Cultural Revolution and Revolutionary Culture

Alessandro Russo

Published by Duke University Press 2020

Cultural Revolution and Revolutionary Culture

Alessandro Russo

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781478012184

Overview
Contents

About this book

Alessandro Russo rethinks the history of China's Cultural Revolution, arguing that it must be understood as a mass political experiment aimed at thoroughly reexamining the tenets of communism itself.

Author / Editor information

Alessandro Russo has taught sociology at the University of Bologna and has been visiting professor at the University of Washington and at Qinghua University.

Reviews

“Published forty years after Mao's death, Alessandro Russo's Cultural Revolution and Revolutionary Culture must be seen as the first book that studies China's Cultural Revolution from the intellectual point of view of the central question of this extraordinary movement itself: what can the real destiny of the communist idea be after fundamental experiments at the level of the state power in Russia and China? Across a precise experience made of readings of all sort of texts written in the fire of the movement or after, historical clarifications of some crucial sequences, personal inquiries, and intellectual synthesis, Russo simultaneously proposes a sort of complex but clear image of the event and an essential examination of its strategic goals and final failure. All that in the direction of a clear understanding of the possibility of a new communism.”

-- Alain Badiou

“This book should be widely read. Alessandro Russo is an inventive, creative philosopher who contributes new materials, new interpretations, and new ways of examining the Cultural Revolution.”

-- Tani Barlow, George and Nancy Rupp Professor of Humanities, Rice University

" A model of historical inquiry that should be read by those interested in modern Chinese and East Asian history and revolutionary movements in general."

-- M. J. Wert Choice

"For all who would pose the question, What is a Revolution? in its political and theoretical registers, Russo’s book is invaluable. It should be widely read, both inside and outside the China field."

-- Christopher Connery PRC History Review

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I. A Theatrical Prologue
1. Afterlives of an “Upright Official” Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	11
2. Political and Historical Dilemmas Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	26
3. An Unresolved Controversy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	48
Part II. Mao’s Anxiety and Resolve
4. A Probable Defeat and Revisionism Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	91
5. Shrinking the Cultural Superego Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	104
Part III. A Political Test for Class Politics
6. Testing the Organization Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	141
7. A Subjective Split in the Working Class Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	167
8. Facing a Self-Defeat Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	204
Part IV. At the Edge of an Epochal Turning Point
9. Intellectual Conditions for a Political Assessment Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	239
10. Foundations of Deng Xiaoping’s Strategy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	263
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	285
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	323
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	343

Language: English
Publisher: Duke University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 368

eBook

Published: August 28, 2020
ISBN: 9781478012184