State and opposition: A study of state capacity and loyal dissent in Mao's China

This dissertation attempts to explain why anti-establishment dissent did not exist in mainland China (PRC). Instead of zeroing in on China's political tradition for an answer, we adopt a state-centric approach and focus on the Leninist state. Our foci of investigation are state extractive, incorporative, and coercive capacity in Mao's years. The relationship between these three capacities and the absence of anti-establishment dissent is the central question of our investigation.; This study produces the following results: Mao's Republic attained great extractive capacity. State revenue as a percentage of the GNP reached more than 30%. This accomplishment was made possible by the strength of the Leninist political system that uses state policies as a “comparative advantage.” The great state extractive capacity was translated into great political power. Independent economic entities indispensable for autonomous political activism in any society were wiped out in Mao's China.; Mao's Republic achieved great incorporative capacity. Private and foreign influence in education was non-existent. Strict Party control, limited international contact, and politicization of education served to create a generation of “revolutionary successors” who would not diverge in thinking from the official line. In Mao's China, informational condition for the rise of radical dissent did not exist.; Mao's Republic achieved great coercive capacity. The coercive task was fulfilled by the mobilized masses. Ideologically and empirically, the masses were perceived both as the agents and objects of change in a revolutionary society. Party-led mass movements were used as a major coercive instrument. The frequency and scope of the mass campaigns in addition to the severity of orchestrated mass terror helped the Party to suppress the tens of millions of real and imagined “class enemies” who thought differently. In Mao's years, there did not exist political conditions necessary for independent political participation.; In conclusion, important material, informational, and political conditions needed for autonomous political activities did not exist in Mao's China. The totalitarian politics, however, created similar conditions that had given rise to loyal opposition in ancient China. Since loyal dissent contradicted no fundamentals of the existing ruling order, its pressure on the state to adapt to the world trend of democratization was marginal, if not completely nonexistent.