Under The System Of Political Identity, Social Conflict: The Social Roots Of The Behavior Of The Masses During The Cultural Revolution

One of the most extraordinary and puzzling events of the 20th century in Chinese history is surely the Cultural Revolution. It is very important to rethinking Cultural Revolution for us to sum up historical experience.Because different province had its own situation of this movement, interpret the situation of every province so that we can understand the entirety of the Cultural Revolution. This paper is a case study; the process of Cultural Revolution in Changsha is its main content. Changsha is the capital of Hunan province, which located in the middle part of China. In those years, the situation of Changsha was influenced by the whole country situation. In the same time, it impacted inferior areas of Hunan province immediately. The first part (Chapterâ… ,â…¡&â…¢) reviewed the history of Cultural Revolution in Changsha from 1966 to 1969, narrated many events belongs to that time, including the details of establishment, development and dismiss of several mass organizations. The analysis and argument of next part based on all of these historical materials.On the base of review history, the second part (Chapterâ…£&â…¤) focused on the behavior of the masses of different factions. The prominent feature of mass behavior was not participation, but that people showed different tendencies, established their own organization and attacked each other violently. The mass organizations can be classified according to the identity of staff and demands of people in different historical stages. Various activities of people in different organizations were described in Chapterâ…£. In the Cultural Revolution, different people showed diverse tendencies. For example, why did a group of people oppose the provincial government, but another group guard it? Chapterâ…¤focused on students, workers and young intellectuals who were sent to rural area before 1966, analyzed the historical and social roots of their behaviors.Because of factions in mass and factional strife, individual behavior thus gathered into collective action. The analysis showed that the individual struggles and choices reflected the deep social structural contradictions. As is known to all, individual behavior is influenced by external society all the time. The third part (Chapter VI) investigated individual behavior in social structure, and then the reason of different behaviors would be revealed. Two concepts, "Defenders" and "Challenger", were brought up in this chapter. Most of "Defenders" were the members or potential member of vested interests. By contrast, most of "Challenger" was loser in society. They fought for their interests and rights, such as salary, welfare, position. After accepted by authority, the "Challengers" changed their standpoint. It is easy to turn into "defenders" after they broke into the power of the system. That which group a person belonged to depended on his position in "Political Identity system""Political Identity system" is the inevitable result of communism revolution. In this system, all people were divided into many kinds of groups. Some people obtained privilege, in the same time, the rest of people were treated as inferior. In accordance with different political identities, everyone achieved different rights and obligations. In Chinese society, administrative levels were formed according to "Political Identity system", which divided people into different levels and distributed resource in turn. Because of class struggle, unequal distribution and social mobility brought about serious problem, the tension of the "Political Identity system" grew more and more. Social contradiction didn't disappear, but accumulated day by day. At last, social contradiction burst out like an explosion in the Cultural Revolution as violent conflict.At present, the poverty gap becomes more and more wide, the contradiction of resource distribution increases swiftly, the social structure seems to fail to keep balance. In aggravating situation, it is important for the government to resolve contradiction, resolve social conflict to ensure stability and harmony.