The Origins of the Cultural Revolution: Volume III: The Coming of the Cataclysm, 1961-1966

This is the final volume in a now-classic trilogy that seeks an answer to this question as it examines the politics, economics, culture, and international relations of China from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s. Drawing upon new evidence from Chinese Party reports, personal interviews, books, and journals, this volume illuminates the struggle between Mao and his colleagues over the nature and direction of China's post-revolutionary society. Presenting the ebb and flow of the Party's authority as a function of Mao's political will, Roderick MacFarquhar shows that the Chairman's actions were due less to his fear that the Party would wrest control from him, than to his refusal to let go, at any cost, of his vision of China as the vanguard revolutionary state. The Coming of the Cataclysm explores the important events leading up to the Cultural Revolution, from the Central committee's Ninth Plenum—marking the end of Mao's Great Leap with its economic and human cost—to the launching of the Socialist Education Movement; the split of international communism, and the dissolution of the Yan'an Round Table after the fateful publication of the Twenty-three Articles, which contained a chilling warning against high-level leaders taking the capitalist road. Against the background of such divisive issues as extreme collectivization, nationwide famine, industrial downsizing, and massive de-urbanization, MacFarquhar traces the rift between Mao and the Party over what Mao saw as counter-revolutionary methods—scaling back collectivization, transferring power from Party secretaries to factory managers, stressing education over ideology, and recognizing the need for better relations with the outside world. MacFarquhar details the struggles of chief deputies such as Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, and Deng Xiaoping as they worked to bolster China's failing economy while constrained by Mao's defiant policy of national self-reliance and the inexorable "Three Red Banners" of the Great Leap. From the Ninth Plenum in 1961 to the publication of the Twenty-three Articles in 1965, MacFarquhar argues, Mao continually tested the Party. Although no one rose to challenge his leadership, he eventually lost confidence in the Party's ability to change society and to realize a communist utopia. On the eve of the Cultural Revolution, Mao—made resolute by the Sino-Soviet split and the Party's acceptance of the status quo—was ready to "unleash society to change the Party."

This is the final volume in a trilogy that examines the politics, personalities, economics, culture, and international relations of China from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s. It seeks to answer the central question: Why did Chairman Mao Zedong launch the Cultural Revolution (1966—76), which plunged China into chaos and almost destroyed its Communist Party?

The Coming of the Cataclysm starts with the great famine of the early 1960s, which resulted in tens of millions of deaths and set in train a series of emergency measures that increasingly divided Mao from his comrades-in-arms. His anger that they were prepared to adopt "capitalist" methods to rescue the country was sharpened by his belief that Moscow had actually gone capitalist and sold out to the "imperialist" West. From 1961 to 1966, the period covered by this volume, the increasingly urgent question for Mao was how to prevent a similar revolutionary degeneration in China. The Cultural Revolution was his answer.

Drawing upon new evidence from Party documents, personal interviews, books, and journals, MacFarquhar details the growing rift between Mao and his colleagues as they attempted to cope with domestic privation and an increasingly hostile international environment — until the Chairman finally decided to smash the unity of the Yan'an Round Table by unleashing society against the party-state.

Winner of the 1999 Joseph Levenson Prize for Books on Twentieth Century China, Association for Asian Studies

Preface Contents Abbreviations Introduction Appendix 1: Birth and Death Rates Part One: The Third Bitter Year 1 The Central Committee’s Ninth Plenum 2 Emergency Measures 3 A New Course in the Countryside 4 A Plethora of Plans 5 Reds and Experts 6 China’s Isolation Part Two: False Dawn 7 The Seven Thousand Cadres Conference Appendix 2: The Changguanlou Incident 8 Economic Crunch 9 The Dispute Over Collectivization 10 Resuscitating the United Front 11 The Curious Case of the ‘Three-Family Village’ Part Three: Class Struggle 12 Mao Changes the Signals 13 War in the Himalayas, Crisis in the Caribbean 14 Mao in Charge Appendix 3: Comparative Dictatorial Roles and Styles 15 The Socialist Education Movement 16 The Sino-Soviet Rupture and the Vietnam War Part Four: The End of the Yan'an Bound Table 17 Woman Warrior 18 From Grey Eminence to Red Leader 19 Mao Stoops to Conquer 20 The Coming of the Cataclysm Conclusions Abbreviations used in Notes Notes Bibliography Index This is the final volume in a now-classic trilogy that seeks an answer to this question as it examines the politics, economics, culture, and international relations of China from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s. Drawing upon new evidence from Chinese Party reports, personal interviews, books, and journals, this volume illuminates the struggle between Mao and his colleagues over the nature and direction of China's post-revolutionary society. Presenting the ebb and flow of the Party's authority as a function of Mao's political will, Roderick MacFarquhar shows that the Chairman's actions were due less to his fear that the Party would wrest control from him, than to his refusal to let go, at any cost, of his vision of China as the vanguard revolutionary state.__The Coming of the Cataclysm__ This is the final volume in a now-classic trilogy that seeks an answer to this question as it examines the politics, economics, culture, and international relations of China from the mid-1950s to the mid 1960s. "The Coming of the Cataclysm" explores the important events leading up to the Cultural Revolution, and details the ways in which Mao continually tested the Chinese Communist Party. 1. Contradictions among the people, 1956-1957 2. The great leap forward, 1958-1960 3. The coming of the cataclysm, 1961-1966. Reason began to prevail in the summer of 1960 as a gloomily pensive Mao realized the enormity of what he had perpetrated.