Chang Ch'un-ch'iao and Shanghai's January Revolution

Bibliographic Data

ID2852597
AuthorsPeter R Moody (University of Notre Dame, corresponding author), Andrew G Walder (0000-0001-7515-4854)
Year1978
Volume51
Issue4
Pages645
Publication date1978-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenuePacific Affairs (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0030-851X • E-ISSN: 1715-3379
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/2757247
OpenAlexW2032472302
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited28

Chinese Marxism is unique in the world communist movement for the theoretical and practical solutions it has offered for the problem of maintaining unbroken change in social relations after the initial establishment of socialism.For a prominent contingent within the Chinese Communist movement, it has been insufficient to redistribute the means of production and end the exploitative aspects of the old society.Production relations, which include for this contingent not only property relations but all social relations embodied in forms of distribution, enterprise rules and regulations, and economic coordination, must be continually transformed to eliminate all vestiges of class distinction.This transformation is to take place largely through the conscious effort of people who live these relations in their daily lives.All literature and art, reflections of these social relations, must be mobilized to help facilitate this transformation.Individuals inside and out of the Party who resist these continuous changes as being detrimental to the rapid development of a socialist economy or as being harmful to literary and artistic creativity must be struggled with politically so that these changes can move forward.Chang Ch !un-ch f iao has been one of the more prominent theoreticians and practitioners of this stream of Chinese Marxism, and the January Revolution has become symbolic of efforts both to promote social and political change and to overcome resistance to these changes by prominent Party and non-Party figures.The study in this volume traces the shifting involvement of Chang in the Cultural Revolution in Shanghai and the social forces in Chinese society which, once set off by the Cultural Revolution, decisively altered events in the city.Chang emerges as a complex political figure-both instigator and suppressor of political conflict, alternately champion and enemy of rebellion-and is throughout a protector of the ideals of his branch of Marxism who singlemindedly pushed for their realization through a number of sharp tactical turns.The January Revolution not only reminds us that classes continue to exist under socialism, as Chinese Marxists are the first to vii viii admit, but it also highlights the fact that a socialist society is capable of generating contradictions and conflicts that are distinctively its own

Political science · Chinese history and philosophy · History · Hong Kong and Taiwan Politics

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