. , , RISE OF THE RED ENGINEERS • • • • • � - A Series Sponsored by the East-West Center CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN ASIA ANDTHE PACIFIC John T. Sidel and Geoffrey M. White, Series Co-Editors EAST-WEST CENTER s E R I E s o N ContemporaryIssues in Asia and the Pacific A collaborativeeff ort by Stanford University Press and the East-West Center, this series focuses on issues of contemporary significance in the Asia Pacific SERIES CO-EDITORS region, most notably political, social, cultural, and economic change. The se­ John T Sidel, London School of Economics ries seeks books that focus on topics of regional importance, on problems that Geoffrey M. White, East-West Center cross disciplinary boundaries, and that have the capacity to reach academic and University Of Hawai'i and other interested audiences. The East-We st Center is an education and research organization estab­ EDITORIAL BOARD lished by the U.S. Congress in 1960 to strengthen relations and under�and- • Kellee S. Tsai, Johns Hopkins University ing among the peoples and nations of Asia, the Pacific,and the United States. Sheila A. Smith, Council on Foreign Relations The Center contributes to a peaceful, prosperous, and just Asia Pacific com­ Peter Xenos, East- West Center munity by serving as a vigorous hub for cooperative research, education, and dialogue on critical issues of common concern to the Asia Pacificregion and the United States. Funding for the Center comes from the U.S. government, with additional support provided by private agencies, individuals, foundations, corporations, and the governmentsof the region. 0 • • • JOEL ANDREAS Rise of the Red Engineers The Cultural Revolution and the Origins of China� New Class • • Stanford University Press . Stanford, California • • • For my mother, Carol Andreas (I933-2004), who made me care about social injustice and set me on the path of exploring its causes. Stanford University Press Stanford, California © 2009 by the Board of Tr ustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved. • • No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any ' means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrievalsystem without the prior written permis­ sion of Stanford University Press. Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Andreas, Joel. Rise of the red engineers : the Cultural Revolution and the origins of China's new class I Joel Andreas. p. em. -- (Contemporary issues in Asia and the Pacific) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-o-8047-6077-5 (cloth : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-o-8047-6078-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) I. Elite (Social sciences)--China--History--zoth century. 2. Social classes-­ China--History--zoth century. 3· Power (Social sciences)--China--History­ -zoth century. 4· Engineers--China--History--2oth century. 5· China-­ History--Cultural Revolution, I 966- I 976. I. Ti tle. II. Series: Contemporary issues in Asia and the Pacific. HN740.Z9E413 2009 305.5' 24095 I09045--dc22 • Ty peset at Stanford University Press in 9·751I3·5 Janson Te xt • Contents • Preface XI Introduction I PART I. BUILDING SOCIALISM (1949-1966) 1. Political Foundationsof Class Power • • 2. Cultural Foundations of Class Power 42 • 3 · Cradle of Red Engineers 61 PART 2. THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION (1966-!968) 4· Political Ve rsus Cultural Power 87 5· Uniting to Defend Political and Cultural Power 105 PART 3· INSTITUTIONALIZING THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION (1968-1976) 6. Supervising the Red Engineers 133 7· Eliminating the Distinction Between Mental and Manual Labor 161 8. Worker-Peasant-Soldier Students J88 • • x Contents PART 4· THE NEW ERA (I9 76-PRESENT) 9 Rebuilding the Foundations of Political · and Cultural Power 2I3 Io. Triumph of the Red Engineers I I. Te chnocracy and Capitalism Preface Conclusion 26I • Appendix I: Tsinghua University Fa culty, Production Workers, and Students, 1949-1992 28I Appendix 2: List of Interviewees When I first visited Tsinghua University in Beijing in I997, my aim was to Abbreviations learnabout the battles that took place there three decades earlier during the Notes Cultural Revolution. I had heard about the "hundred day war" between stu­ • 293 dent factions at Ts inghua and knew that one side was led by Kuai Dafu, a Bibliography 3I7 student whose name had become synonymous with the rebellious spirit of the Index period. My curiosity about the Cultural Revolution was inspired by a larger 337 interest in the transformation of China's class structure since the I 949 Revolu­ tion, but it only gradually occurred to me, as I interviewed Ts inghua employ­ ees and alumni, that in additionto being an important site of Cultural Revolu­ tion battles, the university had for decades been at the epicenter of conflicts surrounding the emergence of a new class of technocratic officials. Before the Cultural Revolution, Tsinghua-as China's leading school of en- gineering and technology-had been charged with training "Red engineers." Te chnocratic visions flourished at the university and students believed they would lead the country's transformation into an industrialized socialist re­ public. These visions were always controversial. They were at odds with the Chinese Communist Party's programmatic commitment to eliminate class dis­ tinctions, including those based on the differencesbetween mental and manual labor, and they were foreign to most of the party's cadres, who were peasant revolutionaries who celebrated traditions bornof rural warfare and harbored a deep distrust of the educated elite. Simmering tensions came to a head during the Cultural Revolution. Ts inghua became a prominent target and after fac­ tional fighting was suppressed, Mao Zedong dispatched a team of workers and soldiers to the university and charged them with eliminating elitist educational practices and preventing the school frombecoming an incubator of a "bureau­ cratic class." For nearly a decade, the campus served as a celebrated site for • XI - .. ... Xlt Preface Preface XIII implementing radical experiments in education and governance. Then, after about the university that appeared in national newspapers and journals,as well Mao died and the radical policies of the Cultural Revolution were renounced, as statistical yearbooks and administrative and political reports produced by the university emerged as the premier training ground for the type of techni­ the university. Documents were obtained from libraries in the United States cally competent and politically reliable cadres required by a new regime com­ and China (including libraries at Tsinghua University and its attached middle mitted to a technocratic vision of China's future. Ts inghua graduates climbed school), the Ts inghua University archives, used-book markets, and the per­ quickly to the top of party and state hierarchies. sonal collections of interviewees and others. Most of my interviewees had spent decades at the university, first as stu­ All accounts-retrospective and contemporary, oral and written (including dents, and then as professors or administrators, and they had experienced the statistics recorded in official documents)-reflect the biases of the pro­ firsthand muchof this tumultuous history. As I came to see that the university ducers and the times. Contemporary and retrospective sources have comple­ had been at the center of all of the key conflicts that ultimately produced a mentary strengths and weaknesses. Public expression in China has been and technocratic order, I realized the value of closely examining the history of an continues to be constrained by the prevailing ideology of the period and by institution on the ground level, where policies were implemented and social political considerations. During the first decades of communist power, un­ relations transformed. That is how my investigation into the origins of China's orchestrated political debate was possible only during two brief moments, technocratic class became centered on Ts inghua University. I have asked the the 1957 Party Rectification campaign and the early years of the Cultural university to bear quite a burden, as ultimatelyI was interested not only in Revolution, and even then although debates were sharply contentious they the origins of the technocratic officialswho rule China today, but also in the generally remained within narrow political boundaries. On the other hand, fate of the twentieth-century Communist experiment. I have tried in this ac­ these materials recorded the political discourse of the period and interpreted count of China's premier engineering school to capture crucial elements of events from a period perspective. Data produced retrospectively-such as the trajectory of communism in power, which began as a radical social leveling interviews, memoirs, and histories-are freed from past constraints aB.d in­ project and ended as an immense bureaucratic enterprise with an elaborate centives, but are subject to new sets of constraints and incentives. Moreover, social hierarchy. individuals' recollections after several decades of profound social change have I was fortunate that Tsinghua was a relatively open place. Campus apart­ to be treated with caution. Memories of past events, motivations, and ideas ment blocks were filled with individuals working and retired-who were not only fade with time, but they also undergo a conscious or unconscious willing to share their experiences and perspectives with me,