Abstract
The classic role of the state is to protect those subject to it, from criminals at home, enemies abroad, and as much as possible from threats beyond individual control. The state should of course, protect its subjects from acts of terror. But the state exercises coercive power, and in some circumstances itself engages in terror, both against outsiders and against its own people. Intuitively, state terror would seem to be one feature of illiberal, non-democratic states, of which China is one (although liberal democracies are probably not totally guiltless either).
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Notes
- 1.
Much recent interest in state terror is a reaction against the sometimes vicious behavior of the United States (with a special emphasis on the use of drones, although this particular disapprobation seems more aesthetic than rational), in its own twenty-first century war on terror. Indeed, that “war” itself has been analyzed as a protracted act of terror, a way the “northern democracies” assure that the “millions of citizens of the South” remain appropriately cowed (Blakeley 2007). Be that as it may (and the assertion leaves much to be argued about), this analysis focuses on domestic violence.
- 2.
The analysis here puts to the side for the time being some crucial issues: does the state in fact hold a monopoly of violence; and what is legitimacy, anyway?
- 3.
Rightist dictatorships also practice a similar sort of terror, especially in the face of radical revolutionary challenges. The rationalizations are usually less fancy than those for leftist regimes, putting more stress on maintaining stability and conventional morality. In all cases the real reasons may have to do as well with a common human propensity to be mean to others while not feeling bad about ourselves.
- 4.
Commentators often note that the Stalin terror really kicked in after the formulation of the formally democratic Soviet constitution of 1936. Both Stalin and Mao Zedong concluded that as the class enemy becomes weaker his resistance becomes more desperate and so the measures against him must become harsher.
- 5.
This thesis was reiterated as late as 2014 (admittedly, an unusually repressive era). Wang 2014.
- 6.
It is beyond the scope of this essay to attempt a detailed account of the Cultural Revolution; for a general overview, see MacFarquhar and Schoenhals 2008.
- 7.
There were also Red Guard groups in factories, consisting mainly of apprentice and contract workers, those most likely to be dissatisfied with the current setup and resentful of those who prospered under it.
- 8.
Rummel 1991, attempts to tote up the butcher bill for the various twentieth century political movements, awarding the trophy to China.
- 9.
This opened another avenue for pain. The city kids were totally unskilled at farming and became a resented burden on the local peasantry. The girls were especially vulnerable to sexual abuse from local cadres. It is not clear whether all this should be considered under the category of state terror, however: it was, rather, the unintended but foreseeable consequence of tyranny.
- 10.
This is despite the fact that in those days the main source of state revenue was the profit on state-owned firms.
- 11.
Various social groups did have somewhat different material perspectives. The students seem generally to have been proponents of the free market, while factory workers, worried about their new insecurity, wanted greater controls over economic activity. But the movement was not really about concrete material interests.
- 12.
The use of extra-legal methods, including torture, is admitted in official sources. Xinhua Net (2014).
- 13.
This kind of latitude seems not always to extend to those who even look as if they might support ethnic separatism, as evidenced by the imprisonment for life dealt out to Ilham Tohti, a Uighur professor sentenced to life imprisonment in September 2014.
- 14.
The reference to Stalin made in passing and is meant only as suggestive of an analogy, but not necessary a full analogy. In China there have been no mass arrests as of this writing, and no campaign of terror affecting society as a whole. Xi’s targets (with the possible early exception of Bo Xilai) have not been persons enjoying great respect and prestige among the general public.
- 15.
Deng Xiaoping was a “strong man,” and at various times did personally dominate the system; but he neither encouraged nor enjoyed a “cult” centered on himself.
- 16.
Xi’s anti-corruption campaign is very much a top-down enterprise. Ordinary citizens who bring complaints of corruption against officials remain vulnerable to persecution and prosecution.
- 17.
This is supplemented by nationalism, which, when allowed popular expression, tends toward a belligerent chauvinism with the subtext that the current rulers are not doing a very good job of protecting China’s interests against the arrogance of foreigners.
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Moody, P. (2016). Killing the Chicken to Scare the Monkey: Some Notes on State Terror in the People’s Republic of China. In: Koch, B. (eds) State Terror, State Violence. Staat – Souveränität – Nation. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-11181-6_7
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