Interpreting modern China: The rise and fall of the Cultural Revolution in China, 1966-1976.

摘要

The dissertation applies the cultural perspective to the study of Chinese Marxism and the Cultural Revolution in China 1966-76. As the modernity project, the Marxist orientation in Chinese society is described as a modernity response to the collapse of the transcendental order in traditional Chinese society. Its impact is identified as the modern, transcendental criteria--rationality, progress, and emancipation. As an historical phenomenon, Chinese Communism has been established by a process in which Marxism was incorporated into Chinese modern social thought and organization. Large-scale mass participation in politics such as the revolution acted as the cultural agent in this historical process, transforming Marxist criteria into a transcendental order. In reintegrating Chinese culture, Marxism constituted a particular form of sociality--a modern structure of authority. The social and cultural tensions that engendered the Cultural Revolution were embedded in a culture in which Marxist concepts of class, class struggle, and revolution were significant in social communication and interaction. In terms of its cultural origins and mass basis, the Cultural Revolution was a collective representation of social and cultural tensions. It was characterized by a fanatic ethos, collective violence and turbulent actions. On the other hand, it also appeared as a cultural project towards rebuilding a "new Man." With the large-scale withdrawal from politics, however, exhausted was Marxism's capacity to explain meanings of life with its transcendental criteria. Chinese communist politics, characterized by class struggle, ideological mobilization, large participation, etc., appeared as a mode of social control and a particular relation of domination and subordination. The dissertation concludes that the end of the Cultural Revolution signified a Marxist crisis and the closing of the communist era. From the investigation of Chinese communism in the past-revolutionary period, emerged the postmodern mode of history and society, as opposed to communist power as the transcendental order and as the authoritative interpretation of Marxism.