Remoulding minds in postsocialist China: Maoist reeducation and twenty-first-century subjects

Abstract

Thought reform (or ‘brainwashing’, as its critics labelled it in the 1950s) has been the Communist Party's most direct and explicit effort to refashion Chinese people. Since 1949, China's government-run reeducation centres have been dedicated to the production of ideal citizens. The discourses those institutions have produced highlight significant changes in the way the state has imagined its model (and anti-model) subjects as the People's Republic made its transition from Mao-era collectivism to contemporary postsocialism. This article traces official discussions about thought reform's ideal outcomes from the revolutionary period (1946–1978), through the reform era (1979–1989), and into the postsocialist present (1989–2012). It argues that in the early years of the revolution, thought reform was designed to be a homogenizing process aimed at uniting ‘the great masses of the people’ through a history of shared national suffering. In today's postsocialist reformatories, however, narratives of individualized agency dominate discussions about reeducation. Reeducators treat their targets as social problems, but the agents of the state do not see society as the most important cause of unlawful behaviour. Contemporary internees are undergoing Maoist thought reform, but reeducators seek to craft subjectivities that Mao would have found objectionable.

Notes

1. Zhang Jiexun, ‘Zenyang dui xueyuan jinxing jiaoyu’, in BPSB, Beijing fengbi jiyuan jishi, Beijing: Zhongguo heping chubanshe, 1988, p 310.

2. Untitled essay attributed to internee Deng XX (given name removed in original source) in September 2004. The essay was posted on the Beijing Municipal Bureau for the Management of Reeducation through Labour's now inactive website: www.legalinfo.gov.cn/gb/ldjyglj. I have retained a copy.

3. Lisa Rofel, Desiring China: Experiments in Neoliberalism, Sexuality, and Public Culture, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007; Vanessa L Fong, ‘Globalization, the Chinese State, and Chinese Subjectivities: A Review Essay’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 48(4), 2006, pp 946–953.

4. Michael Y M Kau and John K Leung, The Writings of Mao Zedong: 1949-1976, vol 1, September 1949–December 1955, Armonk, NY: M E Sharpe, 1986, p 19.

5. Reeducation (jiaoyang) programmes should be distinguished from prisons and labour reform institutions, which have incarcerated accused criminals and so-called ‘enemies of the people’. On labour reform/prisons, see James D Seymour and Richard Anderson, New Ghosts, Old Ghosts: Prisons and Labor Reform Camps in China, Armonk, NY: M E Sharpe, 1998; Michael Dutton, Policing and Punishment in China: From Patriarchy to ‘the People’, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

6. For more on the history of reeducation, see Aminda M Smith, Thought Reform and China's Dangerous Classes: Reeducation, Resistance, and the People, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2013.

7. I am following Sheldon Lu in dating the postsocialist era from 1989. As Lu notes, however, elements of the cultural trends that came to be associated with the postsocialist began to emerge as early as 1976. Sheldon H Lu, Chinese Modernity and Global Biopolitics: Studies in Literature and Visual Culture, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2007, p 207.

8. Mao Zedong, ‘Zhongguo nongmin zhong ge jieji de fenxi ji qi duiyu geming de taidu’, in Takeuchi Minoru (ed), Mao Zedong ji, 2nd edn, vol 1, Tokyo: Sososha, 1983, pp 153–159.Marx saw prostitution, for example, as ‘a specific expression of the general prostitution of the laborer’. See Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Martin Milligan, trans, Mineola, NY: Dover, 2007, p 99 fn.

9. Stephen A Smith, Like Cattle and Horses: Nationalism and Labor in Shanghai, 1895–1927, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002, p 120.

10. James Z Gao, The Communist Takeover of Hangzhou: The Transformation of City and Cadre, 1949–1954, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2004, p 112.

11. Liang Ke, ‘1949, Beijng gaizao jinu jishi’, Zhongguo shehui daokan 10, 1999, p 8. Zhang, ‘Zenyang dui xueyuan jinxing jiaoyu’, p 304.

12. For more on this ‘total’ thought reform effort, see Robert J Lifton, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Psychiatric Study of ‘Brainwashing’ in China, London: Gollancz, 1962.

13. Gao, The Communist Takeover of Hangzhou, p 117.

14. Michael Dutton and Xu Zhangrun, ‘A Question of Difference: The Theory and Practice of the Chinese Prison’, in Børge Bakken (ed), Crime, Punishment, and Policing in China, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005, p 107.

15. For early debates about whether education should precede labour, see Smith, Thought Reform and China's Dangerous Classes, esp. ch 4.

16. Beijing Municipal Bureau of Civil Affairs (BBCA), Beijing shi chuli jinü gongzuo zongjie, 1950, Beijing Municipal Archives 2-2-40; Beijing shi minzhengju shourong qigai gongzuo zongjie, Beijing Municipal Archives, 196-2-20.

17. Elizabeth Perry, ‘Moving the Masses: Emotion Work in the Chinese Revolution’, Mobilization: An International Journal 7(2), 2002, p 113.

18. Mi Shiqi and Gao Changwu, ‘Jiefang chuqi Beijing shi funü shengchan jiaoyangyuan de gongzuo: Yang Yunyu fangtan lu’, Dang de wenxian 1, 2007, p 42.

19. Mi and Gao, ‘Jiefang chuqi Beijing shi funü shengchan jiaoyangyuan de gongzuo’, p 28; BBCA, Beijing shi chuli jinü gongzuo zongjie.

20. BBCA, Shourong qigai gongzuo zongjie.

21. BBCA, Beijing shi chuli jinü gongzuo zongjie.

22. Li Hua, ‘Lao jiefang qu zeyang gaizao qigai xiaotou’, Renmin ribao, 18 May 1949.

23. BBCA, Beijing shi chuli jinü gongzuo zongjie.

24. Smith, Thought Reform and China's Dangerous Classes, esp. ch 4.

25. BBCA, Shourong qigai gongzuo zongjie.

26. ‘The Girl Analyst Used to Be a Prostitute’, Hsinhua Daily Bulletin, 5 March 1951, p 18.

27. Ministry of the Interior, ‘Guanyu anzhi gaizao chengshi youmin gongzuo de zhishi’, Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo Guowuyuan gongbao 28, 1956.

28. Renmin ribao, 9 May 1949; 13 May 1949.

29. Gail Hershatter, Dangerous Pleasures: Prostitution and Modernity in Twentieth Century Shanghai, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997, pp 331–333.

30. Michael Dutton, Policing and Punishment in China: From Patriarchy to ‘the People’, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995, p 363.

31. Shu Liu, ‘Langzi huitou jin bu huan—yige jiechu laojiao renyuan de zishu’, Faxue zazhi 3, 1982, p 19.

32. Shu, ‘Langzi huitou jin bu huan’, p 19.

33. Deng Xiaoping, Jianchi sixiang jiben yuanze, 30 March 1979. http://news.xinhuanet.com/ziliao/2005-02/05/content_2550057.htm

34. Zheng Huaiyi, ‘Laodong jiaoyang yao zai “jiao” shangxia gongfu’, Zhengfa luntan 4, 1981, p 26.

35. Zheng, ‘Laodong jiaoyang yao zai “jiao” shangxia gongfu’, p 27.

36. Zheng, ‘Laodong jiaoyang yao zai “jiao” shangxia gongfu’, p 27.

37. Li Shan, ‘Jin mou de maiyin xingwei yiding liumang zui’, Faxue 7, 1986, p 45.

38. Li, ‘Jin mou de maiyin xingwei yiding liumang zui’, p 46.

39. Gongan bu shiwu ju, ‘Jiaoyu, wanjiu, gaizao “liu zi” fangzhen nuan renxin—yige nan gaizao jianzi sixiang zhuanbian de zishu’, Faxue zazhi 1, 1983, p 56.

40. Shu, ‘Langzi huitou jin bu huan’, p 19; Fan Chongyan, ‘Tamen shi shou le chonghai de xiao shumiao’, Fumu bidu 9, 1984, p 29.

41. Hershatter, Dangerous Pleasures, p 329.

42. Zheng Huaiyi, ‘Laodong jiaoyang yao zai “jiao” shangxia gongfu’, Zhengfa luntan 4, 1981, p 27.

43. Li, ‘Jin mou de maiyin xingwei yiding liumang zui’, p 46.

44. Hershatter, Dangerous Pleasures, p 344.

45. Fan, ‘Tamen shi shou le chonghai de xiao shumiao’, p 29.

46. Tao Tao, ‘Gui lai a, xiwang—du fazi xiao guansuo de yishu xin’, Fumu bidu 9, 1984, p 31.

47. Tao, ‘Gui lai a, xiwang’, p 31.

48. Fan, ‘Tamen shi shou le chonghai de xiao shumiao’, p 29.

49. Deng 2004.

50. Lu XX, ‘Xinxin de qidao’, 26 June 2006, posted on Beijing Reeducation Bureau official website: www.bjlj.gov.cn.

51. Zhou XX, Untitled essay, September 2004, www.bjlj.gov.cn.

52. Yang XX, ‘Za gan yi ze’, 23 June 2006, www.bjlj.gov.cn.

53. Bi XX, ‘Zai chenggong zhong sisuo, zai shibai zhong fenqi’, August 2006, www.bjlj.gov.cn.

54. Zhang Fuchao, ‘Wo ju ge changsuo zuzhi laojiao renyuan qingzhu fuqin jie’, 7 July 2006, www.bjlj.gov.cn.

55. Zhang, ‘Wo ju ge changsuo zuzhi laojiao renyuan qingzhu fuqin jie’.

56. Author unnamed (I gave him the pseudonym Mr Zhao). ‘Pingfan de xiaolian, feifan de gandong’, 6 November 2009, www.bjlj.gov.cn.

57. Lu, ‘Xinxin de qidao’.

58. Shu, ‘Langzi huitou jin bu huan’, p 20; Gongan bu shiwu ji, ‘Jiaoyu, wanjiu, gaizao “liu zi” fangzhen nuan renxin’, pp 55–56.

59. ‘Pingfan de xiaolian, feifan de gandong’; Chang XX, ‘Qinren de qipan huanxing liangzhi’, 26 June 2006, www.bjlj.gov.cn. Chen XX, ‘Chengong, shibai’, 2004. Essay originally posted on the now inactive website, www.legalinfo.gov.cn/gb/ldjyglj. I retained a copy.

60. Chang, ‘Qinren’.

61. Deng 2004.

62. Lu, ‘Xinxin de qidao’.

63. Fu Hualing, ‘Reeducation through Labor in Historical Context’, The China Quarterly 184, 2005, pp 811–830; Huang Hongshan and Wang Weiping, ‘Cong “jiaoyang jianshi” dao “laodong jiaoyang”: Zhongguo laodong jiaoyang zhidu qiyuan xintan’, Hebei xuekan 5, 2010, pp 73–80.