Maoism and Grassroots Religion by Wang Xiaoxuan;

Author:Wang, Xiaoxuan; [Wang, Xiaoxuan;]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780190069384
Publisher: OxfordUP
Published: 2020-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

Factional Politics and Loosening Social Control

The Red Guard movement quickly turned into countywide factional battles beginning in the summer of 1967. Armed fights broke out between two major mass organizations: the so-called loyalist group (United Headquarters) and the rebel group (General Headquarters). The conflict would last two years. Between July and September 1967, battles for control of the county seat left dozens, if not hundreds, of dead bodies floating in the nearby Feiyun River.10 The apparatus of state, including the county government, party committee, public security bureau, and the court system, ground to a halt. The large-scale conflict ended in September 1969 when the loyalist group, United Headquarters, officially disbanded.11

Factional politics continued to dominate social and political life in Rui’an and Zhejiang for the remainder of the Cultural Revolution.12 There were recurrent clashes between military-appointed officials who had no former ties to Wenzhou, rebels who had been incorporated into the local leadership, and rehabilitated “old cadres.” The reshuffling of local leadership in Zhejiang and Wenzhou after the anti-Confucius, anti-Lin campaign further destabilized the political and social order. State structures were in disarray, with constant conflicts between opposing groups and organizations.13

In spite of the massive disruption of religious life at the start of the Cultural Revolution, factional conflicts and the ensuing factional politics ironically created a space for religious activities, as they loosened the government’s ideological grip on religion. When county authorities were overthrown in 1968, they turned to rural residents for help. Many young villagers joined the loyalist United Headquarters and were mobilized to participate in battles in the county seat and its surroundings. The major armed fights took place in urban areas, while rural areas were relatively quiet. The period of factional politics that followed did not focus on rural areas either.14

It was difficult for local authorities to oversee and control everyday life, especially in the vast rural areas, to the same extent as before the Cultural Revolution, because the upheaval of factional conflicts seriously weakened the governmental apparatus at the county level. The Rui’an Party Committee was restored in July 1971, five years after the start of the Red Guard movement, and lower level party committees were restored around the same time. The county public security bureau and the county court were not restored until April and March of 1973, respectively.15

Factional conflicts pulled many young people into political campaigns in the county seat, making it difficult for the communes to organize collective agricultural production. Though conflicts ended after a few years, a significant number of the youths who had left the countryside ended up moving elsewhere to make a living, an experience shared by many of my interviewees. Zou Zeiyi, of Tangkou Brigade, Tangxia, left the cooperative around 1969 and spent a few years as a beekeeper in several distant provinces, including Yunnan.16 Deng Benkuo of Lower Brigade, Xincheng, became an itinerant salesman. He traveled the mountains of Rui’an and neighboring counties exchanging malted candy for junk wares throughout the 1970s.17 Some residents of Yantou and the nearby

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