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Introduction
According to Julia Strauss, “the early years of regime consolidation in the People’s Republic were occupied by a complex of challenges common to the initial phases of most of the great social-political revolutions; external warfare, internal state building, and the deployment of terror against enemies of the revolutionary state” (Strauss 98). The terror in the Communist China of the second half of the 20th century has some common features with the Stalinist regime in the USSR and some distinct features as well.
The distinction of the Communist China lays in the fact that, at first sight, there were no hidden mass eliminations of counterrevolutionaries, and the politic policies were mainly moderate. But the multiple cases of the Chinese civilian citizens’ rights violations demonstrate that the realization of the Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries and a few other campaigns by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) led to the expansion of the scope of terror in the country.
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According to the author, establishment of a new state is inevitably interrelated with the emergence of the state-sponsored terror and paternalism (Strauss 80). It is possible to say that the main principle of the communist state policy was the fight against fighting when the government adopted and proliferated the ideas and concepts of the particular social groups’ exclusion.
The groups that were explicitly and implicitly prosecuted included not merely counterrevolutionaries who were against the establishment of the Communist power but also landlords, capitalists, intellectuals, and businessmen. The propaganda of the communist values had a strong effect on the public, and those who supported the different political ideas usually became the subjects of the public hatred (Strauss 82).
Overall, the most violent and numerous crimes of that period took place in the rural areas of China. The rural sites were largely controlled by bandits, and the local residents suffered from their criminal activities. It is possible to assume that the majority of the rural citizens perceived terror as a norm and a standard way of building the political power. The massive social cleaning outs were not the common for the communist China comparing to Stalin’s regime in USSR when the cases of repression were frequent and regular, but they still took place.
“One of the key goals of the Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries was the expansion and strengthening of bureaucratic state power under CCP control” (Strauss 92). The cases of the crimes committed by the counterrevolutionaries in China were highly publicized. However, the party focused on the strengthening of its legal and public security by liquidation and exclusion of the particular urban groups from the public and legal organs. The intellectuals, bourgeois, the independent activists, etc. faced the threats of being arrested or interrogated. Therefore, the social exclusion and prosecution were a specific form of suppression in this period in China.
The state paternalism is a sophisticated form of suppression. In the case of China, it means that the leadership restricts the freedom of the particular groups of subordinates in favor of the collective interests. It is possible to assume that the widespread support of the collective interests by the public is partly dictated by the traditional and historical heritage of the country where Confucianism advocating for the traditional collective values is one of the major belief systems. The opposition of collective to individual thus is conditioned by the very character of the nation to the same extent as by the efforts of the CCP at power.
The system of the public suppression gained a sufficient amount of power rapidly – by the end of 1950, there were millions of police members, activists, and propagandists. The campaign for “cleaning out counterrevolutionary cases” was aimed at the elimination of counterrevolutionaries “from society” (Strauss 92). The campaign had a national scale, and the peak of the policy implementation occurred in 1951 when the thousands of arrests took place in many Chinese large cities and provinces.
It is possible to assume that the expansion of the communist ideology and the establishment of the Communist power in China are driven by both internal and external factors. First of all, in times of war, the political division of Korea, and the long-term confrontation with the opposing political ideologies provoked the creation of the militant traditions that consequently led to the militarization of society and creation of the combat spirit. In this way, the repressing functions are performed not merely by police and army but by the civilian citizens as well.
For example, in 1951 in Shanghai, the workers of the factories were encouraged to support the government in its campaign and the social cleaning procedures. It is a common practice in the communist regimes when the community members make reports about non-communists to the official representatives and thus assist the arrests and prosecution.
Conclusion
The article review helps to indicate that the establishment of power inevitably involves the terror and state paternalism on the national scale. The very nature of the events that took place in the period from 1950 to 1953 indicates the fundamental and systematic errors of the state building processes in China. The propaganda of exclusion can be regarded as the human right violation at the official level. It is possible to assume that, in the ideal society, politics and states will strive to meet and consider the interests of the diversity. And based on the experience from the past, the present-day governments should make great efforts to reach this ideal.
References
Strauss, Julia. “Paternalist Terror: The Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries and Regime Consolidation in the People’s Republic of China, 1950 –1953.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 44.1(2012): 80-105. Print.
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