China's Secret Military Papers: ‘Continuities’ and ‘Revelations’

Abstract

China's rulers in 1961 surveyed their shattered dreams and then, with studied self-confidence, hailed the vitality of their revolutionary “mass-line” credo. This resolute re-affirmation of standard principles had a hollow ring, however, and doubts about the “real methods of control” employed during the years of retreat and readjustment coincided with angry charges that the language of the “mass-line” disguised terror and brutality on an appalling scale. In the confusion, fact has until recently seemed entwined irretrievably with propaganda and invective, but now a unique collection of the Kung-tso T'ung-hsun ( Bulletin of Activities ) makes it possible to disentangle the contradictory methods of control and leadership used in 1961 and to evaluate their widely varied effects in that crucial year.