Cultural Revolution and Revolutionary Culture

Cultural Revolution and Revolutionary Culture PDF

Author: Alessandro Russo

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2020-08-28

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 1478012188

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In Cultural Revolution and Revolutionary Culture, Alessandro Russo presents a dramatic new reading of China's Cultural Revolution as a mass political experiment aimed at thoroughly reexamining the tenets of communism. Russo explores four critical phases of the Cultural Revolution, each with its own reworking of communist political subjectivity: the historical-theatrical “prologue” of 1965; Mao's attempts to shape the Cultural Revolution in 1965 and 1966; the movements and organizing between 1966 and 1968 and the factional divides that ended them; and the mass study campaigns from 1973 to 1976 and the unfinished attempt to evaluate the inadequacies of the political decade that brought the Revolution to a close. Among other topics, Russo shows how the dispute around the play Hai Rui Dismissed from Office was not the result of a Maoist conspiracy, but rather a series of intense and unresolved political and intellectual controversies. He also examines the Shanghai January Storm and the problematic foundation of the short-lived Shanghai Commune. By exploring these and other political-cultural moments of Chinese confrontations with communist principles, Russo overturns conventional wisdom about the Cultural Revolution.

A Continuous Revolution

A Continuous Revolution PDF

Author: Barbara Mittler

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2020-03-17

Total Pages: 511

ISBN-13: 1684175186

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Cultural Revolution Culture, often denigrated as nothing but propaganda, was liked not only in its heyday but continues to be enjoyed today. A Continuous Revolution sets out to explain its legacy. By considering Cultural Revolution propaganda art—music, stage works, prints and posters, comics, and literature—from the point of view of its longue durée, Barbara Mittler suggests it was able to build on a tradition of earlier art works, and this allowed for its sedimentation in cultural memory and its proliferation in contemporary China. Taking the aesthetic experience of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) as her base, Mittler juxtaposes close readings and analyses of cultural products from the period with impressions given in a series of personal interviews conducted in the early 2000s with Chinese from diverse class and generational backgrounds. By including much testimony from these original voices, Mittler illustrates the extremely multifaceted and contradictory nature of the Cultural Revolution, both in terms of artistic production and of its cultural experience.

Mao's Last Revolution

Mao's Last Revolution PDF

Author: Roderick MACFARQUHAR

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2009-06-30

Total Pages: 742

ISBN-13: 0674040414

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Explains why Mao launched the Cultural Revolution, and shows his Machiavellian role in masterminding it. This book documents the Hobbesian state that ensued. Power struggles raged among Lin Biao, Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping, and Jiang Qing - Mao's wife and leader of the Gang of Four - while Mao often played one against the other.

The Cultural Revolution

The Cultural Revolution PDF

Author: Frank Dikötter

Publisher: Bloomsbury Press

Published: 2017-06-06

Total Pages: 433

ISBN-13: 1632864231

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The concluding volume--following Mao's Great Famine and The Tragedy of Liberation--in Frank Dikötter's award-winning trilogy chronicling the Communist revolution in China. After the economic disaster of the Great Leap Forward that claimed tens of millions of lives from 1958–1962, an aging Mao Zedong launched an ambitious scheme to shore up his reputation and eliminate those he viewed as a threat to his legacy. The Cultural Revolution's goal was to purge the country of bourgeois, capitalistic elements he claimed were threatening genuine communist ideology. Young students formed the Red Guards, vowing to defend the Chairman to the death, but soon rival factions started fighting each other in the streets with semiautomatic weapons in the name of revolutionary purity. As the country descended into chaos, the military intervened, turning China into a garrison state marked by bloody purges that crushed as many as one in fifty people. The Cultural Revolution: A People's History, 1962–1976 draws for the first time on hundreds of previously classified party documents, from secret police reports to unexpurgated versions of leadership speeches. After the army itself fell victim to the Cultural Revolution, ordinary people used the political chaos to resurrect the market and hollow out the party's ideology. By showing how economic reform from below was an unintended consequence of a decade of violent purges and entrenched fear, The Cultural Revolution casts China's most tumultuous era in a wholly new light.

Rhetoric of the Chinese Cultural Revolution

Rhetoric of the Chinese Cultural Revolution PDF

Author: Xing Lu

Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press

Published: 2020-08-05

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1643361481

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A startling look at revolutionary rhetoric and its effects Now known to the Chinese as the "ten years of chaos," the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966–76) brought death to thousands of Chinese and persecution to millions. In Rhetoric of the Chinese Cultural Revolution Xing Lu identifies the rhetorical practices and persuasive effects of the polarizing political language and symbolic practices used by Communist Party leaders to legitimize their use of power and violence to dehumanize people identified as class enemies. Lu provides close readings of the movement's primary texts—political slogans, official propaganda, wall posters, and the lyrics of mass songs and model operas. She also scrutinizes such ritualistic practices as the loyalty dance, denunciation rallies, political study sessions, and criticism and self-criticism meetings. Lu enriches her rhetorical analyses of these texts with her own story and that of her family, as well as with interviews conducted in China and the United States with individuals who experienced the Cultural Revolution during their teenage years. In her new preface, Lu expresses deep concern about recent nationalism, xenophobia, divisiveness, and violence instigated by the rhetoric of hatred and fear in the United States and across the globe. She hopes that by illuminating the way language shapes perception, thought, and behavior, this book will serve as a reminder of past mistakes so that we may avoid repeating them in the future.

The Chinese Cultural Revolution

The Chinese Cultural Revolution PDF

Author: Paul Clark

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2008-03-24

Total Pages: 15

ISBN-13: 0521875153

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This book analyzes the Cultural Revolution through the conflict between innovation and a top-down enforcement of modernity.

New Perspectives on the Cultural Revolution

New Perspectives on the Cultural Revolution PDF

Author: William A. Joseph

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2020-10-26

Total Pages: 367

ISBN-13: 1684171148

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Since the Cultural Revolution, data have been uncovered to illuminate that tumultuous decade. In this volume 13 scholars examine the gap between the ideology of the Revolution and the harsh and contradictory reality of its outcome. They focus particularly on the violence, coercion, and constant tension between the need for centralization to enforce policies and the need for decentralizing decision-making if those goals were to be achieved.

Rhetoric of the Chinese Cultural Revolution

Rhetoric of the Chinese Cultural Revolution PDF

Author: Xing Lu

Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 9781570035432

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Now known to the Chinese as the "ten years of chaos," the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) brought death to thousands and persecution to millions. Xing Lu identifies the rhetorical features and explores the persuasive effects of political language and symbolic practices during the period. She examines how leaders of the Communist Party enacted a rhetoric in political contexts to legitimize power and violence and to dehumanize a group of people identified as class enemies.