We can now use the five-tier model we have previously employed to assess the revolutionary idea system which helped to sustain the Mao era. This assessment will reveal some distinct qualities of an elegant idea system driven by an ideational mode of codification.

Believability

The Revolution was fundamentally based on enticing visions that seemed realistically achievable. It was conceived as an experiment—with an envisioned reality. But it is an envisioned reality that is not a matter of absolute truth but rather subjective choices to actualize a certain set of “values.”Footnote 1 An analogy is an incomplete architectural plan of a marvelous house in which most people would want to live. The Revolution involved many truisms and “facts” that were cogent together. At face value, the revolutionary project was valid, moral, and sound. It was also beautiful in its intricacy, including within it certain aesthetic qualities. The theorizing works were elaborate and sophisticated; the ideas for social transformation were products of reasonable thoughts.

A scheme of grand-scale theories and quintessential imageries served as a beginning premise of the idea system. Various information and thoughts were then encoded, typologized, and secondarily processed according to the scheme. With so much of the project’s believability lying within the value-based and aesthetic domain, objective observation and validation (based on correlative evidence) was rather complementary.Footnote 2 If things did not exactly fit or work, the plan and ongoing constructive actions could be modified. Doing so usually would not significantly affect the integrity (believability) of the large-scale architectural project.

What was essential to idea-building and idea-validation is the process of resemblance, which enabled actors to fit or match real-world information (more or less filtered) into a system of designated codes. The revolutionary idea system embodies a set of idealized acts (what was done), scenes (when or where they were done), agents (who did those things), agency (how they were done), and the purposes (why they were done). By fitting or matching specific information into these codes based on the principle of resemblance, specific coded things (in other words, fitted images or specific mental objects) are formed to sustain ideas pertaining to the Revolution.

Following these initial constructions of coded things, many advanced secondary processes could be put to work. As our case illustrates, believable ideas multiplied through narration, speculation, calculation, and comparison. A high level of intelligence and intellectualism was displayed in these idea-making processes; regrettably, the level of cognitive rigor also served as bad cognitive safeguards, giving the ideas a rational impression. The polyphonic voices of epistemic authorities from all areas of civil society, from the to the arts, played a part in further lending the idea system credibility, as did ordinary people of all classes and places.

Empirically speaking, ruling in the name of the Revolution had overall brought forth some material progress, some degree of stability, and some improvements in the status of some formerly significantly disadvantaged groups, such as women and peasants. In terms of values and ideas, there were also many messages, philosophies, and ethics relevant to everyday life and self-development. Whether and how much these actually improved people’s inner morality or behavior was secondary to the fact that the honorable aim was there. To understand why the Revolution might be believable, one could not discount the potentially positive influences entirely simply by only looking at the negative cases.

To give a brief example of how the Revolution might imbue value relevant to orienting people’s everyday life in a healthy direction, one secondary school Red Guard newspaper article (published on January 27, 1971 in Tianjin)Footnote 3 promoted the value of humility [谦虚].Footnote 4 A quote was featured on the first page: “Humility makes people progress in steps; Prideful Arrogance makes people fall behind” [虚心使人进步,骄傲使人落后], followed by several personal essays attesting to that theme. Even if the quote came from Mao, the value of humility was promoted and learned beyond that one quote, and it connected to people’s everyday experiences and some worthwhile reflections and viewpoints.

In another issue of the newspaper (published on July 10, 1969),Footnote 5 the themes of perseverance and fearlessness, as part of the revolutionary spirit, were highlighted. A slogan emerged repeatedly was: “One, not afraid of bitterness. Two, not afraid of death” [一不怕苦,二不怕死]. In one of the personal stories provided,Footnote 6 a fire had started in a factory containing many chemicals, releasing noxious gases that made people nauseous. Several students nevertheless attempted to fight the blaze, “rushing to be on the frontline of the fire” [搶在了火场的第一线], and “fighting the battle courageously” [奋勇作战]. They formed a human chain to pass buckets of water from a nearby river to put out the fire. To stop it from spreading to other buildings, it was considered necessary to disassemble the roof. Although it was a dangerous task, as the roof was already unstable, one student exclaimed: “The more difficult the place is, the more one needs to go” [越是困难的地方越是要去], and then he proceeded to dismantle the roof.

Frugality appeared as another lesson taught. While “being Chairman Mao’s good children” sounds like a slogan endorsing personal worship, it also promoted substantively important virtues. One vignette reported by a certain primary school journalism unit (published in January 27, 1971) purportedly showed the essential meaning of being the chairman’s children. Several primary school children, singing a revolutionary song in high spirits along the way, reached the house of Woman Li, who was related to a member of the military [军属李大娘]. They expressed their passion in their greetings during the visit. “Some helped her carry water, some swept the floor, some went outside to buy things, and they were actually ‘fighting’ each other to provide help. They became happier the harder they worked, and everyone had sweat covering their faces” [有的担水, 有的扫地, 有的去买东西, 你争我抢地忙了起來。他们越干越欢, 个个汗流满面], and a few Little Red Guards [红小兵] sang revolutionary songs. Upon experiencing this, the woman named Li said, “You all are indeed Chairman’s good children!” To which the youngsters replied, “This is what we ought to do.”Footnote 7 Whether this event actually occurred was largely irrelevant to the discussion. But the “believability” of the idea system was not conceptually dependent on documented empirical events, as was seen in the case of witch hunts, but instead on whether the norms and virtues were believed to be inherently worthwhile and at least partially achievable through revolutionary practice.

Resilience

The revolutionary idea had a preemptive design that helped to bolster its resilience. Proven success was not the most important feature that validated that idea system, and vice versa. Signs of progress could improve morale, but failures were expected and incorporated into the idea system. Lessons learned from trial and error were deemed to be an invaluable factor in the ultimate success of the Revolution. Elaborations on how things could have been more effectively carried out were largely welcomed.

Mild exaggerations or distortions were also not a problem. In a battlefield, statements that increased morale might not always be accurate. Many categories were meant to be actively interpreted. Exaggerated interpretations, therefore, could not be straightforwardly “undone” by revelations of empirical facts. Gross distortions could be attributed to the individual meaning-makers rather than to the codification model itself. If verified, mistakes could be rectified by reclassification and rehabilitation. Again, human imperfection, as well as the interpretation on the part of the revolutionaries, was taken for granted. As long as a reasonable effort and good faith was demonstrated, minor demonstrations of flaws would not nullify the core propositions of the revolutionary project.

A tightly controlled discourse parameter further strengthened resilience. Information flow became severely restricted by a high degree of epistemic closure in its social institutions: schools, media, government, workplaces, and families. External threats to ideational coherence were therefore not a major issue during the majority of the Mao era. Internally, dissenting observations to the “norm” were often rearticulated very carefully. Many were “sugar-coated”—that is to say, heavily recoded to reaffirm the core propositions, such as the integrity of Mao and of the revolutionary project.

What really challenged the Revolution was when significant instances of dissemblance occurred, as well as when the very mechanism to create semblance fell apart. When semblance and dissemblance became too easy to produce, when extraordinary distortions brought forth the integrity of the actors, and when symbolic revolutionary figures were fitted with an inversed image, the meaning of codes became extremely muddled. The codification system then became much less resilient to internal implosion.

Adaptability

The revolutionary idea system was intended to be adapted to a diverse range of circumstances. The grand narrative structure of acts, scenes, agents, agency, and purposes needed to be continuously specified, respecified, and corrected in accordance to changing situations and events. Each national event, foreign battle, diplomatic engagement, and Party campaign was different in nature, but coherently tied to what was taking place in the overarching narrative. Many intermediary ideas were constructed by the creative, skillful, step-by-step, procedural use of elastic codes. Elastic codes allowed people considerable freedom to create “fitted images.” Resolving a volleyball game conflict, cleaning up the house of a comrade in need, and stopping the abuse of public funding were amongst the concrete events being recoded into great significance. Local people constructed new revolutionary images using local data, events, and circumstances as materials.

While the idea system was extremely adaptable to new projects and targets, it might even have been too adaptable—too easily adaptable—as the latter phase of the factional battles showed. Worthy of note is not only how far the categorical boundaries could be stretched and things equated, but also how quickly such processes could take place. When oppositional depictions could be created easily, and when the truthteller of yesterday became the reprehensible liar of tomorrow, the cohesiveness of images became hard to maintain. Stability and unity thus became increasingly dependent on force.

Developmental Potential

The grand revolutionary project had few limits to its potential development. In practice, almost all sites of possible applications seemed to experience quite exhaustive applications, as far as practical possibilities allowed. There were some differences between different eras of development, however. During the first fifteen years of Liberation, the state had control over the “high culture” institutions, but many local cultures and institutions survived in private spaces and had some presence in the lower rungs of social strata. The early, heated moments of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1969) further reduced the breathing or wiggle room of alternative cultural spaces; the revolutionary motif exploded into the realm of artistic expression and penetrated into the structures of everyday life. In this sense, each new revolutionary artform, and each way to extend the application of the Revolution to daily life, or new way to formulate a revolutionary idea, signified a new development. The revolutionary idea system could also be more effectively developed when positive evidence and the “image” of success were accumulated.

But the limits of this development could be seen in the inherent limitations of what the Revolution could do. Strains from overapplication could appear. If revolutionary duties overtook the tasks of learning, if revolutionary thoughts forestalled the emergence of better thoughts, or if revolutionary ideas were demonstrably incapable of guaranteeing against blunders and mishaps that came out of their applications, then the “development” phase of the revolutionary idea system had likely met a point of growth limit. Any further extension of ideas would in all likelihood produce as many counterimages as positive ones.

Ease of Use

The post-1950 era was met with the introduction of a radically new “language”—a new revolutionary “register.” The system of new vocabularies, concepts, and slogans opened up new ways of thinking to be formed in individuals and new relations to be formed between people.

The revolutionary register was power-efficient. In just a few words, it could evoke a totally important context, activating the utmost “emotional energy.”Footnote 8 Through visually vivid images, one could decry an enemy as a “big poisonous weed,” and, in the blink of an eye, then express: “History must not be turned upside down. Be careful that all of you will be crushed into pieces by the wheels of history!” [历史是绝对不容许颠倒的!小心你们会被历史的车轮碾得粉碎!] Footnote 9

The ease with which “history” could be turned into a personified grand being, and then into a gigantic vehicle (probably operated on dialectical power), showed that certain things were institutionalized in society. Within the society a set of discursive portals existed in language that worked hand-in-hand with cognitive portals existing in thoughts. A large stock of truisms, quotes, and code words was in abundant supply, as was a plethora of common arguments and cognitive tricks. One could think of the presence of “shorthands” and “longhands” in the freeway of linguistic flow. Discursive shorthand, such as quotes and idioms, was used to deal with the necessity of speed—the need to create a high-density meaning quickly, often in the form of vivid imageries. Discursive longhand, such as depicting things using dialectical theories, was used to deal with the tasks of creating and honing intermediary ideas, which required more meticulous argumentation and informational processing. Once both of these tools were mastered, ideas could be generated and connected with relative ease. Cognitive gaps could be “ported through” almost seamlessly from one part to any other in the chain-complex of the idea system.