The History of the PRC (1949-1976)

263 Pages·5.511 MB·English

by  Julia Strauss

The History of the PRC (1949-1976)

The History of the PRC (1949-1976)
The China Quarterly Special Issues
New Series, No. 7
Edited by
JULIA STRAUSS
9 Cambridge
UNIVERSITY PRESS
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© The China Quarterly 2007
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permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2006 (China Quarterly 188 December 2006)
This edition 2007
Printed in the United Kingdom by The Charlesworth Group, Wakefield, UK
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-0-521-69696-9 paperback
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Contents
Notes on contributors vii
Editor’s Introduction: In Search of PRC History
Julia Strauss 1
China’s Internationalization in the Early People’s Republic:
Dreams of a Socialist World Economy
William C. Kirby 16
Morality, Coercion and State Building by Campaign in the Early
PRC: Regime Consolidation and After, 1949-1956
Julia Strauss 37
Dilemmas of Inside Agitators: Chinese State Feminists in 1957
Wang Zheng 59
Aspects of an Institutionalizing Political System: China, 1958—
1965
David Bachman 79
Squeezing the Peasants: Grain Extraction, Food Consumption
and Rural Living Standards in Mao’s China
Robert Ash 105
Local Cadres Confront the Supernatural: The Politics of Holy
Water (Shenshui) in the PRC, 1949-1966
Steve A. Smith 145
Factional Conflict at Beijing University, 1966-1968
Andrew G. Walder 169
Zheng Junli, Complicity and the Cultural History of Socialist
China, 1949-1976
Paul G. Pickowicz 194
In Search of a Master Narrative for 20th-Century Chinese
History
Susanne Weigelin-Schwiedrzik 216
The China Quarterly and the History of the PRC
Roderick Macfarquhar 238
Index 245
Cover illustration:
The Proclamation of the PRC, Beijing, 1 October 1949.
Photograph by Hou Bo.
Reproduced with the kind permission of China Features.

Notes on Contributors
Robert Ash is professor of economics with special reference to China and
Taiwan in the department of economics and the Centre for Financial
and Management Studies, and director of the Taiwan studies
programme, at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University
of London.
David Bachman is a professor in and associate director of the Henry M.
Jackson School of International Studies at the University of
Washington (Seattle, WA). He is currently researching the history of
the defence industries in China.
William C. Kirby is the Geisinger professor of history, director of the
Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, and former Dean of the
Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University. His work studies
China’s modern development in its international context. His recent,
edited books include: Realms of Freedom in Modern China (Stanford
University Press, 2004); The Normalization of US-China Relations: An
International History (with Gong Li and Robert Ross) (Harvard
University Asia Center, 2006); and China and the World:
Internationalization, Internalization, Externalization (with Mechthild
Leutner, Dayong Niu and Wen-hsin Yeh) (Hebei People’s Press, 2006).
Roderick MacFarquhar is the Leroy B. Williams professor of history and
political science at Harvard University. Mao's Last Revolution, co-
authored with Michael Schoenhals, was published by Harvard’s
Belknap Press earlier this year.
Paul G. Pickowicz is distinguished professor of history and Chinese Studies
at the University of California, San Diego. Most recently he is co-author
of Revolution Resistance and Reform in Village China (Yale University
Press, 2005), co-editor of The Chinese Cultural Revolution as History
(Stanford University Press, 2006), and co-editor of From Underground to
Independent: Alternative Film Culture in Contemporary China (Rowman
and Littlefield, 2006). He is currently Distinguished Visiting Scholar at
the Contemporary China Studies Programme, University of Oxford.
Steve Smith is professor of history at the University of Essex. His most
recent book is Like Cattle and Horses: Labor and Nationalism in
Shanghai, 1895-1927 (Duke University Press, 2002).
Julia Strauss is senior lecturer in Chinese politics at the Department of
Politics and International Studies, SOAS. Her research interests include:
the evolution of the 20th century Chinese state; the interaction between
culture and institutions; comparative public administration, politics in
Taiwan, and the implementation of environmental regulation in the
PRC. She is the editor of The China Quarterly.
Andrew Walder is professor of sociology at Stanford University and the
editor (with Joseph Esherick and Paul Pickowicz) of The Chinese
Cultural Revolution as History (Stanford University Press, 2006).
Wang Zheng is an associate professor of women’s studies, and associate
research scientist of the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at
viii The China Quarterly
University of Michigan. Her publications concern feminism in China,
both in terms of its historical development and its contemporary
activism, and changing gender discourses in China’s socioeconomic,
political and cultural transformations of the past century. She is the
author of Women in the Chinese Enlightenment: Oral and Textual
Histories (University of California Press, 1999) Her recent research deals
with gender in Maoist urban reorganization.
Susanne Weigelin-Schwiedrzik is professor for Chinese studies at the
Department for East Asian Studies of the University of Vienna. She has
published on 20th-century Chinese history and historiography.
Acknowledgement
Most of the articles in this volume were first presented at a workshop
on the history of the People’s Republic of China held at the School of
Oriental and African Studies on 7-8 October 2005. The workshop
owed its success to the engagement of its participants: in addition to
the contributors here, Michael Schoenhals, Vivienne Shue and
Elisabeth Croll all added immeasurably to the discussions. Daniel
Koldyk served ably as rapporteur. Rowan Pease and Raphael Jacquet
did a wonderful job of making the administrative end of the workshop
run smoothly. The SOAS Research Committee and the British
Academy are owed huge thanks; without their generosity in funding,
the workshop could not have taken place. Since these pieces were
originally presented they have undergone several rounds of revision in
preparation for publication. Our external reviewers’ comments helped
enormously in bringing intellectual coherence to the volume as a
whole, and in terms of the final production Raphael Jacquet must
again be thanked for keeping us all on track and on time.