Beginning with The People’s Peking Man, Professor Schmalzer has demonstrated a keen focus on the history of popular science in China, particularly through the lens of elite-mass relations. Red Revolution, Green Revolution is no exception, as it maintains this same subtle narrative framework.
Upon a second reading of this book, my focus shifts to contemplating the relationship between science, technology, and nationalism, as well as the question of China’s modernity.
A long-standing viewpoint in China posits that the Mao era and the post-Mao era are two entirely distinct periods. However, mounting evidence seems to indicate that while they may differ in form and public lifestyle, a high degree of continuity persists in popular consciousness and in the politics derived from that consciousness.
Many have also traditionally held that even during the Mao era, the pursuit of modernization was fraught with contradictions and reversals. The oscillation between a strong fetishism for the power of the masses and a reliance on technocrats for scientific progress supposedly caused great turmoil. Yet, as Professor Schmalzer argues, these apparent differences stemmed from the same core conflict: a struggle between two sides to seize the discursive power (话语权) over what constitutes “science.”
Tu (土) represents the indigenous, the mass-reliant, the wisdom of the people. Here, science is part of politics, a manifestation of class character. Yang (洋) represents the Western, the elite-science-reliant, the “ungrounded”. Here, science is a tool, serving rational and quantifiable objectives.
Professor Schmalzer does not view tu science as purely anti-intellectual, but as a political movement cloaked in science; it is a scientific philosophy with profound historical context and connotations, a worldview integrated with traditional Chinese concepts.
Yang science inherently carries a technocratic coloring. Although technocrats held official positions within the bureaucracy, they were politically unable to get close to Mao. For Mao, everything was instrumental, serving his ultimate objective: Mao-style modernization.
Scholars, including Professor Shen Zhihua, have suggested that Mao sought to realize his vision of communism, which included his own concept of modernization. In his envisioned modernity, technology was a tool, and equitable outcomes were also a means to an end. All parties, concepts, and technologies were instruments for him. His lifelong pursuit was to use political means to achieve the communism he envisioned.
Therefore, in the Mao-era agricultural revolution, one might perceive three coexisting forces: the technocrats representing yang science, the masses representing tu science, and Mao, who skillfully manipulated both of these forces in his political movements.
On Mao’s Ideal—Communism1
It is not difficult to understand Mao’s vision for the future as an amalgamation of traditional Chinese monarchical practice and Marxist communism. From this perspective, Mao does indeed bear a high degree of similarity to Hong Xiuquan of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
Thus, when Schmalzer writes that the Green Revolution had to be advanced via the means of the Red Revolution, it becomes clear that “scientific experiment”—like “class struggle”—was a process of discursive contestation. By binding the Green Revolution to the already highly politicized Red Revolution, it ensured that the Green Revolution would become an integral part of Mao’s vision for a communist future.
During the honeymoon period with the Soviet Union, Mao expressed to Stalin his desire to be the leader of the socialist movement in the East. He envied Stalin’s status and consequently detested Khrushchev for his critique of Stalin, which extended to an aversion for Soviet bureaucracy, technocratic elitism, and rigid “stage-based theory” (阶段论).
Becoming the leader of the Third World was thus akin to a return to the traditional status of the “Celestial Empire” (天朝上国), exporting advanced “Chinese experience” to the Third World. The demonstration of composting and animal manure use in Africa, for instance, was precisely this kind of export of Chinese experience.
Regarding Technocrats
In Professor Schmalzer’s book, “technocrats” should emphatically refer to the yang scientists: elite scientists with higher education, especially foreign credentials, working in professional institutions. Technocrats generally hold a secular, objective, and apolitical vision. From this perspective, their development path was in severe conflict with Mao’s “reliance on the masses.” The “moderate” leaders were the political representatives of this technocratic will.
In the early 1960s, Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping led the yang scientists to a dominant position. The 1963 “National Conference on Agricultural Science and Technology Work” marked the zenith of technocratic power. This conference emphasized the leadership of elite scientists and top-down technological extension (e.g., “model fields”), while the “masses” were almost entirely ignored in the discourse. However, with the onset of the Cultural Revolution, Mao’s powerful resurgence allowed him to recapture the discourse on scientific agriculture. He emphasized the need to remold yang science to serve tu science, thereby relying on the masses to achieve his communism.
(This is a personal reflection): The management of yang scientists in the agricultural sphere was markedly different from that of yang scientists in national defense. In defense projects, Mao persistently trusted and utilized yang scientists. This might be explained by the fact that defense technology is far more distant from the masses than agricultural technology. His goal was to mobilize the masses, rely on the masses, oppose the bureaucratic system, and use what he deemed “scientific” methods to build his communism.
Technocrats, inspired by the call of communism, were also constantly remolding themselves. On one hand, they adapted their research focus to domestic conditions; on the other, they attempted to use their own universal, rational philosophy to counter the Red Revolution—for instance, by leveraging Mao’s own slogan of “self-reliance” (自力更生) to resist the top-down imposition of the “Learn from Dazhai” (农业学大寨) model.
Regarding the Lei Feng Paradox2
The Lei Feng Paradox is a subtle concept: one must become an “unknown” hero, yet the very status of “hero” implies widespread fame. This seems to perfectly fit the specific nature of youth and of agriculture. The impulse of young people to achieve fame and become heroes needed to be reconciled with the obscure, “unknown” nature of agricultural work, and the image of Lei Feng provided this integration.
In Mao’s future world, the world would be composed of countless selfless and anonymous Lei Fengs. Everyone is constantly contributing, and also constantly receiving the reward of the “anonymous Lei Feng” title—internally joyous, but never showing it on the surface.
If the book has flaws, the first might be its use of a dichotomy to oppose a dichotomy: it employs the Mao-era tu/yang binary to critique the established academic binary of “radical versus moderate.” Secondly, the sourcing is heavily concentrated in Guangxi and neighboring southern provinces. This geographic focus does not necessarily represent the situation of the entire country, especially key agricultural heartlands in the Northeast and North China.
Regardless, this is an astonishing work. It is groundbreaking in its study of the agricultural revolution in the turbulent pre-Reform and Opening era. The struggle for the discursive power of science is the book’s most brilliant focus. Finally, the thesis of continuity between the pre- and post-Reform periods is once again validated in the agricultural domain.
- This section is not derived from Schmalzer’s book but consists of my own associative thoughts during reading, particularly recalling two monographs by Professor Shen Zhihua. ↩︎
- This point resonates personally, as my grandfather was Lei Feng’s instructor when he first enlisted, and I heard stories about Lei Feng from my grandparents throughout my childhood, which gave me more thoughts when reading Chapter 6. ↩︎