The Intensification of the "Social Turn" in the Recent Historiography of the Chinese Cultural Revolution

Abstract

Ever since the end of the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), there has been a sustained interest in understanding how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the core of China’s political structure, mobilized and concentrated power during the immense cultural rupture of the late-1960s. Traditional historiography on the Cultural Revolution, which began to appear as early as 1968, tended to adopt a topdown approach, with focus on the role of Mao Zedong, the party bureaucracy, and the Gang of Four. The traditional approach was largely a response to scantily available CCP documents, as many provincial archives and the central Party archives remained closed or largely inaccessible unless one was a registered member of the CCP. Most historians focused on critiquing the idea of a “cultural revolution” and its implications, while some dwelt on holding Mao particularly responsible for initiating the mayhem and frenzy which characterized the Revolution. In particular, the rise of the Red Guards and the indiscriminate violence they unleashed on anyone who disagreed with or disapproved of Mao Zedong and his thought received much attention, as the sheer magnitude of societal destruction wrought by the Red Guards described the essence of the Cultural Revolution as a tragedy. Consequently, many works focused on the destruction, terror, and havoc that the Cultural Revolution unleashed upon ordinary Chinese civilians, and highlighted the controversially tragic and unjust record of human rights violations during the mayhem.1 While these works were notable for beginning an important scholarly discussion on a subject considered taboo and difficult to approach due to a lack of reliable sources, a breakthrough occurred with the publication of Hong-yung Lee’s The Politics of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Lee’s methodology is original because it