Peter J. Seybolt

Terror and Conformity: Counterespionage Campaigns, Rectification, and Mass Movements, 1942-1943

During the War of Resistance against Japan, the Communist Party of China developed the principles and practices that would carry it to victory in 1949 and define aspects of its mode of operation for many years to come. The role of the war itself, of political struggles within the party, of mass campaigns for production, health, education, and so on have been examined in some detail in attempts to explain Communist triumph. In this article I

The Chinese Communists' road to power : the Anti-Japanese National United Front, 1935-1945

Based on thorough examination of Chinese, Japanese, and Western source materials, the author re-examines inter-party politics within the Chinese Communist Party in the period 1935-45. He shows that the Chinese Communists had learnt from their defeat in 1934 that they could not challenge the Guomindang with only the support of the peasants. They therefore devised the anti-Japanese national united front policy, which united all sectors of the population.

Higher Education in China.

This paper discusses the system of higher education in China today. Eight years after the beginning of the upheaval known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, educational principles and practice are still considered experimental. New types of schools have been established, and old ones have been reoriented to conform to recent ideological imperatives. The administrative system has gone through a number of changes and is not yet standardized; innovative enrollment procedures, strongly influenced by social class considerations, are changing the complexion of the student body; teaching methods and curriculum combine teaching, productive labor and scientific research in an effort to relate higher education more closely to the economic and social needs envisioned by the Maoist leadership.The paper concludes that it is too early to make definitive judgments about the viability of the system, regardless of the criteria used, but suggests that assessments of the quality of higher education in China must start from a recognition of the fact that it is an integral part of the total effort to revolutionize society.

Review Essay: Resistance and Revolution in China: The Communists and the Second United Front, by Tetsuya Kataoka

This is an ambitious book in which the author attempts to answer the question. &dquo;How did the Chinese communist revolution succeed?&dquo; Professor Kataoka’s analysis is limited to the period 1935-1943, the period in which, he feels, the Communist Party’s winning strategy was formulated and applied and final victory was nearly assured. His major conclusion is that the winning strategy combined war of resistance against Japan with full scale revolutionary war. In stating this position he takes issue with official Chinese Communist Party (CCP) history and with what he asserts is the prevailing view of Western scholars. Official CCP history of the period, which is based on the document &dquo;Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party&dquo; (April 1944, adopted at the Seventh Party .