Harvard East Asian Monographs, 343. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center; Harvard University Press [distributor], 2012. xvi, 486 pp. (Illus.) US$59.95, cloth. ISBN 978-0-674-06581-9.
A Continuous Revolution is a strongly argued book and given its sweeping nature is bound to be the subject of controversy in the field. Continuity is the theme that Mittler hammers away at repeatedly. Her subject is cultural production during the Chinese Cultural Revolution over the officially defined time period of 1966–76. By continuity, Mittler means cultural continuity from the late Qing period to the present day. In every chapter she places the output of the Cultural Revolution period in music, visual arts and literature into the continuum of modern Chinese cultural history.
The book is carefully organized to bring out this central argument. The introduction deals with broad questions defining cultural production as propaganda, education and form of art. She ties the roots of modern Chinese culture to the May 4th Movement of 1919 as the first Cultural Revolution. The two revolutions must not be analyzed strictly in terms of their place in the art or literary history of China. A broader lens is necessary to understand fully the Cultural Revolution of 1966–76 and its impact on the targeted audience, i.e., the Chinese masses. Mittler’s assertions about the Cultural Revolution are based on a comprehensive reading, listening and viewing of the material products of the period from Mao buttons, to poster art, to well-known revolutionary operas and ballets, to editions of the Little Red Book, and the mass singing of revolutionary classics like the Internationale. Examples of the above are housed in special collections at Heidelberg University where Mittler is the senior China scholar. Besides these primary sources, she draws heavily upon interviews (names kept anonymous) with countless individuals who experienced the Cultural Revolution and its cultural production as adults (the majority are intellectuals).
Mittler then proceeds to show in chapter 1, from “Mozart to Mao to Mozart,” how music of the period fit into a long tradition, rooted in this case in the popular music of the 1920s and 1930s. She argues that Cultural Revolution operas, ballets and the efforts of Mei Lanfang in particular were neither xenophobic nor a negation of tradition. They had in fact strong connections to various Western styles and traditions while echoing Chinese traditional musical forms. Chapter 2 dwells on music, orchestrations and songs sung in mass or individually. She goes to quite some length to examine the work of the popular rock star Cui Jian and the connection of his music to the Cultural Revolution (even when he is mocking it). Chapter 3 is an analysis of the written words or scriptures of the Cultural Revolution period, boldly refuting as a myth the idea that the Cultural Revolution attacked and destroyed traditional philosophical and canonical works (like that of Confucius). To demonstrate this point in chapters 3 and 4, she provides an elaborate analysis of the divergent versions of the Sanzijing or three-character classics that were produced between 1966–76. She also argues that the story of the Foolish Old Man Who Moves Mountains and the Little Red Bookhave deep roots in China’s past (and survive today in post-1979 PRC). Chapters 5 and 6 examine the visual arts: paintings (especially portraiture), posters, comic strips. Here she emphasizes the variety of cultural production and the difference between the earlier period from 1966 to 1972 and the later period from 1972 to 1976.
Throughout the book, Mittler takes issue with most established scholars who have written on the culture of the Cultural Revolution: Julia Andrews, Paul Clark, Colin MacKerras, Orville Schell and Mary Ann Farquhar. In the conclusion she insists that the Cultural Revolution was not a period of cultural stagnation and shallow propaganda models, out of step with the rest of modern Chinese cultural history. Cultural production of the period was neither xenophobic nor iconoclastic. Like the products of the May 4th period, the art, music and literary output of the 1966–76 period represent a tapestry, rich in its diversity and connections to both earlier Chinese traditions and foreign influences. She ends the book by calling for a reevaluation of the Cultural Revolution period as a complicated, contradictory time culturally speaking that has been overly stereotyped and dismissed as unworthy of serious scholarly examination.
Mittler’s book is bold in its insistence on the continuity and relevance of Cultural Revolution art to understanding present-day China. To achieve this, she avoids the politics of the Cultural Revolution. Hardly mentioned is Jiang Qing, who is usually thought of as a sort of cultural czar before her downfall in 1976. In other words, Mittler explores the context and precedents for the art and forms of Cultural Revolution propaganda without discussing their political purposes or relevance to the power and ideological struggles of the period. Is it possible understand the cultural production of the 1966–76 period devoid of its political context? Although Soviet influences are mentioned, comparisons are not pursued vis-à-vis Chinese cultural production as part of the communist cultural industry that dominated Eastern-bloc countries during the Cold War.
In contemporary China, the legacy of the Cultural Revolution period in cultural terms is contradictory. On the one hand there is a rejection of Mao-era cultural production by many intellectuals and artists (Wang Hui for example) in favour of returning to traditional norms from the nineteenth and early twentieth century. The reverse reaction is also present: the revival of old Maoist slogans and revolutionary songs at mass meetings, led by political figures like Bo Xilai and muscularly nationalist intellectuals. The legacy is clearly complicated and how it fits into Mittler’s argument of continuity is not clear.
Stephen R. MacKinnon
Arizona State University, Tempe, USA
pp. 902-904