beijing (China)--Politics and government--20th century.

Hong wei bing--History--20th century.

Hong wei bing.

Zhongguo gong chan dang--History--20th century.

Zhongguo gong chan dang.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (417 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2009.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Fractured Rebellion is the first full-length account of the evolution of China’s Red Guard Movement in Beijing, the nation’s capital, from its beginnings in 1966 to its forcible suppression in 1968. Andrew Walder combines historical narrative with sociological analysis as he explores the radical student movement’s crippling factionalism, devastating social impact, and ultimate failure. Most accounts of the movement have portrayed a struggle among Red Guards as a social conflict that pitted privileged “conservative” students against socially marginalized “radicals” who sought to change an oppressive social and political system. Walder employs newly available documentary evidence and the recent memoirs of former Red Guard leaders and members to demonstrate that on both sides of the bitter conflict were students from comparable socioeconomic backgrounds, who shared similar—largely defensive—motivations. The intensity of the conflict and the depth of the divisions were an expression of authoritarian political structures that continued to exert an irresistible pull on student motives and actions, even in the midst of their rebellion. Walder’s nuanced account challenges the main themes of an entire generation of scholarship about the social conflicts of China’s Cultural Revolution, shedding light on the most tragic and poorly understood period of recent Chinese history.

Contents:

The Beijing Red Guards : an introduction

The assault on power structures : work teams in the universities

The genesis of division : sources of opposition and conflict

Divided at birth : the university Red Guards

Class and violence : the high-school Red Guards

Radicals with patrons : the rise of the rebels

Dissent and its suppression : challenging the Maoist elite

Factions reborn : networks at cross-purposes

Endgame : fighting not to lose

Hierarchy and rebellion : reflections on the Red Guards

Glossary of names

Beijing Red Guard chronology

Work-team case histories.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780674268180

0674268180

9780674054783

0674054784

OCLC:

648759727