Sources of Authority Quotational Practice in Chinese Communist Propaganda Inaugural-Dissertation zur Erlangung der Doktorwürde an der Philosophischen Fakultät der Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg Institut für Sinologie Vorgelegt von Jennifer May Dezember 2008 Erstgutachterin: Prof. Dr. Barbara Mittler Zweitgutachter: Prof. Dr. Rudolf Wagner Table of Contents Table of Contents Acknowledgements III List of Figures V Notes VII Introduction: Quoting Authority 1 1. Quoting in China: Theoretical and Historical Consideration 9 2. Lifecycles of Quotations 57 2.1 The Lifecycle of a Quotation Chameleon 59 2.2 “Smash the Confucian shop” or the Lifecycle of a Half-forgotten Quotation 96 2.3 “The Working Class Has to Lead Everything” or the Lifecycle of a Quotation Star 125 3. A Source of Authority 145 4. (De-)Contextualising Quotations 229 Conclusion 295 Appendix 1: Categorization of Journals 301 Appendix 2: “Reform Our Study” divided into sentences 303 Literature 307 I Acknowledgements Acknowledgements My interest in the subject of quotation in the Chinese culture was awoken by Michael Schimmelpfennig who taught a seminar on quotation in classical Chinese literature at the Institute of Chinese Studies back in 2001. Since then, the idea of introducing this subject into modern Chinese studies and especially media studies never left my imagination. With the ever-growing number of databases and digitized resources, this endeavour became not only accomplishable, but provided me with the opportunity to follow a second interest of mine: the development of smooth little computer programs to enhance the work of the Geisteswissenschaftler. I foremost want to thank Barbara Mittler for a long list of reasons. To name but a few, she kindly agreed to become my supervisor and subsequently spent hours of her time discussing my ideas, reading drafts of all chapters, contesting my arguments, and bringing further primary and secondary literature to my knowledge. Moreover, Barbara Mittler encouraged my idea to write a computer program to find quotations, and most importantly she helped me to attain funding to develop the QuotationFinder, first by supporting my application for a Karl-Steinbuch scholarship of the Stiftung Baden-Württemberg, then by helping me to apply for a project at the Cluster of Excellence “Asia and Europe in a Global Context”. I am also indebted to Rudolf Wagner, my second supervisor, for reading and commenting on a chapter draft, for patiently answering a multitude of questions, and for investing much of his time in establishing both a traditional and digital library worthy of that name. A number of friends and colleagues contributed to my work by discussing ideas, reading drafts, criticising my argumentation or methodology, providing me with information, and correcting my faulty English expressions, or curious Chinese translations. I especially want to thank Lena Henningsen for her unceasing motivation, Nicolai Volland for his honest criticism, and Thomas Kampen for hours spent talking about Chinese history. I also want to thank my colleagues Jennifer Altehenger, Matthias Arnold, Edoardo Carlesi, Sven Eigler, Peter Gietz, Laura Jehl, Daniel Leese, Sun Liying, Michael Lüdke, Mareike Ohlberg, Leon Rocha, Miriam Seeger, and Shi Yun. I was given the opportunity to present and discuss my work at several occasions: a scholarship from the European Union enabled my participation at the 2006 Postgraduate Summer School “China in the World” in Nanjing and my subsequent visit to libraries in Beijing; the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Heidelberg generously funded my participation at the 2006 conference of the III Acknowledgements European Association of Chinese Studies (EACS) in Ljubljana; and the Graduiertenakadmie of the University of Heidelberg supported my participation at the 2008 EACS conference in Lund. I repeatedly had the advantage of presenting my work to the East-Asian colloquium of the East-Asian Studies Centre and the Popular Culture Group at the Institute of Chinese Studies at the University of Heidelberg. And last but not least, the workshop “Rethinking Trends” financed by the Cluster of Excellence and organised by members of the Popular Culture Group has been an inspiring event, allowing me among others to discuss my work with Felix Boecking and Stanley Rosen. But my sincerest gratitude belongs to my friends and family who accompanied me through the last years, partaking in my fascination and joy, but also in my frustration and stress: my friends Verena Schmalz-Steger, Karla Dörken, Agnes Abel, and Dorothea Eberhart; my brother James Gross, and my cousin Fabian Gross. I am deeply indebted to my mother Ingrid who not only encouraged me all those years, but together with my godmother Christa Meißen took the trouble to read every single line of my thesis correcting many little and some larger mistakes. My last ‘thank you’ goes to my husband Norman for discussing with me my ideas for this thesis and the QuotationFinder, for his encouragement and patience, or simply for taking me out for a walk to quiet down my busy mind. The fault for any remaining errors or inaccuracies, of course, rests with Jennifer May as author of this thesis. IV List of Figures List of Figures Figure 1: How influential was People’s Daily? 40 Figure 2: CCP leaders using “Seek truth from facts” in speeches and articles, 1937 to 1992 (Source: Zhongyang wenxian yanjiushi xinxi zhongxin 中央文献研究室信息中心 et al. 2006). 64 Figure 3: Occurances of “Seek truth from facts” in various works of Mao Zedong, 1937 to 1971 (Source: May 2007). 72 Figure 4: Quoting “Seek truth from facts” in articles of People’s Daily (blue line) and Liberation Army Daily (green line), and in the titles of articles provided by the National Index to Chinese Newspapers and Periodicals (pink line) (Source: Renmin ribao she xinwen xinxi zhongxin 人民日报 社新闻信息中心 2007 ; Quanguo baokan suoyin bianjibu 全国报刊索引编辑部 2006 ; 2008). 76 Figure 5: Percentage of articles in People’s Daily (blue line) and titles of articles in the National Index to Chinese Newspapers and Periodicals (pink line) quoting “Seek truth from facts” (Source: Renmin ribao she xinwen xinxi zhongxin 人民日报社新闻信息中心 2007 ; Quanguo baokan suoyin bianjibu 全国报刊索引编辑部 2006). Liberation Army Daily could not be included in this statistic as the database does not provide figures of all published articles per year. 77 Figure 6: Papers of different ownership using “Seek truth from facts” (Source: Quanguo baokan suoyin bianjibu 全国报刊索引编辑部 2006). For details on the categorisation of journals cf. to Appendix 1. 79 Figure 7: Quoting “Seek truth from facts” in article titles between 1960 and 1962 (Source: Quanguo baokan suoyin bianjibu 全国报刊索引编辑部 2006). CCP CC = CCP Central Committee; Mass = Mass organisations; OOP = Other political parties. For details on the categorisation of journals cf. to fn. 130 or the excel file on the accompanying CD. 80 Figure 8: Quoting “Seek truth from facts” in article titles between 1976 and 1978 (Source: Quanguo baokan suoyin bianjibu 全国报刊索引编辑部 2006). Acronyms and further information as in Figure 7. 80 Figure 9: Who or what is associated with “Seeking truth from facts”? The different lines result from searching the People’s Daily database for strings as “X%实事求是+实事求是%X”, i.e. X appearing in the same sentence as “Seek truth from facts”, either before or after the phrase. X stands for either “Mao Zedong/Chairman Mao 毛泽东/毛主席” (red line), “Deng Xiaoping/Xiaoping 邓小平/小 平” (blue line), or “Core 精髓” (pink line) (Source: Renmin ribao she xinwen xinxi zhongxin 人民日 报社新闻信息中心 2007). 86 Figure 10: 58 years of usage of “Smash the Confucian shop 打倒孔家店” in People’s Daily. (Source: Renmin ribao she xinwen xinxi zhongxin 人民日报社新闻信息中心 2007) 97 Figure 11: People's Daily quoting sentences and part sentences of Mao's “Reform Our Study”; blue – full quotations; red and yellow – quotations of sub-clauses. For a list of the sentences confer to Appendix 2. (Source: Renmin ribao she xinwen xinxi zhongxin 人民日报社新闻信息中心 2007). 151 Figure 12: Quoting “Reform Our Study” in People’s Daily (Source: Renmin ribao she xinwen xinxi zhongxin 人民日报社新闻信息中心 2007). 155 Figure 14: References to titles of articles of Mao Zedong in People’s Daily between 1959 and 1962 (Source: Renmin ribao she xinwen xinxi zhongxin 人民日报社新闻信息中心 2007). 168 V List of Figures Figure 15: How often are names of ideologies referred to in People's Daily from 1949 to 2007 in percent of all articles (Source: Renmin ribao she xinwen xinxi zhongxin 人民日报社新闻信息中心 2007). 207 Figure 16: Using either the term “May Fourth 五四” or the term “May Fourth Movement 五四运 动”in articles of People’s Daily per year (Source: Renmin ribao she xinwen xinxi zhongxin 人民日 报社新闻信息中心 2007). 259 Figure 17: Usage of either the term “May Fourth 五四” or the term “May Fourth Movement 五四运 动”in percentage of all articles published in People’s Daily per year (Source: Renmin ribao she xinwen xinxi zhongxin 人民日报社新闻信息中心 2007). 259 Figure 18: Using either the term “May Fourth 五四” or the term “May Fourth Movement 五四运 动”in the May 4th issues of People’s Daily per year (Source: Renmin ribao she xinwen xinxi zhongxin 人民日报社新闻信息中心 2007). 260 Figure 19: Articles using either the term “May Fourth 五四” or the term “May Fourth Movement 五 四运动”in the May 4th issues of People’s Daily per year in percentage of all articles published on that day (Source: Renmin ribao she xinwen xinxi zhongxin 人民日报社新闻信息中心 2007). 260 VI Notes Notes All sources taken from the Internet and marked as downloaded in footnotes or in the bibliography can be found at the Digital Archive for Chinese Studies (DACHS, http://www.sino.uni- heidelberg.de/dachs/), Institute for Chinese Studies, University of Heidelberg. Throughout the text, Pinyin is used as transcription of Chinese terms. If a different transcription is used within English or German quotations, however, this transcription is retained.