Andrew G. Walder - Chang Chun-Chiao and Shanghais January Revolution

THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN CENTER FOR CHINESE STUDIES

MICHIGAN PAPERS IN CHINESE STUDIES

NO. 32

CHANG CHUN-CHIAO AND SHANGHAIS JANUARY REVOLUTION

by
Andrew G. Walder

Ann Arbor

Center for Chinese Studies
The University of Michigan

1978

ISBN 0-89264-032-2

Copyright 1978

by

Center for Chinese Studies
The University of Michigan

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN 978-0-89264-032-4 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-472-03825-1 (paper)
ISBN 978-0-472-12784-9 (ebook)
ISBN 978-0-472-90180-7 (open access)

CONTENTS

Chinese Marxism is unique in the world communist movement for the theoretical and practical solutions it has offered for the problem of maintaining unbroken change in social relations after the initial establishment of socialism. For a prominent contingent within the Chinese Communist movement, it has been insufficient to redistribute the means of production and end the exploitative aspects of the old society. Production relations, which include for this contingent not only property relations but all social relations embodied in forms of distribution, enterprise rules and regulations, and economic coordination, must be continually transformed to eliminate all vestiges of class distinction.

This transformation is to take place largely through the conscious effort of people who live these relations in their daily lives. All literature and art, reflections of these social relations, must be mobilized to help facilitate this transformation. Individuals inside and out of the Party who resist these continuous changes as being detrimental to the rapid development of a socialist economy or as being harmful to literary and artistic creativity must be struggled with politically so that these changes can move forward.

Chang Chun-chiao has been one of the more prominent theoreticians and practitioners of this stream of Chinese Marxism, and the January Revolution has become symbolic of efforts both to promote social and political change and to overcome resistance to these changes by prominent Party and non-Party figures. The study in this volume traces the shifting involvement of Chang in the Cultural Revolution in Shanghai and the social forces in Chinese society which, once set off by the Cultural Revolution, decisively altered events in the city. Chang emerges as a complex political figureboth instigator and suppressor of political conflict, alternately champion and enemy of rebellionand is throughout a protector of the ideals of his branch of Marxism who singlemindedly pushed for their realization through a number of sharp tactical turns. The January Revolution not only reminds us that classes continue to exist under socialism, as Chinese Marxists are the first to admit, but it also highlights the fact that a socialist society is capable of generating contradictions and conflicts that are distinctively its own.

This essay has benefited considerably from unusually perceptive comments upon various drafts offered by Lowell Dittmer, Albert Feuerwerker, Kenneth Lieberthal, Michel Oksenberg, and Ernest Young. Two others responded generously to my requests for assistance: Hong Yung Lee by allowing me access to his index of Red Guard materials, and Lynn T. White III by providing material from his own research and by helping to clarify certain points of confusion. Perhaps most importantly, without Michel Oksenbergs stimulating leadership of our seminar on Chinese politics and his active encouragement of my fascination with Chinas radical political figures, my efforts would never have been channeled in this direction. This expression of gratitude in no way confers responsibility for this piece on those mentioned above. Remaining weaknesses are in spite of their efforts.

Two others contributed in various other, but no less important ways, to the completion of this study. Marlene Thom served as an enthusiastic and capable editor, and George Walders constant stream of clippings from the Washington Post helped his son keep abreast of major developments in post-Mao politics with a minimum of effort.

Andrew G. Walder

Ann Arbor, Michigan

July 1977

Shanghais January Revolution was a highly visible and, by all accounts, crucially important event in Chinas Cultural Revolution. Its occurrence, along with the subsequent attempt to establish a commune form of municipal government, has greatly shaped our understanding both of the goals originally envisaged for the Cultural Revolution by its leaders and of the political positions held by the new corps of Party leaders thrust upward during its coursemost notably Chang Chun-chiao. At this interpretive level, the events in Shanghai seem to embody in microcosm the issues and conflicts in Chinese politics during the Cultural Revolution as a whole, while at the same time shaping our conception of what these larger issues and conflicts were. At a more general, theoretical level, however, the events in Shanghai provide us with an unusual opportunity (thanks to Red Guard raids on Party offices) to view the internal workings of the Party organization under a period of stress and to observe unrestrained interest group formation and mass political conflict through the press accounts provided by these unofficial groups themselves. The January Revolution thus provides us with an opportunity to develop better our more abstract, theoretical understanding of the functioning of the Chinese political system and the dynamics of the social system in which it operates.

At the level of interpretation a single themethat the January Revolution was a victory of Revolutionary Rebels over an entrenched municipal bureaucracy actively resisting and/or suppressing the emerging movementhas dominated most writings on the Cultural Revolution in Shanghai.Chang Chun-chiao as a radical ideologue who assisted the rebel struggle in order to create a democratic commune in Shanghai.