A Chinese Rebel beyond the Great Wall
by TJ Cheng, Uradyn E. Bulag, Mark Selden
A striking first-person account of the Cultural Revolution in Inner Mongolia, embedded in a close examination of the historical evidence on China's minority nationality policies to the present.
During the Great Leap Forward, as hundreds of thousands of Chinese famine refugees headed to Inner Mongolia, Cheng Tiejun arrived in 1959 as a middle school student. In 1966, when the PRC plunged into the Cultural Revolution, he joined the Red Guards just as Inner Mongolia's longtime leader, Ulanhu, was purged. With the military in control, and with deepening conflict with the Soviet Union and its ally Mongolia on the border, Mongols were accused of being nationalists and traitors. A pogrom followed, taking more than 16,000 Mongol lives, the heaviest toll anywhere in China.
At the heart of this book are Cheng's first-person recollections of his experiences as a rebel. These are complemented by a close examination of the documentary record of the era from the three coauthors. The final chapter offers a theoretical framework for Inner Mongolia's repression. The repression's goal, the authors show, was not to destroy the Mongols as a people or as a culture—it was not a genocide. It was, however, a "politicide," an attempt to break the will of a nationality to exercise leadership of their autonomous region. This unusual narrative provides urgently needed primary source material to understand the events of the Cultural Revolution, while also offering a novel explanation of contemporary Chinese minority politics involving the Uyghurs, Tibetans, and Mongols.
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Author Biography
TJ Cheng is emeritus professor of sociology at Macau University and a freelance writer based in California. Uradyn E. Bulag is professor of social anthropology at the University of Cambridge. Mark Selden is emeritus professor of sociology and history at the State University of New York at Binghamton.
Table of Contents
List of Maps and Figures
Preface
Introduction
1 A North China Country Boy Travels beyond the Great Wall
2 Rumblings: Prelude to the Cultural Revolution
3 The Hour of Rebellion: The Cultural Revolution Comes to Inner Mongolia
4 Red Guards on the March
5 The First PLA Murder of a Red Guard
6 Rebel Victory and the Military Takeover of Inner Mongolia
7 The Wasu Movement and My Career as a Journalist
8 Wasu and the Rebels
9 "Inner Mongolia Has Gone Too Far"
10 Inner Mongolia under Martial Law
11 The Lin Biao Incident and My Farewell to Inner Mongolia
Coda: Settler Colonialism, Minority Nationalities, and Politicide—Reassessing the Cultural Revolution from the Borderlands
Glossary
Notes
Index
Review
"Inner Mongolia witnessed the most extreme brutalities of the Cultural Revolution, but the authors go beyond just narrating these horrific events to trace the cruelty to an aim of 'politicide'. A grim and timely reminder." * Christopher Pratt Atwood, University of Pennsylvania *
"An eye-opening, heartrending eyewitness account of the atrocities committed against the Mongols by the Communist Party-state. Unforgettable reading and all too pertinent to our times." * Peter C. Perdue, Yale University *
"Although scholars are increasingly considering and assessing issues of colonialism in China's working out of its nationality strategies, such work has rarely been carried out at this level of detail and analysis. With its academic depth and the sophistication of its authors' argument and research, A Chinese Rebel beyond the Great Wall will be groundbreaking in many ways." * Robert Barnett, SOAS, University of London *
"Riveting. . . . [Cheng's] first-hand account is invaluable." * The China Quarterly *
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