Document Type
Article
Abstract
The mid 1970s witnessed a massive Maoist campaign to attack the late imperial vernacular fiction Water Margin, which had been previously favored by the Chinese Communist Party because of its elements of rebellion and egalitarianism. The paper examines the Criticize Water Margin Campaign in 1975 and 1976 that interpreted the fiction as class-reconciliation and surrender. I argue that the dramatic shift of the narratives surrounding Water Margin manifested the deeply embedded paradox between rebellion and normalization in the communist revolutionary project. Such paradox of revolution is not only the product of the infringement of the coming neoliberal world order, but also suggests the continued relevance of China’s literary and popular religious paradigm of normalizing and incorporating rebellions and heresies into imperial political order. By rejecting the fictional amnesty, Mao sought to push his revolution beyond the cycle of rebellion and incorporation that characterized most peasant uprisings in China’s past.
Citation Information
Dong, Yaowen. "Closing the Revolution: The Criticize Water Margin Campaign and the Politics of Surrender in Mao’s China." Asia Pacific Perspectives 19, No. 1 (2025)