Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-9pm4c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-29T12:04:06.526Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Historiography in China after “Smashing the ‘Gang of Four’”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Extract

In January 1977, People's Daily announced that the scholarly journal Historical Research (Li-shih yen-chiu) had since 1973 been one of the “ periodicals of the ‘ gang of four.’ ” Collective contributors such as the Liang Hsiao and Lo Ssu-ting groups were accused of presenting a dogmatic line only corrected after October 1976, when the “ gang of four ” was smashed and the editorial authority of the journal was handed back to the Academy' s Department of Philosophy and Social Sciences.

Type
Report from China
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1978

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. ‘Gang of four’ and Historical Research,” Jen-min jih pao (People's Daily), 11 January 1977; transl. in CMP SPRCP-77-4:45 (American Consulate General, Selections from PRC Magazines).Google ScholarSee also the editorial: “The vicissitudes of Historical Research and the plot of the ‘gang of four’ to use history to oppose the Party,” Li-shih yen-chiu (Historical Research), 20 December 1976; transl. in CMP-SPRCM-77-10:1-7. According to these articles, Mao Tse-tung had issued a directive in April 1973, ordering that Li-shih yen-chiu and Che-hsueh yen-chiu resume publication. Although this announcement caused considerable excitement in research units, the “gang of four” managed to block re-publication for another year. Then, as preparations were being made for the National People's Congress which was to meet in January 1975, the “gang of four” decided to use Historical Research as a means of mobilizing public opinion against Premier Chou En-lai. On 14 June 1974, after a Politburo meeting, the “gang of four” agreed to have their “sworn associates” take over Historical Research. “The choice of topics, examination and selection of manuscripts for every issue of the periodical was ‘controlled’ by Liang Hsiao of the ‘gang of four.’ It was also decided that every issue of the periodical should carry at least one article by Liang Hsiao. Lo Ssu-ting [also known as K'and Li], another of the writing band of the ‘gang of four,’ also exercised remote control over the editorial department and did his utmost to influence it.” “The vicissitudes of Historical Research,” p. 3. The group known as “Lo Ssu-ting” – the so-called “southern tyrant” (nan pa t'ien) – did most of the review work on Water Margin and was centred in Shanghai. “Liang Hsiao” – the “northern tyrant” (pei pa-t'ien) – has been identified with a group at Tsinghua University. Although grouped together as spokesmen of the “gang of four,” articles signed by Liang Hsiao had a more “radical” tone than some of those signed by Lo Ssu ting. See: Lieberthal, Kenneth, “Peking foreign policy debate seen through allegorical articles, 1973–76,” The China Quarterly (CQ), No. 71, pp. 528–54. (I wish to thank Mr Ch'eng I-fan and Professors Albert Feuerwerker, Roy Hofheinz and Frederick W. Mote for reading and commenting upon my report.)Google Scholar

2. Once in Peking, we learned that a new Academy of Social Sciences (She-hui k'ehsueh yuan) was in the process of being established under the direction of Liu Yang-ch'iao. This new Academy, which has the status of a regular ministry (pu), unlike the Chinese Academy of Medicine, has now been formed, and is under the leadership of the former editor of Jen-min jih-pao, Hu Ch'iao-mu. It incorporates the institutes of philosophy, economics, literature, philosophy, and history formerly under the regular Chinese Academy of Sciences. It is not clear that this reorganization delivers relatively greater autonomy then before to the social sciences, especially since it may well represent an effort to excise ideologically vulnerable fields from the parent Academy of Sciences, leaving the latter more room for non-tendentious technical expertise. Nevertheless, one is told that the establishment of a new separate Academy of Social Sciences is a sign of great promise for fields like history. According to the 29 May 1978 issue of Kuang-ming jih-pao, for example, the Institute of History of the Academy of Social Sciences convened a three-day symposium on the study of the Taiping revolutionary movement for research workers in the Peking municipal area.Google Scholar

3. The eight historians were Ho Ling-hsiu, Kuo Ch'iu-i, Liu Ch'ung-jih, Liu Yung-ch'eng, Mou An-shih, Shen Ting-p'ing, Wang Jung-sheng and Wang Yü ch'üan.Google Scholar

4. Fan Wen lan was director of the Institute of Modern History from 1951 to 1964. He died in 1969, according to Klein, Donald W. and Clark, Anne B., Biographic Dictionary of Chinese Communism, 1921–1965 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971), p. 266. The Institute of Modern History was, in January 1976, headed by Liu Ta-nien, and it had then “prepared a study on the modern history of China, not yet published.” See:Google ScholarLoh, Pichon P. Y., “The Institute of Modern History, Peita and the Central Institute of Nationalities,” CQ, No. 70, pp. 383–89.Google Scholar

5. “Babbling about the past and present, vigorously promoting the theory of class conciliation and the idealist conception of history that history is made by heroes, they especially ‘invented’ a ‘theory of women holding power,’ distorted the features of Chinese history beyond recognition, and turned history as a serious science into a ‘submissive girl’ who did what they liked her to do.” P'ing, Shih (Historical criticism), “The idealist conception of history preached by the ‘gang of four’ must be criticized,” Nan-ching ta-hsüeh-pao (History Bulletin of Nanking University), 25 November 1976; transl. in CMP-SPRCM-77-06:1. The “submissive girl” remark refers to Hu Shih, “lackey of American imperialism and hack writer of the Chiang dynasty”: “History is like a docile young lady, who would submit herself to any way we make and dress her up.” To Chinese Marxist critics of the “gang of four,” on the other hand, “History, after all, is not a ‘submissive girl.’ It develops according to its own laws, moving forward in the direction benefiting the revolutionary people and not the reactionaries.” Chinese History Manuscript Writing Group of the Institute of Historical Research,Google ScholarClass struggle and the ‘gang of four's’ counter-revolutionary restorationist ambitions in the realm of history,” Li-shih yen chiu (April 1977); transl. in CMP SPRCM-77-13:24–25. for a list of the articles attacking the “gang of four's” use of history, seeGoogle ScholarChiao, Chien, “The use of history as a political strategy by the ‘gang of four,’” in Chin, Steve S. K. (ed.), The Gang of Four: First Essays after the Fall (Hong Kong: Centre of Asian Studies of the University of Hong Kong, 1977), pp. 5657.Google Scholar

6. Shu, Li, “‘Ssu jen pang’ tui Chung-kuo li-shih hsüeh ti ta p'o huai” (“The ‘gang of four's’ great sabotage of Chinese historical studies”), Li-shih yen-chiu, No. 2 (1977), p. 15.Google Scholar

7. Ibid. Lo Ssu-ting's study, Lun Ch'in-Han chih chi ti chieh-chi tou-cheng, on class struggle during the transition from Ch'in to Han, is also attacked for formulaic dogmatism unfaithful to the spirit of Marx and Engels in: Liu Tse-hua, Wang Lien-sheng, “‘Ssu-jen pang’ tsai shih hsüeh ling-yü chao-yao ti i-mien pa-ch'i” (“The tyrannical banner of the ‘gang of four’ waving over the territory of historical studies”), Li-shih yen chiu, No. 2 (1977), pp. 21 and 23.Google Scholar

8. In May 1977, the Committee on Scholarly Communication with the People's Republic of China had forwarded on my behalf a request to the Science and Technology Association to arrange discussions and seminars with historians in China interested in the Ming-Ch'ing transition.Google Scholar

9. Hsieh Kuo-chen, who published numerous articles and books about the 17th century, was probably best known to the public as the author of Nan Ming shih-lueh (Outline History of the Southern Ming) (Shanghai: Jen-min ch'u-pan she, 1957).Google Scholar

10. For an excellent discussion of the foreign student curriculum in history during 1974–75, see, Timothy Brook and Rene Wagner, “The teaching of history to foreign students at Peking University,” CQ, No. 71, pp. 598607.Google Scholar

11. In 1973 Chang Chün-yen (then also a leading member of the Educational Revolution Unit) was introduced to Albert Feuerwerker as professor of the history of the Chinese Communist Party (Chung-kung tang shih chiao-shou).Google Scholar

12. This recension of Wen Jui-lin's work was actually much changed by 19th-century hands. The reasons for those changes are given by Lynn Struve in her study, Uses of History in Traditional Chinese Society: The Southern Ming in Ch'ing Historiography, Ph.D. thesis, University of Michigan, 1974. Dr Struve is revising her dissertation for publication.Google Scholar

13. This is an ambiguous title, since it may also mean the Institute of History and Geography. Professor Mote has pointed out to me that these two disciplines were linked into single academic departments prior to 1949. I was unaware of this linkage at the time of my conversation with Fan Shu-chih.Google Scholar

14. For example: a letter to a friend after the May Fourth Movement began, stating that “I believe Marxism is the best philosophical way of discovering errors in one's own thought”; and writings showing his agreement with Mao Tse-tung's anti-Japanese line after the Wayaopao Plenum.Google Scholar

15. The “Ti-k'e” affair, in its present guise, was first presented to the public in China on 21 October 1976, in an article in the People's Daily by Jen P'ing, called: “I-ke ti-ti tao-tao ti lao t'ou-hsiang p'ai” (“A bunch of old all-out capitulationists”). This article, plus the various articles mentioned above, have been reprinted in: Pei-ching ch'i-ch'e tsao-ch'ang kung-jen li-lun yen-chiu so, Chung kuo k'e-hsüeh yuan wen-hsüeh yen-chiu so chin-tai wen-hsueh tsu, (comp.), Lu Hsun p'i-p'an “Ti-k'e” (Lu Hsun Criticizes “Ti-k'e”) (Peking: Chung hua shu chü, 1976). The book's introduction places the entire affair in the context of late 1935 when, it claims, Wang Ming and Chou Yang were sabotaging the Wayaopao Plenum's decision to pursue war against the Japanese. “Ti-k'e” is thus not only connected with the Kuomintang; he is also connected with the Wang Ming line within the CCP.Google Scholar

16. A 1977 cartoon shows Chang Ch'un-ch'iao standing crestfallen beside a huge volume of Lu Hsun's “Foreign Concessions.” From the volume there a line that turns into a noose around Chang's neck. He wears a placard that reads: “Ti k'e is Chang Ch'un ch'iao.” See: tzu-liao kung-ying, Wen hua she (Cultural Materials Supply Group), (comp.), Ssu-jen pang yen hsing lu (Record of the Words and Deeds of the “Gang of Four”) (Hong Kong, 1977), p. 104.Google Scholar

17. There is no complete mu-lu of Lu Hsun's works, but one is in the process of being compiled. Two or three years before he died, Mao Tse-tung ordered that work be strengthened in this field. According to Mr Yao, that resulted in the forming in 1975 of a Lu Hsun Research Room (Lu Hsun yen-chiu shih) in each of the four Lu Hsun Memorial Halls in China. Moreover, each major city was supposed to establish small research units (Lu Hsun yen chiu hsiao-tsu) to co-ordinate the compilation of research on Lu Hsun's works. Shanghai has not yet formed its municipal research unit but Wuhan has already done so. Scholars overseas who have information on works of Lu Hsun that may be unknown to research workers in China are encouraged to write directly to the curator at the Lu Hsun chi-nien yuan in Shanghai.Google Scholar

18. In a recent cartoon entitled, “Declaring allegiance to bandit Chiang,” Chiang Ch'ing is shown as a snake offering a plane to Chiang Kai-shek over the caption: “An entertainment rally to raise funds to buy a plane as a birthday gift.” This cartoon is published in CMP-SPRCM-77 17:15.Google Scholar

19. Yang, Y. C., “Tu Yueh-sheng (1888–1951): A tentative political biography,” Journal of Asian Studies, No. 26, pp. 433–56.Google Scholar

20. Chou En-lai's household articles, personal effects, and even the black Buick Century automobile he then used, are all perfectly preserved in the house he occupied in Nanking during the 1946 negotiations with the Kuomintang. Chou's quarters, Tung Pi-wu's house, and the offices of the Chung-kuo Kung-ch'an-tang tai-piao t'uan (Chinese Communist Party delegation), which are all located within a few feet of each other in Mei-yuan New Village in Nanking, have been open to the public since 3 January 1977, as a revolutionary monument. I imagine that there may be a similar collection of memorabilia in Chungking to commemorate Chou and Mao Tse-tung's negotiation of the Double Tenth Agreement in 1945. Yen T'ai-lung, Chou En-lai's former bodyguard, has published his reminiscences of that period, describing the dangers faced from Kuomintang secret agents: “A great fighter in fiery struggle—a recollection of Premier Chou En-lai's splendid deeds in several important incidents of the KMT-CCP struggle from the Sian incident to the victory of the war of resistance,” Li shih yen-chiu, 20 February 1977; transl. in CPM SPRCM-77-23:22-48. One of the major indictments of the “gang of four” was the accusation that they had attacked Chou En-lai's role in revolutionary history.Google Scholar

21. Scholars identified as specialists in contemporary history (hsien-tai shih, i.e. post-1919) often taught the history of the Chinese Communist Party, or appeared to be educational cadres who taught Marxism-Leninism and Mao Tse-tung Thought. According to Wang Chin ch'ing, the Research Institute of Contemporary History at the University of Nanking primarily conducts research on topics like the class struggle at Chingkangshan or during the May Fourth Movement. Specific research work was not discussed by Mr Wang. I was told that Wang Shih, author of an important study of Yen Fu and a senior scholar whom I had met on a previous visit to Nanking, was in hospital with an illness.Google Scholar

22. China and France agreed about five years ago to exchange language teachers. These teachers stay for at least one academic year, and usually for two or three. A French teacher happened to be at Nan-ta during the time that Professor Mao was in France. Mao Chia ch'i was especially knowledgeable about the programme for foreign students at Nan-ta. There were 10 foreign students (four from England, one or two each from France, Italy and West Germany) then enrolled in the History Department at Nan-ta. They were considered “special students” (chin-hsiu), and instead of following the general curriculum of regular history students, were each assigned to a single preceptor who gave the pupil special readings and help with classical Chinese.Google Scholar

23. Hung Huan-ch'un, Che-chiang ti-fang-chih k'ao-lu (Critical List of Local Gazetteers of Chekiang) (Peking, 1956).Google Scholar

24. Hung Huan-ch'un, Wu-ssu ti Chung-kuo ke-ming yun-tung (The Chinese Revolutionary Movement in the May Fourth Period) (Peking, 1957). This work seeks to show that prior to the October Revolution in Russia the “old democratic revolution” in China was led by the bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie, while the “new democratic revolution” of 1919 was – as Mao Tse-tung had said – under the leadership of the working class.Google Scholar

25. Professor Hung's remark about peasant wars spurring production reflected recent attacks on the article by Liang Hsiao entitled “Nung-min chan-cheng ti wei-ta li-shih tso-yung” (“The great historical role of peasant wars”), and which had appeared in Li-shih yen-chiu (February 1974), pp. 18–28. That article had cited Marx's essay on “Moralist criticism and critical morality” (1847) which claimed that the terror in 1794 in France had represented the lower classes' serving as a subsidiary factor in the bourgeois revolution. In their zeal they went much further than the bourgeoisie in eradicating feudal traces, but in the end their victory was only temporary because the bourgeois mode of production had not yet disappeared. “So, for their bloodshed, the people could only sweep the road clean for the bourgeoisie.” (Karl Marx, Selected Works, Vol. I, p. 171.) According to Liang Hsiao, the peasant wars in China played the same kind of role, sweeping away obstacles to the Legalist line – an ideology which was after all that of the feudal system. Peasant wars thus became redefined as movements to defeat the Confucian forces of restoration. Historical critics of the “gang of four” therefore claimed that the “gang's” theory of Chinese peasant wars was “an over-simplified analogy between the bourgeois revolution and the revolution that substituted the feudal system for the slave system.… They not only quoted out of context but also rudely distorted Marxism.” Above all, the “gang of four” was accused of denying Mao Tse tung's thesis that class wars were the motive force of Chinese history – a force which through repeated assaults on feudal society brought about “transformations and readjustment.” In that way, peasant wars – wars between classes, not lines in the Party – “spurred productive force.” Li Tsu-te, Chou Nien-ch'ang, Chu Ta-wei, and Hsieh Kuei-hua, “Comment on the absurd arguments of the ‘gang of four’ in distorting the history of class struggle during the Ch'in-Han period,” Li-shih yen-chiu, 20 December 1976; transl. in CMP-SPRCM-77-09:7–11. See also: Shih P'ing, “The idealist conception of history,” pp. 9–11.Google Scholar

26. Shang Yueh is the author of Chung-kuo tzu-pen chu-i kuan-hsi fa-sheng chi yen-pien (The Emergence and Evolution of Capitalist Relationships in China) (Peking, 1965).Google Scholar

27. Fu I-ling is the author of numerous works on Ming-Ch'ing social and economic history. His best-known work is Ming tai Chiang-nan shih-min ching-chi shih-t'an (Investigation of the Urban Economy of Kiangnan During the Ming) (Shanghai, 1957).Google Scholar

28. Frederic Wakeman, Jr., “A conversation with four Chinese historians in Nanking,” CQ, No. 60, pp. 767–72.Google Scholar

29. Curwen, C. A., Taiping Rebel: The Deposition of Li Hsiu-ch'eng (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977).Google Scholar Also translated in F. Michael, T'ai-p'ing Rebellion (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1977), Vol. 3, pp. 1390–496.

30. Ch'en Ta-jung was thus reiterating the key theme of the current campaign to criticize the historiographical deviation of the “gang of four.” This was the accusation that they advocated “the idealist conception of history,” denying Mao's thesis that the “revolutionary struggle waged by the oppressed classes provides the motive force for the development of history,” and expressing instead the belief that heroes make history. Chinese History Manuscript Writing Group, “Class struggle,” p. 13. “They deliberately concealed the class content of the Confucian-Legalist struggle, extended it to the ruled classes and gave it a ‘supra-class’ cloak.” Shih P'ing, “The idealist conception of history,” p.2.Google Scholar

31. According to remarks made by Li Hsiu-ch'eng, and which were struck out by Tseng Kuo-fan from the altered copy of the deposition: “The T'ien Wang was already seriously ill and he died on the 21st of the 4th month [3 June 1864]. When this man was ill he would not take remedies, but allowed the disease to get better by itself. Even if it did not get better he still would not take medicine. For this reason he died.…” Curwen, Taiping Rebel, p. 153; Michael, T'ai p'ing Rebellion, p. 1484. Nevertheless, Tseng Kuo-fan memorialized the Ch'ing throne that Hung had committed suicide.Google Scholar

32. Han T'ien-yu and Ch'en Tsung-hai, “Ti chuan shih wei hsin ti chao – tu Hung Hsiu-ch'üan ti ‘ti-chen chao’” (“The spinning of the earth is an omen for a new earth – upon reading Hung Hsiu ch'uan's ‘earthquake proclamation’”), Hsueh-hsi yü p'i-p'an (Study and Criticism), No. 9 (1976), pp. 30–31.Google Scholar In May 1853, only a few months after the capture of Nanking by the Taipings, the “heavenly capital” was shaken by an earthquake estimated by these historians to have been about 6 degrees on the Richter scale. Hung, to still popular panic, issued an edict that proclaimed this an omen of the new heavenly kingdom, and a sign that the old world had been overthrown. The authors of this article argued that Hung's proclamation (which coincided with the sending of the expeditions north and west against the Ch'ing) exemplified the Chinese people's revolutionary nature, and the revolutionary tradition bequeathed to modern Chinese. If the Chinese people adopted this same spirit of self reliance – the authors went on to say – and “fiercely grasp the principle that class struggle is everything” (hen chua chieh-chi tou-cheng wei kang) then the Right will be defeated and socialist revolution will be rapidly implemented. According to the historians at the Taiping History Museum, however, this was actually designed to forward the political plans of the “gang of four.” That same accusation is made in: Ch'en Chung, “Pa ‘ssu-jen pang’ tsa-chih Hsüeh-hsi yü p'i-p'an ya shang shen-p'an t'ai” (“Arraign the ‘gang of four's’ magazine, Study and Criticism for investigation”), Li-shih yen chiu, No. 1 (1977), pp. 29–39. Ch'en Chung's article was directed against issue number nine of Hsüeh-hsi yü p'i-p'an, which was devoted by the “gang of four” to attacking “pessimism and defeatism” (pei-kuan chu-i yü shih-pai chu-i). According to Ch'en Chung, the article on Hung Hsiu ch'üan's earthquake proclamation was actually written by Yao Wen-yuan, and was designed to proclaim the “gang of four's” intention to kai-ch'ao huan-tai: “change the dynasty and change the age.” Ibid. p. 38. A cartoon, incidentally, showed Yao Wen-yuan penning the earthquake poster beside a basket filled with T'ang-shan earthquake reports. The cartoon was entitled “Wolfish ambition” (lang-tzu yeh hsin). CMP-SPRCM-77-17:1.

33. Shih Ching, “Lun T'ai-p'ing t'ien-kuo nei-pu tsun-K'ung he fan K'ung ti tou-cheng” (“On the struggle within the Taiping heavenly kingdom between veneration of Confucius and opposition to Confucius”), Hsüeh-hsi yü p'i-p'an, No. 4 (1976), pp. 44–53. The author argues that as early as the first lunar month of 1853, when the Taipings occupied Wuchang, Yang Hsiu-ch'ing worshipped in the hall of the Confucian Temple and wanted to have the four books and five classics restored. Hung Hsiu-ch'üan insisted that the classics be expurgated of their “demon words” (yao-hua), and Yang established a special editorial bureau to that end in his palace in Nanking. After the occupation of Nanking, in his proclamation that the “Heavenly Father had descended into the world,” Yang continued to promote Confucian forms of veneration in order to strengthen his own power. Shih Ching therefore concludes that this not only showed how a reactionary element could emerge within a revolutionary movement, but also how the struggle between two lines of thought reflected a political struggle between reactionary and revolutionary elements.Google Scholar

34. The “gang of four” is frequently accused of having been “splittist.” See, for instance, the section entitled “Engaging in splittism and conspiracy” (“Kao fen-lieh, kao yin-mou”), in: Wen-hua tzu liao kung-ying she, Ssu-jen pang yen hsing lu, pp. 35–42.Google Scholar

35. Fan Shu-chih and another Futan University faculty member, Wang Ch'ing yü, have published an article attacking the “gang of four's” self-seeking use of the past, and mentioning among other examples, the earthquake poster. The article is entitled “‘Ku wei pang yung’ ti o-lieh piao-yen” (“The disreputable performance of having ‘the past serve the gang’”), Li-shih yen-chiu, 20 April 1977, pp. 80–87. The use of the past to criticize the present (chieh-ku feng chin) is analysed from a non-partisan viewpoint in L. Y. Chiu, “The study of Chinese history and modern Chinese politics,” in Steve Chin, The Gang of Four, pp. 40–50.Google Scholar

36. According to the initial attack on the “gang of four” by the editorial department of Li-shih yen chiu, they used the slogan, “Make the past serve the present,” to distort the Marxist approach to history, which stresses “the given framework.” “Marx spoke of ‘striking similarities in history,’” the editors of Historical Research wrote in December 1976, “but similarities do not necessarily mean identities.” One must not “equate history with the current scene.” Editorial Department, “Be unrelenting in beating dogs in water – Liang Hsiao and Lo Ssu-ting,” Li-shih yen-chiu, 20 December 1976; transl. in CM-SPRCM-77-10:13.Google Scholar

37. The previous autumn, historians were implicitly attacking the policy of importing western technology and science in the present by vilifying Tseng Kuo-fan and Li Hung-chang in the past for permitting the foreign financial invasion of China. Chang Kuo-hui, “On the westernization group and the slavish comprador philosophy,” Li-shih yen-chiu, 20 October 1976; transl. in CMP-SPRCM-77-01:8.Google Scholar

38. Ch'en Yü ch'eng is usually contrasted with Li Hsiu-ch'eng. Instead of compromising with his captors, as Li did, Ch'en refused to kneel to the Ch'ing official, Sheng-pao, calling him “an incompetent lackey of the demon dynasty.”Google Scholar

39. Mention should also be made of the historical novels now appearing. The first two volumes of Yao Hsueh yin's epic, Li Tzu-ch'eng (which he first began writing in Wuhan in the 1930s), are now available, and the third volume is forthcoming; and Feng Chi-ts'ai and Li Ting hsing's novel, I-ho ch'üan [The Boxers], has been available in two volumes since December 1977.Google Scholar

40. In some of the earliest attacks by historians on the “gang of four” – attacks which appeared first in the Nanking University Bulletin – scholars were not reluctant to use the same technique of chieh-ku feng-chin that they later criticized. “Fang Shih” (Square History) wrote in November 1976 that Chiang Ch'ing was like the Empress Dowager Tz'u Hsi who had allied with the imperialists to repress the Taiping rebels. “Didn't Chiang Ch'ing want to wear Tz'u Hsi's hat? Then, the hat of Tz'u Hsi, the arch traitor in modern China, fits her head more than that of anyone else.” Fang Shih, “Pet dog of imperialism – Tz'u Hsi,” Nan-ching ta hsueh hsueh-pao, 25 November 1976; transl. in CMP SPRCM-77-06:22.Google Scholar

41. There have been regular appearances, since the 20 February 1977 issue of Li-shih yen-chiu, of a section in the journal called “wai-kuo shih-hsueh tung-t'ai” (“trends of historical studies abroad”).Google Scholar

42. And so for that matter is Wang Fu-chih. See: Chang Ch'i chih, “I-ko fan-fa ti ‘fa-chia’ – Wang Fu-chih” (“An anti-legal ‘Legalist,’ Wang Fu-chih”), Li-shih yen chiu, 20 March 1977, pp. 102–107.Google Scholar

43. Li Tse-hou, “Lun Yen Fu” (“On Yen Fu”), Li-shih yen-chiu, 20 February 1977, pp. 67–80.Google Scholar

44. Ibid. p. 70. Li Tse-hou cites Professor Schwartz's In Search of Wealth and Power, pp. 10 and 13.

45. Joseph R. Levenson, Revolution and Cosmopolitanism: The Western Stage and Chinese Stages (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), p. 55.Google Scholar