Communist Vanguard Contest in East Asia during the 1960s and 1970s

Abstract

Addressing the issue of Stalinist communist cultures in East Asia, this chapter discusses how claims of ideological vanguardism shaped foreign policies of the ruling parties in the Peoples Republic of China (PRC), the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV), and the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK) between the late 1960s and the mid 1970s, as well as the role of the emerging Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) that came into power in 1975. The three one-party states formed between the 1940s and mid-1950s were ruled by autocratic leadership of either a collective or an individual type. Society at large existed only in social organizations created and controlled by a monopolistic party steeped in the ideological tradition of Marxism-Leninism and the practical experience of Soviet Stalinist rule. The public sphere was exclusively reserved for acclamations of loyalty to views and actions of political leaders. Except for the temporary all-out factional fighting during the early stage of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, individual and collective dissent was either suppressed or strictly limited to internal discourse within party structures.