Ending political violence : making and unmaking perpetrators of the Cultural Revolution in Post-Mao China
In: https://freidok.uni-freiburg.de/data/219280
Following the arrest of the Gang of Four on October 6, 1976, local authorities across the country immediately arrested a large number of former rebels, accused them of being followers of the Gang of Four, and designated them perpetrators of the Cultural Revolution. Drawing on in-depth analysis of Jiangsu Province, the location of early measures designed to address Cultural Revolutionary violence and injustices, and mainly based on first-hand archives and oral history interviews, this dissertation examines the processes of designating, defining, and punishing perpetrators of the Cultural Revolution. The study of Jiangsu shows that the designated followers and local cadres continuously challenged, questioned, and resisted central policies on the designation of perpetrators. The campaign-style approach further undermined the legitimacy of the designation. In the early 1980s, faced with local challenges and the complex issue of responsibility, the central leadership redressed a large number of its previous designations of perpetrators and focused on eliminating the legacy of the Cultural Revolution within the Party leadership, thereby securing its future rule. The study further explores how the CCP legitimized its claim to power, how it succeeded in launching political and social transformation in post-Mao China, and how the attribution of accountability impacts current debates within Chinese society. Despite the CCP's concerted effort to close the book on the Cultural Revolution, it lives on today, both as a symbol of historical injustice and, perhaps unexpectedly, as an object of nostalgia. The Cultural Revolution continues to resonate in the present. The question of who was accountable for the Cultural Revolution and whether designated perpetrators should be punished remains a controversial topic in contemporary Chinese society. Various groups compete to narrate their own past, often posing counternarratives to the official narrative outlined in the 1981 Resolution. These diverse interpretations of the Cultural Revolution reflect an unsettling past.