Doing Things with Words in Chinese Politics: Five Studies 1557290369, 9781557290366

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Doing Things with Words in Chinese Politics

For m y parents

CHINA RESEARCH MONOGRAPH

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I æ INSTITUTE OF EAST ASIAN STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA • BERKELEY

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CENTER FOR CHINESE STUDIES

Doing Things with Words in Chinese Politics Five Studies MICHAEL SCHOENHALS

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A publication of the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley. Although the Institute of East Asian Studies is responsible for the selection and acceptance of manuscripts in this series, responsibility for the opinions expressed and for the accuracy of statements rests with their authors. Correspondence may be sent to: Ms. Joanne Sandstrom, Managing Editor Institute of East Asian Studies University of California Berkeley, California 94720

The China Research Monograph series, whose first title appeared in 1967, is one of several publications series sponsored by the Institute of East Asian Studies in conjunction with its constituent units. The others include the Japan R esearch Monograph series, the Korea Research Monograph series, the Indochina Research Monograph series, and the R esearch Papers and Pol­ icy Studies series. A list of recent publications appears at the back of the book. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Schoenhals, Michael. Doing things with words in Chinese politics : five studies / Michael Schoenhals. p. cm. — (China research monograph ; 41) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 1-55729-036-9 (pbk.) : $10.00 1. China—Politics and government— 1976-----Terminology. 2. Chinese language—Political aspects. I. Title. II. Series: China research monographs ; no. 41. DS779.26.S36 1992 92-53463 CIP Copyright © 1992 by The Regents of the University of California ISBN 1-55729-036-9 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 92-53463 Printed in the United States of America All rights reserved.

Contents

Acknowledgments..............................................................................................vii 1. Formalized Language as a Form of Power........................................... 1 2. Party Circulars Proscribing and Prescribing Terminology............. 31 3. Ghost-Writers: Expressing "The Will of the A uthorities"............. 55 4. Direction of the Press: Hu Qiaomu's 1955 Breakfast Chats............ 79 5. Censorship, Humanities,and Social Sciences................................... 103 Bibliography..................................................................................................... 127

Dr. Michael Schoenhals is a researcher at the Institute of Oriental Languages, Stockholm University. He is the author of Saltationist Socialism: Mao Zedong and the Great Leap Forward 1958 (1987) and The Practice behind the 1978 'Truth Criterion" D ebate (forthcoming).

Acknowledgments

While living in Beijing in the early eighties, I made friends with a former cellmate of one of XX's cooks. My work at the time involved translation and interpreting, and I had become intrigued by the uni­ form way in which Chinese officials expressed themselves. I must have told my friend about this because one day he presented me with a book he had picked up at a second-hand bookshop and said, “You will enjoy reading this!" I did. The book— a desk-top reference work for propagandists on how to speak and write— made fascinat­ ing reading. I decided then and there that in due course I would use it as the basis for a study of politics and language in the People's Republic. This is the study. It began uninformed by any particular theory or grand paradigm. In fact, it took quite some time for me to develop a dear idea of how to understand and represent the material I had been given. The existing literature on China turned out to have little to say about the political uses of language, and the litera­ ture on language in politics was rarely ever about China. Eventually, I discovered that one of the few scholars who had anything enlight­ ening to say about doing things with words in contemporary Chinese politics was the British anthropologist Maurice Bloch. Chances are he is not aware of this, since he really writes about the Merina on Madagascar. But far more than any of the works on propaganda, persuasion, “hegemonic discourse," and censorship in socialist states I read, Bloch's writings on political oratory in traditional sodety and formalized language as a form of power provided me with analytical and descriptive tools that needed only minor hot-rodding to fit Chinese realities. A first draft of the greater part of this study was completed dur­ ing a year as visiting assistant research linguist at the Center for

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Acknowledgments

Chinese Studies, University of California, Berkeley. For her initial support and generous encouragement, I wish to express my gratitude to Joyce Kallgren. Wen-hsin Yeh and Jim Williams impressed upon me the importance of intellectual rigor; and Annie Chang, C. P. Chen, Jim Lockie-Brown, Sue Pruyn, Melanie Fields, and Patty Frontiera provided invaluable practical help. During a year as a postdoc­ toral fellow at the John King Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, Harvard University, while working on a related project, I benefited from the congenial intellectual company of lunch-table reg­ ulars Christina Gilmartin, Merle Goldman, Roderick MacFarquhar, Jean Oi, Tony Saich, Benjamin Schwartz, Larry Sullivan, Andy Wälder, and David Zweig. I finalized my study at the Institute of Asian Research, University of British Columbia, and wish to ack­ nowledge the kind support of its director, Terry McGee. I have exchanged ideas about politics and language with a number of Chinese intellectuals. For positive feedback and intellec­ tual stimulus, I first of all want to thank Wang Ruoshui. Sun Changjiang and Ruan Ming also deserve special thanks for their readiness to share insights and opinions. I hope my modest attempt at cultural translation will not disappoint them. I express my grati­ tude for comments on earlier incarnations of this study or parts of it to Julian Chang, Tim Cheek, John Fincher, Tom Hart, Carol Lee Hamrin, William Joseph, Thomas Kämpen, Torbjôm Lodén, Michel Oksenberg, Lars Ragvald, Gilbert Rozman, Hans van de Ven, Alex­ ander Woodside, and Mayfair Yang. For help with locating obscure material, a very special thanks to Nancy Hearst at the Fairbank Center Library. Also, many thanks to the helpful staff of the Far Eastern Library in Stockholm, the Hoover Institution East Asian Col­ lection, the Yenching Library, and the U.B.C. Asian Library. Finally, I want to thank my editor at the Institute of East Asian Studies, Joanne Sandstrom, for seeing this manuscript through its production so quickly and beautifully. Work on this study was in part supported by a grant from the Swedish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSFR).

CHAPTER ONE

Formalized Language as a Form of Power

This study is about formalized language in contemporary Chinese politics. It looks at the way in which formalized language and for­ malized speech acts help constitute the structure of power within China's political system. The word form alized here refers to a partic­ ular quality of linguistic "im poverishm ent." Unlike the language of everyday speech acts, the language of politics can be shown to include only a selection of the many different kinds of statements, propositions, and incantations distinguished by logicians, grammari­ ans, rhetoricians, and other students of utterance and meaning. The language of politics is a restricted code, one in which options with respect to formal qualities such as vocabulary, style, syntax, and trope are far more restricted than in ordinary language. Formalization is part of politics everywhere, and comparative stu­ dies have shown a striking recurrence of similar patterns of speech norms for politics in totally different cultures.1 Among New Guinea highlanders and Tswana chiefs, as well as among members of the Japanese Diet and White House "spokespersons," it manifests itself in the form of partial vocabularies. Certain words are taboo, and cer­ tain figures of speech are avoided at all costs. American politicians today prefer to speak of "th e l word" rather than spell out "liberal" and to speak of "the r word" rather than spell out "recession." Members of the White House staff do not refer to the American president as someone who is "fran k" since— as one of the president's chief aides once told a startled speech writer— "th e use of T wifi be frank' carries with it the suggestion that our president is not always frank, which is untrue as we know ."2 Aside from the taboo words 1 Maurice Bloch, ed.. Political Language and Oratory in Traditional Society (London: Academic Press, 1975), introduction, 1 3 -1 4 . 2 Peggy Noonan, What I Saw at the Revolution: A Political U fe in the Reagan Era

2

Formalized Language as a Form o f Power

and taboo expressions conspicuously absent, there are the verbal con­ densation symbols that are present everywhere— names, words, phrases, and maxims that stir vivid impressions and involve the listener's most basic values.3 In the United States words such as “communist" and “terrorist" trigger conditioned responses. In Sweden the public never get tired of hearing elected representatives utter their magic spells in defense of the nation's “neutrality" and “vàlfârd." In George Orwell's ironic characterization clichés like these are devices with which a politician reduces the state of consciousness of his audience, “and this reduced state of consciousness, if not indispensable, is at any rate favorable to political conformity.“4 In premodem China political philosophers studied language for­ malization extensively. In the Analects Confucius argued that when names are not correct— and what is said is therefore not reasonable— the affairs of state will not culminate in success, and the common people will not know how to do what is right. Conse­ quently, “the Prince is never casual in his choice of words.“5 Succes­ sive imperial dynasties institutionalized complex systems of language formalization that included the compilation of official lists of taboo characters (bihu i). For example, in the early 1850s the Taiping Court— or “insurgents" in Manchu terminology— banned all use of the characters sang (funery) and si (death). In Taiping texts “fun­ erals" (sangshi) are hence referred to as “weddings" (xishi), and the expression “prior to his death" (siqian ) is replaced by “prior to his birth" (shengqian ).6 In Taibei officials with the “National Govern­ m ent" still go to great lengths to avoid the use of words already appropriated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) or otherwise tainted with “bandit" overtones. Even the mainland term for formu­ lations as such is shunned and a synonym used in its place. “We know what they m ean," a Guomindang propaganda cadre once (New York: Random House, 1990), 120. 3 For a discussion of verbal condensation symbols, see Doris A Gräber, Verbal Behaviour and Politics (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1976), 289-321. 4 George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," in Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus, eds.. The C ollected Essays, Journalism, and Letters o f George Orwell, vol. 4: In Front o f Your Nose 1945-1950 (London: Seeker & Warburg, 1968), 136. 1 Analects, 12, iii, 5 -6 . 4 W enzhaibao 478 (1987): 7. Use of "prior to his birth" has persisted and is now ac­ cepted by native speakers as the idiomatic way of saying "w hile so-and-so was still alive"!

Formalized Language as a Form o f Power

3

explained, "bu t where Chicom use tifa, we use jiangfa. " In the People's Republic of China the state maintains control over the avenues of political expression by a multitude of means that range from the compulsory registration of newspapers and other publications to restrictions on the use of photocopying equipment It also exercises direct control over political discourse by way of central­ ized management and manipulation of "appropriate" and "inap­ propriate" formulations. The bureaucratic agencies involved in this control include the CCP Central Propaganda Department, the New China News Agency (NCNA), and the Propaganda Department of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) General Political Department. By proscribing some formulations while prescribing others, they set out to regulate what is being said and what is being written— and by extension what is being done. As a praxis concerned with the ban­ ning of a thousand and one ways of expression, this management and manipulation of formulations is central to PRC censorship. As an attempt to make the language of the state the sole legitimate medium of political expression, it also represents one of the most aggressive aspects of CCP propaganda. Language formalization— as a form of power managed and man­ ipulated by the state— thus has a bearing upon all aspects of Chinese politics. The subject of the use and abuse of formulations is subject to constant strategic deliberation at the highest levels of the CCP. In some cases the process of policy making is indistinguishable from the process of policy formulation. Policy implementation at all levels is affected by concerns with questions like How should this be put? What happens if we put it like that? Will putting it like this put peo­ ple off? What do they mean by putting it differently? Can we really let them put it like that? That Mao Zedong was highly sensitive to the power of the word is widely known. In 1963 he expressed one of the basic tenets of his own "thought" when he remarked that "one single [correct] formula­ tion, and the whole nation will flourish; one single [incorrect] formu­ lation, and the whole nation will decline. What is referred to here is the transformation of the spiritual into the m aterial."7 The five 7 Mao Zedong, "Zai Hangzhou Huiyi Shang de Di San Ci Jianghua Zhailu" (Third talk at the Hangzhou conference] (11 May 1963), in Zhongguo Renmin Daxue San Hong, ed., Mao Zedong Sixiang Wansui [Long live Mao Zedong thought], 13 vols. (Bei­ jing, 1967), final supplement, 120.

4

Formalized Language as a Form o f Power

volumes (covering the period from 1 October 1949 to 31 December 1955) of Mao's official Works to have been published so far reveal how the Party chairman involved himself in the most minute details of semantics as part of his political leadership.8 In 1975 a member of the CCP Politburo noted that “the Chairman has always been very strict in his choice of words. In order to understand him you have to pay attention. If he says something has no major flaws, it still means that it has medium and minor flaws! It does not mean that it is splendid."9 Mao's colleagues were no less attuned to shades of meaning, to nuances of expression, and to what “a single formulation" might achieve at times. Mao's "closest comrade-in-arms," Lin Biao, was by his own admission an inarticulate man who once told a gathering of PLA officers, " I don't have the energy to deliberate on every thought, every word, every expression, and every sentence structure. I just don't. It's all one big m ess."10 A textbook for propaganda cadres published after Lin's death describes his speeches as "incoherent stuff, unrelenting and long-winded."11 But this personal ineloquence was not accompanied by any lack of sensitivity to how others expressed or ought to express themselves. Lin's explanation of what Marshal Peng Dehuai had really meant when, at the 1959 Lushan Conference, he called the CCP's general line "basically correct" is typical: With respect to the general line, he [Peng] only said that it was "basically correct." Within the Party, we usually say that something is basically correct when we mean that there are parts of it that are not correct. This was definitely not something he just blurted out. He knew exactly what he was saying. What he implied was that the general line had to be revised, reconsidered, and repudiated.12 • Zhonggong Zhongyang Wenxian Yanjiushi, ed., Jianguo Yilai Mao Zedong Vfengao [Mao Zedong: manuscripts since the establishment of the PRC], 5 vols. (Beijing: Zhongyang Wenxian Chubanshe, 1987-89), passim. 9 Zhang Chunqiao, quoted in "'Sirenbang' Zuizheng Cailiao Zhi San" [Criminal evidence concerning the "Gang of Four" pt. 3] (Beijing: Zhonggong Zhongyang Bangongting, 1979). 10 Lin Biao, "Zai Jun Yishang Ganbu Huiyi Shang de Jianghua" [Speech at meeting of cadres above the army level] (20 March 1967), in Un Biao Xuanji (Selected works of Lin Biao] (N.p., n.d.), 215. 11 Li Yanju and Chen Kaiguo, Xuanchuan Gongzuo Gailun [General introduction to propaganda work] (Changsha: Hunan Renmin Chubanshe, 1986), 357. 12 Lin Biao, stenographic record of speech on 4 August 1959, in Li Rui, Lushan

Formalized Language as a Form o f Power

5

Two weeks after he had dealt with Peng Dehuai's forthrightness about the Great Leap Forward in terms like these, Un was appointed his successor as minister of defense. Peng was at the same time denounced in a Central Committee resolution as someone whose aim in “attacking" the general line had been to split the Party. There are few questions over which the CCP leadership has not at one time or other been divided. There have been disagreements over everything from the importance of class struggle to whether or not the cultivation of flowers and potted plants is a proper proletarian pastime. But there has on the whole been a remarkable consensus about the pivotal role played by what J.L . Austin called “perlocutionary acts" in the attainment, consolidation, and preserva­ tion of state power. Perlocution, in its purest form, is the intentional use of language to produce consequential effects upon the feelings, thoughts, and actions of people.13 Under these circumstances, why is it that Western scholars with so few exceptions have tended to relegate the role of language to the periphery, rather than to the center, of Chinese politics? Why are there so relatively few studies of the political uses and function of formulations and of censorship and propaganda in China? Why is it that the art of doing things with words so dear to China's homo politicus has not received the same attention as, for instance, the “art of guanxi “?14 The first explanation that comes to mind has to do with academic training. Political scientists are unlikely to regard language as being of fundamental importance in itself and rarely look upon it as anything but a kind of container, “a conduit for the communica­ tion of the essence of thought or reality.“15 Historians, in the words of Hayden White, also tended to “treat language as a transparent Huiyi Shilu [True record of the Lushan conference] (Beijing: Chunqiu Chubanshe and Hunan Jiaoyu Chubanshe, 1989), 279. 13 J.L Austin, How To Do Things with Words (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), 101. 14 For a discussion of guanxi— "the skillful mobilization of moral and cultural im­ peratives such as obligation and reciprocity in pursuit of social ends and instrumental needs"— see Mayfair Mei-Hui Yang, 'T h e Gift Economy and State Power in China," Comparative Studies in Society and History 31 (January 1989): 2 5 -5 4 . 15 Mark Hobart, "Introduction: Context, Meaning, and Power," in Mark Hobart and Robert H. Taylor, eds., Context, Meaning, and Power in Southeast Asia (Ithaca: Cor­ nell University SEAP, 1986), 9.

6

Formalized Language as a Form o f Power

vehicle of representation that brings no cognitive baggage of its own into the discourse," but this situation appears to be changing as a new generation of historians of culture use new methods of literary techniques to develop methods of analysis.16 Political anthropologists take a somewhat greater interest in issues related to the relationship of language to power and politics, but they hesitate to concern them­ selves with the issue at stake here because they do not see it, except perhaps in an extended sense, as a legitimate "anthro" problem. A second explanation that comes to mind is a disturbing one. Whereas Western universities, media, and governm ents) never would regard anyone with a reading ability in English of ten pages an hour as qualified to speak with authority on British politics, a similar standard does not yet apply to China and Chinese politics. Here even those who are functionally illiterate in Chinese may become authorities. It is an undeniable fact that Western scholars writing about contemporary China only seldom— unless they are stu­ dents of literature or art— read or speak Chinese with anything even remotely resembling fluency. It is an open secret— ever so evident from the titles appearing in our footnotes and bibliographies— that most of us are totally dependent in our work on the translated discourse generated by the U.S. consulate in Hong Kong, the British Broadcasting Corporation, and the Foreign Languages Press in Bei­ jing. Under these circumstances, our failure to deal with the relation­ ship between language and politics in China is perhaps not that surprising. It is, on the other hand, more than a little embarrassing. Formulations (tifa ) are the elements of discourse that concerned Mao Zedong and Lin Biao and that continue to concern their political successors.17 In the winter of 1978-79, when the CCP leadership reversed its previously positive verdict on the politics of Mao's final decade, "erroneous formulations" preceded "confused notions" and 16 Hayden White, Tropics o f Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), 127; Lynn Hunt, ed.. The New Cultural History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989). 17 In conformity both with Chinese usage of the term tifa and Western conversa­ tion analysis usage of the term "form ulation," I do not distinguish between formula­ tions consisting of a single word and formulations consisting of a string of words but treat the former merely as a special case of the latter. Cf. E. A. Schegloff, "N otes on a Conversational Practice: Formulating Place," in Pier Paolo Giglioli, ed., Language and Social Context: Selected Readings (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1972), 9 5 -1 3 5 .

Formalized Language as a Form o f Power

7

"inappropriate practices" in a list drawn up by the CCP Central Party School of things that desperately needed to be "set right."18 While criticizing the Gang of Four, People's Daily stressed that "for­ mulations are very serious matters that must be resolved scientifically___Where the formulation is off the mark by one milli­ meter, the theory will be wrong by a thousand kilom eters." The point was made that "in our present struggle, we must not only criti­ cize the theoretical contents of Zhang Chunqiao's 'all-round dictator­ ship' but also definitely criticize the formulation of 'all-round dicta­ torship' as su ch."19 A defining characteristic of the formulation is its fixed form. The manipulation of any one formal element of formulation A is sufficient to transform it into formulation B. In the case of an isolating language like Chinese, that is, a language in which the words are invariable and grammatical relations are shown mainly by word order, this means that the addition or deletion of an in itself "m ean­ ingless" character— a grammatical particle or "em pty word" (jruci)— suffices to transform formulation A into formulation B. In the context of PRC politics, the simple deletion of a genitive particle may suffice to turn a formulation acceptable to the CCP leadership into an unacceptable one. In August 1965 the vice-president of the Central Party School told a group of students, "W e must not general­ ize and say that socialist society is a class society (jieji shehui). Because, if we say that it is a class society, then it becomes very difficult to distinguish it from the class societies of the past. There­ fore, in our articles, there is only this kind of a formulation: socialist society is still a society that contains classes (you jieji de shehu i).”20 Here the distinction between socialism on the one hand and capital­ ism, feudalism, and slave society on the other rested on the presence or absence of a de. It was not under any circumstances to be tam­ pered with. In the words of People's Daily, the "history of the 18 "Jianchi Shao Xuanchuan Geren de Fangzhen" [Adhere to the long-term policy of making less propaganda about individuals], Lilun Dongtai 6 (1979): 69. ” Zhang Xianyang and Wang Guixiu, " 'Quanmian Zhuanzheng' de Tifa Shi Fan Kexue de" [The formulation "all-round dictatorship" is antisdentific], Renmitt Ribao (hereafter, RMRB), 9 October 1978. 20 Ai Siqi, "Xuexi Mao Zhuxi de Si Pian Zhexue Zhuzuo de Fudao Baogao" [Gui­ dance lecture on studying chairman Mao's four philosophical works], in Xuexi Wenjian [Study documents] (Beijing: Geming Chuanlianbao Bianjibu, 1967), 87.

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Formalized Language as a Form o f Power

international communist movement tells us that the revisionists invariably begin their attempts to distort and tamper with Marxism by tampering with form ulations."21 The CCP has over the years produced innumerable reflexive texts in which formulations are not only used in much the same way as in ordinary discourse but are made its subjet matter as well. In the weekly bulletin of the Central Propaganda Department, Propaganda Trends, such texts at one point appeared in a special column entitled "Propaganda Vocabulary Must Be Accurate." Occasional circulars issued by the NCNA Head Office have had titles like "Instructions on Terminology" and "Formulations Related to Policy Occurring in Sub-Bureau Manuscripts Should Be Consistent with Formulations Occurring in Central Instructions."22 In one of the Party's major newsletters for journalists, Newspaper Trends, part of the letters sec­ tion was in the 1980s devoted exclusively to a metadiscourse on language-in-use. Here were presented arguments for and against expressions like "th e sick man of the East," "labor m arket," "paying great attention to," and so forth. On one particularly memorable occasion, the People's Daily was criticized for quoting Hu Yaobang as saying that Taiwanese are "like half foreigners." This expression "w ill almost inevitably give birth to resentment in the minds of our Taiwanese compatriots," a reader complained!23 The CCP is yet to devise an explicit theory about formulations as such, but for analytical purposes it is already possible to extract from its reflexive texts some of the main components such a theory would have to contain. First, as far as the supposed uses of formulations are concerned, the Party has repeatedly stated that appropriate ones contribute to the attainment of specific goals. Conversely, inap­ propriate formulations are "factors" that may "create ideological con­ fusion among the m asses." The predication "Hong Kong and Macao compatriots" (Gang-Ao tongbao) is said to be an appropriate formula­ tion because of the way in which it, in structural distance terms, draws the population of the two colonial enclaves closer to Beijing than the expression "overseas Chinese" would do.24 The remark 21 Zhang Xianyang and Wang, " 'Quanmian Zhuanghang.' " 22 See Xinhua She Xinwen Yanjiubu (suo), ed., Xinhua She Wenjian Ziliao Xuanbian [Selected NCNA documents and materials], 4 vote. (Beijing, 1981-97), 1:210-22; 4 :5 36-37. 23 Baozhi Dongtai 9 (1986): 3 -4 . 2* Xinhua She, 2:27.

Formalized Language as a Form o f Power

9

"so-and-so 'does not put on the airs of an intellectual'" (meiyou zhishifenzi jiazi) was in 1984 said to be an inappropriate formulation because although it could be used "in praise of certain outstanding intellectuals," it implied criticism of— and hence probably alienated— intellectuals in general, and as such it was "not conducive to the implementation of the Party's policy toward intellectuals."25 When generalizing about the desirable qualities of a formulation, the CCP likes to argue that it should be "scientific." The claim was once made by Beijing's mayor Peng Zhen that "th e formulation 'take Mao Zedong Thought as the key link when studying MarxismLeninism' is unscientific" and should not be used.26 Lin Biao later remarked that although the formulation "establish the absolute authority of Mao Zedong Thought" could be accepted if coming from an ordinary soldier, it was unacceptable as part of the CCP's "scientific" language. (Furthermore, Lin noted, "The Chairman does not approve of it.")27 In 1986 a handbook for Party propagandists explained that "'T im e is m o n e y '...is a scientific slogan, and a ten­ able one, because it is in keeping with Marxist tenets concerning the value of labor."28 The slogan "W ork away like there's no tomorrow; have fun until you drop dead" (warming de gan, pinming de w ar), in contrast was judged to be unscientific. First put forward by the Communist Youth league in 1984 to characterize the spirit of the 1980s but later withdrawn, it had the de facto effect of "promoting recklessness and misconduct."29 The use of a "scientific" criterion is somewhat misleading in the sense that what is being judged is not the scientific verifiability or truthfulness of a formulation but its political utility. A formulation used to produce a certain effect upon feelings, thoughts, or actions of “ W eruhaibao 226 (1985): 3. 26 Peng Zhen, 5 March I960, quoted in Zhongguo Renmin Jiefangjun Zong Zhengzhibu, ed., Dangnei Liangtiao Luxian Douzheng Dashiji [Record of major events in the struggle between the two lines inside the Party] (Beijing, 1969), 635. 27 Lin Biao, "Zai Jiejian Jundui Ganbu Shi de Zhongyao Jianghua" [Important speech at reception for army cadres] (24 March 1968), in Lin Biao Xuanji, 238. 28 U Yanju and Chen, 294. 29 Ibid., 293. The CCP Central Propaganda Department had first criticized this particular formulation at the end of 1984. See reprint of article from Newspaper Trends entitled "'W arm ing de Gan, Pinming de War' de Tifa Bu Kexue" [The formula­ tion "work away like there's no tomorrow; have fun until you drop dead" is unscientific], in Xuanchuan Ziliao 115 (1985): 3 1 -3 2 .

10

Formalized Language as a Form o f Power

a target audience is regarded as scientific if die effect is indeed forth­ coming. "Science" is what appears to work. With their references to concerns such as "social effect," "effect upon public opinion," "annundatory capacity," and "inform ative bias," the CCP's reflexive texts on the pros and cons of specific formulations probably appear more familiar to Western advertising firms than to students of logic or philosophy.30 The following passage in an article in the now defunct intra-Party journal Internal Manuscripts (a sister publication of the Central Committee organ Red Flag) in which many "theoreti­ cal issues that do not lend themselves to public discussion" were ventilated in the late 1970s and the 1980s indicates what the CCP regards as a scientific formulation. The crucial issue is not whether a particular term may be found in the classics of Marxism-Leninism but whether a formulation has a precise meaning that is scientific and in keeping with the basic spirit of Marxism.... Formulations of course have to be extremely accurate. Where [they] are off the mark by one millimeter, [what is claimed on the basis of them] will be wrong by a thousand kilometers. But their correctness or incorrectness must be determined on the basis of their basic meaning and effects of their use in practice, not by way of a critique of literal abstract definitions divorced from basic meanings, since [the correctness or incorrectness of] quite a few of them will otherwise become "open to question." The name of our party, for instance, is the "Communist Party," and that is what it has been since the days of the new democratic revolution and also what it remains today. Would anyone argue that our party during the new democratic revolution in the past and during the present stage of socialism practiced communism? Or say that because in the past and at present the realization of communism has been "not realistic" or "not practical," the name Communist Party should be changed into the "Democratic Party" or "Socialist Party"? I do not think anyone would agree with views like these.31 This particular argument in defense of the supposedly scientific 30 For use of terms like these in a discussion of formulations, see "Gongkai Ti 'Wending Lingdao Banzi' Bu Tuodang" [To openly refer to "stabilizing the composi­ tion of leading organs" is inappropriate], W enzhaibao 335 (1986): 1. 31 Xun Chunrong and Miao Zuobin, " 'Xingwu Miezi' de Ufa Meiyou Cuo" [There is nothing wrong with the formulation "m ake what is proletarian flourish and what is bourgeois perish"], Xueshu Yanjiu Dongtai 15 (1980): 7 -9 . Reprinted from Neibu Wengao 5 (1980).

Formalized Language as a Form o f Power

11

“name of our Party" has taken on a new dimension since 1988, when so many of Eastern Europe's communist parties changed their names precisely along the lines here dismissed as unacceptable.32 When the CCP leadership approves of a certain formulation, it does so because the formulation is judged to be politically useful and clever. A highly scientific formulation is one the state can use as a powerful tool of political manipulation. In rare cases, it will be a for­ mulation that lends itself to only one clear and concise interpretation. In a majority of cases, it will be a formulation the meaning of which can be bent in a number of directions. A former director of the CCP Central Propaganda Department once gave as an example of a “policy-wise extremely sophisticated formulation" one that was not “one of those where if it's not this then it's that, if it's not white then it's black.“33 On an earlier occasion his predecessor had given “under certain conditions" as an example of such a formulation. Unlike a formulation in which the “conditions" were actually spelled out, it allowed the Party unlimited “flexibility.“34 Whereas some formulations deemed to be scientific are short and amount to little more than a single preferred word, others may be of considerable length. Some by no means a typically long formulations are the subject of comparisons in the following extract from a 1983 PLA compilation entitled “Some New Formulations in the Docu­ ments of the Party's Twelfth National Congress." (4) About the general task of the Party in the new historical era. The formulation in part one of the Report to the Twelfth National Congress is: “to unite the people of all our nationalities in working hard and self-reliantly to achieve, step by step, the modernization of our industry, agriculture, national defense, and science and 12 On 20 December 1989, the CCP leadership informed China's propaganda ap­ paratus of a decision to stop referring to East European officials as "com rades." Mingtoo, 10 January 1990. 23 "Zhu Houze Shuo 'Quanqi buchu' Shi Ge Faming Chuangzao" [Zhu Houze says "urge not to publish" is an innovation], W enzhaibao 329 (1986): 4. The formulation under discussion is the passage in the CCP constitution that says that Party members may be "urged to withdraw" from the CCP. 14 Deng Liqun, "Xuexi 'Guanyu Jianguo Yilai Dang de Ruogan Lishi Wenti de Jueyi' de Wenti he Huida" [Questions and answers related to the study of the "Reso­ lution on certain questions in the history of our Party since the founding of the PRC"], in Dangshi Huiyi Baogao Ji [Collection of reports from Party history confer­ ences] (Beijing: Zhonggong Zhongyang Dangxiao Chubanshe, 1982), 106.

12

Formalized Language as a Form o f Power

technology and to make China a culturally advanced and highly democratic socialist country.” This formulation—in the same way as the outline of the objective of our Party's struggle in the new era in the "Resolution” of the Sixth Plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee—lists the achievement of socialist modernization, the creation of advanced socialist spiritual culture, and the development of ample socialist democracy as being the three basic tasks. But the "Report” and the "Resolution” differ somewhat in their concrete representations. Firstly, "culturally advanced” has been placed in front of "highly democratic.” Secondly, "industry" has been placed in front of "agriculture." Thirdly, "powerful socialist country" has been changed into "socialist country."... (29) About the nature of the Party. The formulation in the new Party constitution adopted by the Twelfth National Congress is: "The Communist Party of China is the vanguard of the Chinese working dass, the faithful representative of the interests of the peo­ ple of all nationalities in China, and the force at the core leading China's cause of socialism." The "leftist" erroneous formulation in the Party Constitution of the Eleventh National Congress—"a vigorous vanguard organization leading the proletariat and the revo­ lutionary masses in the fight against the dass enemy"—has been discarded. The formulation stating that the Party is "the highest form of dass organization" has not been retained either. A reference to "the force at the core leading China's cause of socialism" has been added.... (31) About the guiding ideology of the Party. With respect to the guiding ideology of the Party, the Party Constitution of the Twelfth National Congress adopted the sdentific representation of Mao Zedong Thought contained in the "Resolution" passed by the Sixth Plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee. It also employeed the formulation "guide to action," which is basically identical to the wording in the Party constitutions of the Seventh and Eighth National Congresses, and it constitutes a correction of the erroneous formulations in the Party constitutions of the Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh National Congresses in which it said "theoretical basis guiding its thinking" or "guiding ideology and theoretical basis" of the Party.35 In this case, discrete segments of discourse up to fifty characters long* ** "Dang de Shier Da Wenjian Zhong de Yixie Xin de U fa," Xue Ziliao 69 (1983): 1 8-24.

Formalized Language as a Form o f Power

13

are dealt with as examples of scientific formulations. One of the aims of the editors responsible for compiling the above document may have been to facilitate a quasi-Kremlinological analysis of central policy pronouncements. “Some New Formula­ tions in the Documents of the Party's Twelfth National Congress" and its 1982 companion piece "Som e New Formulations in the Reso­ lution of the Sixth Plenum [of the Eleventh Central Committee]" are made up entirely of numbered paragraphs comparing in detail the wording of key passages in key Party documents. Such things are noted as the differences between past and present representations of "the birth of the C C P /' "th e meaning of 'the people'," "th e nature of 'the Great Cultural Revolution'," "th e smashing of the 'Gang of Four'," "the ideology of the Party guiding our socialist moderniza­ tion," "our opposition to hegemonism," "th e system of democratic centralism ," "th e concepts of material and spiritual civilization," and much more.36 In a methodological note at the beginning of The Sino-Soviet Conflict 1956-1961, Donald S. Zagoria, formerly an analyst for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, argued the point that embedded in CCP communications is "an obscure but vast world of meaning, part of which is accessible to those with certain necessary tools." Among the tools Zagoria listed as prerequisites to the accession of this mean­ ing was a knowledge of how "given ideological formulation[s] modify or contradict earlier form ulations."37 What the PLA's lists do, then, is provide a Chinese domestic audience with shortcuts to such knowledge by obviating the time-consuming process of determining to what extent and in what way new formulations depart from prece­ dent. It is significant that the list dealing with the documents of the Twelfth National Congress was extensively reprinted after its initial publication in a Liberation Army Daily newsletter for journalists, edi­ tors, and media officials. The Shanxi People's Press reprinted it in its quarterly journal, The Editor's and Writer's Friend, whose readership comprises people in publishing throughout China.38 The Henan Academy of Social Sciences reprinted in its semimonthly journal, M "Liu Zhong Quanhui Jueyyi Zhong de Ybde Xin Tifa," in “Dangshi Ziliao Tongxun" 1982 Nian Hedingben [Selections from Party history m aterials 1982] (Beijing: Zhonggong Zhongyang Dangxiao Chubanshe, 1983), 440 -5 2 . 17 (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), 67. M Bianchuang Zhi You 1 (1984): 6 -1 7 .

14

Formalized Language as a Form o f Power

Academic M aterials, whose readers include social scientists, teachers, and students in institutions of higher learning and research. These are precisely some of the categories of people one would expect to be interested in finding shortcuts to a knowledge of "the world of meaning embedded" in CCP communications. But annotated lists of formulations also serve another function in addition to facilitating the accession or analysis of political discourse. They provide those who participate or aspire to participate in the discourse— for example, actual and potential political actors in the widest possible sense— with concise and up-to-date guidelines on the kind of language they should use to express themselves. To gain access to the agora, PRC citizens must employ as their means of expression what in the eyes of the state count as "appropriate" for­ mulations. In 1964 Lin Biao spelled out this crucial aspect of political discourse when he remarked that one "m ust always and as much as possible make use of the pan-national language (quanguoxing yuyan) propounded by the Party Center and Chairman Mao, the Party Center's and Chairman Mao's pan-national language employed by the People's Daily, and the language that's popular throughout the nation like 'one divides into two,' 'compare, learn, catch up with and help,' etc."39 Here, then, are the formulations that at the time of pub­ lication are guaranteed not to be "o ff the mark" by even a millimeter. Here are the precise wordings a writer should employ to qualify as ideologically "in step with the Party C enter." Here are the formula­ tions a speaker should use in order not to risk accusations of heter­ odoxy. The pattern according to which the scope of what the CCP leadership regards as politically appropriate language has expanded and contracted over the years illustrates the changing nature and intensity fo discourse control in the PRC. Immediately after 1949 formalization involved erasing all traces of what the People's Daily called the "illogical and ungrammatical language" that had been the hallmark of past noncommunist political discourse and supplanting it with a "pure and healthy language" suited to "th e propagation of the truth to the m asses."40 The administrative terminology of the 39 Lin Biao, "Guanyu Banhao Jiefangjun Bao de Zhishi" [Instructions on running the Liberation army daily well], in Zhongguo Renmin Jiefangjun Zong Zhengzhibu, ed., Lin Fuzhuxi Yulu [Quotations from vice-chairman Lin] (Beijing, 1970), 480. 40 Editorial "Zhengque de Shiyong Zuguo de Yuyan, Wei Yuyan de Chunjie He

Formalized Language as a Form o f Power

15

Guomindang was replaced by novel terms that soon became core constituent parts of a growing list of "scientific" formulations.41 Party writers and journalists vied with each other in creating alternatives to the "dated jargon" of the "decadent bourgeois media" in the "old society." Propaganda officials who had been instrumental in shaping the idiom of the CCP press in Yan'an, Jin-Cha-Ji, and Manchuria in the 1930s and 1940s succeeded in enforcing the adoption of their own topological preferences, and these now became paradigms: "It is imperative that political editorials like this one begin by presenting the positive facts," Hu Qiaomu told a junior editor with the People's Daily on 19 May 1955. "This is not tantamount to writing an 'Eight-Legged Essay,' but something that is mandatory and neces­ sary."42 By the m id-1950s there were signs of a reaction against what in some quarters was seen as "excessive" formalization. Within the Communist Youth League, criticism was directed at tedious uniform references to leading cadres constantly "making important speeches," "issuing important instructions," "being present in person during the discussions," and "also taking an active part in voluntary labor." The outcome of this sort of propaganda, it was argued, was "the spread of idol worship among the masses and the inhibition of the creativity and initiative of the m asses."43 Among the intelligentsia, specific criti­ cisms were leveled against the CCP's use of formalization to curtail academic debate. The practice of insisting that all discussions of the Jiankang Er Douzheng" [Correctly employ the language of the motherland, struggle for the purity and health of language], RMRB, 8 June 1951. 41 For a discussion of similar changes in political vocabulary in the Soviet Union in the years after the Bolshevik revolution, see Ithiel de Sola Pool, "The Language of Politics: General Trends in C ontent/' in Harold D. Laswell, Daniel Lemer, and Hans Spier, eds., Propagation and Communication in World History, 3 vols. (Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1980), 3 :1 75-76. 42 Tantan Baozhi Gongzuo [On newspaper work] (Beijing: Xinwen Yanjiusuo, 1978), 138. The Eight-Legged Essay was the formalized essay style that all candidates for public office in the Ming and Qing dynasties had to master. One PRC encyclopedia describes it as "a tool used to stifle people's thinking and uphold feudal rule." Cihai [Ocean of words] (Shanghai: Shanghai Cishu Chubanshe, 1980), 1-vol. ed., 272. 43 "Qingniantuan Zhongyang Xuanchuanbu Guanyu Difang Tuanbao Tuankan Xuanchuan Dang de Lingdao de W enti" [Propaganda department of the youth league centers on the question of propaganda about the leadership of the Party in local league newspapers and journals], in Zhongguo Shehui Kexueyuan Xinwen Yanjiusuo, ed., Zhongguo Gongchandang Xinwen Gongzuo Wenjian Huibian [Collected CCP docu­ ments on journalistic work], 3 vols. (Beijing: Xinhua Chubanshe, 1980), 2:474.

16

Formalized Language as a Form o f Power

history of interethnic relationships in China contain the stock phrases “generations of reactionary rulers" and "th e oppression and aggres­ sion of the Han over the m inorities" was dted as particularly unwel­ come.44 In the spring of 1957, some members of the CCP Politburo reti­ cently abandoned the use of some of the formulations that China's youth and intelligentsia claimed were stunting the growth of a "healthy" political climate and "creative" academic debate. In a major speech on the resolution of social contradictions, Mao Zedong did not make even a single token reference to "class struggle" and the "dictatorship of the proletariat."45 This act, and others like it, suggested to members of his audience that a range of issues that in the past would have had to have been raised in terms like these now were open to "resolution by argument, rather than by force." China's students and intelligentsia (who heard tape recordings or read tran­ scripts of Mao's speech) were emboldened into articulating further criticisms of the CCP, its policies and practices. The signals sent out by the CCP leadership were widely interpreted as permission to employ formulations previously not explicitly classified as "appropri­ ate" and in some quarters even as permission to employ formulations previously classified as "inappropriate."46 At first, explicit criticism of the CCP was not allowed to pollute the public avenues of expression; such criticism was confined entirely to closed fora like campus "debating salons" and various conferences held under the auspices of China's small democratic parties. But in April-M ay, the national media were given the Politburo's go-ahead to publish accounts of "criticism s directed at our Party."47 Indicative of continued high-level concern with the use and abuse of formula­ tions is that editors were cautioned against surrendering control of 44 "Guanyu Woguo Minzu Guanxi Xuanchuan Zhong Ying Zhuyi de W enti" [Prob­ lem to be noted in propaganda about intraethnic relations in our country], in Xinhua She, 4 :2 4 -2 5 . 45 See Michael Schoenhals, "Original Contradictions: On the Unrevised Text of Mao Zedong's 'On the Correct Handling of Contradictions among the People'," Aus­ tralian Journal o f Chinese Affairs 16 (1986): 9 9 -1 1 2 . 44 Former secretary of the Communist Youth League at Beijing University, inter­ view in Arhus, March 1984. 47 ji Xichen, "Zai Fengkou Shang" [In the Wind Gap], in Renmin Ribao Baoshi Bianjizu, ed., "Renmin Ribao" Huiyilu [People's daily recollections] (Beijing: Renmin ribao Chubanshe, 1988), 124-25.

Formalized Language as a Form o f Power

17

the formal aspects of media-reported discourse to Party critics. The NCNA was ordered to make certain that accounts either were purged of non-CCP formulations or only reproduced such formulations in a way that would make their "inappropriateness" readily apparent to the reader. Editors were told to “maintain a clear stand" and to "skillfully hint to the reader, between the lines, that the views expressed are incorrect." Journalists were cautioned against "attem pt­ ing to follow the latest fashions and casually employ inappropriate neologisms created by others."48 "Stalinism " was one of these "inap­ propriate neologisms." According to CCP general secretary Deng Xiaoping, to speak of the temporary problems of the international communist movement in terms of such an "ism " was only likely to generate confusion.49 In June, Mao and his colleagues ended the period during which they had temporarily suspended the use of formalized language "in order to fine tune the social order."50 "Ninety percent of the criti­ cisms directed at us in the press has been valid," Deng Xiaoping told a Party audience, and "w e must sincerely accept [these criticisms] and make improvements."51 But some critics had gone "too far," and the Party's experiment in "liberalism "— Mao, quoting the New York Times— had been "seized upon" by "enem ies of socialism ." These "sons of bitches" had not spoken up with the aim of improving things, but with the aim of "reinstating the old order."52 The rules that had applied before 1957 to what could and could not be said— M "Guanyu Zhengfeng Baodao de Yijian" [Views on reporting about rectification], in Xinhua She, 4:88. 49 Deng Xiaoping, "Zai Qinghua Daxue de Jianghua" [Speech at Qinghua universi­ ty], in Deng Xiaoping Fandong Yanxing Huibian [Collection of Deng Xiaoping's reaction­ ary statements and deeds] (Beijing: Beijing Daxue, 1967), 23. 50 For a characterization of events in the spring of 1957 in these terms, see Mao Zedong, "Zai Shanghai Dang de Ganbu Huiyi Shang de Jianghua" [Speech at meeting of Party cadres in Shanghai] (20 Match 1957), in Zhongguo Renmin Daxue, first sup­ plement, 7 3 -8 2 . 51 "Beijing Shiwei Zheng Tianxiang Chuanda Deng Xiaoping Zhengfeng Baogao" [Zheng Tianxiang with the Beijing municipal Party committee transmits contents of Deng Xiaoping's rectification report] (5 July 1957), in Fangeming Xiuzhengihuyi Fenzi Deng Xiaoping Fandong Yanlun [Reactionary utterances by the counterrevolutionary re­ visionist element Deng Xiaoping] (Beijing: Beijing Daxue Wenhua Geming Weiyuanhui Ziliaozu, 1967), 20. 5J Mao Zedong, "Zai Qingdao Huiyi Shang de Chahua" [Interjections at the Qing­ dao conference] (17 July 1987), in Zhongguo Renmin Daxue, suppl. 2 ,9 0 -9 1 .

18

Formalized Language as a Form o f Power

and how what could be said had to be said— were reaffirmed and reapplied with impunity. The press at first continued to publish accounts of criticisms directed at the CCP. But now it no longer merely "hinted to the reader, between the lines" that these criticisms were "incorrect." Every rhetorical strategy in the book was employed to bring home this message. A new "scientific" label was affixed to persons who had been "insincere" in their criticisms. "W e call them Rightists/' Mao explained, "although they really are reactionaries." In this way "w e are able to divide [the reactionary cam p]."53 The essential nature of the acts of the Rightists was summed up with the help of another "scientific" formulation: "The struggle against the Rightists involves the entire working population of the country, and not just the Com­ munist Party," an NCNA memo explained to the media. "Conse­ quently, the wording is important. The most important thing is that it should say that the Rightist elements oppose socialism, oppose the undertaking of the working people, and oppose the leadership of the Communist Party (as stipulated in the constitution). Not just simply that they are anti-Party."54 After 1957, an increasingly rapid turnover in appropriate termi­ nology began to characterize CCP discourse control. In the early 1960s, a complex pattern of overall escalation of control punctuated by occasional relaxation or an inability to assert control over the discourse in certain sectors or both evolved. One particularly striking trend promoted by the Party leadership during this period involved the use of ever more militant language. In 1964 Hu Qiaomu repeat­ edly criticized the People’s Daily for failing to employ such language and for using formulations that were "not lively, not exciting, not serious, and plain."55 Hu's comment on a series of photos of People's Communes under a heading that read "Commune Scenery" (gongshe fengguang) was: "There is no agitation here, no ideology, just two simple nouns, and not even a verb. You have chosen the clerical style (lishu ) typeface, and that's no good either. It looks quaint, but » Ibid. 54 "Guanyu Fan Youpai Douzheng de Baodao Yijian" [On reporting on the struggle against the rightists], in Xinhua She, 4:92. 55 Tantan, 193.

Formalized Language as a Form o f Power

19

dashes with the pictures showing the dynamic and vigorous life of the Communes."56 During the "G reat Proletarian Cultural Revolution," language for­ malization was in every respect taken to its extreme. "O ne sentence of Chairman M ao's," Lin Biao dedared, "is worth ten thousand of ours."57 Between 1966 and 1970, this meant that the "ten thousand" alternative sentences that an individual in the past might have chosen from to express himself or herself now had been reduced in number to "o n e"— and not just any "o n e" sentence, but one that Mao was already on record as having uttered. The formalized language of the Cultural Revolution has since become the stuff of books with titles like Cultural Revolutionary Laughing M atter and Weird Things and Weird Words from the Time o f the "Cultural Revolution".58 But although dialogues framed in Maoquotes (e.g., "Serve the people. Comrade, could I have two pounds of pork, please?" "A revolution is not a dinner party. That makes 1.85 yuan altogether." "T o rebel is justified. Here you are." "Practice frugality while making revolution. There's your change, and there's your m eat.") appear comical today, they were definitely no laughing matter in 1968, when the Beijing Daily insisted that "in everything we say, we must refer to dass. hi everything we say, we must refer to [the socialist] road. In everything we say, we must refer to [the revolutionary] line and firmly denounce revisionism— [Otherwise] we shall not count as having shown our loyalty to the Great Leader Chairman M ao."59 Those who failed to show suffident loyalty to Mao "in everything we say" laid themselves open to accusations of "active counterrevo­ lution" (for which the severest punishment was execution, sometimes preceded by the surgical removal of the vocal organs to prevent the untimely shouting of revolutionary slogans that might embarrass the executioner!). The only way to stay out of trouble was to succeed in proving to the authorities that one's failure to show loyalty was sim­ “ Ibid., 221. 57 Zhongguo Renmin Jiefangjun Zong Zhengzhibu, ed., Lin Fuzhuxi Yulu, 17. M Chen Shi et al., eds., Wenge X iaoliao Ji (Chengdu: Xi'nan Caijing Daxue Chubanshe, 1988); Jin Chunming, Huang Yuchong, and Chang Huimin, eds., “Wenge" Shiqi Guaishi Guaiyu (Beijing: Qiushi Chubanshe, 1989). 59 Quoted in Geming Jinyan [Bright and beautiful revolutionary words] (Beijing: Bei­ jing Shifan Xueyuan, 1968), 3 5 -3 6 .

20

Formalized Language as a Form o f Power

ply an unfortunate mistake. As stipulated in a central Party directive from early 1969: “Members of the revolutionary masses who upon investigation can be firmly proven to merely have inadvertently created a reactionary slogan by a slip of the tongue while shouting or by a slip of the pen while writing should not be seized, struggled, and disposed of in the same way as active counterrevolutionaries/'60 In the late 1970s, the post-Mao leadership embarked upon what one Chinese linguist has called “the important task of cleansing our language" of “bizarre and motley neologisms.“61 Formulations with Cultural Revolutionary connotations were moved from the Party's lists of appropriate ones onto the lists of inappropriate ones. In abso­ lute terms, the total number of formulations classified as “scientific'' declined. (Particularly significant was the broad rejection of the adjective “black"— as in “black backbone"— which immediately transformed a huge number of formulations into official archaisms.) Also significant was that formulations on the whole became shorter. This move was particularly welcomed by secretaries, archivists, and clerks, who for many years had found it cumbersome to deal with extremely long document titles.62 By the 1980s, the punishments inflicted upon those who violated the Party leadership's discourse constraints were also much less severe than they had been during Mao's final decade. A survey of the history of the PRC suggests that Chinese political discourse is restricted not so much with respect to content as with respect to form. If all the different fora in which it takes place are taken into account, it is probably no more restricted with respect to content than political discourse in the United States or the former Soviet Union. But is is significantly more restricted with respect to form. The use of “incorrect," “inappropriate," and “unscientific'' formulations is not condoned, and those who insist upon using such formulations will be denied access to wider audiences. Only by 60 "Guanyu Qingli Jieji Duiwu de Zhengce Jiexian Wenti (Gong Cankao)" [On poli­ cy distinctions when cleaning up the class ranks (for reference)], in Dubao Shouce [Newspaper reader's handbook] (Nanjing: Shuili Dianlibu Nanjing Xianlu Qicaichang Gongdaihui, 1969), 812. 61 Lin Tao, "Yuyan de Wuran He Jinghua" [The pollution and purification of language], Ningxia Shehui Kexue tongxun 2 (1982): 23. 62 Cf. Song Shiqin, ed., Wenshuxue Cankao Ziliao [Clerical work reference materials] (Beijing: Zhongyang Guangbo Dianshi Daxue Chubanshe, 1984), 469.

Formalized Language as a Form o f Power

21

replicating or mimicking the formal qualities of the discourse of the state can critics of the state make their voices heard. This regulation of the formal aspects of discourse is a far more powerful means of control than the simple compilation of an Index of taboo topics. In the words of Maurice Bloch, this is so because “by defining and regulating the manner [in which things are said] the content is also, albeit indirectly restricted" and "this type of restric­ tion i s . . . much more powerful than a direct one on content, since it goes right through the whole range of possible responses."63 In other words, the CCP achieves far more with far less by manipulating the form rather than the content of discourse. First, the proscription of selected formulations makes the intro­ duction of new concepts— reformulated ideas of what a thing could be— cumbersome. It is possible in part to circumvent this problem by engaging in paraphrase and by juggling with ironic devices like quotation marks, but such tactics require a far.greater mental effort than does using ready-made word-concepts.64 Effective and success­ ful communication between an advocate of representative democracy and a PRC constituency, for example, is rendered exceedingly difficult if the former is constantly forced to refer to his or her politi­ cal program as "th e dictatorship of the bourgeoisie" or "th e prepos­ terous fallacy of so-called bourgeois democracy." The prescribed repetition of a limited number of "scientific" formulations, further­ more, promotes acceptance of already existing conceptions. Formali­ zation thus not only inhibits change in the direction of something new or "oth er"; it also simplifies the defense and perpetuation of that which is already established, conventional, or traditional. In his classic study of language and the perception of politics, Murray Edelman concluded that "syntax and the prevailing sign structure thus implicitly express the ideology of the community, facilitate uncritical acceptance of conventional assumptions, and impede the expression of critical or heretical ideas."65 Communication is dramatically affected by the simultaneous imposition of a broad range of formal restrictions. Imagine, for 63 Bloch, Political Language, 5. M Trevor Pateman, Language, Truth and Politics: Towards a Radical Theory for Com­ munication, 2d ed. (Lewes: Jean Stroud, 1980), 125-26. 65 The Symbolic Uses o f Power (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1964), 126.

22

Formalized Language as a Form o f Power

instance, a simple sentence containing a reference to a particular per­ son, to any act performed by that person, and to an object of some kind to which the act was related. Assume, furthermore, that the total number (prior to the specification of ay restrictions) of optional references to person, act, and object of act were three, and that the number of optional sentence structures were three as well. If so, then the total number of possible sentences would, in this case, be eighty-one ( 3 x 3 x 3 x 3 ) . Just by specifying a single formal restriction, the total would be reduced to twenty-seven. Additional formal res­ trictions would quickly turn what at first may have appeared to be merely a set of limitations governing how something may be com­ municated into limitations governing what can be communicated. In everyday speech acts, a single sentence like the one just imag­ ined may in theory be followed by an infinity of others. Within the CCP's impoverished code, it can be followed by only a few, or perhaps only one. Not only will one segment of a speech act predict the next, but because of the nature of the dialogue the speech of one man will to a large extent predict that of another. As Bloch observed in a context that very well could have been a CCP “political study session/' on those “occasions when you have allowed someone to speak in the code— you have practically accepted his proposal, [since] the code adopted by the speaker contains within itself a set pattern of speech for the other party.“66 Ultimately, formalization becomes a form of power for the already powerful rather than “simply a tool of coercion available to anybody.“67 Only a few CCP leaders are able to manipulate rather than be manipulated by formulations, that is, to have the formula­ tions they favor be designated “appropriate" and the formulations they disapprove of be labeled “inappropriate." In the first half of the 1960s, Lin Biao succeeded in making a number of his own favorite formulations part of “the Party Center's and Chairman Mao's pan­ national language." Lin's “scientific“ formulations, which were for the benefit of a nationwide civilian audience, were reproduced in Excerpts from Comrade Lin Biao's Statements on Political and Ideological Work, editions of which were printed and published in more than twenty of China's provinces in 1964.68 In the summer of 1978, Hu 44 Political Language, 9. ” Ibid., 23. M Zhongguo Renmin Jiefangjun Zong Zhengzhibu, ed., Lin Biao Tongzhi Guànyu

Formalized Language as a Form o f Power

23

Yaobang was able— with the support of Deng Xiaoping— to have "h is" formulation "Practice is the sole criterion of truth" become accepted as part of the CCP's official "language of historical material­ ism ."69 In the winter of 1978, Mao Zedong's designated successor, Hua Guofeng, was forced to admit that the formulation with which he some eighteen months earlier had attempted to contain criticism of the late Party chairman had not been "very well thought out." The "tw o w hatevers," Hua admitted, had been an "inappropriate formulation." It had "to a greater or lesser extent stifled everybody's thinking, made the practical implementation of the Party's policy difficult, and failed to facilitate the livening up of the ideology of the Party." In retrospect, Hua noted, "it seems as if it would have been better not to mention the 'two w hatevers'."70 For a brief period in 1977— a year and a half before he was forced to admit that the "tw o whatevers" were less than "scientific"— Hua Guofeng had been in a position to enforce the use of his own formulations among even his most senior colleagues. The following account by the CCP's master censor Hu Qiaomu describes what happened when Chen Yun in the summer of 1977 wanted to use formulations different from those used by Hua in an article in memory of Mao Zedong: Comrade Chen Yun wanted to publish an article, as it were, on the first anniversary of Comrade Mao Zedong's death. At the time, a Comrade within the Propaganda Department, a Comrade whose intentions were good, altered every single passage in Comrade Chen Yun's article that was the slightest bit different from Comrade Hua Guofeng's formulations or the formulations used in contemporary Central Documents and made them identical [to those formulations]. This was in order to show that formulations had to conform entirely to those used in contemporary documents and speeches. Even when a word was a synonym, the fact that it contained a different charac­ ter would prohibit its use. Afterwards, Comrade Chen Yun said, if you intend to go on like this, I will not have my articles published. ([Deng Liqun: At the time, Comrade Chen Yun said there was no need for him to write any articles: You just go on each day and Zhengzhi Sixiang Gongzuo Yanlun Zhailu (Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe, 1964). M Michael Schoenhals, "The 1978 Truth Criterion Controversy," China Quarterly, 1991, pp. 2 4 3 -6 8 . 70 Hua Guofeng, quoted in Xin Shiqi Zhuanti Jishi [Topical factual record of the new era] (Beijing: Zhonggong Dangshi Ziliao Chubanshe, 1988), 38.

24

Formalized Language as a Form o f Power

publish those documents just the way they're written and that's it.) Think about it. At the time, the situation within the Party was like that. And that, furthermore, was at the Center. You can imagine what it was like at the local level.71 Although he was a member of the CCP Central Committee— but not a member of the Politburo— when this incident took place, Chen was unable to flout the regulations governing formulations imposed on him by "our wise leader Chairman H ua." Whatever it was he wanted to say, he could only say it with the help of Hua's formulations.72 For persons in less prominent positions than Chen Yun's, the problem created by the nature of the CCP leadership's control of for­ mulations is no less severe, and sometimes quite a lot more bizarre. In July 1972, after the demise of Lin Biao, the People's Daily pub­ lished an article on political and ideological work in which it claimed that "there has to be praise as well as criticism, although there should mainly be praise."73 This formulation was not attributed to anyone in particular, but it prompted propaganda chief Yao Wenyuan's secretary to phone the editor-in-chief of the People's Daily and ask for a reference. The person who had written the article, Ma Peiwen, tells the story of what happened next: [I felt that] the passage might create a major problem, because I honestly could not think of what the scriptural basis for this state­ ment might be. In the afternoon that same day, in order to come up with a refer­ ence, I went through all of Comrade Mao Zedong's works and quota­ tions, but all to no avail. When I was through leafing through Com­ rade Mao's quotations I started feeling fidgety, and continued to leaf through the quotations by Lin Biao included in one of the quotationvolumes. I was thinking to myself, if it turns out that Lin Biao said something like that, then it's a disaster. Unfortunately, I had no more than given this a thought before I discovered that Lin Biao of all people had remarked in 1964—in his "Instructions to the Entire Army on Organization Work"—that "in dealing with soldiers, there 71 “Hu Qioamu Tongzhi Guanyu Xuexi Deng Xiaoping Vfenxuan de Jianghua" [Comrade Hu Qiaomu's talk in studying the Selected works o f Deng Xiaoping], Xueshu Yanjiu Dongtai 150 (1983): 5. 72 By 1983, at the latest, many of Hua Guofeng's formulations had in turn become unacceptable to the Propaganda Department. See Michael Schoenhals, "Censors Are Bad for Business," Index on Censorship 18 (February 1989): 19. 73 "Xianjin Dai Houjin de Yishu" [The art of having the advanced pull the back­ ward along,] RMRB, 30 July 1972.

Formalized Language as a Form o f Power

25

has to be praise as well as criticism, although there should mainly be praise." At the time [in 1972], the entire Party and the entire country was in the midst of the anti-Lin Biao rectification campaign, but here was I—an editor with the People's Daily—propagating the point of view of Lin Biao. Outrageous! Was this not tantamount to dissem­ inating Lin Biao's remnant poison? I become even more nervous.74 The following day, as soon as he had arrived at the office, Ma Peiwen told his colleagues about the problem with the sentence "there should mainly be praise." One of his colleagues said that there was really nothing wrong with it, and another said that even if Lin Biao was to have said it, it really did not matter, because nobody was quoting him directly, and besides not everything he had ever said was wrong. But a certain tension began to make itself felt, and people began to worry about the consequences the unfortunate "quote" might have. Fortunately, one colleague was sure he could remember having seen Mao make the same remark somewhere: Hereupon, the entire group, as well as some Comrades from the domestic news department, began to help looking for a reference. The atmosphere throughout the entire office was one of great anxiety and strain. Just before lunch, a Comrade came running into the office...m ad with joy, saying: "We are saved! I've got a reference. In his 1964 'Conversation at the Spring Festival,' Chairman Mao said exactly the same thing." Everyone was as if relieved of a heavy burden. All that needed to be done now was to use the quote from Mao as a refer­ ence, and then pass on a report to those on high.75 Commenting on these events some fifteen years after they took place, Ma Peiwen noted that it had not mattered if the statement itself had been correct or not. What mattered was who had made it.76 In other words, if it could be attributed to Mao Zedong, it could ge used as yet another example of the Party's "scientific" formula­ tions. If, on the other hand, it could be attributed to Lin Biao, it could be used as an example of the many "unscientific" formulations that had until recently been "peddled" by the great "Liu Shaoqitype swindler"! 74 Ma Peiwen, '"Y i Biaoyang Wei Zhu' Yinqi de Fengbo" [The storm raised over "mainly praise"], in Renmin Ribao Baoshi, 2 0 6 -7 . 75 Ibid. 74 Ibid.

26

Formalized Language as a Form o f Power

Language formalization is hardly unique to Chinese politics, although its comprehensiveness and structures are extreme. In rela­ tive terms, it plays a more important role in the PRC than in the political systems of Europe and North America and the past social­ isms in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.77 Chen Yun may have been exaggerating when he at one point in the early 1980s spoke of the survival of the PRC solely in terms of "pens and gun barrels," that is, carefully chosen words and brute force. But it is highly significant that he, like other members of his generation before him, conceived of it in this way. Without giving even token recognition to economic factors, he credited the PLA and the Party's propaganda apparatus— the men and women who "wield the pens"— with the preservation of "national stability and unity."78 Fif­ teen years earlier, Lin Biao had argued in similar terms that "pens and gun barrels are the two things to be relied upon in the pursuit of state pow er."79 One pursuit and one preservation— both expressed with the help of the same formulation. In their studies of traditional societies in which the use of formal­ ized language and formalized oratory is credited with the political function of maintaining social cohesion and/or "national unity," anthropologists have noted that what ultimately puts such societies under intolerable stress is confrontation with "m odernity." A younger generation will dismiss as anachronistic not only the code employed by tribal elders— the "non-historical, non-specific and highly ambiguous language which reduces events to being merely instances of a recurring eternal order"— but also the very system that lends power to those who master it.80 Tribal elders, in response, will attempt to exclude the usurpers who present them with this chal­ lenge from below. The venerable warriors in whose hands the old 77 I presented some brief observations on similarities and differences between the PRC and the Soviet Union in Michael Schoenhals, "Censorship and the Social Sci­ ences in China: Domestic Traditions and Soviet Influence," paper delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, Chicago, 8 April 1990. 79 Chen Yun, quoted in Pan Rongting, "Sanzhong Quanhui Yilai Zhongyao Wenxian Xuanbian Jianyao jieshao" [Brief introduction to Selected important documents since the third plenum ], Ulun Xuexi Cankao Ziliao 117-18 (1983): 10. 79 Lin Biao, "Zai Zhongyang Zhengzhiji Kuoda Huiyi Shang de Jianghua" [Speech at an expanded central politburo conference] (18 May 1966), in Zhongguo Renmin Jiefangjun Zong Zhengzhibu, ed., Lin Fuzhuxi Yulu, 88. M Bloch, Political Language, 25.

Formalized Language as a Form o f Power

27

power still rests will accuse their rebellious sons of sacrilegious disre­ gard for traditional ideas, traditional culture, traditional customs, and traditional habits. While realizing that they have only a limited abil­ ity to influence what happens once they have joined their ancestors, the elders nonetheless persist in acting "in accordance with the prin­ ciples laid down" to the moment of departure, even when (in extreme cases) it means dying ridiculed rather than respected, loathed rather than loved. The policies of reform and of "opening up to the outside world" created a variant of this stress in the PRC after the death of Mao Zedong. In this case, the usurpers— represented by politicians in their forties, fifties, and sixties— challenged the validity of the "scientific" formulations handed down to them by the living and dead representatives of the Party's founding generation. The seman­ tic map of the real world represented by these formulations, they argued, did not permit decisive action in the face of changing global and domestic realities; the map was hopelessly outmoded. More important, the traditional structure of power centered on the manipu­ lation of "scientific" formulations ought in itself to be dismantled. It was, two of Hu Yaobang's ghost-writers claimed, not because they were "worried that the revision of certain old slogans and certain old formulations might lead to the negation of the entire revolution" that some of the Party's elders clamped down with impunity upon language not known to them from the classics of M arxism Leninism-M ao Zedong Thought. It was rather because "their privileges to a greater or lesser extent are tied to these [slogans and formulations]." Although they invariably claimed to be acting in the name of the revolution, "they [were] in reality afraid certain individ­ ual things of their own [would] come to harm " if they relaxed their guard against the emergence and use of "inappropriate formula­ tions."81 These were strong accusations, and they were not appreci­ ated by the older generation of proletarian revolutionaries. In place of the existing structure of power, the most articulate crit­ ics of the old order wanted to see a system wherein power was 81 [Sun Changjiang and Wu Jiang,] "Makesizhuyi de Yige Zui Jiben de Yuanze" [A most basic principle of Marxism], in Zhonggong Zhongyang Dangxiao Lilun Yanjiushi, ed., Zenli Biaozhun Wenti Taolun Wenji [Collected articles from the debate about the truth criterion] (Beijing: Zhonggong Zhongyang Dangxiao Chubanshe, 1982), 33.

28

Formalized Language as a Form o f Power

mediated through the marketplace and the rule of law— a version “with Chinese characteristics," perhaps, of the system wherein politi­ cal actors are persons with backgrounds in jurisprudence and busi­ ness, rather than retired generals and wordsmiths. At an informal 1986 conference on the flaws of the existing system, which permitted words from on high, intimidation, and sheer might to perform what ought to be the function of law (yi yan dai fa, yi quan dai fa ), a number of critics who were later arrested or exiled in the wake of “June Fourth“ agreed that radical change in such a direction was both desirable and possible. But, as one of them predicted, it would “take decades, and cost a few lives.“82 The CCP's elders have with few exceptions taken assaults directed against the existing power structure personally. Metonymically, they have identified themselves with it to the point where even the mildest form of expressed doubt of its merits, values, and rationality is interpreted as a personal affront. In the best of times, demands for change have met with rebuff in precisely the form most resented by the challengers. Calls for freedom of speech have been dismissed as calls for “absolute freedom“; calls for greater stress on economic results have been dismissed as “putting money above everything else“; calls for an open society have been dismissed as calls for “complete Westernization.“83 In the worst of cases, the implied actions of irresponsible words (“I support Comrade Xioaping's desire to retire" rather than “The system of lifetime tenure must be abolished") has led to the abrupt termination of political careers and dismissals from office. The form of power that is formalized in language can be used with considerable success to tackle a range of unspecific and general problems, and some such problems are dealt with in the chapters that follow. But such power is lacking in instrumentality to a degree that ultimately makes it useless for solving specific problems— the modernization of industry, agriculture, science and technology, and national defense— as distinct from formulating a compelling modern­ ization slogan. As the number of such problems facing the CCP 82 "Beijing Mingliu Juhui Xijiaominxiang Shengshuo Fa Yu Ziyou" [Distinguished Beijingites gather in Xijiaomin Street to argue law and freedom], Shijie Jingji Daobao, 24 November 1986. Participants included Yu Haocheng, Zhang Zonghou, and Zhang Xianyang, interviewed briefly by the author in the summer of 1988. 83 Hu Jiwei, quoted in Shijie Jingji Daobao, 24 November 1986.

Formalized Language as a Form o f Power

29

grows, the Party will find itself in a position of relative weakness compared to political forces that depend to a lesser extent on the power of the word. One may for this reason expect to see a deem­ phasis on formalized language in the PRC in the future, once the leaders who presume that a single formulation can make the difference between national salvation and national decline have passed from the scene.

CHAPTER TWO

Party Circulars Proscribing and Prescribing Terminology

"The word 'auxiliary' is no good," Liu Shaoqi told the managers of a Shanghai tire factory in 1958. "I know a lot of workers are unhappy about being called 'auxiliaries.' If what they do is repair things, then call them repair workmen [instead]. That will make them happy. You will be raising their social status!"1 Like politicians everywhere, Liu knew what could be gained by avoiding a word with negative connotations and substituting for it one with neutral or positive connotations. A change in names would not cost the factory management a fen more in wages, but making the auxiliary workers "happy" might make them work harder. Here was something to be said in favor of "spiritual incentives"! Information concerning changes in appropriate formulations— including the substitution of "repair workman" (xiuli gongren) for "auxiliary" (fuzhugong) in this example— is constantly being com­ municated from higher to lower levels within the CCP. Sometimes it is merely in the form of a casual remark from a Politburo member during an inspection tour of the provinces. Sometimes it is in the form of a "guidance lecture" by a senior Party official. Sometimes it is in the form of special lists of new formulations, published after events like Party congresses or Central Committee plena. More often, it is in the form of intrabureaucratic Party circulars. In circu­ lars dealing specifically with formulations, the official whys and 1 "Zai Weilai de Zhonggongye Chengshi" [In the heavy industry dties of the fu­ ture], NCNA report quoted in Zhongguo Kexueyuan Getning Shi Yanjiusuo Ji Xiandai Geming Shi Yanjiusuo, eds., Liu Shaoqi Fangeming Xiuzhengzhuyi Yanlun Huibian [Col­ lection of liu Shaoqi's counterrevolutionary revisionist utterances] (Guiyang, 1967), 131.

32

Party Circulars Proscribing and Prescribing Terminology

wherefores of preferred choices and changes in wording are spelled out. Party circulars are known in popular parlance in China as red­ heads (hongtou w enjian)— a generic term that refers to the red ink used to print the words "Document of the C C P . . . " across the top of the first page of each circular. The most authoritative redheads are those issued directly in the name of the CCP Center, for example, the Central Circulars (zhongfa wenjian ).2 Typically, a Central Circular will deal with issues considered to be both important and generally relevant. The "Tw enty-three Points" that redefined the direction of the Four Cleanups Movement in 1965 made up the contents of Cen­ tral Circular No. 26 (1965). The "M ay Sixteenth Circular" that launched the Cultural Revolution was Central Circular No. 267 (1966). When the CCP Center on 3 February 1976 appointed Hua Guofeng acting premier and put Chen Xilian in charge of the dayto-day work of the Military Affairs Commission, it did so by issuing Central Circular No. 2 (1976). In relative terms, it is rare for a Cen­ tral Circular to be devoted exclusively to formulations. This has been particularly true since 1968, when for reasons not yet fully under­ stood, the average number of Central Circulars issued each month dropped from fifty to sixty to no more than half a dozen. But while Central Circulars devoted to formulations may not be all that com­ mon, they have nonetheless been issued in the past and continue to be issued still. The CCP Central Propaganda Department, not surprisingly, issues a large number of circulars dealing with formulations. Redheads issued in the name of the department itself are labeled Central Prop­ aganda Circulars (zhongxuanfa wenjian ). Some redheads issued in the name of specific bureaus within the department are labeled differ­ ently, for example, the "G eneral Circulars on Literature and A rt" (wenyi tongbao) originating with the Central Propaganda Department Literature and Arts Bureau (zhongxuanbu wenyiju ). Outside the Cen­ tral Propaganda Department, but still within the propaganda system (xitong) as such, the head office of the NCNA also issues large numbers of circulars dealing with formulations and related matters. 2 Cf. Kenneth Lieberthal, with the assistance of James Tong and Sai-cheung Yeung, Central Documents and Politburo Politics in China, Michigan Papers in Chinese Studies 33 (Ann Arbor. Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1978).

Party Circulars Proscribing and Prescribing Terminology

33

Although the majority of issues involving formulations are dealt with in circulars internal to the propaganda system, organs external to this system also at times issue circulars dealing with formulations. An issue related to industry, for example, may be discussed in a circular issued by the Party Group of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions.3 At present it is impossible to determine with accuracy how many different kinds of redheads there are, and almost nothing can be said about the average monthly number of circulars of various kinds deal­ ing with formulations per se. All that is known is that in the mid1980s, a medium-sized provincial or municipal institution on the pro­ vincial or municipal levels received on the average in excess of 500 Party circulars each year. In 1983, the Party secretary's office in the Zhejiang Teacher's College received 521 CCP circulars, while the Ningbo Municipal Second Light Industry Bureau received 535.4 But only a part of the total number of circulars received was likely to have originated with central-level organs. And of the circulars emanating with the Center, an even smaller part would have con­ sisted of circulars devoted exclusively to formulations. Directives that proscribe and prescribe terminology are rarely intended for all citizens. The chain from the Politburo to the "broad popular masses" will have been cut short by its final link. By default, the view of the Party leadership is that not everyone needs to know why so-and-so is no longer to be referred to in such-andsuch a way or why this or that is no longer to be spoken of as such. During the first three decades of the PRC, Mao's leadership on the whole argued that only very few citizens had a need to know, but 3 See "Zhonggong Zhongyang Dui Zhonghua Quanguo Zonggonghui Dangzu Guanyu 1954 Nian Gongzuo Baogao de Pishi" [Comment by the CCP center on the 1954 work report of the ACFTU leading party group] (April 1955), in Zhonghua Quanguo Zonggonghui Bangongting, ed., Zhongguo Gongyun Ziliao Huibian [Collection of materials on China's workers movement], 8 vols. (Beijing: Gongren Chubanshe, 1955), 1 :3 -4 . The "im precise and im perfect" formulation discussed at length in this document is that of "technical innovation." 4 Zhejiang Shifan Xueyuan Dangwei Bangongshi, "Guanyu Wenshu Chuli Gong­ zuo de Jige W enti" [On some problems concerning the work of handling official docu­ ments], Zhejiang Dang'an Gongzuo 8 (1984): 21; Ningbo Shi Dang'an Chu, "Ningbo Shi Weqing Gongyeju Wenshu Gongzuo Qingkuang Diaocha" [Investigation into the situ­ ation with respect to the handling of official documents within the Ningbo municipal second light industry bureau], Zhejiang Dang'an Gongzuo 5 (1984): 26.

34

Party Circulars Proscribing and Prescribing Terminology

this situation has changed in the direction of greater openness since the end of the 1970s. A representative cross-section of those who in 1985 were told as a matter of course why something had to be expressed in a particular way included leading Party cadres above the township level and Party-member cadres working in government bodies and propaganda, cultural, and educational units on or above the county level.5 This chapter presents translations of a number of representative Party circulars proscribing and prescribing terminol­ ogy. It assesses the significance of the circulars against the back­ ground of the political contexts in which they originally appeared and ends with some observations on the role they play in shaping China's political discourse. At the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, the question of how one was to refer to one's political friends and foes took on a matter of particular urgency. Young people who until recently had not been political actors in their own right and who had only limited knowledge of what the state regarded as “scientific" formulations applied their creative imagination to the question of labels. Some of the neologisms they came up with won high-level approval, others did not. In the autumn of 1966, members of Mao's Proletarian Headquarters tried to dissuade Red Guards from employing "im pre­ cise nam es" and “vague concepts." A member of the Central Cul­ tural Revolution Small Group told a gathering of students, “We pro­ pose that at school, you do not employ any 'five red categories,' and in particular not any 'five not-red categories' or 'five black categories.' Do not do this, do not use terms like these.“6 Zhou Enlai admitted that “in conversation, we too use the expression 'five red categories,' but that is because you keep using it all the time. It does not count." Zhou's point was that as long as an expression had “not been used in any [People's Daily or Liberation Army D aily] editorial or official* 5 Zhonggong Zhongyang Xuanchuanbu, ed., Xuanchuan Dongiai 1984 Nian Xuanbianben [Selections from Propaganda trends 1984] (Beijing: Zhonggong Zhongyang Dangxiao Chubanshe, 1985), iii. * "W ang Li Tongzhi Dui Geming Shisheng Ji Ge Danwei de Jianghua" [Comrade Wang Li's speech to revolutionary teachers and students and various units] (17 Oc­ tober 1966), in Shouzhang Jianghua H uiji [Collected leaders' speeches], 2 vols. (Beijing: Shoudu Dazhuan Yuanxiao Hongweibing Geming Zaofan Zong Silingbu, 1966), 1:27-28.

Party Circulars Proscribing and Prescribing Terminology

35

document," the Red Guards ought to think twice before using it.7* As the Cultural Revolution wore on, the proper way of designat­ ing one's foes in particular became the subject of numerous authori­ tative redheads. In the following Central Circular No. 169 (1967), a newly established provincial-level authority is informed of the appropriate formulations to be used in references to three disgraced Party leaders: To the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Revolutionary Commit­ tee Preparatory Small Group: We agree to your suggestions concerning open criticism of Ulanhu and Wang Yilun and Wang Duo in the Inner Mongolia Daily. 1. Do not refer to Ulanhu by name, but refer to him as The Biggest Power-holder within the Party in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Taking the Capitalist Road. 2. Refer to Wang Yilun and Wang Duo openly by name. The CCP Center 28 May 1967» Permission to criticize the first secretary of the Inner Mongolia Party Committee and two of his colleagues had at this point already been granted the Inner Mongolians in an earlier circular.9 This circular, then, was not a permission to criticize, but rather a permission to crit­ icize in a particular way. The form of the criticism— not the criticism in itself or the substance of it— was the issue. The CCP Center's motives in permitting "open criticism " of Wang Yilun "by nam e" had been explained to a delegation from Inner Mongolia visiting Bei­ jing a few weeks earlier. Kang Sheng had said, " I don't know Wang Yilun, but I met him once at a session of the Party Committee of the 7 “Zhou Zongli Zai Jiejian Ge Xiao Yuan 'Duoshupai' Daibiao Shi de Jianghua" [Premier Zhou's speech at a reception for delegates representing former “majority fac­ tion" delegates from various schools] (22 October 1966), in Shouzhang Jianghua Huiji 2:7. * “Zhonggong Zhongyang W enjian, Zhongfa [67] 169 H ao" [Central committee document, central issue no. 169/1967], in Mao Zedong Sbdang Xuanchuanyuan, ed., W uchanjieji Wenhua Dageming Wenjian Huibian [Collected documents of the great proletarian cultural revolution], 2 vols. (Beijing: Beijing Huagong Xueyuan, 1967),

2:21. 9 "Zhonggong Zhongyang Guanyu Chuli Neimenggu Wenti de Jueding" [Decision of the CCP Center on resolving the problem of Inner Mongolia], in Important CCP Documents o f the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (Supplementary Edition) (Taibei: Institute for the Study of Chinese Communist Problems, 1979), 177.

36

Party Circulars Proscribing and Prescribing Terminology

Autonomous Region. When I met him, I got the feeling that this man is not a communist at all. Nor is he an ordinary person. Some of the ways in which he acted, some of the things he did, and some of his expressions. . . why, on the whole, I felt he was like a spy (tewu )." 10 Kang's sixth sense for who was and who was not "a spy" had been developed in the years prior to the establishment of the PRC, when he had been one of the CCP's senior counterintelligence officials. In July 1967, at a meeting with a delegation from Henan, Zhou Enlai confirmed that Wang Yilun was indeed "a spy" who had recently been "exposed" as such.11 Wang was stripped of his power and imprisoned for six years. Eventually, in the winter of 1978-79, the CCP Center declared that the case against him, Wang Duo, and the "Biggest Power-holder within the Party in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Taking the Capitalist Road" had been a frameup.12 Central Circular No. 169 was one of many circulars of this kind issued by the CCP in 1967. On 14 August, the names of the three Inner Mongolian "pow er-holders" were among those listed in a cir­ cular in which it was argued that "a need" had recently arisen to "criticize openly by nam e" a large number of senior CCP figures. This is the full text of the circular, No. 251: To the Revolutionary Committees (and Preparatory Small Groups) of the Provinces, Municipalities and Autonomous Regions, the Military Control Commissions, General Departments of the People's Libera­ tion Army, the various Armed Services, Military Regions, Depart­ ments and Commissions under the [Party] Center and State Council, Revolutionary Mass Organizations, and Propaganda Organs: Presently, a new high tide of revolutionary great criticism is surg­ ing across the entire country. In order to deeply and penetratingly 10 Zhong Kan (pseud.), Kang Sheng Pingzhuan [Critical biography of Kang Sheng] (Beijing: Hongqi Chubanshe, 1982). 11 "Henan Wenti Xiang Zhongyang Di 5 Ci Huibao Jilu " [Transcript of the fifth meeting with the Center to report about problems in Henan] (4 July 1967), in Zhong­ yang Shouzhang Guanyu Henan Wenti de Zhishi Ji Fu fing Huibao Jiyao Huibian [Collec­ tion of instructions by Center leaders concerning the Henan question and minutes of reports given during visits to Beijing] (Zhengzhou: Henan Er Qi Gongshe, 1967), 33. 12 See Su Donghai, "Shiyi Jie San Zhong Quanhui Yilai Zhongda Yuan Jia Cuo An Pingfan Gaishu" [Comprehensive overview of important mistaken and false cases overturned since the Third Plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee], in Dangshi Yanjiu Ziliao 4 (1983): 786.

Party Circulars Proscribing and Prescribing Terminology

criticize the biggest handful [sic] power-holders within the Party tak­ ing the capitalist road, and in order to thoroughly eradicate their remnant poison and influence, and in order to even more efficiently combine the present revolutionary great criticism with the strugglecriticism-transformation going on in the various areas and depart­ ments, there is a need to openly criticize by name in the national and local press the power-holders taking the capitalist road in some departments, central bureaus, and provincial and municipal Party committees. (1) With the permission of the Chairman and the Center, the fol­ lowing power-holders within the Party taking the capitalist road have already been criticized by name in the national and local press: Peng Zhen, Peng Dehuai, Lu Dingyi, Luo Ruiqing, Yang Shangkun, Zhou Yang and Xiao Wangdao; and the following power-holders within the Party taking the capitalist road have already been criti­ cized by name in the local press: Tao Zhu, Wang Renzhong, Li Jingquan, Jia Qiyun, Yan Hongyan, Wang Feng, Ouyang Qin, Li Fanwu, Ulanhu, Wang Duo, Wang Yilun, Wang Zhao, Ren Baige and Wang Heshou. These revisionist elements, who already have been criticized by name, should be further criticized in depth in the national and local press. (2) The following power-holders within the Party taking the capi­ talist road are presently scheduled to be openly criticized by name in the national press: Bo Yibo, Lü Zhencao, Lin Feng, An Ziwen, Yang Xiufeng, Jiang Nanxiang, Wu Lengxi, Zhang Wentian, Zhang Jinfu and Han Guang. (3) The following power-holders within the Party taking the capi­ talist road are presently scheduled to be openly criticized by name in the local press: Liu Lantao, Xi Zhongxun and Hu Xikui from the North-West Bureau; Ma Mingfang from the North-East Bureau; Chen Pbdan, Cao Diqiu and Yang Xiguang from Shanghai Municipality; Wan Xiaotang and Zhang Huaisan from Tianjin Municipality; Lin Tie from Hebei Province; Li Baohua horn Anhui Province; Ye Fei from Fujian Province; Wen Minsheng and Zhao Wenfu from Henan Prov­ ince; Zhao Ziyang from Guangdong Province; Fang Zhichun from Jiangxi Province; Uao Zhigao from Sichuan Province; Zhao Un from Jilin Province; Yang Jingren and Ma Yuhuai from Ningxia Autono­ mous Region; Tao Lujia, Wei Heng, Wang Qian and Wang Daren from Shanxi Province. (4) Well-written criticism articles directed against the revisionist elements who with the permission of the Chairman and the Center are to be criticized openly by name in the local press may be

37

38

Party Circulars Proscribing and Prescribing Terminology

reprinted in the central press, and the central press may also itself directly organize the writing of criticism articles of these persons. The CCP Center 14 August 196713 The appropriate formulation for referring to the persons mentioned here was often abbreviated to read "capitalist-roader" (zouzipai). In its full form, it was one that the CCP Center had formally approved of in Central Committee Circular No. 26 (1965), that is, the “Twenty-three Points" on how to carry out the Four Cleanups.14 As the Cultural Revolution wore on, the CCP Center became more and more concerned with exercising control over growing abuse of "scientific" formulations and the use of unofficial and previously unheard-of labels. In an attempt to regain control over the manage­ ment and manipulation of formulations, it issued Central Circular No. 170 at the end of 1968. Here is part of this particularly fascinat­ ing redhead (emphasis as in original): Chairman Mao's comment and instruction: I made some changes. Talk it over. Circular of the CCP Center and Central CR Group On the Need to Pay Attention to Mastering Policy in the Struggle Against the Enemy 26 December 1968 Chairman Mao recently in an instruction pointed out that "One must pay attention to policy when dealing with counterrevolu­ tionaries and persons who have committed errors." This important instruction of Chairman Mao's has already been made known to the lower levels. In order to conscientiously carry out this instruction of Chairman Mao's so as to be able to attack the enemy with even greater precision, it is requested that all localities pay attention to the following [four] points in the struggle against the enemy: (2) The names you use to refer to the enemy should conform to those explicitly provided in the documents of the Center and the Cultural Revolution Small Group, e.g., traitor; spy; arch-unrepentant* ** "Zhonggong Zhongyang Guanyu Zai Baokan Shang Dianming Pipan Wenti de Tongzhi," in Important CCP Documents, 8 -9 . M Cf. "Guanyu Nongcun Siqing Wenti de Taolun Jiyao" [Minutes of discussion of the four cleanups in the countryside] (20 December 1964), in Zhongguo Renmin Daxue, suppl. 2 ,1 6 7 -8 5 .

Party Circulars Proscribing and Prescribing Terminology

capitalist-roader; unreformed landlord, rich peasant, reactionary, bad or rightist element; active counterrevolutionary; etc. You should not use ambiguous and vague terminology that is likely to result in the confusion of the two kinds of contradictions and the widening of the scope of attack. Among those who have committed capitalist* roader-errors, the arch-unrepentant ones are only a m inority, while those who are capable of accepting education and of correcting their errors are a m ajority. Hence, you should not autom atically assume that all of those referred to as "capitalistroaders" are bad persons.

(4) Among cadres undergoing investigation, you must distinguish between confirmed traitors, spies and arch-unrepentant capitalistroaders, and cadres that have been "moved out of the way" in antic­ ipation of confirmation. You must not use the expressions "black gang" or "ox-demons and snake-monsters" to refer to both of these categories of persons. With respect to the latter category, you must divide one into two, and proceed on the assumption that some of them are bad persons whose crimes have not yet been fully investi­ gated, while some belong to the category of "good persons who have committed errors, who should be subjected to more intense education, and who once they have developed an awareness should be released w ithout delay." As far as the sons and

daughters of counterrevolutionaries, and the sons and daughters of persons who have committed errors are concerned, they too should be subjected to more intense ideological education, with the aim of making the majority among them gradually accept reeducation by the workers, peasants and soldiers, while isolating the minority that insists on regarding the people as their enemy. Even if they are the sons and daughters of counterrevolutionaries, or the sons and daughters of arch-unrepentant capitalist-roaders, you should not refer to them as "sons and daughters of the black gang," but instead speak of them as belonging to part of that group of per­ sons of which the absolute m ajority or greater m ajority is amen­ able to education (to be abbreviated as "sons and daughters amenable to education" [keyi jiaoyuhao de ztnü]), hereby showing that there is a difference between them and their parents. The result, in practice, w ill be that a sm all number w ill persist in having a stubborn attitude, but the m ajority can be won over for certain.

This circu lar may be circulated down to the Revolutionary

39

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Party Circulars Proscribing and Prescribing Terminology

Committees or military control commissions of local factories and mines, primary level enterprises, communes and brigades, and to the regiment (or independent battalion) Party Committees.15 By the time of the Ninth CCP National Congress, in April 1969, the CCP Center had largely regained control over formulations. "O pen criticism in the press" had become quite a lot more orderly than it had been in 1966-68. In the early 1970s, as more and more "power-holders taking the capitalist road" were reinstated, permission to criticize them "openly" was quietly withdrawn altogether. Eventually, on 19 June 1980, the CCP issued a blanket cancellation of its original 1967 permission^), entitled "Circular of the CCP Center on How to Deal with the Ques­ tion of Certain Cadres Having Been Criticized by Name in the Press and in Telegrams During the Great Cultural Revolution."16 By now, all use of the formulations "power-holder within the Party taking the capitalist road" and "capitalist-roader" had been proscribed. As one senior Party theorist noted: "There are no people who are capitalistroaders. As far as the concept capitalist-roader is concerned, it had very serious consequences, and it is not scientific. It is part of the theoretical foundation of the Great Cultural Revolution, for which preparations began in 1962 and continued up to 1966."17 O f all possible "scientific" formulations, those involving refer­ ences to specific CCP leaders are uniquely sensitive. This is true when the leaders are disgraced ones and even more so when they are not. In the summer of 1967, the CCP Central Committee's Military Affairs Commission issued the following circular dealing with refer­ ences to Lin Biao and Mao Zedong. The circular was a letter from Un Biao to the other members (sans Mao) of Mao Zedong's Proletarian Headquarters: 15 "Zhonggong Zhongyang, Zhongyang Wenge Guanyu Duidi Douzheng Zhong Zhuyi Zhangwo Zhengce de Tongzhi," in Tianjin Shi Geming Weiyuanhui Zhengzhibu, ed., W uchanjieji Wenhua Dageming Zhongyao Wenxian Xuanbian [Selected important documents from the great proletarian cultural revolution] (Tianjin: Tianjin Renmin Chubanshe, 1969), 9 5 9 -6 2 . 14 Zhonggong Zhongyang Shujichu Yanjiushi Zonghezu, ed.. Dang de Shiyi Jie San Zhong Quanhui Yilai D ashiji [Chronology of major events since the third plenum of the party's eleventh central committee] (Beijing: Hongqi Chubanshe, 1987), 93. i7 Liao Gailong, "Shehuizhuyi Jianshe Xin Changzheng de Weida Ganglingxing W enjian" [Great programmatic document for the new long march of socialist construc­ tion], Xueshu Yanjiu Dongtai 31 (1979): 14.

Party Circulars Proscribing and Prescribing Terminology

41

Document of the Military Affairs Commission To the Premier, Boda, Kang Sheng, Jiang Qing and all the Comrades on the Central Cultural Revolution Small Group: Over the past month, I have watched three stage performances and witnessed how during each performance the two slogans “We Wish Chairman Mao Eternal Life" and “May Vice-Chairman Lin Remain Forever Healthy" are cited together. I consider the slogan “We Wish Chairman Mao Eternal life " to be entirely correct and very necessary. In order to give prominence to the great role of Chairman Mao inside and outside the Party, in China and abroad, and in order to establish the absolute prestige of Chairman Mao, the slogan “May Vice-Chairman Lin Remain Forever Healthy" should not be dted. Only giving prominence to our great leader Chairman Mao suits the needs of the revolutionary peoples of the entire nation and the entire world, as well as objective reality. From now on, prominence should be given to Chairman Mao during each perfor­ mance, at each meeting, in every document, in all newspapers and magazines, and in all other forms of propaganda. One must not refer simultaneously to myself and Chairman Mao. I would like to see the Premier and the Comrades on the Cultural Revolutionary Small Group help me control and keep an eye on this matter in the future. I also wish for this letter of mine to be circulated down to the county and regiment levels, and for its contents to be transmitted by these levels to all primary-level organizations and revolutionary mass-organizations. With greetings Lin Biao Evening, 16 June 196718 The reason this issue ended up being dealt with in a Military Affairs Commission circular was twofold. First, given Lin Biao's position, it in a very definite sense had to do with military matters. Second, Lin Biao personally controlled the commission to the point where he did not have to ask anyone for permission to issue a circular in its name. Interestingly enough, while Lin had the power to issue the above circular, he apparently did not have the power to make sure that it was indeed “circulated down to the county and regiment levels“ and its contents further transmitted “to all primary-level organizations and revolutionary mass-organizations." The letter may never have " "Junwei Wenjian: Un Biao Tongzhi Gei Zhou Zongli He Zhongyang Wenge Xiaozu de Yi Feng Xin" [Document of the military affairs commission: letter from comrade Lin Biao to premier Zhou and the central cultural revolution small group], in Mao Zedong Sixiang Xuanchuanyuan 2 :4 6 -4 7 .

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Party Circulars Proscribing and Prescribing Terminology

been circulated through any of the ordinary channels at all. In his memoirs, one of Lin's ghost-writers mentions an incident that prob­ ably involved this very letter (allowing for some misremembering by the ghost-writer, who did not draft the letter himself). Here is how he describes what happened when Zhou Enlai attempted to prevent Vice-Chairman Lin from appearing too "m odest": In the summer of 1967, Lin Biao once again moved back to live at the Great Hall of the People. One day, he had one of his domestics call for a secretary. Zhang Yimin went. Lin Biao dictated a letter addressed to the Premier and the Central Cultural Revolution Group the main subject matter of which was that in all forms of propa­ ganda, one should "give prominence to the Chairman" and not give prominence to, or propagate, his own person. He set forth six con­ crete demands, and forbade the eulogizing of his virtues and achievements, the erection of monuments and writing of biographies and the publication of propagandists novels, plays, movies and arti­ cles about himself. He asked people not to shout the slogan "May He Remain Forever Healthy." He furthermore requested that this letter be printed and distributed to the entire Party, the entire army and all mass organizations. Apparently, when the Premier received the letter, he indicated that to do this was not really necessary (ciju keyi bubi). But Lin Biao was so extremely intent on "giving prom­ inence to the Chairman" that he bypassed the Central Administra­ tion, and without consulting anyone else he dispatched a member of his own office to a military printing plant and had a few thousand copies printed for immediate distribution. As it happened, all kinds of mass meetings were held one after the other in the Great Hall of the People at the time. As soon as Lin Biao got to hear of one going on, he would send his bodyguards oft with a few dozen copies of the printed letter and have them disseminate it at the meeting-site. In this way, he as a result succeeded in killing two birds with one stone: "giving prominence to the Chairman" while at the same time propagating his own "modesty."19 Kang Sheng indirectly confirmed that more titan a month after it had been passed on to Zhou and others, the contents of Lin's letter were, if not unknown, then at least not particularly well known among "the m asses." In a conversation with the same Henan rebels to 19 Zhang Yunsheng, M aojiawon Jishi: Lin Biao Mishu Huiyilu [Factual record of Maojiawan: recollections by Lin Biao's secretary] (Beijing: Chunqiu Chubanshe, 1988), 235.

Party Circulars Proscribing and Prescribing Terminology

43

whom Zhou Enlai had revealed that the Inner Mongolia Party official Wang Yilun was a "sp y ," Kang defended a member of the CCP Cen­ tral Committee who (correctly) failed to mention Lin where— in the eyes of those who were unaware of the latter's desire to appear modest— he "ought to" have mentioned him. Here is an excerpt from the official PLA transcript of that conversation: Liu fianxun: (Begins speaking and wishes Chairman Mao eternal life, but does not mention Vice-Chairman Lin.) Comrade Kang Sheng: He did not mention Vice-Chairman Lin, so it's possible some people will use this to give him a bit of a hard time (zhua xiao bianzi). I want to explain to you that this is something proposed by Vice-Chairman Lin, who is the most modest person. He has expressly forbidden our cadres from saying May Vice-Chairman Lin Remain Healthy, and in particular forbidden people at the Center from saying it.20 Zhou Enlai's motives in attempting to prevent Lin from further boosting the popular image of himself as an unassuming and modest person were clearly political. There is little reason to believe that Zhou was fond of Lin or pleased with the prospect of possibly hav­ ing him inherit Mao's mantle as chairman of the CCP. For the pre­ mier to adopt a cool attitude toward Lin's "im age" projection made all the political sense in the world. Whenever the CCP Center chooses to do so, it may devote a Cen­ tral Propaganda Circular rather than a Central Circular to formula­ tions. Since the Central Propaganda Department is merely an arm of the Party Center, not the Party Center itself, its circulars do on the whole not have the same authority as Central Circulars. This is not to say that there are no exceptions to this rule. By personally signing off or adding a commentary to a Central Propaganda Circular, a Politburo leader like Mao Zedong or Deng Xiaoping may de facto increase its authority to the same level as that of a Central Circular. A Central Propaganda Circular containing (usually in the form of a short preamble) instructions (pishi) or a comment (piyu) by the Party Center is comparable to a Central Circular in all but name. Still, in most cases, it would be correct to argue that a formulation dealt with 20 "Zhongyang Fuze Tongzhi Di 7 Ci Jiejian Henan Ge Fangmian Fu Jing Huibao Daibiaotuan" [The seventh reception by responsible comrades at the center of the delegation from Henan representing various sides that had come to the capital to re­ port on the situation] (21 July 1967), in Zhongyang Shouzhang Guanyu Henan, 46.

44

Party Circulars Proscribing and Prescribing Terminology

in a Central Propaganda Circular is less important than one dealt with in a Central Circular. Central Propaganda Circulars are mainly important because they are one of the "routine" channels through which instructions on for­ mulations are issued by the CCP Center. In 1978 the CCP Central Propaganda Department devoted circular No. 3 (1978) to the prob­ lem of what to do with objects that had the character "loyal" (zhong) painted on them. These objects were the symbolic remnants of the quasi-religious Mao cult of the late 1960s and were now seen as an embarrassment to the Party.21 In 1979 the problem of what to do with politically "dated" slogans and writings in public places was the subject of Central Propaganda Circular No. 14 (1979), entitled "O n How to Deal with Slogans, Posters, and Quotation-Boards in Public Places."22 In January 1983 the painting over of slogans and the like from the Hua Guofeng era was the subject of a circular entitled "O n Leaders' Portraits and on the Clearing Away of Dated Slogans and Portraits." In it the Central Propaganda Department stressed that "Propaganda Departments on all levels and in all localities must pay great attention to the work of getting rid of [dated] portraits, slogans, and posters."23 The following is the full text of a typically worded Central Propa­ ganda Circular on formulations from 1983, entitled "Concerning Use of the Formulation 'Achieving Wealth through Diligence' To the Propaganda Departments of the Party Committees of the Provinces, Municipalities, and Autonomous Regions, the Propaganda Department of the General Political Department, and the Party Com­ mittees and Party Groups of the units within the Central Propaganda Department system: During discussions on the Central Secretariat on 11 July 1983, agreement was expressed with Comrade Peng Xiao's and Comrade Chen Qisheng's suggestion concerning the substitution of the 21 Zhonggong Zhongyang Xuanchuanbu, ed., "Xuanchuon Dongtai" Xuanbian 1980 (Selections from Propaganda trends 1980) (Beijing: Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Chubanshe, 1981), 60. 22 Ibid. 23 "Guanyu Xuangua Lingdaoren Xiang He Qingli Guoshi Biaoyu Kouhao de Tongzhi" [Circular on leaders' portraits and on the clearing away of dated slogans and posters], quoted in Zhonggong Zhongyang Xuanchuanbu, ed., "Xuanchuan Dongtai" 1983 Nian Xuanbianben [Selections from Propaganda trends 1983] (Beijing: Zhonggong Zhongyang Dangxiao Chubanshe, 1984), 314.

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45

formulation “Achieving Wealth through Labor" by the formulation "Achieving Wealth through Diligence," and it was decided that this formulation first of all be employed in the documents of the Center, the State Council, and the departments and committees under the Center and the State Council and in Central-level broadcasts, news­ papers, and journals, and that it then be gradually popularized. On the grass-roots level, among the masses, and in the works of indivi­ dual writers, however, the continued use of the formulation "Achiev­ ing Wealth through Labor" need not be prohibited. The Central Propaganda Department 28 July 198324 What is being referred to here is a letter from two members of the Wudu Prefectural Party Committee in Gansu to the Central Propa­ ganda Department. In their letter, they had made the point that "Achieving Wealth through Diligence" was a better way of summing up the essentials of post-Third Plenum Central Committee policy than "Achieving Wealth through Labor." (Extracts from their letter had been published in the Central Propaganda Department's bulletin Propaganda Trends on 4 June 1983.) The word "labor," they argued, would be interpreted by most people as excluding technical skills, management skills and experience, and so forth and furthermore be very strongly associated with the idea of physical labor. Since one of the most important points of the Central Committee's new policy was that all forms of labor— not just the physical— were equally legitimate means by which to attain wealth, the formulation with the word "labor" in it was an unfortunate one. It was not as "scientific" as the one with "diligence" in it. Peng and Chen suggested it be dropped in favor of one that would help to put those who strove to achieve wealth through mental labor on a level with those who strove to achieve it through physical labor.25 The following is a Central Propaganda Circular from 1985 enti­ tled "Central Secretariat Meeting Proposes Four Principles to Govern Works on Revolutionary Historical Them es": On 7 February, a meeting of the CCP Central Secretariat discussed the "Letter from the Central Propaganda Department to Comrade Hu 24 Michael Schoenhals, ed. and trans., Selections from Propaganda Trends Organ o f the CCP Central Propaganda Department, Chinese Law and Government series (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1991), 29. » Ibid.

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Party Circulars Proscribing and Prescribing Terminology

Yaobang Concerning the Shooting of Television Drama Serials and the Feature Rim Into the Dabie Mountains from Afar" and proposed that works on themes reflecting the history of the revolution must obey the following four principles: 1. For the sake of molding a glorious image of our older genera­ tion of proletarian revolutionaries, and in order to recreate the authenticity of history, it is in principle permissible, in works on rev­ olutionary historical themes, to artistically portray the leadership of the time. 2. The authenticity of history must be strictly adhered to, and there must be no glamorizing. For the sake of caution, all movies, television dramas, and plays in which leaders of our Party are por­ trayed must, without exception, be submitted for censorship (shencha ) to the leading Comrades at the Center prior to being performed in public. 3. On the whole, artistic portrayals should not be made of our nation's current Party and state leadership. 4. All Party or state leaders artistically portrayed in one form or other should speak standard Chinese (putonghua ). The continued use of dialects is inadvisable.26 At stake here is formalization in a general sense, not limited merely to choices of words and wordings. How is one to refer to CCP and PLA leaders in images, and not just in words? And how should one translate formulations like the "w ise" leader Hua Guofeng, the "great" leader Mao Zedong, and the "beloved" Premier Zhou Enlai from words into pictorial representations? The purely linguistic issue dealt with under point 4 is an unusual one, that is, that of dialects. Should the silver-screen impersonators of Mao and Peng Dehuai be permitted to speak with a quasi-Hunanese accent, and should "the glorious image" of the young Deng Xiaoping be allowed to appear on the television screen saying things like "yaude," "m odà," and "saa'ze?"— the Sichuanese equivalents of "good!", "there isn't!", and "w hat?" Apparently not, although it is hard to understand why. Certainly one of the things that had made the movie Mayor Chen Yi a box-office success in the 1960s was its main character's quasiSichuanese accent. He not only looked like but even sounded like Chen Yi. But perhaps the members of the Central Secretariat and “ "Zhongyang Shujichu Huiyi Tichu Geming Lishi Ticai Zuopin Bixu Zunxun Si Yuanze" [Central committee secretariat meeting proposes four principles to govern works on revolutionary historical themes], Yishu Tongxun 3 (1985): 4.

Party Circulars Proscribing and Prescribing Terminology

47

tiie Central Propaganda Department felt that to permit dialects on the screen and on television was to undermine attempts at standar­ dizing the Chinese language? Quite a few of the many circulars on formulations issued by the Central Propaganda Department on the eve of the establishment of the PRC had a few years later ceased to be of little more than peri­ pheral interest to all but the historian. Instructions on how to write about price hikes and the forces of the market at play, for example, were largely irrelevant to journalists working in a society where, officially at least, inflation no longer existed. But by the early 1980s, when tiie Chinese economy once again began to fluctuate and com­ modity prices began to show signs of wanting to go up, some old cir­ culars on economic matters regained their former relevance. The fol­ lowing one from 11 February 1949, for example— conveniently reprinted in a 1981 NCNA collection of propaganda documents— suddenly regained an air of urgency: Circular from the CCP Central Propaganda Department and New China News Agency Head Office to the CCP East-China Bureau Propaganda Department Concerning the Ji'nan New Democratic Daily's Bourgeois Way of Reporting about Commodity Prices: In the headlines of the reports on commodity prices in the January [1949] issues of the New Democratic Daily, consistent use was made of alarmist and very vile language like "Sudden Surge," "Scramble," "March Bravely Upon," "The Surge Shows No Sign Of Abating," "Violent Increase," "Assault Upon," "Signs Have Appeared Every­ where," etc. Reports furthermore failed to produce serious analyses of the reason for price increases and to describe the present efforts made by the government to adjust commodity prices and the attitude the commercial sector ought to adopt. What this amounted to was a manifestation, in our newspapers, of the bourgeois work style of irresponsibility and of adding fuel to the flames. If this has not been stopped already, it should be stopped immediately, and a selfcriticism should be carried out. All the newspapers in the liberated areas ought to use the above as a guide in learning how to correctly report economic news and in how to overcome a bourgeois work style.27 Since the mid 1980s, "alarm ist and very vile language" has not been 27 "Zhongxuanbu, Xinhua Zongshe Guanyu Ji'nan Xin Minzhu Boo Baodao Wujia Shi Zichanjieji Zuofeng Gei Huadongju Xuanchuanbu de Tongzhi" [Circular from die

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Party Circulars Proscribing and Prescribing Terminology

permitted in reports about rising commodity prices. The proper for­ mulations by which to refer to rising prices is "price adjustments" (wujia tiaozheng). The common verb "rise" (zhang) is all but taboo in headlines, but it is permitted in articles in which the argument is made that because prices were not permitted to "rise" in the past, they must now be "adjusted."28 "M ao Zedong Thought" is perhaps the most famous "scientific" formulation to have been devised by the CCP. Not widely known is that in the early years of the People's Republic of China, the CCP actually considered proscribing its use. On 5 December 1954, "th e formulation 'Mao Zedong Thought'" was the subject of a Central Propaganda Circular instructing that the formulation "Comrade Mao Zedong's instruction" be dropped in favor of "Marxism-Leninism." This is the full text of the circular: As far as explaining "Mao Zedong Thought" is concerned, you may from now on reply orally as follows: It has already been pointed out with clarity in the Party constitu­ tion that "Mao Zedong Thought" is "an ideology based on the unification of Marxist-Leninist theory and Chinese revolutionary praxis," the contents of which correspond to Marxism-Leninism. Comrade Mao Zedong has already instructed us not to employ the formulation "Mao Zedong Thought" from now on, in order to avoid creating a misunderstanding [on this latter point]. We are of the opinion that from now on when Party Comrades write articles or give reports, they should abide by this instruction of Comrade Mao Zedong's. As far as the Party constitution and earlier important Party documents and resolutions are concerned, you may when you have to explain them still do so as in the past, without making any changes. But you should make a point of explaining that "Mao Zedong Thought" is Marxist-Leninist ideology, so as to avoid creat­ ing the mistaken impression of the two having different contents. When writing articles or making speeches, if you find that you must refer to Comrade Mao Zedong, you may use words like "the works of Mao Zedong" etc.29 According to one CCP Party historian, writing in 1980, this directive central propaganda department and NCNA head office to the east-China bureau prop­ aganda department concerning the Ji'nan New dem ocratic daily's bourgeois way of re­ porting commodity prices], in Xinhua She, 1:229. 2* Cadre with the PRC Ministry of Finance publishing firm, interview in Beijing, August 1988. 29 "Zhongxuanbu Guanyu 'Mao Zedong Sixiang' Ying Ruhe Jiangjie Wenti de

Party Circulars Proscribing and Prescribing Terminology

49

was circulated throughout the entire Party after having been signed off not only by Mao Zedong himself, but by Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, and Deng Xiaoping as well.30 Judging from circumstantial evidence, it would appear that the circular did not have much effect.31 The issue at stake was a singu­ larly sensitive one. That the formulation "M ao Zedong Thought" was not used in the Party Constitution adopted by the CCP at its Eighth National Congress in 1956 is a fact, but by the end of the 1950s, the CCP's growing disenchantment with the Soviet "road" to communism and the Party's need to find a formulation by which to refer to its own alternative to "m odem revisionism" prompted a revival of the use of "M ao Zedong Thought." In 1961, Mao Zedong argued— in a set of regulations governing formulations to be used in the press— that references to "th e study of Mao Zedong Thought" should be permitted. If references were to be made to both himself and Marx and Lenin, Mao suggested, then the appropriate formula­ tion should read "th e study of Marxism-Leninism and the study of Comrade Mao Zedong's w orks." It was inappropriate to use the for­ mulation "study M arxism -Leninism -M ao Zedong Thought."32 Once Mao clarified these views, most people opted for the shorter and more succinct of the two permissible alternative formulations— hence the so-called vulgarization of the ideological discourse that according to today's CCP historians began in the early 1960s. Circulars issued by bureaus within the CCP Central Propaganda Department may also deal with formulation issues. The Central Propaganda Department Literature and Arts Bureau regularly sends out its General Circulars on Literature and Art to writers and artists Tongzhi," in Zhongguo Shehui Kexueyuan, 2:343. 30 Zhang Gong, "Guanyu Dang de 'Ba Da' de Jige W enti" [On some questions con­ cerning the party's eighth congress], in Quanguo Dangxiao Xitong Zhonggong Zhongyang Dangshi Xueshu Taolunhui Zhuanti Baogao He Fayan Huibian [Collection of speeches and reports on special topics at the all-China party school network academic confer­ ence on the history of the CCP], 2 vols. (Hefei: Zhonggong Anhui Shengwei Dangxiao Tushu Ziliaoshi, 1980), 1:131. 31 In an interview conducted in 1983, a CCP propaganda official who worked for the NCNA in the 1950s was unable to recall ever reading or hearing of a circular dealing with the formulation "M ao Zedong Thought" at the time. 32 Zhonggong Beijing Shiwei Dangxiao Lilun Yanjiushi, ed., "Sishi Nian Lai Guan­ yu Mao Zedong Sbdang de Yixie Tifa" [Some formulations involving Mao Zedong thought over the past forty years], Hongqi 2 (1981): 33.

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Party Circulars Proscribing and Prescribing Terminology

who are members of the CCP. The contents of these General Circu­ lars are sometimes reprinted in the internal newsletters put out by government organs like the Ministry of Culture and professional organizations like the All-China Federation of Literature and Art Workers. In this way, they also reach some non-CCP members. A four hundred-page Selected General Circulars on Literature and Art 1981-1985 was published by the Culture and Arts Publishing House in 1986 as a desk-top reference work. Reprinted in it were a number of items dealing with formulations, including “Letter horn Leading Comrade at the Center about Whether to Revive the Slogan 'Ideolog­ ical Rem olding'/' ''Leading Comrade at the Center on Attitude to be Adopted toward Human Nature and Humanism/' and ''Comrade Hu Yaobang Talks about the Problem of Mentioning People's Names When Engaging in Literary Criticism /'33 The following General Circular on Literature and Art was not included in the Selected General Circulars on Literature and Art 1981-1985, but it appeared in the Ministry of Culture's Arts Bulletin soon after its initial circulation within the CCP in the spring of 1984. It deals with the proper formulation to be used when referring to the Party's struggle against so-called spiritual pollution and bears the title ''Opposing and Resisting Spiritual Pollution Is Long-Term W ork'': On 28 April 1984, the CCP Central Committee General Office's Secretarial Bureau (mishuju ) announced: With the approval and per­ mission of Comrades Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang, the line (koujing) on how to reply to questions from outsiders [non-CCP] about the issue of how to deal with spiritual pollution is to be as follows: Recent work at eradicating (qingchu) spiritual pollution has been very successful, and we have every reason to assess it positively. From now on, the need is to both oppose (fandui ) and resist (dizhi) spiritual pollution. This is long-term work, the purpose of which is to make the building of a socialist spiritual civilization even more successful.34 It is interesting to note the convoluted way in which what is actu­ ally being said here is being said. This circular informs the reader of 33 1981-1985 "Wenyi Tongbao" Xuanbian [Selected General circulars on literature and art 1981-1985] (Beijing: Wenhua Yishu Chubanshe, 1986), 8 2 -8 3 ; 89; 10-11. 34 “Fandui He Dizhi Jingshen Wuran Shi Changqi de Gongzuo," originally pub­ lished in Vfenyi Tongbao 7 (1984). Reprinted in, and here translated from, Wenyijie Tongxun 8 (1984): 1.

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a significant formulation change related to a major policy shift. In the winter of 1 9 8 3-84, the CCP had pursued a harsh policy of clamping down on all so-called social manifestations of spiritual pol­ lution. At the time, it had been the Party's official “line" to maintain that this policy aimed at dte “eradication of spiritual pollution." Then, most likely as a result of serious policy disagreements within the CCP leadership, the original policy was revised. Cadres were told not to confiscate tapes of Western rock music and no longer to bother teenagers who wore bell-bottom jeans. This circular, then, contains the new formulation that was to "explain" the rationality of the Party's policy shift. The new official "lin e" with respect to "spiritual pollution" was now that it was a "long-term " problem, not one that could be "eradicated" overnight. It could only be "opposed and re­ stricted." A political campaign had, practically and semantically, been called off. Is this how the uniformity of political discourse in China is achieved? Party Circulars and explicit instructions like the ones described in this chapter certainly play a greater role in shaping the form of the discourse than does ideology. This is not to say that ideology plays no part. An ideological element may serve to predispose writers to willingly, rather than grudgingly, agree to cal­ ling leaders' utterances "opinions" rather than "instructions" and the year 1949 the "founding of the nation" rather than "liberation." But ideology is ultimately secondary to the bureaucratic apparatus that generates, circulates, and supervises compliance with circulars like these. No amount of similar patterns of perception, shared convic­ tions, and beliefs would in itself be capable of spontaneously gen­ erating so uniform— and so uniformly changing— a political language in all. If uniformity of expression thus to a crucial extent is achieved by bureaucratic means, one would expect at least some degree of bureaucratic infighting to upset the implementation of central "red­ heads" now and then. Some arms of the CCP Center have indeed on occasion resisted the directives concerning formulations issued by others. In June 1979 the Central Propaganda Department for reasons that remain obscure proscribed the formulation "oppose the 'will of the authorities' " — an elaboration on a Lenin quote said to have been used by "som e comrades" in a "sim plistic" fashion to "criticize

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Party Circulars Proscribing and Prescribing Terminology

subjectivism ."35 While most of China's media soon desisted from using it, a number of persons within the Central Party School and Chinese Academy of Social Sciences did not. This opposition even­ tually prompted the Central Propaganda Department to repeat its original proscription in June 1980. It "reaffirm ed" its hope that everyone would "take care not to abuse the concept 'will of the authorities.'"36 But to no avail. Not until early in 1981, when the Central Propaganda Department succeeded in gaining the backing of the PLA General Political Department in its crusade against attacks on the "w ill of the authorities" did the last high-level champions of this particular formulation finally toe the line.37 What the precise stakes in this power struggle had been remains shrouded in mystery, but that it took place at all shows that while the authority of a Cen­ tral Propaganda redhead may be considerable at lower levels, such authority may not exist near the top. The CCP's practice of ensuring uniformity of expression by bureaucratic means is hardly unique. Similar practices also exist within some Western media, where "style sheets" indicate to journal­ ists and editors whether the Irish Republican Army (IRA) are to be called "terrorists" or "guerrillas" or whether the Iraqi president is to be called "Saddam " or "H ussein." International diplomacy is, need­ less to say, very much a matter of saying the right thing at the right time, and here again memos indicate to junior diplomats the currently preferred formulation regarding an ally or foe. In countries like Sweden, government commissions regularly issue recommenda­ tions to elected office holders and civil servants, asking them to dis­ continue the use of language regarded as offensive by minority groups. What makes China different is that while a journalist with » "Buyao Lanyong 'Zhangguan Yizhi' Zhege Gainian" [Do not abuse the concept “will of the authorities''], in Zhonggong Zhongyang Xuanchuanbu, ed., "Xuanchuan Dongtai" Xuanbian 1979 [Selections from Propaganda trends 1979] (Beijing: Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Chubanshe, 1981), 118-20. w ''Chongshen Buyao Lanyong 'Zhangguan Yizhi'' Zhege Gainian'' [Do not abuse the concept ''w ill of the authorities''— A reaffirmation], in Zhonggong Zhongyang Xuanchuanbu, ed., Xuanbian 1980, 180-81. 37 "Chuxi Quanjun Zhengzhi Gongzuo Huiyi de Tongzhi Dui Xuanchuan Gongzuo de Yijian He Jianyi'' [Suggestions and opinions concerning propaganda work raised by the comrades attending the all-PLA political work conference], in Zhonggong Zhong­ yang Xuanchuanbu, ed., "Xuanchuan Dongtai" Xuanbian 1981 [Selections from Propa­ ganda Trends] (Beijing: Zhonggong Zhongyang Dangxiao Chubanshe, 1982), 25.

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53

one Western newspaper is at liberty to disregard whatever conven­ tions have been agreed upon by the publishers of another and editors are free to disregard the recommendations of a government panel set up to deal with appropriate changes in official publications, such freedom of choice does not exist in the PRC.

CHAPTER THREE

Ghost-Writers: Expressing "The Will of the Authorities"

[S]peechwritmg... was where the philosophical, ideological, and po­ litical tensions of the administration got worked out....A nd so speechwriting was, for some, the center of gravity in that administra­ tion.1 These are not the words of a former member of Mao Zedong's or Deng Xiaoping's personal staffs. They are those of a speech writer for Ronald Reagan reminiscing about what it was like to work in the White House in the m id-1980s. But they could very well have come from a Zhongnanhai ''pen wielder." Some of the tasks performed by Peggy Noonan and her colleagues were not significantly different from those performed by the likes of Tian Jiaying, Huang Zhen, and Zhang Qiuqiao— to mention three prominent speech writers from the early years of the PRC who worked for Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, and Lin Biao, respectively. In the reminiscences of CCP speech writ­ ers, the activity referred to as the textual embodiment of the inten­ tions (yitu) of the leader and collective will (/iff yizhi) of the leader­ ship is also very much the administrative "center of gravity." Almost nothing has been written outside China about the CCP leadership's speech writers, or ghost-writers. Who are they? How are they selected and appointed? How do they go about their work? How do they interact with those they serve? Few answers to these questions have been provided in Western writings on Chinese politics. In one recent book, the "personal staffs of leaders" is described as a political mechanism "shrouded in m ystery."2 This chapter will attempt to 1 Noonan, What I Saw, 67. 2 David Bachman, To Leap Forward: Bureaucracy, Economy, and Leadership in China: The Institutional Origins o f the Great Leap Forward (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 39.

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throw some light on this mechanism, on the basis of information derived from three different kinds of sources. The most detailed and most reliable information on how CCP ghost-writers go about their work is to be found in their work reports. These are retrospectives, composed after the completion or publication of a major text or collection of texts. A typical work report will deal with the processes of textual gestation, drafting, and publication. Such things as "problems encountered" and "lessons learned" will be elaborated upon from a personal perspective. Since the audience to which the reports are addressed tends to be made up of people who themselves are, or have been, ghost-writers or other­ wise involved in policy formulation, the reports are closely focused on matters of shared professional concern and hence full of revealing statements that would not normally be divulged to outsiders. One representative example of a work report is that dted extensively in this study, Zhou Shangwen's talk on editing and writing Basic Party Knowledge.1*34 Other examples include Pan Rongting's talk on editing the Selected Important Documents since the Third Plenum and Collected Important Documents since the Third Plenum and Li Qi's talk on edit­ ing the Selected Works o f Deng Xiaoping 1975-1982* The memoirs and recollections of former ghost-writers comple­ ment the work reports. What often makes them problematic, how­ ever, is that they will have been written years, if not decades, after the event. Factually, they are less reliable than work reports. When they concern particularly significant events or personalities, they tend to be biased toward idealized description, and the readér often has a hard time distinguishing what "basically" happened from what really did happen. But what the memoirs lack in factual accuracy, they often more than compensate for in the way of insights and illuminat­ ing commentary. The memoirs of Tian Jiaying's assistant Pang Xianzhi, published in 1989, are an invaluable source of information on 1 Zhou Shangwen, "Guanyu Dang de Jiben Zhishi Biaiude Guocheng de Jianghua" [Speech on editing and writing Basic party know ledge], Xuexi Cankao Ziliao 7 (1980): 1 -2 0 . 4 Pan Rongting, 1 -1 7 ; Li Qi, “Weida Lishi Zhuanzhe Shiqi de Guanghui Lunzhu: Zai Zhonggong Zhongyang Xuanchuanbu Zhaokai de Huiyi Shang Jieshao Deng Xiaoping Wenxuan Fayan Yaodian” [Glorious record of a great period of historical change: main points of a speech introducing the Selected works o f Deng Xiaoping to a meeting convened by the CCP central propaganda department], Ulun Xuexi Cankao Ziliao 1 6 -1 7 (1983): 1 8 -2 9 .

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the relationship between Mao Zedong and the members of his staff who participated in the drafting of the first PRC constitution, the editing of the texts included in the first four volumes of the Selected Works o f Mao Zedong, and the drawing up of virtually every major rural policy document issued by the CCP Center between 1950 and 1966.5 Zhang Yunsheng's Factual Record o f M aojiawan: The R ecollec­ tions o f Lin Biao's Secretary, published in 1988, is a fascinating account of what it was like to be a “pen wielder" for China's number two leader between 1966 and 1970. Interviewing ghost-writers, finally, is a risky business if the stu­ dent of PRC politics aspires to get at “the facts," since the person interviewed is the very opposite of a naive informant. He or she will invariably have his or her own hidden agenda, and the interviewer— if unable to do a lot of cross-checking— is virtually cer­ tain to be led astray at some point. The ghost-writer will exaggerate his or her own contribution to texts that, at the moment the inter­ view takes place, are seen as “correct." Years of work in the service of an “erroneous line" will be conveniently forgotten. And, needless to say, if the topic is how to do things with words, there will be more than the usual number of opportunities for misunderstandings and misinterpretations, even if the interview is conducted without the help of an interpreter/intermediary. Still, if the ghost-writer feels that it is worth his or her while, the interviewer may be provided with truly invaluable insights, not to be found in either work reports or memoir literature. The present study has benefited from the open­ ness shown the author by three of Hu Yaobang's former ghost­ writers during interviews in China and the United States in 1988. It is striking how information from highly diverse sources does not facilitate generalization. On the contrary, it makes the formula­ tion of categorical statements about what is representative or “typi­ cal" difficult. There appears to be no typical pen wielder and no typ­ ical leader-pen wielder relationship to be commented upon in isola­ tion from actual pen wielders and actual leaders. Although there obviously is a routine element in the work that goes on, general s Pang Xianzhi, "M ao Zedong He Tade Mishu Han Jiaying" [Mao Zedong and his secretary Tian Jiaying], in Dong Bian, Tan Deshan, and Zeng Zi, ed., Mao Zedong He Tade Mishu Tian Jiaying [Mao Zedong and his secretary Tian Jiaying] (Beijing: Zhongyang Werudan Chubanshe, 1989), 1 -8 4 .

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truths soon become exceptions when one looks more dosely at how a particular text was written. Commonly held prejudices about pen wielders within the CCP also go from one extreme to the other, mak­ ing even the creation of a coherent stereotype difficult. The president of the Central Party School once maintained proudly that the gradu­ ates he passed on to the Party Center to take up positions as political secretaries and speech writers were comparable to the best and brightest members of the Hanlin Academy— the most prestigious seat of higher learning in Imperial China.6 A resident of the Central Party School disdainfully compared the very same people to graduates of a theological academy, lacking the capadty for independent thought and capable of little else than finding their way around the holy scriptures of Marxism in search of passages to prove that whatever the leadership does is in accordance with ideological orthodoxy.7 Rather than attempt to fuse the contradictory information avail­ able into a single composite picture, this chapter hints at the range of possibilities by concentrating on two cases. The first is the relatively harmonious and effident working relationship that appears to have existed between Hu Yaobang and a number of ghost-writers who worked for him at the end of the 1970s and early 1980s. The second is the conflict-ridden relationship between Lin Biao and the members of his Maojiawan staff in the second half of the 1960s. It was while he was still merely the second vice-president of the CCP Central Party School that Hu Yaobang began to gather around him the ghost-writers who were to be with him over the next five years, during which he advanced to the post of Party general secre­ tary. To the outside world, they were known as the Theory Research Office of the Central Party School, but within the CCP they were simply referred to as Comrade Yaobang's “team " (banzi). Although they were primarily meant to be ghost-writers, they also played a 6 Yang Xianzhen, "Jiejian Canjia Zhongxuanbu Zhengzhi Jingjixue Dushuhui Tongzhi de Yid Tanhua" [Talk during reception for comrades attending the political econo­ my study class organized by the central propaganda department], quoted in Shoudu Pipan Zichanjieji Fandong Xueshu "Quanwei" Lianluo Weiyuanhui, ed., Uu Shaoqi Yuyong Zhexue " Quanwei" Yang Xianzhen Fangeming Xiezhengzhuyi Yanlun Zhaibian [Collected extracts from the counterrevolutionary revisionist utterances of Yang Xian­ zhen, Liu Shaoqi's philosophical court-"authority"] (Beijing, 1967), 50. 7 Zhang Xianyang, interview in Beijing, August 1988.

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59

role in the policy-making process. "By articulating a policy/' as Noonan notes, a speech writer "invents it." This meant that there was no clear-cut division of labor between those who helped Hu Yaobang make policy and those who helped him express it. Jia was the head of the team.7 8 In the 1950s and 1960s he had held a senior teaching position at China People's University and published exten­ sively on Marxist ideology and philosophy. In the late 1950s he had argued publicly that the persistence of "bourgeois rights" constituted the material basis for the emergence of "new bourgeois elem ents" under socialism. Many of his arguments were identical to those later expressed by Zhang Chunqiao in "O n Exercising All-Round Dictator­ ship over the Bourgeoisie" in 1975.9 In the early 1960s Jia had been one of the most vocal Party theorists participating in the campaign to criticize and denounce the vice-president of the Central Party School, Yang Xianzhen, for being a "revisionist." As a member of Hu Yaobang's team, Jia in the spring of 1977 became director of the Theory Research Office of the Central Party School. Exactly how Hu went about putting together his team is not known, but it appears that after having picked Jia to be its leader, Hu left the selection of additional members to him. Jia was in any case instrumental in bringing in Yi— a former graduate student of his. In the 1950s and 1960s Yi had published fairly extensively on Confu­ cianism and late-Qing reformist thought. Together with the (in 1977) temporarily discredited Tang Yijie— who had been a pen-wielding member of Jiang Qing's notorious "Liang Xiao" Great Criticism Group in the early and m id-1970s— he had been one of the CCP's foremost "Feng Youlan bashers" in the years preceding the Cultural Revolution.10 During the Cultural Revolution, he had done time in a May Seventh Cadre School after the rebel faction of which he had 7 Noonan, What I Saw, 71. • The following account is, where not otherwise noted, based on interviews. One of Hu's former ghost-writers asked to be granted anonymity, because, as he said, "I don't want people to think I am trying to make myself more important than I really w as." The fictitious names Jia, Yi, and Bing are the Chinese equivalents of "N o. 1 ," "N o. 2 " and "N o. 3 ." * Zhang Chunqiao, "Lun Dui Zichanjieji de Quanmian Zhuanzheng," Hongqi 4 (1975): 3 -1 2 . 10 Yi appears as "Lao U " in Yue Daiyun and Carolyn Wakeman, To the Storm: The Odyssey o f a Revolutionary Chinese Woman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985).

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Ghost-Writers: Expressing "The Will o f the Authorities"

been a member lost the struggle for control over China People's University. Immediately before joining Hu Yaobang's team as a deputy director of the Theory Research Office, Yi had been involved in writing denunciations of the Gang of Four's followers at Qinghua and Beijing universities. A third member of Hu's team was Bing. The Shanghai-born Bing was the general secretary of the Communist Youth League at Qinghua University during the 19 5 7 -5 8 Anti-Rightist Campaign. In the wake of the campaign (and presumably in reward for services rendered during it), the Beijing Municipal CCP Committee promoted him to a post on the editorial board of the Beijing Daily. In the early 1960s, he was further promoted to the CCP Central Propaganda Department, where he became the editor of the Department's intelli­ gence reports for high-level cadres, Trends in Propaganda and Educa­ tion. In the summer of 1966 he published what even by the stan­ dards of the time counted as an exceptionally hostile denunciation of Zhou Yang in the People's Daily and was subsequently appointed chairman of the first Cultural Revolution Committee of the Central Propaganda Department. When he joined Hu Yaobang's team as a deputy director of the Theory Research Office, it was after a pro­ longed period of inactivity during which he had been living in Bei­ jing and drawing a salary, but had not been permitted to write or publish under his own name. It should be noted that Hu Yaobang's team was not made up sim­ ply of people who before 1977 had been on the CCP's "liberal" fringe. Some of them had a very checkered past— which perhaps attested to their professionalism. They could be relied upon to pro­ duce forceful defenses of the Party line at all times, regardless of what that line was. Under Hu Yaobang, they were soon to devote their writing skills to defending the principle that "practice is the sole criterion of truth." (The seminal article by this name published in the Guangming Daily on 11 May 1978 originated with two members of the team.) In general, Hu appears not to have been excessively con­ cerned with his ghost-writers' pasts. In 1980, in a letter to some members of the CCP leadership who disapproved of his surrounding himself with former Cultural Revolutionary rebels, he remarked with reference to Bing that "during the initial phase [of the Cultural Revo­ lution] it appears he did commit errors, but later he was nonetheless

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61

struck down. So therefore, politically, he may and should be trusted."11 Whenever Hu needed to have an important document drafted— perhaps an address he was to deliver on an important Party or government occasion or an article to be published in the People's Daily or Red Flag— he would have one of his personal secretaries call Jia, Yi, Bing, et al. to his office. At first, while he still worked full time at the Central Party School, they needed to do no more than walk across campus to get to him. Later, when he began spending part of his time in Zhongnanhai, they would sometimes have to embark upon a forty-five-minute drive from the northwest suburbs to downtown Beijing to get to his offices. Hu would usually give his ghost-writers a chance to relax and set­ tle down before getting on with the business at hand. Informal small-talk— including a much appreciated off-the-record questionand-answer session about recent political events— would precede the formal interaction aimed at working out a speech or an article. When beginning to outline what he wanted them to write about, Hu would have his ghost-writers sit down at a large table. He would then himself wander about the room with his hands cupped around a mug of tea speaking more or less "o ff the top of his head" about the points that needed to be made and the ideas that needed to be put forward. His ghost-writers would not necessarily jot down everything he said in their notebooks, but would concentrate on catching his overall "d rift." Once back at the Central Party School, they would go to work, sometimes joining forces to produce a single initial text, sometimes splitting up and producing a number of alter­ nate first drafts. Then comparisons, revisions, and changes would be made. Once a good draft had been produced, it would be taken back to Hu, who would go over it and make comments. Because Hu had already expanded on the theme to be dealt with at the initial meet­ ing, he rarely had to ask for major alterations. Hu rarely told his ghost-writers to underscore this or that point in a text with a suitable quotation from the Marxist classics or the works of Mao Zedong. He took for granted that they knew the most important canonical texts more or less by heart and would be able to 11 Copy of letter of 22 July 1980 in Bing's possession.

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Ghost-W riters: Expressing 'T h e Will o f the Authorities"

deploy them with finesse. Sometimes, Hu's team would make use of topical indexes to the official Works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin to find appropriate passages. Their quickest way to a good Mao quote was usually by way of one of the many "little red books" com­ piled by the PLA under Lin Biao— volumes with titles such as Chair­ man Mao on the Two-Une Struggle inside the Party and Chairman Mao on Continuing to M ake Revolution under the Dictatorship o f the Proletariat.12 At times, finding a good Mao quote was a matter of chance. In December 1978, when Yi was working on an article for the People's Daily in commemoration of Mao Zedong's eighty-fifth birthday, he needed a quote from the works of the late Party chairman concerning the importance of "seeking truth from facts." Although he knew there was no shortage of such passages in "O n Practice" and "W here Do Correct Ideas Come From?" he wanted one that was fresh and different to make the point that Mao had repeatedly stressed the importance of "seeking truth from facts." In an unofficial Red Guard compilation of Mao's works he had read from cover to cover some ten years earlier— a compilation that, according to Party regulations, he should have disposed of ages ago, since it was formally "illegal" for him to possess it— he found a suitable passage that he had underlined in red at the time. It was from Mao's address to the Ninth Plenum of the Eighth CCP Central Committee, and it read "Let us have a year during which we seek truth from facts."13 It was a good passage for more reasons than one. Being from the year 1961, it fitted well with a reference to Mao's speech at the Seven Thousand Cadres Conference (1962) and a reference to his essay "W here Do Correct Ideas Come From?" (1963). Yi used it to create the desired effect of suggesting that Mao had stressed the importance of "seeking truth from facts" over and over again.14 12 For a comprehensive list of such publications, see Zhongguo Banben Tushuguan, ed., 1949-1986 Quanguo Neibu Faxing Tushu Zongmu [National bibliography of inter­ nally distributed publications 1949-1986] (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1988), 3 -6 . 13 Mao Zedong, "Zai Ba Jie Jiu Zhong Quanhui Shang de Jianghua," in Zhongguo Renmin Daxue, vol. 1957-1961, 428. 14 Ben Bao Pinglunyuan, "W eida de Shijian Lun Zhidao Women Duoqu Xiandaihua Jianshe de Shengli" [Great theory of practice guiding us in achieving victory in modernization], RMRB, 26 December 1978.

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Hu Yaobang's team was a quasi-permanent institution, created to serve the needs of one particular senior politician. The CCP also creates temporary teams for specific projects. The most important ad hoc pen-wielding team ever set up by the CCP leadership was the Anti-Revisionist Writing Team (fanxiu xiezuo banzi), created in the early 1960s to compose authoritative denunciations of Soviet-style “revisionism" in the name of the CCP Central Committee. The socalled Nine Critiques were written by the team. It was directly tied to the CCP Central Secretariat and was in fact headed by CCP gen­ eral secretary Deng Xiaoping. Deng's deputy was Peng Zhen, and under him was Kang Sheng, who did most of the day-to-day work of running the team. It had offices in Kang's villa No. 8 in the Diaoyutai compound.15 In the Critical Biography o f Kang Sheng, published in Beijing in 1982, the CCP Central Secretariat's Anti-Revisionist Writ­ ing Team is described as having had "a sixth sense for what the political climate was like, and the ability to strike blows with swift­ ness and precision in accordance with the commands it received."16 An ad hoc writing team of lesser historical significance than the Anti-Revisionist Writing Team was organized by the CCP in 1978 to write a handbook for Party members under the title Basic Party Knowledge. The initial impetus to produce Basic Party Knowledge had come from the delegates attending the CCP's National Propaganda Conference in the spring of 1978. Their request for a popular intro­ duction to the Party's work, aims, organization, et cetera, was backed by Zhang Pinghua, director of the Central Propaganda Department. Zhang had the conference secretariat draft a memorandum calling for a writing team to be set up under the joint direction of the CCP Cen­ tral Propaganda and Organization departments and a book to be pro­ duced before the end of the year. On 3 June, Hu Yaobang— in his capacity as concurrent director of the Central Organization Department— agreed to the plans outlined in the memorandum. An ad hoc writing team was immediately organized. The eleven members of the team, which was headed by a bureau chief from the Central Propaganda Department, were drawn from a number of institutions, including the CCP Central Propaganda and Organization departments, Hu's Central Party School, the PLA Political Academy, 15 Zhang Xianyang, interview in Beijing, August 1988. 16 Zhong Kan, 163.

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and the publishing house that was to publish the book. Zhou Shangwen, a member of the staff of the Shanghai Normal University Political Education Department, and a cadre from Guangzhou were given temporary transfers to Beijing to provide input from the provinces.17* Given the nature of the political events that took place in China in the second half of 1978— for example, the debate about the "cri­ terion of truth," in which both Zhang Pinghua and Hu Yaobang were deeply involved (Zhang as an opponent of the "practice cri­ terion/' Hu as its champion)— it is perhaps not surprising that work on Basic Party Knowledge ran into trouble from the start. As Zhou Shangwen was later to disclose: While in the process of writing, we would over and over again feel that ideologically we were unable to keep up with the developing circumstances (sixiang genbushang xingshi). just as we were about to finish the first draft, we realized that we already had fallen far behind the developing circumstances. After we had written our third draft, the Center convened the Third Plenum and set forth a number of new spirits (tichule xuduo xinde jingshen ). Hereupon it immedi­ ately organized a string of conferences to discuss theoretical issues. Under these circumstances, considering that six months already had passed, it was decided that the comrades who were not from the Center first return to their respective units, while two comrades from the Propaganda Department continue work on the original draft, revising it according to the Center's spirit.1* It was to be early 1980 before Basic Party Knowledge was finally pub­ lished, in an edition marked "for trial use." The final revisions of Basic Party Knowledge were carried out at the end of 1979, under the personal supervision of Hu Yaobang (who by now had succeeded Zhang Pinghua as director of the Cen­ tral Propaganda Department) and Hu Qiaomu. For some twenty days, the members of the initial writing team were once more assem­ bled in what appears to have been a desperate effort to produce a publishable manuscript. During discussions organized by the Central Propaganda and Organization departments, "the spirit at the top was transmitted down" to the writers. This, as Zhou Shangwen was later 17 Zhou Shangwen, 1 -2 . •« Ibid., 2.

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to remark, "w as of great help to u s." Hu Yaobang and Hu Qiaomu on separate occasions gave talks to the team and did their best to clarify particular issues. As Zhou described it, "Having the comrades at the Center directly provide us with pointers and directions made us pluck up our courage."19 Just as the members of Hu Yaobang's permanent team were presumed able to support arguments that Hu wanted to make with selected quotes from the Marxist classics, so Zhou Shangwen and his colleagues were expected to be able to address every point that needed to be dealt with in Basic Party Knowledge with the help of for­ mulations chosen from the Party's official reservoir of appropriate ones. As stated in a CCP primer for political secretaries, they were also expected to be able to avoid producing texts that contained "erroneous viewpoints and formulations and irrelevant passages and passages that contradicted] the spirit of relevant long-term and short-term policies and directives."20 Zhou Shangwen has described how, in the process of finalizing Basic Party Knowledge at the end of 1979, he and his colleagues coped with one particular formulation problem. In this case, it con­ cerned the Party's basic program. When work on Basic Party Knowledge began, the formulation contained in the Party Constitution adopted by the Eleventh National Party Congress in August 1977 was still the one to be used when referring to the Party's basic pro­ gram. But by the end of 1979, a year after the Third Plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee, that formulation had begun to "con­ tradict the spirit of relevant long-term and short-term policies and directives." But a new appropriate formulation had not yet been worked out, and a new Party Constitution had not yet been adopted. Hence, Zhou and his colleagues were faced with a delicate problem. The description of how it was resolved is worth quoting in extenso: Now, if the main task during the stage of socialism is to develop the forces of production, then how, in the end, should we formulate (ti) the basic program of the Party (dang de jiben gangling )? In the Party Constitution of the Eleventh National Congress there is one formula­ tion expressing the basic program which we got out and had a look » Ibid. 20 Mishu Xiezuo [Secretarial writing] (Shanghai: Tongji Daxue Chubanshe, 1986), 5 0 -1 .

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at, but found we could not really use. Because, the basic program of the Eleventh National Congress was on the whole inherited horn the Ninth and Tenth National congresses. It's still about continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat, and to put it plainly, it's about "taking class struggle as the key link"—a sentence we obviously would be unable to use. Given that the new Party Constitution has not come out yet, what could we do? In the end, we decided to get around it all by stretching the rules a bit. On page 36 of our book, Comrades, you will notice that we only spoke in very general terms, beginning on line 5 on page 36: "During this period, the basic contents of the Party's program (dang do gangling de jiben neirong) should be to adhere to the dictatorship of the proletariat, build socialism, develop the forces of production on a grand scale, and prepare the conditions for the future realization of communist society." In this context, there was a minor episode, because when we were originally working on it, the last part of this sentence did not yet read like this. The last part of the sentence originally went "prepare the conditions for a transition, step by step, to communism." Later some Comrades suggested—and we gave this a lot of thought—that such a formulation was no good either. A "transition, step by step, to communism"—why, if it is to be "step by step," then we should really begin now. The problem is that we cannot begin at all at this point, since it is far too early. At this point we should still conscientiously carry out socialist construction. The transition to communism is a thing of the future, and when in the future the conditions have ripened, we'll talk about it again. If you put it as a stipulation into the Party program at too early a point, it easily creates misunderstandings. And so therefore we later changed it. There were certain formulations that we handled in this way. We used techniques like this to make up for some of the defects in the Party Constitution of the Eleventh National Congress. Of course, since the Party Constitution of the Twelfth National Congress is out, you should go by the Party Constitution of the Twelfth National Congress.21 When the CCP finally adopted a new Constitution at its Twelfth National Congress in September 1982, the formulation of "th e basic program of the Party" had indeed been altered. (Compare the relevant extract from "Som e New Formulations in the Documents of the Party's Twelfth National Congress" quoted in chapter 1.) 21 Zhou Shangwen, 1 5 -1 6 .

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In 1982, Hu Yaobang was made general secretary of the CCP, and Wang Zhen took over Hu's role as Politburo member in charge of de facto running the Central Party School. Hu at this point parted company with the members of his ghostwriting team, who remained at the school. Upon arriving there, Wang Zhen— who was among the CCP leaders who had disapproved of Hu's choice of intellectual company in 1980— set about to purge the school of persons whose personal and political allegiance to him was in doubt. The leading members of the Theory Research Office were the first to go. Jia was forced into early retirement. Yi had to leave the school for reasons that illustrate in a rather unusual way the sensitivity of some CCP leaders to formulations. In a short critical essay (written at the suggestion of one of Chen Yun's secretaries, published in the Central Party School journal Theory Trends on 10 June 1982, and meant to indirectly implicate Hua Guofeng), he had made use of a formulation concerning "modesty and prudence" and argued that some people who appeared on the surface to be "m odest" and "pru­ dent" actually were political opportunists.22 They were silent on sen­ sitive matters not because they were afraid of imposing their will upon others or because they felt they did not have a firm grasp of the issue, but because they wanted to see which way the political wind was blowing before committing themselves. As it happened, Yi's exact formulation had been used by Mao Zedong to implicate Chen Yun some three decades earlier. When Chen's secretary read the article, he spotted the formulation and pointed it out to Chen, who interpreted its use as a veiled attack upon his person. On the eve of the confirmation of Hu Yaobang's appointment to the post of general secretary of the CCP, Chen Yun in front of Deng Xiaoping pointed at Hu and said: "I support you, so don't you have this group of people at the Party School oppose m e!" Hu (who personally checked the contents of each issue of Theory Trends before publica­ tion and therefore must have been at least vaguely familiar with Yi's essay) insisted that his ghost-writer had not meant to attack Chen. Yi claimed he had not even been aware of Mao's use of the fateful formulation some three decades earlier. But Wang Zhen still suc­ ceeded in using the reference to "modesty and prudence" as an 22 "Qianxu Jinshen Yu Shigan Jingshen" [Modesty, prudence, and the spirit of get­ ting on with the job], Lilun Dongtai 282.

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excuse for having Yi dismissed from the Central Party School. Bing was not only dismissed from the Central Party School, but also lost his Party membership for having written what in the eyes of Wang Zhen amounted to an "anti-Party article." The article in ques­ tion, which concerned the democratic reform of China's political sys­ tem, had upon publication in the Guangming Daily received a positive mention in the Central Daily News— the organ of the Nationalist Party on Taiwan! The further circumstances surrounding Bing's dismissal are not known, but it appears as if a copyeditor with Theory Trends was instrumental in providing Wang Zhen with some very damaging information. Bing later referred to the copyeditor as "a puny buffoon and opportunist who never wrote anything in his whole life, and did nothing but foment discord; a turncoat who threw his lot with Wang Zhen right away, persecuting people."23 Hu Yaobang was either unable or unwilling to rescue the members of his team still at the Central Party School. In private, he still kept in touch with them, but in his capacity as general secretary of the Party he no longer availed himself of their services. Yi and Bing in particular continued to support Hu as a political figure, and after Hu's death in the spring of 1989 they were among the more outspoken defenders of his political legacy. Not all Chinese politicians are so fortunate as to have their one­ time pen wielders speak favorably of them once they are dead or out of power. One of Hu Yaobang's ghost-writers— who before coming to the Central Party School had been a member of the Great Criti­ cism Group of the Chinese Ministry of Education— has spoken with barely disguised contempt about his one-time boss, Iiu Xiyao. Liu was China's minister of education in the first half of the 1970s. Before that, he was Zhou Enlai's liaison officer in the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Unlike Hu Yaobang, Iiu never briefed his ghost-writers properly on what he wished to express in a speech or in an article. In most cases, he would simply say that he needed something, for example, "in memory of Lu Xun," in another couple of days and that they ought to begin drafting something for him. Then, as a matter of principle, he would reject their first, second, and third drafts, often without even having read them. At best he would make general comments unrelated to the contents or argument, such 23 In a letter to the author, 11 January 1989.

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as "pull this together a little m ore" or "try to raise this even higher." As long as there was time left, he would insist upon revisions, but in the end he would always accept the final draft. As a consequence, his ghost-writers eventually learned to begin work at the last possible moment. To his colleagues, Un would boast that his speeches and articles often went through some twenty to thirty drafts. Such exten­ sive revision, however, was not really the case. Often the ghost­ writers, knowing that Liu was unlikely to notice anyway, would only pretend to have "m ade further revisions and improvements" to a text. The enigmatic Un Biao appears to have had a singularly irregular relationship with his ghost-writers and staff. It is extensively docu­ mented in Zhang Yunsheng's memoirs Factual Record o f M aojiawan, which despite containing numerous minor factual errors amount to an invaluable historical record. Zhang joined Un Biao's staff in August 1966, after a brief stint in the People's Daily Theory Depart­ ment as member of a Central Committee work team dispatched to purge the paper of "revisionist tendencies." Before that, he had been a secretary within the Political Department of the Jilin Provincial Mil­ itary Region for a number of years. He notes in passing at the begin­ ning of his memoirs that while Un Biao was interested in surround­ ing himself with qualified people, he did not appreciate "overqualified" pen wielders. Un furthermore only picked people from his own former forces to join his personal staff, and anyone already acquainted with or personally "connected to " other senior leaders would automatically be disqualified. After working for Lin for four years, Zhang Yunsheng was transferred back to northeast China in November 1970.24 Whereas Hu Yaobang succeeded in making optimum use of the talents of his ghost-writers, the opposite appears to have been true at Maojiawan. Zhang Yunsheng and his colleagues often found their efforts to please the man they called "the chief" wasted. The process of preparing speaking notes for Lin Biao was known at Maojiawan as "stacking slips"— writing down one or two key sentences on little slips of paper and then stacking them in an appropriate sequence. In October 1966, the newly arrived Zhang Yunsheng and his colleague Zhao Gensheng were informed by Ye Qun— Lin's wife as well as the 24 Zhang Yunsheng, 425.

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director of his office— that a CCP Central Work Conference was about to be convened and that Lin Biao was to make a speech. They were asked to begin preparing speaking notes for Lin.25 Zhao, who had been at Maojiawan for a number of years, told Zhang that Lin Biao also would be preparing his own speaking notes and that at the crucial moment of delivery, he would almost certainly prefer his own to those of his pen wielders. Bewildered, Zhang asked about the purpose of the exercise they were meant to engage in: “Won't it simply be a waste of time for us to help him stack slips?" “Oh, it will definitely be a waste of time!“ [Zhao replied]. “So why do we have to do this kind of meaningless work then?" “It's all the director's idea. She says it does not matter if he uses them or not, they still have to be prepared for him. Even though they may not be used, they might give the chief some inspiration, and that's good.“2* After having spent some time preparing slips of paper with key sen­ tences on them, without ever having been given a proper briefing on precisely what “the chief" intended to talk about, Zhang and Zhao were summoned by Lin. Zhang has described what happened next, after he had read a few of the slips out aloud to Lin: I had read no more than a few slips when Lin Biao told me to stop. Obviously, he was very dissatisfied with our “slips." “It's all a lot of rubbish!" he insisted. "This is all officialese. My slips don't read like this. Ninety-nine percent of what you've written can be cut out. The remaining one percent will be enough. I don't want those sheets of phrases, and I don't want you to copy the officialese that's in the papers. Give me just one or two useful sentences, and that will do.“27 Eventually, Zhang prepared a new stack of slips for Lin to use, again without much to go on as to what they were meant to be about. In the morning of the day on which Lin was to make his speech, a ser­ vant observed him putting together his final speaking notes: Lin Biao was very busy that morning. Staring at a pile of papers, he would think long and hard: then he would scribble a few large characters—the meaning of which would be clear to no one but » Ibid., 4 4 -4 5 . “ Ibid., 45. 27 Ibid., 46.

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himself—on a sheet of paper that he would throw onto the carpet. Then he would think again, and after some time write a few more characters on a blank sheet of paper that he would also put on the floor.... Eventually, the floor was covered by the papers Lin Biao had thrown about. He ordered the servant to pick them all up, and then he arranged them in a particular order himself. These were to be the "slips" on which he was to base his speech.28 Later, when Lin's pen wielders had an opportunity to read the official transcript of Lin's speech, they discovered that aside from one sentence— "This conference is a continuation of the Eleventh Plenum of the Party's Eighth Central Committee"— Lin had not used a single one of their "slip s."29 Two years later, at the Twelfth Plenum of the Eighth CCP Cen­ tral Committee, Lin was once more destined to make a speech. And again, the bizarre procedure with the obligatory "slip s" was repeated. Zhang Yunsheng expresses his frustration in his memoirs: This kind of thing, we had already been through a number of times. Every time before he was to give a long speech, Lin Biao would ask us to help him "stack slips," without telling us in concrete terms what kind of "slips" needed to be "stacked." It was up to us to decide what to "stack." He would then look at (or listen to) the result, and if he felt a sentence was all right, he would pick it out. The rest were thrown away__ In the end, we did not feel under much pressure as far as the task of "stacking slips" was concerned, since as long as we had actually "stacked" some, we would have done our job. We took our job as something that simply had to be gotten over and done with.30 At the Twelfth Central Committee Plenum, however, Lin— to Zhang Yunsheng's great surprise— actually chose to use a fair number of the slips prepared for him, giving Zhang a rare opportunity to take pride in his work. But it also made him anxious since, as he comments in his memoirs, "w hen Lin Biao did not use our 'slips,' it actually represented less of a danger to us than when he did."31 Zhang's words seem to imply that the ghost-writers would not be blamed for “ Ibid. 29 Ibid., 47. The official transcript of Lin's speech is in Tianjin Shi Geming Weiyuanhui, 3 8 6 -4 1 7 . The sentence written by Zhang and Zhao is on page 386. 30 Zhang Yunsheng, 194. 31 Ibid.

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a “problematic" speech if their input had been nil. If, in contrast, they had made substantial contributions to it, they risked being made scapegoats for whatever political trouble it caused "the chief." Ulti­ mately, one is left to wonder if Un Biao might not have blamed them under any circumstances, but Zhang's words do not bear this out. Hu Yaobang worked directly with his pen wielders. In Lin's case, in contrast, the pen wielders often found themselves working not with Lin, but with his wife, Ye Qun. The practice of employing one's wife as the director of one's personal office and staff appears to have been common within the PLA and CCP at the time. In the m id-1960s Kang Sheng's wife, Cao Yiou, was the director of Kang's office.32 During the Cultural Revolution, Zhao Zhizhen, wife of Yang Chengwu, the acting chief of the PLA General Staff, and Hu Min, wife of Qiu Huizuo, the chief of the PLA General Logistics Depart­ ment, were both directors of their husbands' offices.33 Mao Zedong is known to have been critical of what was known as "running a fam­ ily shop" (kai fuqi dian ), and he once remarked during a meeting with provincial officials that "you should not let your old lady (laopo ) be your secretary or office director. Lin Biao lets Ye Qun be the director of his office, and I think it's the same with Huang Yongsheng, but you should do the work yourself."34 On one occa­ sion Mao told a regional Party secretary, "Your w ife. . . should go down to the countryside and do manual labor, rather than be your secretary"!35* In January 1967, it was Ye Qun and not Lin Biao who approached Zhang Yunsheng with a question concerning a formulation in a docu­ ment drafted by Zhang's colleague Guo Liankai for the Military Affairs Commission of which Un was the vice-chairman: Ye Qun did not look at [our draft] very carefully. She just asked: "Is line mentioned in this?" » Ibid., 191. « Ibid., 6 8 ,1 4 1 . 34 "M ao Zhwd Qiyi Nian Bayue Zhi Jiuyue Shicha Nanfang Shi de Jid Jianghua Zhailu" [Extracts from speeches by chairman Mao during an inspection of the south in August and September 1971]. Handwritten copy of CCP transcript in the Library of the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, Harvard University. 35 Mao Zedong, "Guanyu Chexiao Gongzuozu de Jianghua" [Talk on pulling back the work teams] (July 1966), in Ziliao Xuanbian [Selected materials] (Beijing, 1967), 323.

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''The word line is not in it." "Line has to be mentioned, otherwise people will easily pick on us. Right now, up there, they stress line a lot; if we do not mention line, we are likely to commit a line error. The chief keeps closely in step with the Chairman's line, so line has to be mentioned in the docu­ ments he handles personally."36 Failing to see Ye Qun's point, Zhang attempted to justify the absence of the word line in the document drafted the evening before by stressing that it was a very short document, and that whether or not the word line was in it or not was of no real importance. Ye Qun replied: "You people don't understand: correct or erroneous is very often a matter of one single character. You have to be particularly strict with things that are put in writing, and not let other people catch you missing things out." In a voice that left no room for argument, Ye Qun insisted: "The formulation line has to be added to it, otherwise it cannot be circulated."37 Ye Qun eventually took the matter in her own hands and telephoned Chen Boda to ask for his advice on where the formulation line should be added to the document. (Chen, a survivor of an earlier generation of CCP pen wielders, had by the late 1960s become a consultant to Lin's office in matters related to particularly sensitive language matters.) Zhang Yunsheng's memoirs contain what is said to be a verbatim record of the ensuing telephone conversation between Ye and Chen. Unfortunately, the record appears somewhat spurious. Zhang claims that Chen Boda suggested to Ye Qun that line should be added as part of a longer formulation reading "in order to implement and carry out Chairman Mao's Proletarian Revo­ lutionary lin e ." He also claims that he himself eventually added such a formulation to the document.38 Unfortunately, the actual text of the "O rder of the CCP Central Military Commission (Eight Points)" does not bear this out, since line actually occurs in it as part of a formulation reading "in order to keep abreast of the new situa­ tion developing in the struggle between the two classes and the two lines."39 But no matter the precise details, the document Lin Biao, 34 ” » 39

Zhang Yunsheng, 80. Ibid. Ibid., 83. Mao Zedong Sbdang Xuanchuanyuan, 1, 5 6 -5 8 .

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according to Ye Qun, had handled personally did end up having the formulation line added to it, even though Lin's ghost-writers couldn't comprehend the need for its addition. There is something ever so ambiguous about the role played by ghost-writers in Chinese politics. At times, those who express "th e will of the authorities" are clearly the coagents of the leaders they serve. At other times, they are undoubtedly mere agencies. In times of crisis, a ghost-writer may or may not be held responsible for his or her actions as the generator of critical texts and formulations. But precisely what will happen in a given instance can never be predicted. It has been the case in the past that a person who came up with a particular formulation has been called a criminal, while the person for whom he did so has been absolved of blame. Take, for instance, the person to whom the CCP today traces the formulation of "the extremely absurd slogan 'Continue to Make Revolution under the Dictatorship of the Proletariat'." (In 1967, Mao had approved of it as a suitable way of designating his own variant of MarxismLeninism. Since the end of the 1970s, it has been used in quotation marks to refer to "th e erroneous thinking of Comrade Mao Zedong in his latter years."40) In February 1980 Hu Qiaomu claimed in front of a gathering of journalists in Beijing that "to put forward a slogan like this one is in itself a crim e" (emphasis added).41 Then there have been times when ghost-writers have been absolved of most of the responsibility for what they have written on behalf of others. In such cases the generation of even an "extremely absurd" slogan has not been regarded as a crime "in itself." As one of the judges on the special court that tried and sentenced the Gang of Four remarked after the court proceedings were over: "Yao Wenyuan actually also deserved a stiff sentence, [but]. . . since many of his propaganda activities were ones his superiors had decreed and ordered him to 40 Wang Nianyi, "Guanyu 'W uchanjieji Zhuanzheng Xia Jixu Geming de Lilun' de Jige W enti" [Some questions related to the ''theory of continuing to make revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat"], Dangshi Yanjiu 1 (1984): 4 7 -5 4 . 41 "Hu Qiaomu Tongzhi Zai Beijing Xinwen Xuehui Chengli Dahui Shang de Jianghua" [Comrade Hu Qiaomu's speech at the founding of the Beijing journalism study society], in Zhongguo Shehui Kexueyuan Xinwen Yanjiusuo, ed., Kaichuang Xinwen Gongzuo Xin Jumian [Make a new breakthrough in journalistic work] (Beijing: Zhongguo Xinwen Chubanshe, 1985), 49. Hu is pointing the finger at Kang Sheng, against whom he nursed a personal grudge.

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carry out," such a sentence would "not be all that fair." "S o in the end," the judge noted, "w e sentenced him to twenty years in prison."4 42 1 At the beginning of the Cultural Revolution the director of the CCP Central Propaganda Department, Tao Zhu, noted in a com­ ment on his predecessor on the job that "Lu Dingyi is an anti-Party antisocialist black gang element, but his secretaries and staff merely report to him and work together with him. Would it be right to refer to them as members of a black gang? It would n ot."43 In its procedural aspects the work performed by the ghost-writer as a coagent or agency of the CCP leadership is reminiscent of the "Mandst-Leninist epistemological or methodological" process for which the CCP in 1943 coined the formulation "m ass line."44 This time, however, the players taking part in the process are no longer, as they were originally, "th e Party" and "th e m asses." Originally, the CCP— by virtue of its membership's political sophistication, grasp of Marxism-Leninism, and the like— was said to be able to transform the not always very clear or concrete ideas of "the masses" into "m ore correct, more lively, and more accom­ plished" ones. Having done so, the Party eventually returned these new and improved ideas whence they had originally come and "watch[ed] the masses embrace them as their ow n." By way of analogy, the mass line is a fitting ironic description of what takes place between CCP leaders and ghost-writers. In their professional capacities the ghost-writers are exposed to the ideas, notions, beliefs, and hopes of the CCP leadership. Some leaders are themselves able to successfully verbalize these ideas, but a large number are not. In 1984 Hu Qiaomu noted that Mao Zedong's well-known remark "W e must propagate the m asses" (xuanchuan qunzhong), "actually makes no sense (bu tong). You cannot put it like that in Chinese." Mao's oft-dted exhortation "B e loyal the [sic] 41 Wu Xiuquan, Wangshi Cangsang [Past events and vicissitudes] (Shanghai: Shanghai Wenyi Chubanshe, 1986), 324. 43 “Tao Zhu Tongzhi Dui Beijing Dang de Ganbu de Jianghua" [Comrade Tao Zhu's speech to Beijing party cadres], in Mao Zedong Sixiang Xuanchuanyuan, ed., W uchonjieji Wenhua Dageming Cankao Ziliao Xuanbian [Selected reference materials on the great proletarian cultural revolution], 5 vols. (Beijing: Beijing Huagong Xueyuan, 1966), 5:21. 44 “Zhonggong Zhongyang Guanyu Lingdao Fangfa de Jueding" [Resolution of the CCP Center concerning methods of leadership], in Takeuchi Minoru, ed., Mao Zedong Ji [Mao Zedong collection], 10 vols. (Tokyo: Hokobosha, 1971), 9 :2 7 -2 8 .

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Party's educational undertaking!" (zhongcheng dang de jiaoyu shiye) made no sense either, Hu maintained, not only because it was gram­ matically wrong, but also because the educational undertaking ought to be the people's, rather than the Party's.45 Some leaders have a superabundance of constantly changing ideas and opinions. Some take great pride in having only a single conviction that guides them in everything they say and do. Marshall Peng Dehuai once insisted, "M e, I don't understand all this Mandst-Leninist stuff. I only know that people have to eat, and I made revolution so that everyone would have something to eat."46 The ideas, opinions, and convictions of various leaders do not always coincide. The ghost-writers take note of what the leaders around them appear to think and want. They deliberate upon the implications of each idea put forward and each desire expressed. Eventually, they create a semblance of order in what may at first have been chaos. Notions are stripped of their vagueness. Hunches are dressed up in words— appropriate, carefully chosen "scientific" ones. At some point, the ghost-writers represent the now organized and systema­ tized ideas o f the leaders to the leaders. The leaders, in turn, make the texts in which this representation has been made for them their own. In their new and concentrated forms, the ideas, notions, beliefs, and hopes of the Party leadership become the paradigms of legitimate discourse— the Party's official reservoir of appropriate for­ mulations. Eventually, the entire process is repeated. The men and women who "wield the pens" are thus indispensable to the CCP leadership, whose role in the process just described is analogous to that of "the masses" in the original. "W e are still going to use Hu Qiaomu," Deng Xiaoping told Wang Zhen in early 1977, when the question had arisen whether Hu's services as a Politburo ghost-writer were to be retained or not, given that he had bad-mouthed Deng in a letter to Mao the year before. "H e is our Party's foremost pen wielder."47 Deng was painfully aware that without the cooperation 45 "Baokan Shang Yao Xiaochu Bu Zhengque de Yongyu" (Incorrect expressions must be eliminated from newspapers and journals], Bianchuang Zhi You 3 (1984): 7. 46 Peng Dehuai, in a conversation with Hunan villagers on 17 November 1961, quoted in Zhongguo Renmin Jiefangjun Gaodeng Junshi Xueyuan, ed., Da Junfa, Da Yexinjia, Da Yinmoujia Peng Dehuai Fangeming Zuixing Huibian [Collected counterrevo­ lutionary crimes of the big warlord, big careerist, and big conspirator Peng Dehuai] (Beijing, 1967), 47. 47 "Deng Xiaoping Jiejian Deng Liqun Shi de Jianghua" (Deng Xiaoping's talk

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and help of someone like Hu, he himself and Wang Zhen would per­ sonally have to take on tasks they were not equipped to deal with. But with the continued help of their ghost-writers, they could con­ tinue to be sure that their own "intentions" and "collective w ill" would never figure in the discourse as anything but "th e desire of the people," and their own vision of the future as nothing but "an inevitable historical trend."

while receiving Deng liqun) (27 May 1977). Handwritten copy of CCP transcript in the Library of the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, Harvard University.

CHAPTER FOUR

Direction of the Press: Hu Qiaomu's 1955 Breakfast Chats

In Mao's final years, the constraints imposed upon political discourse made it difficult to deal with the 1950s in positive terms. The first seventeen years of the PRC, after all, had been years during which a "black line" had been in control. Only in the second half of the 1960s had an "all-round dictatorship over the bourgeoisie" really been established. The 1950s were at best a "lesson by negative example." Or so the leaders that had benefited from the Cultural Revolution insisted. Less than two years after Mao's death, the 1950s had been officially "rehabilitated." Under Deng Xiaoping, the CCP had exe­ cuted what in the jargon of the times amounted to "a negation of the negation." The bad old days had become the good old days. Sud­ denly there was everything to be learned from the supposedly golden age when the CCP had still "sought truth from facts," its leadership had been "modest and prudent," and Mao Zedong's thoughts had not yet begun to deviate from Mao Zedong Thought. As part of this broad reaffirmation of the continuing validity of the CCP's political and practical experience in the 1950s, the Journal­ ism Research Institute in Beijing published On Newspaper Work.1 An innocuous looking yellow booklet, it is typeset in the streamline grotesque of the Hua Guofeng era— the "super-simplified" Chinese characters of the Second Character Simplification Program (Draft) promulgated in December 1977 and subsequently withdrawn.2 In a short preface its editors explain that it contains the "precious opin­ ions" of "responsible comrades" on how to manage a newspaper. 1 Tantan Baozhi Gongzuo [On newspaper work] (Beijing: Xinwen Yanjiusuo, 1978). 2 "D i Er Ci Hanzi Jianhua Fang'an (Caoan)," Guangming Ribao, 20 December 1977.

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The opinions, dating from the 1950s, are said to be of "enduring immediate relevance to us as guidelines in our work." Since, as its editors emphasize, the transcripts on which it is based "m ay contain inaccuracies," On N ewspaper Work is a restricted circu­ lation publication. To the student of media control in the PRC, it is a gold mine. Its first half consists of general comments on such things as the overall policy of newspaper propaganda, the writing of editori­ als, debates in newspapers, readers' letters, classified news bulletins for high-level cadres, and "How to be a good newsman." Its second half consists of specific comments on the contents of the People’s Daily by no less a "responsible comrade" than Hu Qiaomu. Hu Qiaomu mediated between the People's Daily and the Central Secretariat of the CCP between 1950 and 1961, when he suffered a nervous breakdown and had to withdraw temporarily from the polit­ ical stage. In the words of a history of the newspaper, he was in January 1950 "entrusted by the Central Secretariat to lead the work of the People’s D aily."3 In a capacity that gave him considerable power without conferring upon him any particular title in addition to the many he already had, he was the link— as well as the buffer— between the editorial board of the People's Daily and senior CCP leaders like Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, and Zhou Enlai.4 It was through him that the "spirit at the top" during these years was transmitted down to the paper's chief editors. And it was through him that information about what was happening at the People’s Daily was in turn passed on to the CCP Center. The editors of On Newspaper Work do not provide any detailed information about the precise circumstances under which the com­ ments it contains were made. Hu Qiaomu's words are effectively decontextualized, presumably to underscore that their validity tran­ scends temporal and spatial constraints. The reader is left in the dark 3 Yan Ling, "'D a Zhuanbian' de Liangnian" [The two years of the "great turn*], in Renmin Ribao Baoshi, 86. Wang Ruoshui has described Hu Qiaomu's role as "control­ ling (guan ) the People's Daily on behalf of the Center— or Chairman Mao. A practical distinction between the two was hard to m ake." Wang Ruoshui, interview in Cam­ bridge, Mass., April 1989. 4 For a particularly illuminating account of the role played by Hu Qiaomu in medi­ ating between Mao Zedong and the members of the People's Daily editorial board, see Wang Ruoshui, "Ji 1957 Nian Mao Zedong de Jiejian" [Remembering Mao Zedong's reception in 1957], in Zhihui de Tongku [Pain of knowledge] (Hong Kong: Sanlian Shudian, 1989), 322.

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about where and when a remark like the following was made: “Newspapers are powerful weapons to be employed by the Party to mobilize the people to struggle against its enemies and carry out the Party's general lin e/'5 Fortunately, thanks to members of the People's Daily staff, it is possible to recontextualize Hu Qiaomu's words. Roughly one hun­ dred (or two-thirds) of his comments concern items published in the People's Daily in the spring of 1955. That was a time when— according to Wang Ruoshui, who worked as an editor on the paper's theory department in the 1950s— every morning, for a week at a time, Hu would have a junior editor whom he wanted to get to know bring a copy of the day's paper to his home for breakfast. With the young editor present, Hu would go over the paper from cover to cover. The editor would jot down his comments, which subsequently would be typed up and circulated among the newspaper staff. Half of On Newspaper Work thus represents a selection of pertinent post­ publication remarks made by Hu over breakfast to various editors of the People's Daily.6 The remarks are spread out over fifteen chapters with titles like ''W riting Commentaries," ''The Formulation and Expression of Issues," “No More Mumbo Jum bo," “Avoiding Bias in Propaganda," and “Proper Political Limits and Timeliness." Comments dating from March 1955 are particularly numerous. In fact, they are sufficient in number to permit a partial reconstruction of what the daily interaction between Hu— the Party Center's “responsible com rade"— and the People's Daily editors) may have been like. The following chronological narrative, incorporating only a part of the available material, is an attempt at such a reconstruc­ tion. It is meant to throw light on one of the least known aspects of the CCP's direction of the press. During March 1955 an international movement to “Ban the Bomb" dominated the news in China. It was given first-page treat­ ment in the People’s Daily almost every day, although near the end of the month its significance was permitted to fade somewhat as the CCP launched a movement to combat wastefulness and extrava­ gance. Between 21 and 31 March, the CCP convened a National* * Tantan, 1. ‘ Wang Ruoshui, interview in Cambridge, Mass., April 1989.

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Party Conference in Beijing. The conference formally approved of China's first Five-Year Plan, established a Central Control Commis­ sion, and passed a resolution denouncing the so-called Gao G ang-Rao Shushi Anti-Party Alliance. The conference was not given any coverage in the media at the time, and it was not until after a subsequent plenum of the CCP Central Committee that even the fact that it had been convened was made public.7 Hu Qiaomu almost certainly attended it; he may even have participated in draft­ ing some of the documents it produced. According to a classified contemporary CCP Central Propaganda Department document entitled “The Press Must Earnestly Study and Implement the Decisions Taken at the Party's National Conference," the political situation in the spring of 1955 marked the beginning of "a new phase, during which the domestic and international class struggle is becoming more complex and acute with each passing day.“8 During this new phase, “the Party's and the People's press must remain firmly in the Party's grasp, and must work according to the demands set forth by the Party and the principles of MarxismLeninism.“9 Whether this emphasis on Party control was just another routine reiteration of policy or not is hard to determine. It is just barely possible that Hu Qiaomu's intensive contacts with the editorial board of the People's Daily in the spring of 1955 may have been motivated by more than just a personal concern with the quality of the paper, may have been part of a deliberate attempt by the CCP Center to make China's media more aware of the nature and sub­ stance of its “demands" and “the principles of Marxism-Leninsm.“10 7 "Zhongguo Gongchandang Zhongyang Weiyuanhui Guanyu Dang de Quanguo Daibiao Dahui de Gongbao" [Communiqué of the CCP central committee about the national party conference], RMRB, 5 April 1955. 8 "Baokan Gongzuozhe Bixu Renzhen Xuexi He Guanche Zhbdng Dang de Quanguo Daibiao Huiyi de Jueyi" [The press must earnestly study and implement the decisions taken at the party's national conference], in Zhongguo Shehui Kexueyuan, 3:119. The date of this item is given here as 1956, but a number of passages in the actual text suggest beyond any doubt that this must be a misprint. • Ibid., 122. 10 Wang Ruoshui associates Hu Qiaomu's breakfast meetings with a period in the history of the People's Daily when "Hu wanted to strengthen the leadership over the paper." Editors and journalists were "supposed to learn from Pravda, in which there were said to be no m istakes." Hu Qiaomu, "cam e to the People's Daily and gave a talk entitled 'Fight to Produce a Flawless Paper.' It was all unrealistic, and we dreaded it. You were punished if you made mistakes!" Wang Ruoshui, interview in Cambridge,

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On 3 March, the People's Daily published a news item about the An'gang Steel Works. Its final sentence noted that the forthcoming installation of new Soviet-designed equipment would "permit the broad masses of workers to part company with a very harsh working environment."11 Hu commented as follows on this sentence: This kind of propaganda is no good. Many cadres and workers do not like old equipment to begin with, and want to trade it for new equipment. If we make this kind of propaganda, we will only encourage such sentiment. In the future, propaganda in the newspa­ pers should avoid this kind of powerful language, and find alterna­ tives to it. All in all, one should not curse old equipment when praising new equipment.12 On the same day, the paper also published NCNA telegrams from six of China's larger cities about the New People's Currency, recently introduced. The telegrams were published on page one under the joint headline "The People of Tianjin and Other Places Elatedly Exchange New Currency."13 Hu commented as follows on this head­ line: It is better if "the People of Tianjin and other places" (Tianjin deng di renmin) in the headline is changed into "People everywhere" (gedi renmin), because even though the article deals only with some places, it does represent people everywhere. By highlighting Tianjin in the headline like this, one gets the impression that only the people of Tianjin were elated, or that the people of Tianjin were especially elated, and that is not too good.14 On 4 March, Hu sharply criticized an extended account of corrupt and fraudulent practices among the leadership of the Taiyuan Steel Mass., April 1989. 11 "An'gang Jinnian Sishi Duo Xiang Zhongda Gongcheng Yi Donggong" [Forty major projects have already been launched this year at the An'gang steel works], RMRB, 3 March 1955. 12 Tantan, 167. is 'T ian jin Deng Di Renmin Huanxin Guwu Duihuan Xinbi," RMRB, 3 March 1955. 14 Tantan, p. 198. Hu Qiaomu's remark on this occasion should be compared to a set of instructions issued by the NCNA Domestic News Department in 1961, in which it is stressed that "unless you have absolute proof, you must not make hasty judg­ ments. Do not misuse all-encompassing affirmatives like 'every/ 'everywhere/ 'a ll/ etc." See "Jizhe Zai Cabde Gongzuo Zhong Jiaqiang Diaocha Yanjiu Gongzuo de Jidian Yijian" [Some views on how journalists engaged in news coverage may strengthen their work of investigating and researching], in Xinhua She, 4:580.

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Works.15 (The account, in Hu's words, was "objectivistic" and "lack­ ing in Party spirit."16) He also found time to make a remark in pass­ ing on an article about the movement to Ban the Bomb. The short article, describing how more than 242,000 people in the dty of Hangzhou had signed an antinuclear petition, contained the sentence "The two boys shook hands and said: 'Then we w ill...'." 17 Hu's comment on it was brief and to the point: "This is unrealistic. When did one sentence last come from the mouths of two people?"18 A few days later, on 7 March, Hu had serious misgivings about a long report from the Guangxi Propaganda Department about cadres studying political theory.19 He commented: This article is too depressing. You can judge from the number of question marks and exclamation marks if an article is lively or not. Lively means that the author has incorporated criticism, rhetorical questions, irony, and agitation in his article. This piece from Guangxi contains no question marks or exclamation marks, but only strings of " 1 :... 2 :... 3 :... 4 :..." et cetera. It is material taken straight out of the archives. Unless it is rewritten, it should not be permitted to appear in a newspaper.20 Two months later, Hu again told the People's Daily that he found articles replete with ones, twos, threes, and fours indicative of a lack of education on the part of the writer and virtually unreadable. By publishing them, the People's Daily made the Chinese people "lose face." Hu admitted that the overall cultural level of the Chinese peo­ ple was indeed low, but insisted that "certainly there [had] to be someone on the staff of the People's Daily who [could] improve on this kind of an article" before it was published.21 15 "Zhonggong Taiyuan Shiwei Chuli Yige Yanzhong Yazhi Piping de Shijian" [The Taiyuan municipal party committee handles a serious case of suppressing criti­ cism], RMRB, 4 March 1955. 16 Tantan, 206. 17 "Xihu de Heping Shenglang" [The sound and waves of peace on West lake], RMRB, 4 March 1955. 18 Tantan, 159. 19 "Guangxi Sheng Gaojizu Ganbu de Lilun Xuexi" [Theoretical study among ca­ dres in the Guangxi provincial advanced class], RMRB, 7 March 1955. 20 Tantan, 153. 21 "Jinshi Yi Er San Si, Haowu Xueshu Qiwei" [Just a lot of ones, twos, threes, and fours, and no academic flavor], in Tantan, 154.

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It is fascinating to compare Hu's remarks with ones made by Chen Yun two and a half decades later. On 29 December 1980, Chen's office phoned the People's Daily to “transmit Comrade Chen Yun's opinions." According to Chen, reading the People’s Daily would be a lot easier “for people who are busy" if a greater number of “ones, twos, threes, and fours" were used to highlight important passages.22 On 10 January 1981 Chen's office phoned the People's Daily a second time; according to a Central Propaganda Department transcript later circulated within the CCP, Chen Yun wanted the paper's editors to bear in mind that the leading cadres on various levels are all very busy, but they still have to read the papers. Nowadays the characters used in the papers are tiny and not easy to read, especially for the Comrades at the Center. Still, they have to read the papers. Those who run the papers should think about [the Comrades at the Center], and add a few more ones, twos, and threes, subheadings and abstracts. If they made things simple and dear, they would be able to attract even more readers.23 Hu's and Chen's differing views about what constitutes an appropri­ ate form for an artide in the People's Daily illustrates both per­ manence and change in the relationship between the Party Center and the People's Daily between 1955 and 1981. On both occasions, the practice of exercising Party supervision of the press involved let­ ting the editors of the People's Daily know the personal opinions of members of the Central Committee. But whereas these opinions in 1955 had been those of active politirians in their mid-forties, they had by 1981 become those of frail septuagenarians with failing eyesight. A blind labor hero by the name of Jin Minglie was written up as a model for emulation in the People's Daily on 9 March 1955. Jin was a keen student of advanced farming techniques and Party policy.24 Indeed, to judge from the write-up he received in the paper, Jin was virtually obsessed with studying. Hu commented bluntly that the artide, “Indomitable Fighting Spirit," was badly written and that its 22 Refer to Michael Schoenhals, ed. and trans.. Selections from Propaganda Trends Organ o f the CCP Central Propaganda Department, Chinese Law and Government series (Armonk, N.Y.: M .E. Sharpe, 1991), 48. 22 Ibid., 19. 24 Tang Li, "Wanqiang de Zhandou Jingshen," RMRB, 9 March 1955.

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author did not have the gift of the pen. "In the third paragraph, ten lines long, the word 'study' occurs no fewer than nine tim es!"25 On 11 March the People's Daily Chief Editorial Board (zongbianji huiyi) decided to change the paper's administrative structure. Up to this time the People's Daily staff had been organized in "groups" (zu). In March 1955 there were eighteen of these groups, for example, the culture and education group, local newspapers group, Party life group, theory group, and so on. These groups were now abolished, and in their place some ten "departm ents" (bu) were set up, for example, the theoretical propaganda and book review department, literature and art department, and the like. Recollections by former People's Daily staff members suggest that this structural change was more in name than in substance, although it did result in a number of personnel transfers, promotions, and demotions.26 On 12 March 1955, the thirtieth anniversary of the death of Sun Zhongshan (Sun Yat-sen), virtually the entire People's Daily was devoted to his memory. The paper published a spate of articles, including two with which Hu found fault. One was a long piece on page three by one Miao Chuhuang, entitled "Sun Zhongshan— Great Activist of China's Democratic Revolution."27*Hu commented as fol­ lows on its content and form: This article has missed out on an important fact, namely that after the October Revolution, Sun Zhongshan promptly sent a telegram to Lenin. At that time, ordinary people were frightened by the October Revolution. It was courageous of Sun Zhongshan to do So, and the article should mention it. At one point, the article refers to Sun Zhongshan as a "revolution­ ary" (gemingpai) and to the constitutional monarchists as "refor­ mists" (gailiangpai). To refer to Sim Zhongshan as a revolutionary in this sweeping way is not appropriate, because he also made compromises, and it was only in his opposition to the Manchus that he was revolutionary. One passage in the article says that because the Tongmenghui failed to develop and organize the power of the popular masses in a 25 Tantan, 191. 26 Sha Ying, "Deng Tuo Yu Renmin Ribao de Lilun Xuanchuan" [Deng Tuo and the People's daily's theoretical propaganda], in Renmin Ribao Baoshi, 288. 27 "Sun Zhongshan— Zhongguo Weida de Minzhuzhuyi Geming Huodongjia," RMRB, 12 March 1955.

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broad way, it did not dare to set forth a thoroughly anti-imperialist and antifeudal program. This amounts to mistaking the effect for the cause. It has to be that because it did not set forth a thoroughly anti-imperialist and antifeudal program it failed to mobilize and organize the popular masses. The article as a whole amounts to an objective account of Sun Zhongshan's entire life, but at the very end it suddenly turns into a broadcast directed at Taiwan, and the tone no longer blends in with the rest of the article. Normally, articles amounting to objective accounts, unless they are particularly agitated ones, should not sud­ denly start addressing other people directly.28 One may disagree with Hu on some points, but his final comment on the inadvisability of suddenly turning an "objective account" into a propaganda diatribe appears reasonable. The other article about Sun Zhongshan with which Hu found fault was also on page three, and it bore the title 'T h e Zhongshan Mausoleum Today." One sentence in it read as follows: "A fter Dr. Sun Zhongshan had passed away and Jiang Jieshi [Chiang Kai-shek] betrayed die revolution, the situation for the people guarding the mausoleum got worse and w orse."29 Hu commented: In this sentence, one gets the impression that already before he passed away, Sun Zhongshan had guards surrounding and protecting his own mausoleum. In reality the mausoleum was only just built after Jiang Jieshi turned traitor. Here the writer has outsmarted him­ self. The writer has been using inflated language, and the copyeditor has not been paying attention.30 Hu ended his comment by expressing regret that this crude a mistake should have been permitted to appear on the pages of the People's Daily. An article not about Sun Zhongshan against which Hu Qiaomu raised objections on 12 March was headlined "Uncover Dulles' WarClamoring."31 It provoked the following criticism: Since [Dulles] is "clamoring," he's already very noisy, which means he does not have to be "uncovered." You can only use "uncover" with things that are one thing in substance and another in “ » 30 31

Tm tan, 172-73. "Jinn de Zhongshan tin g ," RMRB, 12 March 1955. Tantan, 227. "Jiechuan Dulesi de Zhanzheng Jiaoqi," RMRB, 12 March 1955.

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appearance. For instance, you may uncover a "conspiracy," or uncover a "false front," etc.32 It appears as if the People's Daily had difficulty in using words like "uncover" (jiechuan ), "expose" (jiefa ), and "unm ask" (jielu ) in a way that satisfied Hu. Exactly one month after he had made this particu­ lar comment, on 12 April, the People's Daily used "unm ask" in a sub­ heading that read "Unmask Conspiracy by Rich Peasant Che Furen to Sabotage Agricultural Production Cooperative."33 Once more, Hu saw himself forced to point out that with Che Furen's crimes already being public knowledge, it made no sense for the paper to call for their "unm asking." The subheading on this occasion ought to be changed into something like "Look at the Thousand and One Ways in Which the Agricultural Production Cooperative Was Sabotaged!" On a note of modesty, Hu added that "o f course, this may not be a good headline either."34 An article reprinted from the Gansu Daily on 13 March gave Hu an opportunity to explain how one should structure a good piece of propaganda. The article— about an exhibit of local mineral resources in the city of Lanzhou— dealt in considerable detail with a rather esoteric topic of limited general appeal.35 To Hu, it constituted a missed opportunity for some forceful agitation. If written in a different way, given a different headline— such as "The Fatherland Wants You To Go Northwest!"— and supplemented with some good photographs, it could have been used to persuade young people from the developed areas of eastern China to move to the northwest, where their skills were badly needed: Too dull, the way it is written. This kind of article should be written like this: Everybody claims that Gansu is bleak and desolate and backward. That is the outcome of the devastation inflicted by the reactionary ruling class,...but now it has already been proven that Gansu's mineral reserves and hydro power resources are extremely bountiful and that it is one of our future industrial areas__ Then you point out that very many young people and women,... already have 32 Tantan, 178. 33 "Gedao Magan Luchu Lang" [Cut down the hemp, spot the wolf], RMRB, 12 April 1955. 34 Tantan, 180. 33 "Gansu Sheng de Kuangcang He Shuili" [The mineral resources and hydro power of Gansu province], RMRB, 13 March 1955.

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moved from the coastal areas to Gansu to develop its hidden treas­ ures, but that this is still not enough by far, and that many more people need to go there to exploit it.... Only then do you go on to talk about the exhibition. In this way, the effect you achieve will be quite different from what it is at present.36 Another article on this same day permitted Hu to reiterate some of the points he had made earlier about how a writer with "Party spirit" should structure an article dealing with mistakes and shortcomings.37 On 4 March he had accused the People's Daily of showing even less partiinost (Party spirit) than the editors of the Spring and Autumn Annals. Then the paper had failed "to make it crystal clear who deserves to be loved and who deserves to be hated."38 Now he railed at it again for its "unbalanced" reporting: In articles in which shortcomings are exposed, the struggle has to be written about from a positive angle—the struggle of superior leading organs, the struggle of the Party organization, the struggle of the masses. The journalist should write them up as struggles. The last time—when I talked about the report about Wang Zisheng suppress­ ing criticism at the Taiyuan Steel Works—I already pointed out that it is a matter of [having a correct] stand not to compromise in matters of principle when it comes to criticism. Now I should add that it is also a matter of [having a correct] stand to forcefully depict the strug­ gle from a positive angle when writing articles exposing shortcom­ ings. This article contains no positive description of struggle. From the looks of it, this incident is not one exposed by the journalist him­ self, and if it is one exposed by leading organs or by the masses, then it has to say so. If you explain who exposed it, you will have struggle. If leading organs were unaware all the time, then they have a responsibility, and this should also be pointed out in the article.39 Hu's third and final comment on this day concerned a scathing little piece about how a majority of cadres in a mining enterprise in northwest China had failed an exam testing their knowledge of ele­ mentary safety procedures. A cadre by the name of Duan Wenyu 36 Tantan, 229. 37 "Jiekai Shenyang Diya Kaiguanchang 'Chaoe Wancheng Guojia Jihua' de Jim i" [Expose the secret behind how the Shenyang low-pressure switchgear plant "over­ fulfilled the state p lan"], RMRB, 13 March 1955. 33 Tantan, 28. » Ibid., 207.

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was depicted as "scratching his scalp" while trying to figure out the answer to one question, and he was said finally to have been able to write something down (the wrong answer, as it turned out) only after "a sudden burst of inspiration."40 According to Hu, Duan had the right to feel insulted by remarks like these. Who had actually seen him scratch his scalp, Hu asked? Who really knew anything about a "sudden burst of inspiration"? The People’s Daily was trying to be "ironic," but actually it was only being "frivolous."41 On 15 March, Hu gave a speech on reform of the Chinese written language at a meeting of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. He also criticized the editorial of the day and a long article about the situation in China's countryside on page three of the People’s Daily.42 The article was too loosely structured— "it makes you feel as if you're reading part of a novel"— and its point was not dear.43 It also contained at least one grammatical error.44 The editorial— about spring ploughing— was "too laid back." Hu main­ tained that "it [did] not raise with suffident darity and force the crudal issues of the day."45 Hu's comments on 17 March were directed at no fewer than four different items. Two short essays irritated him because their titles were too similar.46 "There has to be some variation in the formula­ tions/' was his comment on the pieces on page two entitled "Solve the Fertilizer and Grain Shortages Before It Is Too Late" and "Firmly Grasp the Allocation and Supply of Seeds For Spring Sow ing."47 He directed more substantial criticism at two pieces in which the authors used what Hu considered very flippant language to discuss what ought to be treated seriously. The first piece concerned an 40 "W eishenmo Kaoshi Bu Jig s" (Why did they fail the exam?], RMRB, 13 March 1955. 41 Tantan, 186. «2 "Zuohao Chungeng Shengchan Ziliao Gongying Gongzuo" [Do a good job of supplying farm implements for the spring ploughing] and "Zhonggong Juzhai Zhibu Zemyang Lingdao Nongmin Zou Shehuizhuyi Daolu" [How did the CCP branch in Juzhai lead the peasantry onto the socialist road?], RMRB, 15 March 1955. « Tantan, 155-56. 44 Ibid., 190. « Ibid., 140. 44 "Jizao Jiejue Quefei Queliang W enti" and "Zhuajin Chunbo Zhongzi de Diaobo Gongying Gongzuo," RMRB, 17 March 1955. 47 Tantan, 199.

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investigation by a local supervisory office into allegedly corrupt prac­ tices among the employees in a bank in Heilongjiang.48 During the investigation, it was discovered that bank personnel had been doing some internal "long-term borrowing" of public funds for private use: The struggle of the supervisory office should be described in very serious terms, and there must be none of this joking language like "was only natural that" and "took great pains to." Serious struggles may not be satirized. Essays must not be cynical all the way horn start to finish, and satire has to proceed from a standpoint of strug­ gle. If it's all just a lot of wisecracks, some people obviously will have a good laugh, but some readers might also reproach us and say: "Aren't newspapers supposed to do more than just make witty remarks?"49 The second piece, which bore the title "A Depressing 'Voyage'," described the sad fate of a student from Tianjin's Nankai University who, upon graduation, was unable to find a "work unit" that would give him anything meaningful to do.50 Although he was full of enthusiasm and energy and wanted to make his contribution to socialist construction, the institutions to which his university allo­ cated him repeatedly told him he was not needed. So he kept jour­ neying from one to the other, only to find that if anything— and this was tiie formulation that attracted Hu's attention— they certainly were not like "som e sort of post where your country needs you the m ost." To Hu, the Chinese New Democratic Youth League's slogan "A Post Where Your Country Needs You the M ost" was definitely not to be abused in this way, and under no circumstances was it per­ missible to make fun of it. He commented: This is not a good thing to say. A "Post Where Your Country Needs You the Most" is sacred to young people, and you can not casually put the words "Some sort of" in front of it any more than you can say "Not like some sort of Communist Party."51 Hu did not mind occasional joking in the pages of the People's Daily. But it was important that the joke was not on the Party. "This is not4 44 Lû Tao and Wang Lin, "Zhan Gongjia Pianyi de Ren" [The profit at the expense of the state], RMRB, 17 March 1955. Ibid., 17. 71 "Kongsu Ming Dejun Fufu Nüedai Haizi de Cararen Zuixing" [Accusing Ming Dejun and his wife for their criminal child abuse], RMRB, 27 March 1955.

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At the very end of the long letter, the writer called out for the parents to be severely punished for their "unconstitutional" and "unsodalist" behavior. Apparently, something had already been done, since the neighbor complained that the woman "had only been disciplined very lightly" and that nothing at all had happened to the husband. Hu Qiaomu's comment dealt with the role of the People's Daily in a situation like this one and about the possible effect the publication of the letter might have: Is there really nobody in Beijing who will act when things like this happen?...When publishing letters, you must make sure that you can guarantee results, and that right away (on the same day) the party most immediately responsible can be gotten a hold of to deal with the issue and to answer questions. Unless you take the neces­ sary steps, you may simply end up prolonging things, and possibly putting the person who is being abused in even greater danger. Now, from the looks of it, we have not taken any steps__ This is a very serious matter, and it has to be dealt with as such.72 What happened to the poor girl in the end, we do not know. But the publication of her fate resulted in a flood of letters to the People’s Daily from horrified readers. None of the letters, however, was from what could be described as "th e authorities concerned." On 3 April, when a selection of letters was published under the heading "Take Responsibility for Bringing Up the New Generation— Oppose Child Abuse," Hu stressed that something had to be done quickly. Other­ wise, he said, "in due time, perhaps ten thousand letters will have arrived, but by then maybe the child will already have been beaten to death."73 Hu commented on People's Daily editorials on altogether nine occasions in March 1955. The final occasion was on 30 March, when he had this to say about an editorial on enterprise management in which the claim was made that capitalist profits differed from social­ ist profits in that the former were made by "cheating and deceiving" the proletariat, whereas the latter were made by the rational exploita­ tion of "legitim ate" (zhengdang) means: When speaking of how profit in socialist enterprises is different from profit in capitalist enterprises, I am afraid one has to bring up the n Tantan, 2 1 3 -1 4 . » Ibid.

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two kinds of ownership. Because the systems of ownership differ and the aims [of production] differ, therefore the nature, kind (guishu ), etc., of the profits also differ. The editorial does not men­ tion these crucial differences. The editorial says that “capitalist profits have as their foundation the cheating, deception, and exploi­ tation of the laboring people," and after having first mentioned "cheating, deception" it just gets more and more confused, discuss­ ing an issue that belongs in the sphere of economics mainly in terms of legitimacy, as if it ultimately were a moral issue. Furthermore, capitalism also strives to raise productivity and lower production costs. The reason it fails to do so has to do with its system of own­ ership. Those who write editorials about economic work must understand economic theory.74 That an editorial like this one— containing what from a Marxist point of view must be regarded as a grave and fundamental error in theory— should have been permitted to appear in the organ of the CCP Center is surprising for more than one reason. First of all, it suggests that the People's Daily's editorialists had, if anything, only a very shallow understanding of Marxism. (That someone who really pondered and analyzed economic problems in Marxist terms would be capable of tracing the foundation of profits under capitalism to "cheating" and "deception" is unlikely.) Second, it suggests that at least one of the CCP's most senior leaders did not know what distin­ guishes "profit in socialist enterprises" from "profit in capitalist enter­ prises" either, since an editorial like this one almost certainly would have been read and signed off prior to publication by a member of the CCP Central Secretariat or Politburo Standing Committee. Once editorial galley proofs had been approved by "th e Center," the People's Daily staff rarely made any further revisions to them.75 74 "Jiuzheng Guoying Gongye Zhong de Zibenzhuyi Jingying Sbdang" [Rectify the capitalist management ideas practiced in state-owned industries], RMRB, 30 March 1955; Tantan, 13 7. 75 In April 1955, Hu Qiaomu complained to a People’s Daily editor about an edi­ torial in which a sentence appeared where it made no sense, saying: “This sentence was added by [someone at] the Center who censored the manuscript, and maybe be­ cause [he] did not notice, he added it in the wrong place. The editor then figured he did not have to take another look at a manuscript that already had been censored by [someone at] the Center, and so [the mistake] was not corrected. Every editor should take his responsibilities seriously, and even if a manuscript has been revised by [someone at] the Center, the editor should go over it once more to check, and see if there are any places where the language needs to be corrected." See Tantan, 223.

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The contents of On Newspaper Work do not read like the words of a draconian censor struggling to impose his will upon recalcitrant subjects. They convey an image of Hu Qiaomu as a stem and some­ what pedantic teacher and of his audience as students— not always able, but invariably eager to "get it right." Wang Ruoshui has confirmed that in the early 1950s, he and most of his colleagues were quite willing to make Hu's views on what a newspaper should look like their own.76 In a study of censorship in the socialist states of Eastern Europe, Jane Leftwich Curry coined the term "initiation mode" to refer to a particular type of media control and direction in which "censorship exists to prevent errors and teach journalists the art of self-censorship since,. . . they have not worked in a Communist media system long enough to have inculcated all of its rules and regulations."77 It is tempting to argue on the basis of the contents of On N ew spaper Work that the CCP leadership's control and direction of the People's Daily in 1955 still operated, at least partly, in an "initiation m ode." Hu's breakfast chats were attempts at teaching the young newcomers on the editorial board "th e rules of the gam e." Eventually, the CCP established what Curry calls a "directive mode" of media control and supervision. Characteristic of this mode is that "party and government d irection s...are effective enough to allow the media to be produced with no formal, external prepublica­ tion censorship."78 Control and supervision had now become indis­ tinguishable from the execution of conventional editorial duties, and once Hu Qiaomu's guests for breakfast had returned to their offices, this was the mode they were meant to operate within. When even the precise positioning of a comma or full stop— not to mention the composition of a headline or the choice of an appropriate formula­ tion— à la Hu Qiaomu no longer presented them with a problem, they were to be their own censors. The only exception to this institu­ tionalized self-censorship, as noted earlier, involved some editorials and particularly important articles. These were still checked before publication by editorial board "outsiders" like Hu Qiaomu or the n Wang Ruoshui, interview in Cambridge Mass., April 1989. 77 Jane Leftwich Curry, "M edia Control in Eastern Europe: Holding die Tide on Opposition," in Jane Leftwich Curry and Joan R. Dassin, eds., Press Control Around the World (New York: Praeger, 1982), 105. » Ibid.

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Party's senior leaders. Between 1950 and 1957, Mao Zedong person­ ally read and approved for publication some 46 People's Daily editori­ als written or revised by the paper's editor-in-chief Deng Tuo. Another 153 editorials were during the same period read and approved for publication by Zhou Enlai.79 At the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, the CCP leadership temporarily abandoned the directive mode as a means of exercising control and direction of the People's Daily. At the end of May 1966, a work team under the leadership of Chen Boda, head of the Central Cultural Revolution Small Group, entered the paper's premises and removed Wu Lengxi, then editor-in-chief, from power. Wu's crime, according to Chen, was that he had "made a complete mess of our Party Center's official organ, and turned it into a revisionist paper."80 A month later, Tang Pingzhu— a PLA officer, formerly with the Liberation Army Daily and a member of Chen Boda's work team— was appointed acting editor-in-chief and put in charge of running the People's Daily. In January 1967 part of the staff of the People's Daily "seized power" and ousted Tang Pingzhu. For some time thereafter, the paper operated in what is perhaps best described as a "chaotic mode" of control and supervision. Chen Boda told the paper's staff they had been right in getting rid of Tang Pingzhu and suggested they set up a Paris Commune - type organization with an editorial board of a dozen or so rotating members, but no editor-in-chief. Contacts with the CCP Center were now to be handled by Wang I i and Guan Feng— two members of the Central Cultural Revolution Small Group.81 But at the end of August 1967, Wang and Guan were in turn arrested, accused of being ultraleftist troublemakers. . . In the early 1970s a modified variant of the directive mode of control had de facto been reestablished within the People's Daily. By this time, a "Proofs Checking Small Group" of seven persons*• 79 Lu Keng, "The Chinese Communist Press As I See It," in ibid., 140. *° "Chen Boda Tongzhi, Jiang Qing Tongzhi Zai Xinhua She Jianghua" [Comrades Chen Boda and Jiang Qing speak at the NCNA] (7 January 1967), in Beijing Shifan Daxue Jinggangshan Gongshe, ed., W uchanjieji Wenhua Dageming Ziliao Zhongyang Shouzhang Jianghua [Materials on the great proletarian cultural revolution: central leaders' speeches] (Shanghai, 1967), 40. •* "Chen Boda Tongzhi Jianghua" (Comrade Chen Boda's speech] (17 January 1967), in ibid., 128-29.

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(including as one of its members the former editor-in-chief Wu Lengxi) had become responsible for the paper's contents in the same way its editorial board had been before 1966.82 Filling the role that Hu Qiaomu had played in the 1950s was Yao Wenyuan, who liaised between the People's Daily and the CCP Politburo. Zhou Enlai among the highest leaders still approved some editorials and articles dealing with foreign affairs before publication.83 What prompted the publication of On Newspaper Work in 1978 was the conviction of the post-Mao leadership that a break with the still rather ill-defined legacy of the Cultural Revolution necessitated a proper and formal “reinitiation" of precisely the system of media control that had existed before 1966, and not just any variant thereof. Upon publication, Hu's collected comments were meant to be not only the paradigmatic texts on the basis of which the PRC's first generation of editors and journalists had been taught the craft of self-censorship, but the texts to be emulated and internalized by a new generation as well. The relevance of the record of Hu's breakfast chats is thus two­ fold. Historically, it throws light on the praxis of Party direction of the press in the early years of the PRC. It provides the microcontext within which editors and journalists in the m id-1950s were being trained to become the Party's “docile tools"— to use Liu Shaoqi's expression. It is an intimate picture not only of the office of the “responsible comrade" in charge of the People's Daily, but of the first and most important person to hold that office as well. Hu Qiaomu is inconsistent, unreasonable, and irritating at times, eminently rational and sensible at others. On Newspaper Work may be a jumble of obscure and arcane details, but as such it is raw history of the kind that leaves one feeling what “things may have been like" in a way few other texts do. But it is more than merely a historical record. Because of the cir­ cumstances under which it appeared in 1978, On Newspaper Work also has contemporary relevance. To most Party elders, including Hu Qiaomu and Wu Lengxi, it represents a “successful tradition of Party* “ Wang Ruoshui, "Cong Pi 'Zuo' Dao Pi You de Zhuanzhe" [The shift from criti­ cizing "leftism " to criticizing rightism], in Zhihui, 329. *3 Cui Qi, "Gaozhan Yuanzhu, Wuwei Buzhi" [Far-sighted and meticulous], in Renmin Ribao Baoshi, 1 1 -2 7 .

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control" that is to be upheld. To a new generation of editors and journalists, on the other hand, it encapsulates precisely what is wrong with the PRC press. While a politician's grumpy "These headlines are all too depressing!"— possibly uttered, we now know, over a bowl of rice-gruel early one Monday morning in March in a sandstorm-swept Beijing— is elevated to the status of a "precious opinion," the independent judgments of the members of the press corps receive only scant attention. Words to the effect that news­ papers are to "mobilize the people to carry out the Party's general line" are said to be "o f enduring immediate relevance." But the ques­ tion of whether or not newspapers also ought to be the fora in which the people may express their criticism of that "lin e" is left unanswered. In Hu's words, it is as if "one must not put it like that!"

CHAPTER FIVE

Censorship, Humanities, and Social Sciences

At the Second Plenum of the Seventh CCP Central Committee, in the spring of 1949, Mao Zedong stated that China's Communists had shown themselves eminently capable of destroying an "old world." Now the time had come when they had to prove themselves equally capable of creating a "new w orld."1 In what was soon to be the called the People's Republic— a name for China that the CCP leader­ ship settled for after having considered, but eventually discarded, the "People's Democratic Republic"— social and political contradictions and contradictions between man and nature were to be rationally resolved according to a scientific understanding of the laws of his­ tory. Freedom was to be enjoyed by those who had previously been oppressed. The backward were to become the advanced. The arts and humanities were to blossom like never before, and the sciences were to make great leaps forward. Eventually, Mao Zedong predicted, the Chinese people would lead lives superior to those presently enjoyed in even the most highly industrialized imperialist nations.2 Insofar as the CCP set out to create its "new world" according to a blueprint of sorts, it proceeded on the basis of a Marxism-Leninism modified by more than two decades of practical military, political, and economic experience in China's countryside. In many respects, the outcome of land reform; collectivization; nationalization of indus­ try; the creation of a planned economy; and mass movements to* 1 "Zai Zhongguo Gongchandang Di Qi Jie Zhongyang Weiyuanhui Di Er Ci Quanti Huiyi Shang de Baogao" [Report to the second plenum of ttie seventh CCP central committee] (5 March 1949), in Tianjin Shi Geming Weiyuanhui, 916. * Ibid.

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exterminate everything from rats, bedbugs, flies, and mosquitos to ox-demons and serpent-monsters was a social and political order that came close to being a "new w orld/' But in retrospect, the extent to which the revolution failed to produce some of the things it promised is no less striking. The carrying out of Mao Zedong's "Supreme Instructions" to create "socialism with Chinese characteristics’ — to use two different "scientific" formulations from the 1960s and 1980s to describe the political praxis of the past decades— was not condu­ cive to the blossoming of the humanities, nor did it result in great leaps forward within the social sciences. On the contrary, in these two respects, it effectively prevented (in practice) what it was (in theory) to have promoted. New China produced innumerable denunciations of "bourgeois academic authorities" such as Hu Shi, Wu Han, Malthus, Weber, Parsons, and Popper. But it did not succeed in producing any comparable proletarian authorities of its own. In all spheres of academic inquiry, with the exception of the natural or "hard" sciences, there was plenty of "razing" (po), which was how Mao at one time spoke of "criticism, i.e., revolution." But there was no comparable amount of "erection" (If), which was how Mao spoke in the same breath of "the generation of convincing argu­ m ents."3 The general attitude of the CCP leadership of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping's generation toward intellectuals largely created this predicament. While convinced of the allegiance of the peasantry and the working class to their revolutionary cause, the men who founded the PRC remained deeply suspicious of the intelligentsia. "They are simply insincere," Liu Shaoqi told one of his children in the summer of 1966, speaking of teachers in China's high schools and universi­ ties. "They neither kill people, nor practice arson, but just keep spreading poison. Hence you cannot arrest them, and may not exe­ cute them. This is a nuisance."4 With regular intervals after 1949, 3 "Zhonggong Zhongyang Wenjian, Zhongfa [66] 267 Hao: Tongzhi" [Central com­ mittee document, central issue no. 267/1966: circular] (16 May 1966), in Mao Zedong Sbdang Xuanchuanyuan, 1:4. 4 “Liu Shaoqi Ting Beijing Shida Yi Fuzhong Gongzuozu Huibao Shi de Hei Zhishi" [Liu Shaoqi's black instructions while listening to a report by the work team at the Beijing teacher's university first middle school] (11 July 1966), in Dangnei Zuida de Zou Zibenzhuyi Daolu de Dangquanpai Liu Shaoqi Zai Qingnian Gongzuo Zhong de Heihua [Black statements on youth work by Liu Shaoqi, the biggest person in power within the Party taking the capitalist road], 2 vols. (Beijing, n.d.), 2:20.

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the intelligentsia was made the target of persecution. Throughout the Cultural Revolution, persons with higher education occupied the ninth rung on the Party's ladder of suspect social strata; they were referred to as the "stinking ninth category." After the death of Mao, the social and political standing of the members of the "stinking ninth category" improved, but their unique contributions to society continued to be regarded as of dubious intrinsic value. In the spring of 1983— during what clearly amounted to an "intercampaign lull"— the CCP Central Secretariat issued a directive to the Chinese media in which it warned against the emergence of so-called bias in reports about "th e role of the intelligentsia." Although it was permissible in the context of reform in industry and progress in science and technology to propagate the role of society's educated strata, it was inappropriate to do so in an "isolated fashion" and without taking into account "the actual situa­ tion." More important than the role played by the intelligentsia was the role played by "leading cadres, workers, and intellectuals together."5 Many critical studies have been written about the conflict-ridden relationship between the CCP and the intelligentsia after 1949. The aim of these studies has in many cases been to show how the quality of the artifacts produced by those who "d o " the human and social sciences is affected by political, economical, and other external fac­ tors. The present chapter is also concerned with this problem. But rather than approach it, as is customary, by looking at the relation­ ship between people and people or between people and institutions, it focuses specifically on the relationship between people and texts or between censors and what for want of a better term will be called academ ic discourse. This focus should not be seen as implying a depreciation of other factors. No doubt the CCP through its relevant government organs exercises its primary influence and control over the academic sphere by granting or not granting the funds needed to pursue most forms of education, teaching, research, and writing. But the details of this allocation of monies, granting of grants, payment 5 "Zhongyang Shujichu Guanyu Xuanchuan Zhishifenzi Zuoyong Shi Zhuyi Fangzhi Pianmianxing de Zhishi" [Directive from the central secretariat about avoiding bias when propagating the role of the intelligentsia] (18 April 1983), in Zhonggong Zhong­ yang Xuanchuanbu, Xuanbian 1 983,153.

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of salaries, and the like have been dealt with extensively elsewhere. The fate of China's academics in the course of political campaigns is also a subject about which much has already been written. What has not been dealt with to the extent it deserves is the phenomenon of censorship. The aim of this chapter is to show, by way of concrete examples, how the political manipulation of the language (medium/form) influences the quality (message/content) of Chinese writings in academic fields such as history, political science, sociol­ ogy, economics, ethnology, and so on. Subjected to scrutiny will be some of the less well understood mechanisms of state power against which students, teachers, and researchers at China's universities eventually rebelled in the spring of 1989. Contributions to knowledge are subject to censorship on at least three different levels in the PRC. The first is that at which objects of inquiry are chosen. Certain topics are for political reasons out of bounds. Unlike their counterparts in Europe or North America who at times also may feel their "academic freedom " circumscribed in this respect, China's academics cannot escape this fact by moving from one institution or funding agency to another. In the United States, a "taboo" topic at a "conservative" institution may be regarded as a legitimate and important issue by a "liberal" one. In the PRC, the highest authority that decrees what is and what is not an appropriate object of inquiry does so across the board, and there is no escaping it. In an essay entitled "A Censor's Random N otes," a Party editor cum censor with the Shanxi People's Publishing House in Taiyuan touched upon this in 1986 when he suggested that the first piece of advice one should give to a scholar eager to write about foreign cul­ tures and countries for a Handbook on World History was simply "to avoid writing [about sensitive things] as much as possible."6 Severe restrictions also operate on the level at which methodolog­ ical choices are made. Here an interesting development has taken place since the death of Mao Zedong in 1976. Under Mao, the supreme political postulate was that "once class struggle is grasped, everything else falls into place."7 In the world of the social sciences 6 Pan Juntong, "Shendu Zaji 1 " [A censor's random notes 1], Bianji Zhi You 3 (1983): 23. The “sensitive things" referred to here included the role played by Mahat­ ma Gandhi in India's twentieth-century history. 7 Mao Zedong, quoted in RMRB, 1 October 1966.

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and humanities, the CCP permitted no other method of analysis than a very crude form of class analysis. In the words of Mao, it was imperative that one “use the method of class analysis in dealing with everything, and in analyzing everything/'8 Ethnographers were told that “the nationality question is in substance a class-struggle ques­ tion.“9 Historians were told that “China's history, in the same way as the history of the rest of the world, is a history of class struggle.''10 Today, the CCP in some contexts explicitly discourages scholars from engaging in class analysis. Scholars whose concern is with the social, political, and economic problems that have emerged in China since 1949 are not to trace the roots of those problems to class conflicts or class interests. Why? Part of the answer is spelled out in the following commentary on a passage in the CCP's 1982 “Resolu­ tion on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party since the Founding of the PRC ," published in a newsletter for historians put out by a research institute under the Central Committee: On the question of the roots of the “leftist" errors—and in particular the serious error of the “Great Cultural Revolution"—committed during the socialist period. The explanation in the [Central Committee's] “Resolution" (Part V, point 24) [of why those errors occurred] is made without reference to class roots. This is a total departure from past practice. The reason for it is that this is not a question that can be explained by invoking class roots. Whose class interests did the "Great Cultural Revolution" ultimately conform to? Everybody will deny that it conformed to the interests of the proletariat. If one were to argue that it conformed to the interests of the bourgeoisie, then what about the many capitalists to whom it meant being kicked out the door and dragged in the dirt? If one were to argue that it conformed to the interests of the petty bour­ geoisie, then who were the people who, during the “Great Cultural Revolution," actually belonged to the petty bourgeoisie? To bring up the peasantry: Duriing the CR [sic] (wenge) they had their “capitalist tails" cut off, their free markets and private plots confiscated, and were not allowed to engage in household sideline activities. Was this in conformity with their interests? As for the intellectuals— why, it was precisely they who during the CR were struck down, • Ibid., 12 June 1967. 9 Ibid., 9 August 1963. 10 Mao Zedong, "Zhang Lu Zhuan" [Biography of Zhang Lu], in Zhongguo Renmin Daxue, 1957-1961, 309.

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almost every one of them! Hence, the historical responsibility must be shouldered, and there must be no fabrication of class roots. If you absolutely insist on finding class roots, not only will you not be able to explain the issue, you will make it even more complicated than it already is. You will make our children, grandchildren, and descendants mistakenly think that there was some sort of class inside our Party, and that that was what led to the outbreak of the “Great Cultural Revolution." What the history of those ten years of domestic turmoil prove is precisely this: one should not attempt to simply make the roots of whatever makes a person commit an error, or even a Party commit an error, a matter of dass. If you absolutely insist on doing so, then we shall not only not be able to rectify the errors of the "CR," but we shall on the contrary be continuing the errors of the "CR," and further magnify the scope of dass struggle. Then we will become engaged in a never-ending dass struggle within our Party. Therefore, the present formulation [containing no reference to dass] as used in the "Resolution" is quite appropriate.11 The methodology that was once the only permissible one is now no longer to be employed at all when the object of inquiry is the compli­ cated realities of Chinese sodalism. Under Mao, there was not a sin­ gle irrational phenomenon or "error" that could not somehow be "explained" away with the help of references to "representatives of the bourgeoisie who have wormed their way into the Party, the government, the military, and every single layer of the cultural sphere."12 Under Deng Xiaoping, the issue of dass itself has become too controversial to be left open to inquiry. Could it be that the many similarities between today's CCP elite and a "new d ass" have provoked this state of affairs? In a now bygone era, the CCP had translated M. Djilas's classic work The New Class in its entirety as part of a sodopolitical inquiry into what had "gone wrong" in the revisionist countries of the Soviet bloc. Today, its position is that a class analysis of China's Real-Sozialismus would only make the country's problems "even more complicated" than they already are and should therefore be discouraged.13 n "Liu Zhong Quanhui Jueyi Zhong de Yixie Xin Tifa," 4 4 6 -4 7 . 12 Mao Zedong, quoted in RMRB, 17 May 1967. 13 Miluofan Derelasi, Xin Jieji [The new dass] (Beijing: Shijie Zhishi Chubanshe, 1963). Zhang Xianyang, interview in Beijing, August 1988.

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A second piece of advice provided by the author of "A Censor's Random N otes" and directed at students of international relations sums up the CCP's current position in matters related to methodol­ ogy and the issue of how one should approach one's subject matter: "If you can, you should limit yourself to sweeping and brief formula­ tions."14 Extended in-depth analysis and the exposure of "u n ­ pleasant" truths are frowned upon. Finally, there is censorship on the most basic level of expression. Some formulations may not be employed; others must be employed. In the words of the Party editor cum censor— still addressing the stu­ dent of foreign cultures and countries— this means that " if you abso­ lutely have to write [about sensitive things], then adopt a serious and conscientious attitude, and begin by consulting the very latest formu­ lations re these countries issued by the Party Center and the Ministry of Foreign A ffairs."15 In the social sciences and humanities, as everywhere else, restric­ tions like these serve to make inquisitive discourse cumbersome. By declaring use of the formulation "th e 'Great Cultural Revolution' " to be compulsory, the CCP leadership makes an unbiased discussion of China's recent history more difficult than it would otherwise be.16 The quotation marks from the very beginning put any person who would care to argue that events between 1966 and 1976 really were a Cultural Revolution at a dear rhetorical disadvantage. (Note, interestingly enough, the extent to which the enforcement of this particular rule has been unsuccessful. Even the editors of the long passage quoted above, occurring in a publication put out by an organ under the CCP Central Committee, use the colloquial abbreviation "C R " explicitly proscribed in the original regulations issued by the Cen­ tral Propaganda Department, instead of the supposedly "sdentific" longer formulation.) By proscribing the formulation "M ao Zedong's Later Thought"— at one time employed by some Chinese scholars to 14 Panjuntong. » Ibid. 16 See extracts from "Zhongxuanbu Dui Wenzi Shuzi Shuxiefa de Guiding" [Regu­ lations of the central propaganda department governing the writing of words and figures], Hunan Chuban Gongzuo 8 (1984): 10. In official PRC translations into English, references to the Cultural Revolution changed in the late 1970s and early 1980s from "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" to "Cultural Revolution" to " 'cultural revolu­ tion '." I wish to thank Dr. Terry Cannon, formerly with the Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding, for drawing my attention to this change.

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refer to the political and philosophical theories developed by Mao after 1962— the CCP has made it harder than it would otherwise be to discuss in an unrestrained fashion the ideological foundation of “the so-called 'Great Cultural Revolution'.“17 If a prospective contributor to the Handbook on World History were indeed to have “consulted the very latest formulations issued by the Party Center" in the spring of 1979, he or she would have found that the “appropriate" way of referring to the Dalai Lama recently had been revised by the Central Propaganda Department. Here is a quote from a department directive entitled “Henceforth, Do No Longer Refer To 'D alai's Renegade Clique' “: Under the new circumstances that now prevail, we should actively strive to make the Dalai Clique return to the motherland. Conse­ quently, we should henceforth no longer refer to "Dalai's Renegade Clique" or "renegade bandits" in our propaganda, but instead use the terms Dalai and the original representatives of the Tibetan upper strata residing abroad, Tibetan compatriots, or Tibetan countrymen residing abroad.1* If a historian were to have “adopted a serious and conscientious atti­ tude" toward writing about the history of the Republic of China in the winter of 1985-86, he or she would have discovered that the Party Center recently— in the same bulletin in which it had opposed class analyses of the Cultural Revolution— had suggested that past appropriate formulations like “Jiang's Center," “Jiang's Army," and "Enemy [forces]“ be discarded in favor of “Guomindang Center" and “Guomindang Army.“19 But the following directive— said to express the views of “a leading Comrade at the Center"— published else­ where at the same time also made it clear that while it no longer was necessary to refer to the CCP's old archenemy as such, it was still not permissible to have the words “Republic of China" appear in the 17 The CCP leadership today bluntly insists that the ideological foundation of the Cultural Revolution had nothing whatsoever to do with Mao Zedong Thought. By daiming that Mao's thoughts on the eve of the Cultural Revolution no longer represented Mao Zedong Thought, the CCP according to one senior propaganda official has "found a way out" of having to deal with an "acute contradiction" (Deng Liqun, 1 7 3 -7 4 ; 120). •• See also Schoenhals, Selections, 1 6-34. 19 "Bianxie Dangshishu Shi Ying Zhuyi de W enti" [Points to which attention should be paid when writing books on party history], W enzhaibao 312 (1986): 1. Ex­ tract from article originally published in Dangshi Tongxun.

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discourse: To publish [illustrations of] stamps, souvenir badges, and similar items containing the Guomindang “National Flag" or the words “Republic of China" is not permitted. When publishing historical commemorative articles, references to original Guomindang organs and personnel should not be preceded by toe words “Republic of China.“ Instead, references may be made to “toe Guomindang armed forces," “Guomindang officers and men," “Guomindang government officials," etc.20 (Emphasis added) These are just two of toe kind of decrees concerning formulations that keep affecting not only what one might call propaganda in gen­ eral, but PRC academic discourse as well. Quite a few CCP leaders have, over toe years, left their marks on toe Chinese language— most prominently, of course, Mao Zedong. It is to Mao's Hunanese dialect and Mao's writings that one can trace the popularity, on toe Chinese mainland, of the verbs zhua (“grasp" in a metaphorical, abstract sense) and gao (“do" as an all-purpose verb), which are rarely used by Mandarin speakers on Taiwan. But others aside from Mao have played an almost equally important role. Since the founding of toe PRC, Hu Qiaomu has exerted great influence upon Chinese academic discourse. His personal idiosyn­ crasies, preferences, and opinions have helped to shape writings on everything from history and law to education and philosophy. The formulations he has judged to be objectionable have been anathema­ tized. The formulations to which he has taken a liking have been pronounced cornerstones of historical materialism and have been repeated over and over again in contexts ranging from school text­ books to specialized journals. Between 1978 and 1982, Hu was president of toe Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. During this period he supervised the production of toe CCP Central Committee's Chronology o f M ajor Events in the History o f the Chinese Communist Party, toe book Chinese historians are expected to use as their primary reservoir of correct formulations when writing about toe May Fourth Movement and the origins of Chinese communism. In 1982, there was some confusion among history teachers and students in Chinese universi­ ties about what a "scientific" reference to "th e people representing » Baozhi Dongtai 36 (1985): 2 -3 .

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the 'May Fourth' era" was meant to look like. The confusion was subsequently resolved with the help of the Chronology. Here is an extract from an article, published in the journal Social Science Refer­ ence, in which the formulation approved by Hu eventually becomes the one everyone is expected to use: About the present formulation re the people representing the "May Fourth" era: Some maintain that the renown and position of Chen Duxiu during the "May Fourth" exceeded that of Li Dazhao, Mao Zedong et al. and that his name should therefore be mentioned first. Some maintain that Chen Duxiu was not a good Marxist, but a bour­ geois intellectual whose world outlook remained untransformed, and that one should not make excessive propaganda about him, and that if his name is to be mentioned it should come last or be preceded by words such as "furthermore there was" Chen Duxiu. Some maintain that both Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu made outstanding contribu­ tions during the "May Fourth" and that both of them were "shining stars among the intelligentsia" and important founders of the Chinese Communist Party. Li Dazhao's contribution to the propagation of Marxism was greater than Chen Duxiu's; Chen Duxiu's contribution to the building of the Party was greater than Li Dazhao's. Although Chen Duxiu later committed serious mistakes, one should nonetheless adopt a historical materialist attitude and place Chen Duxiu after l i Dazhao but in front of Mao Zedong.21 Because of the extent to which Hu Qiaomu's and the CCP Center's preferred formulations predetermine the outcome of the historian's work, it is not surprising that quality and variety should suffer. When discussing the history of modem China, historians are likely to want, on occasion, to quote from— or perhaps refer their readers to— the written legacy left behind by important figures in the Chinese Communist movement or to the works of living leaders. Needless to say, only a very limited and heavily censored part of this legacy is made accessible to them, and restrictions governing formu­ lations figure prominently in how it is being controlled and manipu­ lated by the CCP. A description published in 1980 in the organ of the CCP Central Party School shows what generally takes place 21 Du Wenhuan, "Zhonggong Dangshi Dashi Nianbiao Fanying de Bufen Xir» Guandian" [Some new viewpoints reflected in the Chronology of major events in die history of the Chinese Communist Party], Shehui Kexue Cankao 3 (1983): 2 3 -4 .

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when the writings of Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping, et al. are edited prior to publication: When editing and publishing the works of Party and government leaders and famous activists, we invariably add to, and cut things out of, the original texts on a grand scale. We even go so far as to make revisions and changes in principle to the important viewpoints and formulations contained in the original, hereby turning views that had not yet developed at the time, or views that were only to develop later, into views held at the time. We furthermore add no concrete annotations or explanations whatsoever—at best making only a very sweeping remark in the publisher's comment—to indicate which arti­ cle has been revised or how it has been revised.22 Similarly, a staff member of the CCP Central Documentary Research Office described what happened when a series of speeches made by Deng Xiaoping during the reigns of Mao Zedong and Hua Guofeng were to be made public in 1983: With the author's approval, we carried out some revisions and cuts. This is to say that deletions but no additions were made. It did not in any way harm the fundamental spirit of the texts, much less alter it.... 1. We cut out those formulations of a strongly political nature that were dearly inconsistent with the spirit of the ''Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party since the Founding of the People's Republic of China," such as all of the evaluative ones about the "Great Cultural Revolution," the "continuation of the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat," and Comrade Hua Guofeng. 2. There were some formulations of a policy nature which, at the time [ca. 1975—transi.], still expressed things in the old [i.e., pre1966—transi.] way, but were different from those presently used to describe our policy, and furthermore involved principles. For instance, in the past [to express] our policy toward intellectuals we used "unite, educate, and transform," but now we cannot do so any more. 3. We improved upon the appropriateness of certain not suffidently perfect or correct passages. For example, the original said that to dedicate oneself to the sdentific undertaking under sodalism 22 Wang Guixiu and Wang Qianyu, "Y i Yan'ge de Kexue Taidu Duidai Lishi Wenxian" [Adopt a serious scientific attitude toward historical documents)], Liiiin Dongtai 12 (1981): 78.

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and to make one's contribution “is a significant expression of red­ ness, and shows unity of redness and expertise." Now we have changed this into “is of course an expression of expertise, and in a certain sense can also be said to be an expression of redness." We also changed education “has to serve proletarian politics" into “has to serve socialist construction." Quite dearly, alterations like these raised the accuracy of the texts with respect to their meaning.23 When Deng Xiaoping's Seven Thousand Cadres Conference Speech was made public for the first time in 1987, twenty-five years after its original delivery, it was with no indication whatsoever of its having been revised according to the principles outlined here. In reality, however, it had been subjected to numerous “deletions but no addi­ tions" that severely limited its usefulness as a historical source.24 The writings of historical “villains" will, interestingly enough, often be subjected to less direct manipulation than the canonical works of historical “heroes" and “heroines." When the early essays, novellas, plays, and poems of Jiang Qing and Zhang Chunqiao were published in two volumes by the Chinese Academy of Sciences in the winter of 1976-77, it was in what by any standard of scholarship would have counted as a scientific edition, containing no textual changes, numerous indications of probable typos in the originals, bibliographic references, and the like. Even information about which library possessed the only known surviving original of a text was provided.25 Formulations that occur in collections of speeches et cetera by the heroes and heroines of the Chinese Communist movement may or may not have been subjected to ex post facto revision, but there is often no way of knowing for sure. Even when the historian is aware that a particular passage has been altered, he or she is very often not permitted to refer to the original.26 Hu Qiaomu remarked in 1980 23 Li Qi, 28. By far the most interesting part of U 's speech, i.e., the one from which this passage has been dted, was excised from the transcript published in the People's Daily on 1 July 1983. 14 See Michael Schoenhals, "Edited Records: Comparing Two Versions of Deng Xiaoping's 7000 Cadres Speech," CCP Research N ew sletter 1 (1988): 5 -9 . 21 Zhongguo Kexueyuan Zhexue Shehui Kexuebu Wenxue Yanjiusuo Tushu Ziliaoshi, ed., “Sirenbang" Ziliao Huiji 1932-1946 [Collected materials on the "Gang of Four" 1932-1946], 2 vols. (Beijing, 1976-77). 24 If an official post-49 edition of a text exists, it automatically becomes the one that must be referred to or dted. Compare the following remark under the subhead­ ing "Prevent Political Errors" in an in-house reference work for editors with a provin-

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that if the CCP were to make public the original versions of certain of Mao's works from the 1920s and 1930s, it would become dear to everyone how "very heavily revised" the texts included in the Selected Works o f Mao Zedong were (Hu had himself partidpated in the revision of those texts in the early 1950s). There would probably be "a very strong reaction." Since this is undesirable, Hu said, it is "im portant" that the Party strengthen "th e uniform censorship" of materials related to the history of the CCP and not release unrevised versions of Mao texts already published in revised form in the Selected Works.27 When the CCP subsequently reprinted the two major collections of Party documents from the 1920s and 1930s edited in Yan'an in 1941 entitled Before the Sixth Party Congress and Since the Sixth Party Congress, all the Mao texts in the originals had been removed. In their place were simply notes saying where in the Selected Works the (revised) versions could be found.28 It is not difficult to find examples of social sdence issues that have been resolved with the help of terminological manipulation by the CCP leadership. In 1 9 5 7-58, Chinese legal scholars and economists became embroiled in a debate about the relationship between "bour­ geois rights" and socialism. The concept "bourgeois rights" appeared in Karl Marx's Critique o f the Gotha Program and V. I. Lenin's The State and Revolution, and on the basis of what was said about it in these works and how it had been translated into Chinese, it seemed clear that it had something or other to do with legal rights, as in equality before the law and "to each according to his work." The debate erupted over how quickly one was to expect the dis­ appearance of bourgeois rights under socialism and how appropriate it was to actively dismantle the political, economic, and social institu­ tions that surrounded bourgeois rights, rather than passively wait for them to "w ither aw ay."29 dal publisher "W hen proofreading publications of various kinds, you should first of all make sure that there have been no political slip-ups and [should] stamp out errors that may have gone by undetected in the typesetting process. First of all, you should check whether material quoted from the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao Zedong has been openly published before or n ot. . . " (Bianji Shouce: Heilongjiang Renmin Chubanshe Neibu Cankao Yongshu (Editor's handbook: internal reference work of the Heilongjiang people's publishing house) [Harbin, 1980], 692). 27 Hu Qiaomu, 29 March 1980, quoted in Dangshi Ziliao Tongxun, 70. 24 Uuda Yiqian (Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe, 1980); Linda Yilai (Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe, 1981). 29 For a detailed account of this debate, see Michael Schoenhals, Saltationist Social-

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The issue was eventually "resolved"— and brought to its abrupt conclusion— in the spring of 1959, when a senior official with the CCP Central Committee's Bureau for the Translation of the Works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin insisted that the entire debate had been "confused" as a result of a flawed translation. The most com­ mon Chinese translation of the key term "bourgeois rights"— one containing the character fa (legal)— represented a "distorted" interpretation of what Marx and Lenin really had been referring to, he claimed. The correct translation of "bourgeois rights" ought to be one that involved no reference to the legal sphere. From now on, all further use of the particular term on which the debate had so far centered should be proscribed. A new expression for referring to "bourgeois rights" in Chinese was introduced, one that if re­ translated into English meant something like "bourgeois-type nonlegal rights."30 This high-level intervention temporarily ended the debate about bourgeois rights. But it was eventually to continue. A few years later, the proscribed translation of bourgeois rights reappeared in the discourse, and it continued to be used throughout much of the 1970s. To those in the know, this reemergence signaled a decline in the for­ tunes of Hu Qiaomu and a rise in the fortunes of one of his col­ leagues, Kang Sheng. Kang preferred the translation with fa in it; Hu did not. During the Cultural Revolution, Kang was (with the support of Mao Zedong) in a position to impose upon the discourse the use of "h is" terminology, whereas Hu temporarily was not. Once Kang Sheng and Mao Zedong were dead, however, Hu was able to have his way once more.31 In 1977 a translation that read "bourgeois nonlegal rights" was made the sole permissible one.32 One can only speculate about what will happen once the now eighty-year-old Hu Qiaomu is dead. ism: Mao Zedong and the Great Leap Forward 1958 (Stockholm: Fôreningen fôr Orientaliska Studier, 1987), 111-50. 30 Zhang Zhongshi, "Duiyu 'Zichanjieji Faquan' Iß Yu Yifa de Yijian" [Opinion concerning translation of the term "bourgeois rights"], RMRB, 28 March 1959. 31 Wang Ruoshui, interview in Cambridge, Mass., April 1989. Kang Sheng died in 1975, Mao in 1976. 32 Zhonggong Zhongyang Ma-En-Lie-Si Zhuzuo Bianyiju, "'Z ichanjieji Faquan' Ying Gaiyi Wei 'Zichanjieji Q uanli'" [The translation of "bourgeois rights" should be changed to read "bourgeois rights"], RMRB, 12 December 1977.

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Translators and others professionally engaged in the systematic introduction of foreign thought into China have always been in a precarious situation when it comes to formulations. They are on the one hand expected by the CCP to "promote an understanding of Western culture, the assimilation of useful knowledge and experi­ ence, and the opening up of new areas of research." But they are also expected to help the Chinese people to firmly resist the "corro­ sive im pact" of degenerate foreign ideas.33 That neither assimilation of "useful knowledge" nor resistance to degenerate ideas can be tackled successfully without the help of words is obvious. The CCP takes the introduction of foreign expressions into the Chinese language very seriously, and it is always on guard against any possi­ ble contamination of "th e language of historical materialism." Many of China's younger social scientists promptly took a liking to the Tofflerian concept of a "third wave" when it was first intro­ duced into China in 1983. Publishing houses in Beijing and Shanghai began work on translations of two of Alvin Toffler's major works, Previews and Premises and The Third Wave.34 It is by no means improbable that the rather flimsy concept of the "third wave" would have been discarded by China's academic community if a proper dis­ cussion of its validity and usefulness had been permitted. But in a preemptive strike, the Central Propaganda Department proscribed all use of it on 14 February 1984. In a memorandum entitled "Opinion Concerning the Formulation 'Third W ave'," it declared: Recently, in internal discussions as well as in open reporting, the argument has been made that as we face the Third Wave, even greater attention should be paid to the promotion and utilization of sci-tech intellectuals (keji zhishifenzi). The so-called Third Wave is not a scientific concept. To make use of it when expressing the Party's policies is inappropriate and likely to create ideological confu­ sion.35 With Toffler's "third wave" came a collection of formulations that 33 "Jiaqiang Dui Xifang Zichanjieji Xueshu Zhuzuo de Pinglun Gongzuo" [Strengthen the work of reviewing Western bourgeois academic writings], Bianchuang Zhi You 3 (1984): 1 0 -1 . 34 Aerwen Tuofule (Alvin Toffler), Qianjing He Qianti [Previews and premises] (Shanghai: Shanghai Renmin Chubanshe, December 1984), and Di San Ci Langchao [The third wave] (Beijing: Sanlian Shudian, May 1984). 35 Schoenhals, Selections, 31.

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also appeared suspicious to the Propaganda Department. To prevent the possibility of anyone's using them to "create ideological confu­ sion" or to create what might develop into a heretical discourse about the "utilization of sd-tech intellectuals/' their use was promptly pros­ cribed as well. This is how the Propaganda Department justified its action: Appearing together with it are all kinds of formulations like "the space age/' "the information age/' "the electronic age/' "the post­ industrial society," "the trans-industrial society," et cetera. These formulations have something in common, namely, they all use sci­ ence and technology to mark the boundaries of an era. They deny the contradictions between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie and the need to change the capitalist system of ownership of the means of production.36 Zhao Ziyang appears to have opposed the proscription of Toffler's terminology.37 In the opinion of the CCP elders who have since demoted him from his post as Party general secretary, that opposition probably counts as one of the instances on which Zhao failed to "firm ly withstand the corrosive impact of bourgeois liberalism" or— to use the jargon of 1984— "oppose and resist spiritual pollu­ tion." A few weeks after the Propaganda Department had proscribed "Third W ave," it dealt in the same way with "Socialist Alienation," claiming that it represented "an erroneous ideological trend in the guise of a new formulation."38 Zhao Ziyang spoke on the reform of China's economic structure more than once in 1983-84. In his Report on the Work of the Government to the National People's Congress, in May 1984, he dealt with it at length. China, he said, desperately needed "large numbers of talented persons with a grasp of modem science, technol­ ogy, and management expertise" in order to reform its economy. "W e must also," he said, "further get rid of the influence of 'leftist' ideology." Bidding for the support of China's educated elite, he added that "those cadres who still ideologically resist and in practice 3* Ibid., 32. 37 Cf. Zhao's positive comments on the Third Wave in his speech "Yingdang Zhuyi Yanjiu 'Shijie Xin de Gongye Geming' He Women de Duice" [Pay attention to investi­ gating the "worldwide new industrial revolution" and our policy in the face of it] (9 October 1983), Lilun Xuexi Cankao Ziliao 130-1 (1984): 2 -1 2 . 30 Zhonggong Zhongyang Xuanchuanbu, Xuanbian 1984, 47.

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refuse to implement the Party's and the state's policy toward intellec­ tuals must be dismissed from leading positions."39 Zhao's political lobbying on behalf of economists, scientists, tech­ nicians and technocrats, and "persons with management expertise" stirred a controversy within the CCP. Some firmly opposed it and wanted no part of Zhao's reform package. Under these cir­ cumstances, a discourse constituted itself in which the two catch­ words were "reform er" and "conservative." Within the discourse, Zhao's supporters— who included a majority of students, teachers, scholars, and researchers at China's universities and academies of social sciences— occupied the semantic higher ground: the term "reform er" had a far more positive ring to it than the term "conser­ vative." This point, however, was not lost on their opponents, whose spokesman was Deng Liqun, the CCP director of propaganda and former vice-president of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. On 14 July 1984 the latter made their move: in a Central Propaganda Department memorandum entitled "Actively Propagate Reform in Accordance with the Policies of the Center," they insisted that from now on, in propaganda reports on reform, people should not be divided into factions, e.g., be marked off as "reformers" (gaigezhe), and as "conservatives" (baoshouzhe), "reform-opponents" (fandui gaigezhe), etc., since [such a practice] is not conducive to the promo­ tion of reform and preservation of popular unity. It not only gives certain persons with ulterior motives inside and outside China a han­ dle for "proving" that within China's Party there are major forces resisting reform, but it also creates a kind of pressure within the Party and in society that prevents people horn engaging in active probing, frustrates those who beg to differ, and makes it impossible to really arrive at a common understanding.40 As in "Opinion Concerning the Formulation 'Third W ave'," the Cen­ tral Propaganda Department once again proscribed the use of key terminology to control a debate to which it objected. One may assume that the memorandum struck a sympathetic chord with the opponents of reform, for example, the now no-longer-to-be-labeled» Zhao Ziyang, "Zhengfu Gongzuo Baogao," in Zhonggong Zhongyang Werodan Yanjiushi, ed., Shier Da Yilai Zhongyao Wenxian Xuanbian [Selected important docu­ ments since the 12th national congress] (Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe, 1986), 4 9 0 -9 1 . 40 "Jiji de Anzhao Zhongyang de Zhengce Xuanchuan gaige," in Zhonggong Zhongyang Xuanchuanbu, Xuanbianben 1984,1 9 5 -6 .

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thus “conservatives"! But it must at the same time have appeared offensive to underpaid academics in particular. One passage stressed the need for “extreme prudence" in dealing with certain “sensitive issues" related to economic reform; another criticized “some newspa­ pers and journals who write that associate professors don't make even as much money as workers." To put such things in the papers, the memorandum said, “hurts people's feelings, and does not solve the problem.“41 The Central Propaganda Department in 1984 continued to insist that the world was populated by “revolutionaries," “counterrevolu­ tionaries,“ and “wavering elem ents"— to list only three of the labels that under Mao had “conformed to those explicitly provided in the documents of the Party C enter." It was not going to permit these familiar categories of analysis to be supplanted by Zhao Ziyang and his supporters' “ambiguous and vague terminology." Five days after it had published the memorandum just dted, it published another one in which it reiterated this point of view. This time the depart­ ment argued that the present reform situation is excellent__ Within our Party, there exist no forces opposed to reform__ Consequently, in dealing with some Comrades whose thinking is temporarily not keeping up with the changing situation, we should make a concrete analysis, and should not in a sweeping and rash fashion criticize them and accuse them of being under the influence of “leftist" ideology, and nor should we in a sweeping fashion label those Comrades who are actively pursuing reform “reformers" or members of a "reformfaction," etc.42 One week after this instruction on appropriate formulations had appeared in Propaganda Trends, Deng Iiqun addressed a National Conference on Ideology and Education concerning Urban Economic Reform in northeast China. The text of his address to the conference is unfortunately not available, but one can assume that he further pursued the issue of the terms on which one should discuss reform. Both of his department's memoranda banning use of such terms as "reform er," “reform-opponent," and “conservative" were at the « Ibid., 196. 42 "Xuanchuan Gaige Yao Zhuyi de Yige W enti" [Something to which attention should be paid when propagating reform], in ibid., 204.

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beginning of 1985 still considered important enough to be included in an anthology of Propaganda Department texts published in 48,200 copies “for the reference needs of Party cadres in . . . cultural and educational institutions/'43 Chinese intellectuals have become increasingly more and more frustrated with the CCP's practice of exercising “Party leadership" by manipulating language. Essays in the internal newsletters put out by professional federations of academics bear witness to this frustration. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, debate among political scientists, economists, and students of international relations was severely ham­ pered by the way in which the “scientific“ formulation the (Leninist) “epoch remains unchanged" made certain lines of argument virtually impossible to pursue. The situation finally prompted two members of a provincial-level Federation of Social Scientists to write the fol­ lowing in their Federation N ewsletter: In our country's theoretical circles, we constantly come across propa­ ganda to the effect that the Leninist “epoch remains unchanged." This particular formulation is harmful because it makes it difficult to correctly grasp the contents of [our] epoch, and it is furthermore not scientific in theory. Lenin proceeded from realities and observed the epoch from the point of view of development. To look at an epoch from a static and rigid point of view, constantly reiterating that the “epoch remains unchanged" is to violate Lenin's thinking. It is wrong to maintain that only by insisting that the “epoch remains unchanged" can we prove that Leninism has not become obsolete. In reality, what insist­ ing that the “epoch remains unchanged" will inevitably lead to is the denial of the [possibility of a] development of the contents of an epoch....To argue with respect to Lenin that we must [resolutely defend] “whatever" [policy decisions he made, and steadfastly abide by whatever instructions he gave], is to invite disaster.... As we are faced with a multitude of new circumstances, how can we possibly go on casually talking about how “the epoch of imperialism and of the proletarian revolution" “remains unchanged" and not pay atten­ tion to the development and change of the concrete contents of the epoch?44 Although the authors did not hide the fact that they themselves 43 Collophon and preface in ibid. 44 Wang Bangzuo and Sun Guanhong, "'Sh id ai Meiyou Bian' de Tifa Bu Kexue"

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disagreed with some of Lenin's more famous tenets, their argument was not directed against those tenets per se. It was aimed at the practice of using the formulation the "epoch remains unchanged" as an axiomatic premise by which to predetermine the direction and outcome of discourse on twentieth-century global realities. The most archconservative of the CCP's censors are unlikely to be impressed by arguments in favor of discarding Lenin's terminology. They have in the past defended their opposition to change by saying that "w ith [many] new formulations, you cannot make any sense out of this and you cannot make any sense out of that."45 But among more liberal censors are some who do not object to the occasional inclusion of the odd novel expression or formulation in the Party's list of legitimate formulations. Gong Yuzhi is a former member of the CCP Central Propaganda Department who during the Cultural Revolution was accused by his colleagues of being "so ft" on bourgeois liberalism.46 In the 1950s and 1960s, he was mainly involved in science policy work. In 1960 he compiled the highly controversial (at the time) document "O n the Question of Employing Formulations Containing References to Mao Zedong Thought in the Field of the Natural Sciences," in which the point was raised that one should not indiscriminately refer to every scientific achievement taking place in China as "a great victory for Mao Zedong Thought in the field of the natural sciences."47 In 1984 [The formulation the "epoch remains unchanged" is not scientific], originally in She­ lton Tongxun, special issue no. 9, excerpted in (and here translated from) Ningxia Shehui Kexue Tongxun 2 (1981): 20. 45 Deng Liqun, 126. See also page 125, where Deng says that "after having said lin e ' for so many years, it feels somewhat awkward to all of a sudden have to stop saying it." Deng Liqun made this particular remade not long after the Central Com­ mittee in 1982 had proclaimed that the formulation "line struggle" was "devoid of scientific content" and therefore no longer should be used. "Zemyang Lijie Yiban Bu Ti 'Luxian Cuowu/ 'Luxian Douzheng'" [How to interpret the general absence of references to "line error" and "line struggle"], Xueshu Yanjiu Dongtai 4 (1982): 17. 46 Zhonggong Zhongyang Xuanchuanbu Chedi Cuihui Yanwangdian Geming Lianhe Weiyuanhui "Jingfengyu" Zhandoudui, ed., Chedi Qingsuan Jiu Zhongxuanbu Yanwangdian Shenxiang Kexue Jishu Gongzuo Zhong de Heixian [Thoroughly eradicate the black line leading toward science and technology work from the old central propa­ ganda department palace of hell] (Beijing: Shoudu Kejijie Geming Zaofanpai Pipan Liu, Deng Lianluozhan, 1967), 7. « Ibid., 8.

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Gong explained to a national conference of senior propaganda officials why he thought "interpersonal relations" (renji guanxi ) ought to be made into "an important concept of historical materialism": [In the 1984 Decision of the Third Plenum of die Twelfth CCP Cen­ tral Committee on Reform of the Economic Structure] it seems, a Chinese term "interpersonal relations" imported from overseas has been used to express "relationships between persons" (ren he ren de guanxi). At first I felt it was somewhat unfamiliar, but have since come to think o f it as quite all right, given that the expression "rela­ tionships between persons" is a bit on the long side—more like a sentence—and does not make up a concept. But this "interpersonal relations" is kind of similar to international relations, that is, the rela­ tions between nations. "Interpersonal relations" is quite a brief expression, only four characters long. It may have come from the Chinese vocabulary of Hong Kong or Taiwan or from somewhere outside the mainland.... I think this "interpersonal relations" is not bad. As a concept of historical materialism then, interpersonal rela­ tions among the relationships under socialism among interpersonal relations [sic] involve a lot of problems that have to be investi­ gated.48 When Gong made these comments, they probably counted as those of an enlightened and open-minded reformer within the CCP. From an outsider's perspective, however, they do not appear so. The inclusion among the so-called concepts of historical materialism of even such a trivial expression as "interpersonal relations" is held up as highly significant. (Elsewhere in his speech, Gong deals in similar terms with the formulation "quality of life," which he claims has ori­ ginated with "sociologists in capitalist societies" but nonetheless may be worthy of "our investigation and assimilation on the basis of Marxism."49) But when the inclusion— symbolized by the appearance of the ordered words in the text of a Central Committee resolution— is to be justified and its rationale spelled out, all Gong can come up with are remarks like " I think [it] is not bad" and " I have. . . come to think of it as quite all right." 48 Gong Yuzhi, "Guanyu Jingji Tizhi Gaige de Jidian Zhexue Sikao" [Some philo­ sophical thoughts about the reform of the economic structure], Ulun Xuexi Cankao Ziliao 5 (1985): 21. 44 find., 25.

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The examples of censorship of academic discourse dted and com­ mented upon in this study illustrate a number of points. First is that attempts by the CCP to manipulate and control what is said or writ­ ten never have been limited to any sphere of "pure politics" but from the very beginning have involved all aspects of society, includ­ ing the human and social sciences. This intense politicization of academic discourse is one of the most prominent restrictions upon the collection, dissemination, and exchange of information, opinion, and ideas that affect the work of China's academic community. The examples show how the manipulation of discourse is actually carried out. It is one thing to observe from the outside how Chinese histori­ ans, political scientists, sociologists, economists, and the like suddenly "drop" particular formulations. It is another thing to become aware of how this concerted "drop" is achieved. Have countertechniques been developed to circumvent the kind of censorship described here by those subjected to it? PRC historians have upheld the proud Chinese tradition of writing allegorically and have (sometimes) been able to get a different message across by "pointing at the mulberry and abusing the locust"— ostensibly dis­ cussing the ancient past while in fact commenting on not-so-distant events. Political scientists are known to have employed similar tech­ niques to comment on Chinese realities by discussing, on the surface, the shortcomings of socialism in Yugoslavia or Hungary. But there are obvious limitations to what can be achieved with techniques like these. Not the least problematic is the limited extent to which it can be ascertained that one is in fact being "read " in the way intended. The same goes for texts in which economists succeed in passing negative statistics on to the intelligent reader by making unfounded positive arguments on the basis of them, claiming that they show that "the domestic situation is not only excellent, but even more excellent than it has ever been in the past," when in fact they actu­ ally illustrate the opposite. By making use of what would normally be considered rhetorical devices alien to the social sciences, it is possible to circumvent some forms of censorship. But to the extent that some social sciences, at least, literally define their own "scientific" quality in terms of not employing such devices, it means that discursive freedom is won at a

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high price indeed. Historians surmount the problem by claiming a special status between art and science.50 But for others, the choice is in the end one between the ratified formulations of the state— which severely restrict the range of things that can be said— or an allegori­ cal, vague, and metaphor-saturated prose that is equally ambiguous, albeit for different reasons. Either way, the "scientific" status of the final artifact is in doubt. For a brief moment in the spring of 1989, it looked almost as if freedom from the kind of censorship described here was about to be granted the Chinese intelligentsia. The CCP leadership appeared prepared to loosen its grip on the form of power represented by prescribed formulations. A movement that would have made the topic of this chapter a historical rather than contemporary one appeared to have the backing not only of university students, teach­ ers, and members of China's social science academies, but of rankand-file editors cum censors as well. But then came 4 June. At present there are no signs suggesting that the CCP leadership intends to relax its control of the language of academic discourse. Any such relaxation is discredited as equivalent to "peddling the sinister wares of 'peaceful evolution'." If the "new world" that Mao Zedong envisaged in 1949 is ever to witness the "blossoming of a hundred flowers" and "contention of a hundred schools of thought," the CCP will one day have to disman­ tle its system of censorship of the humanities and social sciences. Otherwise, there can be no "promotion of the sciences, promotion of the truth, and furthering of the arts" as the makers of the revolution once promised.51 Certainly, the elevation of the political and social status of the intelligentsia from that of a "nuisance" to that of firstrate citizens would change much for the better, as would the diver­ sion of additional funds to teaching and research. But all of this would still by itself be insufficient. Ultimately, the humanities and social sciences depend on knowledge, breadth of mental outlook, and creative imagination in a way only partially dependent on external factors. *° Hayden White, Tropics o f Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), 2 7 -9 . 51 Mao Zedong, "Zai Quanguo Xuanchuan Gongzuo Huiyi Shang de Jianghua" [Speed) at national conference on propaganda work], in Zhongguo Renmin Daxue, 86.

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In an article ostensibly about canonical texts in imperial China, a Chinese historian some years ago called the CCP's practice of "severely denouncing those who use formulations that are not in the canonical texts" a "rem nant poison" from China's feudal past.52 In another article, he went so far as to refer ironically to the Party's cen­ sorship of academic discourse as "ignorance with Chinese charac­ teristics" and to call for a protracted struggle against it.53 (Sometime after these remarks had appeared in print, they were included in an internal Party list of serious examples of "bourgeois liberalism .") His point, in all its seemingly self-evident simplicity, was that develop­ ment in the human and social sciences can only be the outcome of creativity and that creativity can flourish only where there is freedom to think, speak, and write in words of one's own choice, rather than in the restricted and uniform code defined by a higher authority. Unfortunately, as this study shows, China is stUl a way from becom­ ing such a place.

52 Sun Changjiang, "Jingxue Yu Zhongguo W enhua" [Canonical studies and Chinese culture], in Zhenli de Qiusuo [Quest for truth] (Shanghai: Shanghai Renmin Chubanshe, 1989), 228. 53 Sun Changjiang, "Yige Fangzhen, Liange Lianxi, Sange Keti" [One policy, two relations, three topics], in ibid., 171.

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1981-1985 "Wenyi Tongbao" Xuanbian [Selected General circulars on literature and art 1981-1985]. Beijing: Wenhua Yishu Chubanshe, 1986. Beijing Shifan Daxue Jinggangshan Gongshe, ed. Wuchuan Jieji Wenhua Dageming Ziliao Zhongyang Shouzhang Jianghua [Materials on the great proletarian cultural revolution: central leaders' speeches]. Shanghai, 1967. Bianji Shouce: Heilongjiang Renmin Chubanshe Neibu Cankao Yongshu [Editor's handbook: internal reference work of the Heilongjiang people's publishing house]. Harbin, 1980. Cheng Shi et al. Wenge X iaoliao Ji [Cultural revolutionary laughing matter]. Chengdu: Xi'nan Caijing Daxue Chubanshe, 1988. Cihai [Ocean of words]. Shanghai: Shanghai Cishu Chubanshe, 1980. Dangnei Zuida de Zou Zibenzhuyi Daolu de Dangquanpai Uu Shaoqi Zai Qingnian Gongzuo Zhong de Heihua [Black statements on youth work by Liu Shaoqi, the biggest person in power within the party taking the capitalist road]. Vol. 2. Beijing, [1967]. Dangshi Huiyi Baogao Ji [Collection of reports from party history conferences]. Beijing: Zhonggong Zhongyang Dangxiao Chu­ banshe, 1982. "Dangshi Ziliao Tongxun" 1982 Nian Hedingben [Selections from Party history m aterials new sletter 1982]. Beijing: Zhonggong Zhongyang Dangxiao Chubanshe, 1983. Deng Xiaoping Pandong Yanxing Huibian [Collection of Deng Xiaoping's reactionary statements and deeds]. Beijing: Beijing Daxue, 1967.

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