return to what might be called the amateur ideal. One was supposed to be both "red" and "expert,” but the emphasis was on being "red." Local Party secretaries were given extensive powers to intervene in almost every phase of production and administration, not to mention the judicial process. The extent of this intervention tended to vary in degree of intensity during the following years, and for a while before the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution a certain degree of professionalism returned to the managerial and scientific research fields, but not to the law.
Perhaps the most significant aspect of the Anti-Rightist Movement was not so much the immediate suffering of many intellectuals and the suppression of professionalism in various fields but was rather the greatly increased emphasis on class struggle. Class struggle is an essential ingredient of Marxism, and Mao's first important work as a Marxist was an analysis of the various classes in Chinese society. It was this analysis that brought him to an understanding of the Chinese peasant's potential for revolution. During the early years of the People's Republic the major class enemies were landlords and bureaucratic capitalists who were a relatively small and fairly well-defined group. After the Anti-Rightist Movement the major class enemy became the so-called bourgeois rightists, a label which could be applied to anyone, but which was in fact especially applied to intellectuals suspected of disagreeing with the current policies of the Party leadership. The expanded use of this label paved the way for the bloody violence and repression of the Cultural Revolution. Bourgeois rightists were no longer considered to be merely backward elements in the society but were vilified as counter-revolutionaries and enemies of the people, a sub-human category, beyond redemption, which deserved to be destroyed in any way possible and without mercy. The humanistic idealism which had been such a part of the revolution in its earlier stages, and indeed, led many people at first to support the Cultural Revolution itself, gave way to fanaticism and factional violence.
During the Cultural Revolution the police, procuratorate, and courts became early centres of attack by Mao's Red Guards. Although the police and courts continued to function in most places throughout the Cultural Revolution, their top personnel
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return to what might be called the amateur ideal. One was supposed to be both "red" and "expert,” but the emphasis was on being "red." Local Party secretaries were given extensive powers to intervene in almost every phase of production and administration, not to mention the judicial process. The extent of this intervention tended to vary in degree of intensity during the following years, and for a while before the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution a certain degree of professionalism returned to the managerial and scientific research fields, but not to the law.
Perhaps the most significant aspect of the Anti-Rightist Movement was not so much the immediate suffering of many intellectuals and the suppression of professionalism in various fields but was rather the greatly increased emphasis on class struggle. Class struggle is an essential ingredient of Marxism, and Mao's first important work as a Marxist was an analysis of the various classes in Chinese society. It was this analysis that brought him to an understanding of the Chinese peasant's poten- tial for revolution. During the early years of the People's Republic the major class enemies were landlords and bureaucratic capitalists who were a relatively small and fairly well-defined group. After the Anti-Rightist Movement the major class enemy became the so-called bourgeois rightists, a label which could be applied to anyone, but which was in fact especially applied to intellectuals suspected of disagreeing with the current policies of the Party leadership. The expanded use of this label paved the way for the bloody violence and repression of the Cultural Revolution. Bourgeois rightists were no longer considered to be merely backward elements in the society but were vilified as counter-revolutionaries and enemies of the people, a sub-human category, beyond redemption, which deserved to be destroyed in any way possible and without mercy. The humanistic idealism which had been such a part of the revolution in its earlier stages, and indeed, led many people at first to support the Cultural Revolution itself, gave way to fanaticism and factional violence.
During the Cultural Revolution the police, procuratorate, and courts became early centres of attack by Mao's Red Guards. Although the police and courts continued to function in most places throughout the Cultural Revolution, their top personnel
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