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Reckoning with the Past: Official Historical Inquiries into Guangxi’s Cultural Revolution, 1983–1987
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 February 2026
Abstract
This article draws on newly accessible primary sources to examine how, between 1983 and 1987, the Chinese Communist Party addressed the legacy of Cultural Revolution-era political violence in Guangxi. It focuses on a series of initiatives through which local authorities revised historical narratives, assessed political responsibility within bureaucratic frameworks, and documented past events through structured writing efforts. These efforts, the article argues, amounted to a form of contained transitional justice – a Party-directed, bureaucratically managed process of reckoning with the past that combined internal investigation, symbolic redress and controlled truth production. While resembling global practices of transitional justice in truth-seeking and victim rehabilitation, the process was tightly constrained by ideological priorities and excluded meaningful public participation. The Guangxi case, exceptional for both the scale of violence and the timing of its reckoning, offers insight into how authoritarian regimes manage traumatic historical legacies through disciplined yet symbolic mechanisms of historical clarification.
摘要
本文利用新近获得的第一手资料, 考察了中国共产党在 1983-1987 年间如何应对广西地区文革时期政治暴力的遗产。文章聚焦一系列官方举措, 分析地方当局如何通过修订历史叙事、在官僚体系内部评估政治责任, 以及系统化的书写工作记录历史事件。文章认为, 这些举措构成了一种 “受控的转型正义” – 一种由党主导、官僚化管理的历史问责过程, 结合了内部调查、象征性纠正与可控的历史真相建构。虽然在追求真相和平反受害者方面与全球转型正义实践有相似之处, 但这一过程受到意识形态优先事项的严格约束, 且排除了公众的实质性参与。广西案例因其暴力的规模和问责时机而显得特别, 为理解威权政体如何通过纪律化且象征性的历史澄清机制处理创伤性历史遗产提供了重要视角。
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- © The Author(s), 2026. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of SOAS University of London.
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