CHAPTER SIX THE CAMPAIGN TO CRITICIZE LIN BIAO AND CONFUCIUS (批林批孔) AND THE PROBLEM OF “REStoration” IN CHINESE MARXIST HISTORIOGRAPHY Susanne Weigelin-Schwiedrzik* Our ancestor dragons have already died, but their souls are still with us1 —Mao Zedong Introduction In his pathbreaking article on modern Chinese historiography, Wang Gungwu refers to the Campaign to Criticize Lin Biao and Confucius (Pi Lin Pi Kong 批林批孔) as a reflection of a new historical conscious- ness generated by the attempt of Marxist historians in China to bring Chinese history and world history into sync: “The implication seems to be that world history and Chinese history are as one in the same way that the world today is one with China today.”2 Wang Gungwu comes to this conclusion by describing post-1949 Marxist historiography as a pro- cess of coming to terms with a number of basic issues, which culminate in the “persistent desire to change the cultural values and the historical perceptions of the Chinese people.”3 In his mind, Marxism opened an opportunity for Chinese intellectuals to look at Chinese history as part of world history. This view, however, created a dissonance with the long- held conception of the Chinese past being “autonomous” in the sense of * I would like to thank Arif Dirlik and Axel Schneider for their stimulating comments on an earlier version of this paper. 1 祖龙虽死魂犹在. This line is taken from a poem Mao wrote as a letter to Guo Morou criticizing Guo’s positive attitude on Confucius and criticism of Qin Shihuang in his book 十批判书 (Ten Critical Essays), which was first published in the 1940s. The poem has been published in several different versions. The version here is from Gao and Yan 1986: 484. 2 Wang Gungwu 1975: 23. 3 Ibid., 24. 156 susanne weigelin-schwiedrzik fundamentally different from the history of other parts of the world. As up until the 1970s the conceptions of Chinese history as part of world history and Chinese history as autonomous could not be reconciled, the writing of history vacillated between dogmatically writing Chinese his- tory into Marxist terminology on the one hand, and the use of “traditional historicism” on the other. Historians trying to adjust to the dominance of Marxism after 1949 were reluctant to accept the new worldview as they saw the danger of belittling the Chinese past by overcoming its autonomy, while Marxist historians in the 1950s and 1960s had some difficulty in dealing with the cultural heritage of China in a convincing way. They soon realized that they had to acknowledge the importance of the Chinese her- itage, but at the same time “they had to make sure that the revolution was not weighed down by the Chinese heritage and did not merely become another form of the old dynastic change.”4 “Restoration” and the “Pull of the Chinese Past” This is where the topic of “restoration” enters the discussion. Although this topic seemed to be merely of political importance in the context of the Pi Lin Pi Kong Campaign, it is of much more far-reaching implica- tions for Wang Gungwu. To a certain degree, he believes the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) under Mao was worried about the fact that “Chinese history had a tremendous pull and the power of analogy across the full length of Chinese history was immensely attrac- tive to all knowledgeable Chinese.”5 As long as Marxism could not provide a convincing interpretation of Chinese history it remained con- tested by the persistence of the traditional view on Chinese history. This implies, according to Wang Gungwu, that “there was a distinct danger that the Chinese past would become overwhelming again.”6 In this sense, the Campaign to Criticize Lin Biao and Confucius aimed “to transform the accepted views of the Chinese past by instilling a more integrated Sino- Marxist interpretation of history.”7 Looking at Chinese history by way of historical analogies was finally overcome and replaced by a combination of integrating Chinese history into world history on a structural level 4 Ibid., 12. 5 Ibid., 19. 6 Ibid., 11. 7 Ibid., 22..