Andrew G. Walder Reihenfolge der Bücher

A masterful analysis of Guangxi's unusually severe violence during the Cultural Revolution.

Drawing on a wide array of primary sources, including work diaries, interviews, and official documents, this book systematically investigates the political conflict structure in Feng County, a poor and remote area of China, during the decade from the Red Guard movement in 1966 to Mao Zedong's death and the fall of the "Gang of Four" in 1976. It is the first study to concentrate on county-level politics in this period, revealing a surprising extent of social and political disruption that persisted throughout the decade. These events challenge the prevailing scholarly view that the Cultural Revolution's upheavals were mainly urban, demonstrating that this rural county faced factional struggles as intensely as any documented locale in China. The book is organized chronologically into short chapters, guiding readers through the unfolding factional warfare while reflecting on how these conflicts mirrored national trends and highlighting Feng County's unique experiences. Ultimately, it offers a detailed chronicle of the Cultural Revolution's impact on a rural county, shedding light on the pervasive nature of the upheaval and emphasizing the often-overlooked rural perspective.

China's Communist Party seized power in 1949 after a long period of guerrilla insurgency followed by full-scale war, but the Chinese revolution was just beginning. China Under Mao narrates the rise and fall of the Maoist revolutionary state from 1949 to 1976 -- an epoch of startling accomplishments and disastrous failures, steered by many forces but dominated above all by Mao Zedong. Mao's China, Andrew Walder argues, was defined by two distinctive institutions established during the first decade of Communist Party rule: a Party apparatus that exercised firm (sometimes harsh) discipline over its members and cadres; and a socialist economy modeled after the Soviet Union. Although a large national bureaucracy had oversight of this authoritarian system, Mao intervened strongly at every turn. The doctrines and political organization that produced Mao's greatest achievements -- victory in the civil war, the creation of China's first unified modern state, a historic transformation of urban and rural life -- also generated his worst failures: the industrial depression and rural famine of the Great Leap Forward and the violent destruction and stagnation of the Cultural Revolution. Misdiagnosing China's problems as capitalist restoration and prescribing continuing class struggle against imaginary enemies as the solution, Mao ruined much of what he had built and created no viable alternative. At the time of his death, he left China backward and deeply divided--Publisher