Copyright by Benjamin Hudson Yeager 2021 The Dissertation Committee for Benjamin Hudson Yeager Certifies that this is the approved version of the following Dissertation: Knowledge Capital in Socialist China: The Political Interplay of Intellectuals, Cadres, and the Party-State, 1950-1959 Committee: Huaiyin Li, Supervisor Robert Oppenheim Mark Ravina Yoav Di-Capua Knowledge Capital in Socialist China: The Political Interplay of Intellectuals, Cadres, and the Party-State, 1950-1959 by Benjamin Hudson Yeager Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2021 Dedication For Sarah, who was there from the beginning to the end of my graduate school experience Acknowledgements A project the size of a dissertation would be impossible without a seemingly endless number of individuals. This includes, most obviously, Huaiyin Li, who has shepherded my career as a graduate student from beginning to end. His advise, mentorship, and willingness to casually discuss the ideas that led to this present work were invaluable. The rest of my committee—Robert Oppenheim, Mark Ravina, and Yoav Di-Capua—provided no less thoughtful feedback over the course of the project. A number of other professors at UT provided considerable support or career advice over the course of my time, including Nancy Stalker, Penne Restad, and Mark Metzler. As with many history graduate students, I am indebted to the massive behind-the-scenes enterprise undertaken by Marilyn Lehman and now Michael Schmidt. This work was also supported with a generous research fellowship provided by the University of Texas at Austin. My fieldwork would have been impossible without the assistance of Zhang Peiguo, who helped me access the Shanghai Municipal Archives. Huaiyin Li’s cohort of graduate students—in particular, Zhai Jing and Fei Guo—were faithful friends and semi-frequent language consultants over the course of my time at UT. I owe an enormous debt to my parents and my brother, who set and modeled, respectively, high standards of academic success. My domestic support network, however, was the real backbone of this work, consisting of both my two dogs, Telo and Jaro, as well as Sarah, who is everything to me. v Abstract Knowledge Capital in Socialist China: The Political Interplay of Intellectuals, Cadres, and the Party-State, 1950-1959 Benjamin Hudson Yeager, PhD The University of Texas at Austin, 2021 Supervisor: Huaiyin Li Previous literature on the relationship between the post-1949 Chinese state and Chinese intellectuals has emphasized its oppositional characters; specifically, the measures taken and extent to which the party-state placed intellectuals and their beliefs under surveillance and scrutiny. My dissertation takes a different approach, highlighting areas of cooperation and accommodation between the state and the intellectual class. The state, for example, took active steps to find employment for out-of-work intellectuals at the start of the 1950s and ensured that political study requirements were not particularly disruptive, and even less punitive. To the extent that there was disharmony in the relationship, it usually arose from low-ranking cadres, many of whom were not formally educated and took a more skeptical view of intellectuals than did the upper echelons of the party-state. This work also surveys the steps intellectuals took to advance their interests, through letter- writing and petitions to government officials to advocate for themselves and their colleagues. As such, intellectual agency during the 1950s is the analytical centerpiece of vi this dissertation. I argue that many of the gains won by intellectuals possessed staying power, in contrast to previous scholarship which has focused on the disappearance of free speech rights during the Anti-Rightist Campaign of 1957. This work shows, instead, that early communist statebuilding was a collaborative process in which intellectuals helped actively set the tenor of their relationship with the new government. The logic of educational expansion, however, produced a new generation of intellectuals toward the end of the decade more radical than the one that came before, setting the stage for intergenerational conflict between intellectuals of various ages during the following decade. vii Table of Contents Introduction ..........................................................................................................................1 Charting the Historiography of Chinese Intellectuals and Education.........................7 Perspectives on Intellectuals under Communism .....................................................12 Totalitarian Politics from Below...............................................................................18 Structure of this Dissertation ....................................................................................22 Chapter 1: Intellectuals and the CCP .................................................................................27 A Background on Intellectuals in Modern Chinese History .....................................28 Intellectuals and the Communist Takeover, 1945-1949 ...........................................33 Conclusion ................................................................................................................40 Chapter 2: Buttressing the Fragile State, 1950-1951 .........................................................44 The Early Organs of Communist Governance and Intellectuals ..............................46 Beyond Mobilization: Intellectuals' Support for the Korean War ............................58 Solving the Intellectual Unemployment Crisis: The Work Assignment Program ....68 Incipient Ideological Refashioning ...........................................................................80 Conclusion ................................................................................................................90 Chapter 3: The Formalization of Thought Reform ............................................................92 The Rehabilitative Model and the Use of Confessions .............................................94 Combatting Waste and Inefficiency during the Three-Anti Campaign ..................107 The Expanding Reach of the State on Campuses ...................................................112 A Question of Punishment: State Responses to the Confessions ...........................123 Conclusion ..............................................................................................................130 viii Chapter 4: Crisscrossing Agendas, 1953-1955 ................................................................133 The Maturation of the State's Policies toward Intellectuals ....................................135 The Growth of Resentment for Intellectuals ...........................................................153 The Lives and Working Conditions of Intellectuals in Academia ..........................161 Outside the Ivory Tower: Intellectuals in the Military, Factories, Hospitals, and Arts ....................................................................................................................172 Conclusion ..............................................................................................................180 Chapter 5: They Heyday of the Intellectuals, 1956 .........................................................183 From Flower Gardens to Bus Services: Livelihood Improvements for Intellectuals .......................................................................................................186 A Socialist State Built on Knowledge Capital ........................................................211 Opening the Gates: Party Admittances for Intellectuals .........................................219 From Resentment to Resistance among the Cadres ................................................227 Conclusion ..............................................................................................................236 Chapter 6: A Partial Backlash, 1957 ................................................................................238 The Reform Effort Deferred: The Limits of Livelihood Improvements for Intellectuals .......................................................................................................241 A Cacaphony of Views: Intellectuals Speak Out ....................................................251 The State's Recalculation: The Flow of the Anti-Rightist Campaign .....................268 Exposing Rightist Activity ......................................................................................285 Solidifying Intellectual Gains .................................................................................292 Conclusion ..............................................................................................................300 Chapter 7: Worker Intellect and Intellectual Work, 1958-1959 ......................................303 The Fallout from the Anti-Rightist Campaign ........................................................306 Down to the Countryside, Up to the Mountains .....................................................316 ix Cultivating Mass Intellect .......................................................................................332 The Next Generation: The Ascendance of Revolutionary Youth ...........................338 Conclusion ..............................................................................................................347