Global China Research Centre Graduate and Early-Career Research Seminar Series

In June 1981, the Sixth Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China passed the "Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party since the Founding of the People’s Republic of China." This document completely negated the "Cultural Revolution" that had just ended, and explained the Cultural Revolution as being the result of the continued influence of "feudalism". Why did a communist regime use "feudalism" to explain its own mistakes, especially after having previously announced that it had eliminated the feudal system over thirty years beforehand? This lecture attempts to answer this seemingly paradoxical question. In 1980, the CPC called for the eradication of the remnants of feudalism, which became the direct political reason for this document's criticism of "feudalism." It will show that the continuous interpretation and reinterpretation of "feudalism" in Chinese intellectual circles since the 20th century, rather than the official ideology of CPC, is key to understanding the politics of China's 1980s.