Table Of ContentCivilian Participants in the
Cultural Revolution
In the ten years of the Cultural Revolution, political persecutions, violation of
rights, deprivation of freedom, violence and brutality were daily occurrences.
Especially striking is the huge number of ordinary civilians who were involved in
inflicting pain and suffering on their comrades, colleagues, friends, neighbors,
and even family members. The large-scale and systematic form of violence and
injustice that was witnessed differs from that in countries like Chile under
military rule or South Africa during apartheid in that such acts were largely
committed by ordinary people instead of officials in uniforms. Mok asks how we
should assess the moral responsibility of these wrongdoers, if any, for the harm
they did both voluntarily and involuntarily.
After the death of Chairman Mao, there was a trial of the Gang of Four, who
were condemned as the chief perpetrators of the Cultural Revolution. Besides,
tens of millions of officials and cadres who were wrongly accused and unfairly
treated were subsequently cleared and reinstated under the new leadership.
However, justice has not yet been fully done because no legal or political mech-
anism has ever been established for the massive number of civilian perpetrators
to answer for all sorts of violence inflicted on other civilians, to make peace with
their victims, and to make amends. The numerous civilians who participated
need to come to terms with the people they wronged in those turbulent years.
Justice in general and transitional justice in particular may still be pursued by
taking the first steps to clarify and identify the moral burden and responsibility
that may legitimately be ascribed to the various types of participant.
This book will be of interest to anyone who studies the Cultural Revolution
of China, especially those who are concerned with the ethical dimension.
Francis K. T. Mok is Assistant Professor of Ethics and Political Philosophy and
teaches in the Department of Social Sciences at the Education University of
Hong Kong.
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Civilian Participants in the Cultural Revolution
Being Vulnerable and Being Responsible
Francis K. T. Mok
Civilian Participants in the
Cultural Revolution
Being Vulnerable and Being Responsible
Francis K. T. Mok
First published 2020
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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© 2020 Francis K. T. Mok
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asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Mok, Francis K. T., author.
Title: Civilian participants in the Cultural Revolution : being vulnerable
and being responsible / Francis K.T. Mok.
Other titles: Being vulnerable and being responsible
Description: New York : Routledge, 2020. | Series: Routledge contemporary
china series | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019033620 (print) | LCCN 2019033621 (ebook) | ISBN
9781138588448 (hardback) | ISBN 9780429492280 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: China-History-Cultural Revolution, 1966-1976. |
China-Social life and customs-1949-1976. | Mao, Zedong,
1893-1976-Influence.
Classification: LCC DS778.7 .M64 2020 (print) | LCC DS778.7 (ebook) | DDC
951.05/6-dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019033620
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019033621
ISBN: 978-1-138-58844-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-49228-0 (ebk)
Typeset in Galliard
by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear
Contents
Preface viii
Acknowledgments x
1 Introduction 1
1.1 The civilian participants 1
1.2 The normative question 2
1.3 As a matter of transitional justice 5
1.4 Responsibility of vulnerable participants 6
1.5 Methodological issues 9
2 The Cultural Revolution and its aftermath 15
2.1 Introduction 15
2.2 Seeds of social and political discontent 15
2.3 Supremacy of the revolutionary ideal 16
2.4 The need of continuing revolution 17
2.5 C hairman Mao as an infallible and invincible
authority 18
2.6 Mass participation in the use of violence 19
2.7 Violence provoked and reinforced 22
2.8 Persecution and struggle against close
acquaintances 23
2.9 Transition after the Cultural Revolution 24
2.10 Limitations of the transition 28
3 The complexity of moral responsibility: multiple
dimensions of responsibility ascription 32
3.1 Introduction 32
3.2 Different senses of responsibility ascription 33
3.3 Different understandings of the essence of responsibility
ascription 34
vi Contents
3.4 Different accounts of the condition of responsibility
ascription 38
3.5 Two faces of responsibility ascription 42
3.6 Distinction between judgment and treatment in
responsibility ascription 45
3.7 Two sides of responsibility ascription 47
3.8 A more adequate framework of responsibility
ascription 52
4 Moral responsibility of the sincere participants in
Cultural Revolution: examination of peculiar cultural
context as an excusing factor 57
4.1 Introduction 57
4.2 Cases of sincere participants 57
4.3 The claims and arguments of the sincere participants 62
4.4 How homogenous was the prevailing culture? 65
4.5 How should we understand ‘culture’? 75
4.6 Authority of the prevailing culture: should we take
culture for granted? 77
4.7 Cultural impediment, vulnerability and responsibility
ascription 79
4.8 Responsibility ascription in spite of vulnerability 85
4.9 Concluding remarks: the relationship between
vulnerability and responsibility ascription 96
5 Coercive environment as an excusing factor in
responsibility ascription: a critical assessment 101
5.1 Introduction 101
5.2 Cases of reluctant participants and the claims
they made 103
5.3 Choice, coercion, and responsibility 107
5.4 Fair burden, social expectation, and responsibility 119
5.5 From assertion of right to self-preservation to corruption
of character 124
5.6 From responsibility ascription to responsibility
assumption 128
5.7 Concluding remarks 135
6 The moral responsibility of bystanders in the
Cultural Revolution: an examination of the morality
of inaction 138
6.1 Introduction 138
6.2 Bystanders amid political turmoil 141
6.3 Bystanders in Cultural Revolution 142
Contents vii
6.4 Distinction between action and inaction: does inaction
matter morally? 150
6.5 How should we understand inaction in the
Cultural Revolution? 156
6.6 The complexity of inaction and the difficulty
of responsibility ascription 161
6.7 Attribution of responsibility and assumption
of responsibility 168
6.8 Concluding remarks 176
7 Conclusion: the relationship between human
vulnerability and moral responsibility 180
7.1 Vulnerable participants and their predicaments 180
7.2 Moral responsibility of the civilian participants 184
7.3 The intricate relationship between human
vulnerability and moral responsibility 190
Bibliography 194
Index 202
Preface
The Cultural Revolution of China that came to an end more than 40 years ago
is no longer a hot topic. However, it never ceases to be a political incident
worth further exploration. Academics can always find something new to investi-
gate and report regarding, for example, the historical questions of what had
actually happened, who did what to whom, or the sociological questions of why
it emerged and what factors could best explain its violent and fanatic nature.
However, it is startling to see that the normative questions were rarely raised.
Following the death of Chairman Mao, the arrest and trial of the Gang of Four,
rehabilitation of cadres who were unjustly persecuted and purges of those who
were found to be especially wicked, it was generally felt that the normative
question regarding right and wrong, and the corresponding question on the
proper allocation of responsibility, have largely been settled. To the perpetrators
who were heavily involved in the persecutions of people labeled as counter-
revolutionaries, the official verdict which allocates most of the blame to the
Gang of Four while letting Chairman Mao assume a minor part of the respons-
ibility would be most welcome. With Chairman Mao and the Gang of Four
serving as their ‘moral alibi,’ they may conveniently be exonerated. And those
who suffered a lot as targets of persecution may also feel relieved and avenged
when hearing that the major culprits were indicted and brought to justice. If
both the victimizers and the victims are generally satisfied with such a political
and moral verdict, what normative questions would still exist?
Of course, we understand that there was no regime change after the Cultural
Revolution; and the regime which continues to rule never want the society to
raise further questions after the official verdict was made. However, there are
several normative issues I believe that both victimizers and victims are legitimate
to probe further. To the persecuted, they should know that most of the perpet-
rators were civilians and many of them were in fact their close acquaintances
such as friends, colleagues, neighbors, or even relatives. In other words, those
who were torturing and humiliating them were not acting in an official capacity;
they were not taking orders directly from any formal governmental or party
authority. It follows that the most crucial normative question they should ask is
not why Chairman Mao and other senior party leaders could let it happen, and
mobilize people to participate in such a violent political movement, but why the
Preface ix
ordinary people close to them could be so keen in responding to the call for
violent struggles against them and what kind of guilt, blame and responsibility
they should bear. The victims would not be able to make sense of their suffering
if the role and responsibility of the civilian participants who had actually
inflicted suffering on them are not clarified and fairly assessed. To the civilian
perpetrators, having a collective entity such as the party and a handful of leaders
taking the entire political and moral burden would not necessarily be in their
best interests. They may also want to make sense of the suffering they had
inflicted on others by inquiring into the conditions that made them vulnerable
and the circumstances under which they were misled, provoked or coerced to
participate in the violent struggles against their close acquaintances.
If the Chinese society really wants to make peace with the atrocities and bru-
talities that were common in the Cultural Revolution, citizens should go
beyond the official verdict which fails to give us the whole truth and real justice.
They should take up the questions deliberately ignored, if not suppressed, by
the authority: how were vulnerable civilians mobilized, misguided, or coerced
to do wrong under the spell of revolution? How should these sincere or
reluctant participants be judged morally? Should they be excused when the
victims try to hold them responsible? In what sense may the victims (and other
impartial judges) hold the civilian participants responsible, despite their vulner-
ability? And in what sense do the participants themselves transcend their inher-
ently vulnerable condition and voluntarily assume moral responsibility for their
wrongdoing? The primary aim of this book is to address these under-explored
questions and to come up with a set of preliminary replies.
