The Cultural Revolution at the Margins : Chinese Socialism in Crisis / Yiching Wu Wu.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wu, Yiching Wu, author.

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.

Socialism--China--History--20th century.

Socialism.

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

China.

Hong wei bing.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (368 p.)

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2014]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Mao Zedong envisioned a great struggle to "wreak havoc under the heaven" when he launched the Cultural Revolution in 1966. But as radicalized Chinese youth rose up against Party officials, events quickly slipped from the government's grasp, and rebellion took on a life of its own. Turmoil became a reality in a way the Great Leader had not foreseen. The Cultural Revolution at the Margins recaptures these formative moments from the perspective of the disenfranchised and disobedient rebels Mao unleashed and later betrayed. The Cultural Revolution began as a "revolution from above," and Mao had only a tenuous relationship with the Red Guard students and workers who responded to his call. Yet it was these young rebels at the grassroots who advanced the Cultural Revolution's more radical possibilities, Yiching Wu argues, and who not only acted for themselves but also transgressed Maoism by critically reflecting on broader issues concerning Chinese socialism. As China's state machinery broke down and the institutional foundations of the PRC were threatened, Mao resolved to suppress the crisis. Leaving out in the cold the very activists who had taken its transformative promise seriously, the Cultural Revolution devoured its children and exhausted its political energy. The mass demobilizations of 1968-69, Wu shows, were the starting point of a series of crisis-coping maneuvers to contain and neutralize dissent, producing immense changes in Chinese society a decade later.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

FIGURES AND TABLES

ABBREVIATIONS

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

1. THE UNTHINKABLE REVOLUTION

2. ENEMIES FROM THE PAST

3. FROM THE GOOD BLOOD TO THE RIGHT TO REBEL

4. REVOLUTIONARY ALCHEMY

5. REVOLUTION IS DEAD, LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION

6. COPING WITH CRISIS IN THE WAKE OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

Epilogue. FROM REVOLUTION TO REFORM

Appendix: List of Selected Chinese Characters

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 08. Jul 2019)

ISBN:

9780674419865

0674419863

9780674419858

0674419855

OCLC:

881183403