Early in March this year visitors to China reported seeing in Canton a wall-poster with the headline “ [I]t's not a ‘gang of four’ but a gang of five!” (pu shih ‘ssu-jen-pang,’ erh shih wu-jen-pang!). The poster alleged that the new chairman of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and premier of the State Council, Hua Kuofeng, had been a loyal follower of the Cultural Revolutionary Left led by Chiang Ch'ing, Wang Hung-wen, Chang Ch'un-ch'iao and Yao Wen-yüan from the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. It went on to claim that although he had turned against the personnel of the Left, he nevertheless remained a supporter of Leftist policies even today. We do not know whether the wall-posters “vilifying Chairman Hua,” for which seven men and two women were reportedly executed in Hangchow on 11 March 1977, and 26 people in Shanghai in early April, had carried the same accusation. But there is some evidence that certain, as yet unidentified, forces in China take a different view of the policies and attitudes of Hua Kuo-feng during the intra-elite conflict of the last few years, from that of most foreign observers of Chinese politics. Such observers have generally argued, since the spring of 1976, that Hua is a “middle-of-the-roader,” a politician having more in common with the ideas and values of the now dominant complex of veteran cadres and generals than with those of their “radical” Cultural Revolutionary adversaries.

In a letter to Joseph Bloch, dated 21–22 September 1890, Friedrich Engels wrote: “[W]e make our history ourselves, but in the first place, under very definite assumptions and conditions. Among these the economic ones are ultimately decisive. But the political ones, etc., and indeed, even the traditions which haunt human minds also play a part, although not the decisive one.” The phrase, “the political ones, etc.,” refers to the superstructure and the forms of social consciousness of a society as distinguished from its economic base or the mode of production.

Mao Tse-tung died on 9 September 1976. On 6 October, with the arrest of four leading members of the Politburo, Hua Kuo-feng became Mao Tse-tung's successor. Since then the Chinese media have vilified the “gang of four” as “splittists” who had worked together for years to divide the Party and promote their own personal fortunes. According to the victors, policy issues had little to do with the activities of this nefarious “gang.” Rather, lust for personal power and desire for wealth alone inspired them to wage partisan warfare within the ranks of the Chinese Communist Party.

According to the Chinese Government a large northern area comprising the three provinces of Honan, Hopei and Shantung, with a total population of around 180 million, became “self-sufficient” in grain during 1970 and followed this achievement by exporting grain in the period 1972–74. Reports appear to claim that Honan and Hopei attained self-sufficiency in 1970–71, and that it is these two provinces which have since provided the export surpluses. Shantung, on the other hand, did not break even until 1972 and no reports have been discovered which claim that it has exported any grain up to the end of 1975.

At the outset of the recent anti-Confucian and Lin Piao campaign it was forecast that this movement would “ surely create still more •r favourable conditions for the emancipation of women.” x To create conditions advantageous to women the campaign set out to identify the obstacles inhibiting the redefinition of the role and status of women, j The identification of problem areas is not a new element in the history of the women's movement, indeed the problems have been stated time and again. The significance of this campaign lies in its concentrated and analytical attempt to integrate the redefinition of the female role with a nation-wide effort to change the self-image and expectations of both men and women. In this it provides a contrast with the strategy of the previous national campaign, the Cultural Revolution. Historically the women's movement has been very much concerned with raising the confidence of women in their own individual and collective abilities and translating the individual experience of suppression into a coherent analysis of oppression, but there is evidence to suggest that there was too little attention given to the position of women in the Cultural Revolution. For instance many associations and enterprises encouraged their members to believe that so long as overall revolutionary aims were fulfilled, there was no need to pay” particular attention to the position of women.2 The recent campaign and its application to practical problems among both men and women is a new recognition that because of their history of oppression it is still necessary to pay special attention to the restraints that continue to hinder the redefinition of women's role and status in society.

In 1974, for the first time since the Cultural Revolution, two dozen Second World students were admitted to the Department of History at Peking University. The Department offered two one-year courses, separate from the courses given to the Chinese students. One was in modern and contemporary history and the other in classical history before 1840. Since 1975 these courses have been combined into a single programme.