Historical Dictionary of the Chinese Cultural Revolution

474 Pages·2006·20.1 MB·english

by  Guo Jian

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ASIA • HISTORY GUO JIAN, YONGYI SONG,
GUO, SONG, YUAN ZHOU
Historical Dictionaries of Ancient Civilizations and Historical Eras, No. 17
& ZHOU
“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 DH
II
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country, often turning life upside down and undermining the party, government, and army, TT
weakening the economy, society, and culture. Tens of millions were hurt or killed during this period, OIOO
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and relatively few benefited,aside from Mao Zedong and (temporarily) the Gang of Four. TAIC
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Historical Dictionary of the Chinese Cultural Revolutionprovides an extensive chronologythat traces
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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,
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places, institutions, and movements. The bibliography points to further resources, and the glossary
v
helps those researching in Chinese.
o
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GUO JIAN
is a professor of English and Chinese at the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater.
u
YONGYI SONG
is on the library faculty at California State University, Los Angeles. t
i
HISTORICAL
YUAN ZHOU
is the curator of the East Asian Library of the University of Chicago. o
DICTIONARY OF THE
n
For orders and information please contact the publisher
SCARECROW PRESS, INC.
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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).
IiIiISBNI-13: 978-0-i8108-5461-1IiIiIiIiIiIiIi
ISBN-10: 0-8108-5461-9
90000
9 780810 854611
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.
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GGuu000000ffmm..iinndddd iiii 66//55//22000066 99::1177::4477 AAMM
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 (cid:129) Toronto (cid:129) Oxford
2006
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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.
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Contents
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
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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,
vii
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viii • EDITOR’S FOREWORD
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
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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
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