historical dictionary of the chinese cultural revolution

Revolution GUO JIAN, YONGYI SONG, YUAN ZHOU IiIiIiIiIiIiIiIiIiIi GUO, SONG, & ZHOU Revolution HISTORICAL DICTIONARY OF THE ASIA • HISTORY Historical Dictionaries of Ancient Civilizations and Historical Eras, No. 17 “A much-needed dictionary—complete, authoritative, and clear—for the Orwellian language of late Maoism in China.”—Perry Link, professor, East Asian Studies Department, Princeton University There has never been anything quite like the Cultural Revolution, which disrupted life in the People’s Republic of China from 1966 to 1976. It wreaked havoc in the world’s most populous country, often turning life upside down and undermining the party, government, and army, weakening the economy, society, and culture. Tens of millions were hurt or killed during this period, and relatively few benefited, aside from Mao Zedong and (temporarily) the Gang of Four. Historical Dictionary of the Chinese Cultural Revolution provides an extensive chronology that traces the events of the revolution and the introduction puts those events in context and explains them. The bulk of the information is provided in numerous dictionary entries on important persons, places, institutions, and movements. The bibliography points to further resources, and the glossary helps those researching in Chinese. GUO JIAN is a professor of English and Chinese at the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater. YONGYI SONG is on the library faculty at California State University, Los Angeles. YUAN ZHOU is the curator of the East Asian Library of the University of Chicago. For orders and information please contact the publisher SCARECROW PRESS, INC. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200 Lanham, Maryland 20706 1-800-462-6420 • fax 717-794-3803 www.scarecrowpress.com Cover photo courtesy of the Virtual Museum of the Cultural Revolution (http://museums.cnd.org/CR/cdocs.htm, part of the China News Digest (http://www.cnd.org). HISTORICAL DICTIONARY OF THE iIiIiIiIiIiIiIiIiIiI ISBN-13: 978-0-8108-5461-1 ISBN-10: 0-8108-5461-9 9 780810 854611 90000 HDCulturalRevOFFLITH.qxd 6/21/06 10:09 AM Page 1 HISTORICAL DICTIONARIES OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS AND HISTORICAL ERAS Series editor: Jon Woronoff 1. Ancient Egypt, Morris L. Bierbrier, 1999. 2. Ancient Mesoamerica, Joel W. Palka, 2000. 3. Pre-Colonial Africa, Robert O. Collins, 2001. 4. Byzantium, John H. Rosser, 2001. 5. Medieval Russia, Lawrence N. Langer, 2001. 6. Napoleonic Era, George F. Nafziger, 2001. 7. Ottoman Empire, Selcuk Aksin Somel, 2003. 8. Mongol World Empire, Paul D. Buell, 2003. 9. Mesopotamia, Gwendolyn Leick, 2003. 10. Ancient and Medieval Nubia, Richard A. Lobban Jr., 2003. 11. The Vikings, Katherine Holman, 2003. 12. The Renaissance, Charles G. Nauert, 2004. 13. Ancient Israel, Niels Peter Lemche, 2004. 14. The Hittites, Charles Burney, 2004. 15. Early North America, Cameron B. Wesson, 2005. 16. The Enlightenment, by Harvey Chisick, 2005. 17. Chinese Cultural Revolution, by Guo Jian, Yongyi Song, and Yuan Zhou, 2006. Gu000fm.indd iGu000fm.indd i 6/5/2006 9:17:43 AM6/5/2006 9:17:43 AM Gu000fm.indd iiGu000fm.indd ii 6/5/2006 9:17:47 AM6/5/2006 9:17:47 AM Historical Dictionary of the Chinese Cultural Revolution Guo Jian Yongyi Song Yuan Zhou Historical Dictionaries of Ancient Civilizations and Historical Eras, No. 17 The Scarecrow Press, Inc. Lanham, Maryland • Toronto • Oxford 2006 Gu000fm.indd iiiGu000fm.indd iii 6/5/2006 9:17:47 AM6/5/2006 9:17:47 AM SCARECROW PRESS, INC. Published in the United States of America by Scarecrow Press, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefi eld Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.scarecrowpress.com PO Box 317 Oxford OX2 9RU, UK Copyright © 2006 by Guo Jian, Yongyi Song, and Yuan Zhou All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Guo, Jian, 1953– Historical dictionary of the Chinese Cultural Revolution / Guo Jian, Yongyi Song, Yuan Zhou. p. cm. — (Historical dictionaries of ancient civilizations and historical eras ; no. 17) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN-13: 978-0-8108-5461-1 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8108-5461-9 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. China–History–Cultural Revolution, 1966–1976–Dictionaries. I. Song, Yongyi, 1949– II. Zhou, Yuan, 1954– III. Title. IV. Series. DS778.7.G86 2006 951.05'6–dc22 2005037614 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Manufactured in the United States of America. Gu000fm.indd ivGu000fm.indd iv 6/5/2006 9:17:48 AM6/5/2006 9:17:48 AM Editor’s Foreword vii Acknowledgments ix Reader’s Note xi Acronyms and Abbreviations xiii Map xv Chronology xvii Introduction xxxix THE DICTIONARY 1 Glossary 363 Bibliography 375 About the Authors 433 Contents Gu000fm.indd vGu000fm.indd v 6/5/2006 9:17:48 AM6/5/2006 9:17:48 AM Gu000fm.indd viGu000fm.indd vi 6/5/2006 9:17:49 AM6/5/2006 9:17:49 AM vii Editor’s Foreword Despite the tendency of history to repeat itself, some eras are truly unique, the Chinese Cultural Revolution being a case in point. This was not a revolution, nor was it a civil war; it probably came closer to a free-for- all. There were different sides, but the membership constantly changed, new ruling class against old ruling class, have-nots against haves, young against elders, uneducated against educated, countryside against city— just some of the dividing lines. This was exacerbated by ideology, but power was an even stronger drive. Some of the slogans of the time prob- ably defi ne it just as well, such as “turning the world upside down to create a new world,” and it did look as if the monkey god had been let loose. Yet, even then, someone was pulling the strings and this some- one was an aging Mao Zedong, unwilling to tolerate any rival and even to trust old comrades. For the greater part of the decade 1966–1976, the Cultural Revolution wreaked havoc in the world’s largest society, undermining the party, government, and army, weakening the economy, society, and culture, and affecting China’s 800 million people and harm- ing or destroying an eighth of the population. The strongest hope among most of the survivors was never to live through such a period again and to make it truly unique. Given the confusion that reigned at the time and the uncertainty about many events that still prevails today, it is essential to have a book like this Historical Dictionary of the Chinese Cultural Revolution to help clear up some of the points. This book does not claim to be the last word, which is defi nitely in its favor, but it brings us another step closer to understanding what still remains an extremely convoluted and confusing era. This it does, fi rst, through a chronology tracing the events showing at least what happened and when. The introduction then endeavours to fl esh out the chronology by putting events and people in their places and showing how these events and people relate to one another. The count- less details are extensively elucidated in entries on signifi cant persons, Gu000fm.indd viiGu000fm.indd vii 6/5/2006 9:17:49 AM6/5/2006 9:17:49 AM places and institutions, the more momentous events, the political and ideological movements, and much more. Since this did take place in China, the glossary is a useful tool for those researching it in Chinese. For those who want to know more, the bibliography is an excellent starting point. This volume was written by three scholars who lived through the Cultural Revolution and therefore know the reality, as well as the theory. Guo Jian, who was previously on the Chinese faculty at Beijing Nor- mal University, is presently a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. Dr. Guo has written and lectured extensively on the Cultural Revolution and the world of the 1960s. Yongyi Song, who studied, among other places, at Shanghai Normal University, is now on the library faculty at California State University, Los Angeles. He has published The Cultural Revolution: A Bibliography, 1966–1996. Yuan Zhou, who was a member of the Department of Library and Information Science at Peking University, is currently the curator of the East Asian Collection at the University of Chicago Library. Dr. Zhou has edited A New Collection of Red Guard Publications: Part I. Each in his way has contributed to a much-needed guide that is informative, comprehensive and—much harder, given the circumstances—comprehensible. Jon Woronoff Series Editor viii • EDITOR’S FOREWORD Gu000fm.indd viiiGu000fm.indd viii 6/5/2006 9:17:49 AM6/5/2006 9:17:49 AM Acknowledgments Our gratitude must fi rst go to a number of colleagues and friends in mainland China, whose works on the Cultural Revolution have been invaluable resources to us but whose names we must leave out due to the unwritten regulations regarding Cultural Revolution studies that the current Chinese government put in place in recent years. We owe spe- cial thanks to Mr. Gao Wenqian, to Dr. Wang Youqin of the University of Chicago, and to Dr. Ding Shu of Normandale Community College, whose pioneering studies and conversations benefi ted us immensely. We are also thankful to Dr. Eric Purchase for his editorial assistance. We are especially grateful to Mr. Yang Kelin, compiler and editor of the photo collection The Cultural Revolution Museum, and to Mr. Li Zhensheng, author of the photo album The Red-Color News Soldier, for their generosity in permitting us to use the historical photographs from their collections. Separately, Guo Jian wishes to thank the City University of Hong Kong for a generous visiting appointment in 2004, which afforded him precious time much needed to fi nalize this collaborative effort. Yongyi Song is grateful to Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies and the American Library Association for their fi nancial and moral sup- port in granting him, respectively, the “21st Century Librarian National Award” in 2004 and the “Paul Howard Award for Courage” in 2005. Yuan Zhou wishes to thank the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Chicago for funding the editorial work of the project. ix Gu000fm.indd ixGu000fm.indd ix 6/5/2006 9:17:50 AM6/5/2006 9:17:50 AM [...]... on the “representatives of the bourgeoisie who have snuck into the party, the government, the army, and the various spheres of culture.” The adoption of the circular marks the of cial launching of the Cultural Revolution On 23 May, the Politburo decides to dismiss Peng, Luo, Lu, and Yang from of ce and fill some of their positions with Ye Jianying as general secretary of the CMC, Tao Zhu as director of. .. reception for the CCRSG members, Mao speaks of the Shanghai rebels’ power-seizure as a great revolution 11 January Following Mao’s directives, the CC, the SC, the CMC, and the CCRSG send a telegram to the rebel organizations in Shanghai, congratulating them for their assumption of the municipal power 13 January The CC and the SC issue the “Regulations on Strengthening Public Security during the Great Proletarian... 1–12 August The Eleventh Plenum of the CCP Eighth Central Committee is convened in Beijing 5 August Mao writes “Bombarding the Headquarters—My BigCharacter Poster,” accusing the Liu-Deng leadership of opposing the Cultural Revolution Though their names are not mentioned in the poster, Liu and Deng become main targets of criticism at the plenum 8 August The CC adopts The Resolution of the CCP Central... Commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the PLA.” The editorial calls upon the masses to “ferret out a handful of capitalist-roaders inside the army.” 7 August Wang Li receives rebels at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and voices support for their effort to seize power at the Ministry 9 August Lin Biao receives new commanders of the PLA Wuhan Military Region and announces his assessment of the Cultural Revolution: ... The CC issues its “Notification Concerning the Investigation of the ‘May 16’ Counterrevolutionary Conspiratorial Clique,” both to lead the investigation further and check the excesses of persecution Gu000fm.indd xxx 6/5/2006 9:17:57 AM CHRONOLOGY • xxxi The hunt for members of the “May 16” counterrevolutionary clique continues until the end of the Cultural Revolution An estimated 3.5 million people... president of the PRC 27 June The CC approves the Proposal by Peking University and Tsinghua University to resume admissions of students By the end of 1970, approximately 41,870 “worker-peasant-soldier students” enter colleges nationwide 22 August The Politburo Standing Committee meets in Lushan, Jiangxi Province At the meeting, all of the committee members, except Mao, favor the retaining of the of ce of the. .. concerning the “Struggle to Defeat the Counterrevolutionary Coup of the Lin-Chen Anti-Party Clique.” The nationwide campaign against the Lin Biao clique is of cially launched 1972 10 January Mao makes the last-minute decision to attend the memorial service of Chen Yi, one of the senior leaders implicated in the February Adverse Current 13 January The CC issues its second set of materials concerning the “Struggle... other “Clique” members from the party 24–28 August The Tenth National Congress of the CCP is held in Beijing Wang Hongwen delivers a report on the revision of the CCP Constitution 30 August At the First Plenum of the CCP Tenth Central Committee, Wang Hongwen is elected a vice-chairman of the CCP, Zhang Chunqiao a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, and Jiang Qing and Yao Wenyuan members of the. .. began to band together as a “gang of four.” 12 December Mao chairs a Politburo meeting At this meeting, Mao criticizes the work of the Politburo and the CMC under the leadership of Zhou Enlai and Ye Jianying Mao also suggests rotating commanders of the major military regions and appointing Deng Xiaoping to the positions of the PLA chief of general staff and a member of the CMC and the Politburo Gu000fm.indd... of Middle School Cultural Revolution is premiered in Beijing, carrying Yu Luoke’s “On Family Background.” Gu000fm.indd xxiii 6/5/2006 9:17:55 AM xxiv • CHRONOLOGY 23 January Following Mao’s instructions, the CC, the SC, the CMC, and the CCRSG issue the “Decision to Provide the Revolutionary Masses of the Left with Firm Support from the PLA.” The army’s involvement in the Cultural Revolution begins . and (temporarily) the Gang of Four. Historical Dictionary of the Chinese Cultural Revolution provides an extensive chronology that traces the events of the revolution and the introduction puts. war on the “representatives of the bourgeoisie who have snuck into the party, the government, the army, and the various spheres of culture.” The adop- tion of the circular marks the of cial. photo courtesy of the Virtual Museum of the Cultural Revolution (http://museums.cnd.org/CR/cdocs.htm, part of the China News Digest (http://www.cnd.org). HISTORICAL DICTIONARY OF THE iIiIiIiIiIiIiIiIiIiI ISBN-13: