Written Self-Criticism:Private Confession In The Public Space(1949—1976)

During the approximately thirteen years after liberation in the last century, the thought reformed movements took place from time to time. People have to confess their guiltiness or sins to the Party and the "revolutionary folks" under its regulation. As a result, with waves of mass political animadversions, there emerged a tremendous number of the written self-criticism on the nation-wide news papers. This documentary contrition history which had lasted for almost three decades, doubtlessly should be defined as a Chinese idiosyncrasy. Self-criticism, a Chinese characteristic repentant system, not only reflects the social life and ideology in that period, but also shade a light on the political status. By focusing on these repentant documents written between1949and1976, this article tries to reveal how left-extreme ideology maintained the social political system and imposed controls on social consensus via the means of political confession.To accomplish this goal, this article exploits text-close reading to many specific written self-criticism which are also interpreted within their own historical contexts, under the assumption of dynamic cultural phenomenon. As for the theory and structure, this article has chosen the break point from the perspective of public space and the confession theory, discusses the following in four chapters in such order:the historical development of the written self-criticism, its structural patterns, the double tragedy of critic-confess, and the political interpretation of public confession. Lastly, based on above analysis, seen from the angle of humanity disaster, we further point out the historiography significances of confession writings:witnessing, cognizing, reflecting and avoiding.