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Nebulous Nexus : Modernity and Perlustration in Maoist China

Schoenhals, Michael LU (2013) In Mass Dictatorship and Modernity #2 in book series "Mass Dictatorship in the 20th Century". p.53-70
Abstract
This chapter posits the existence of a nexus of modernity and surveillance in the People’s Republic of China in the untidy post-Liberation decade of the 1950s. It identifies the state’s interception and perlustration of ordinary people’s correspondence for the purpose of discovering what they were thinking as a central component of that nexus, and it illustrates this identification with contemporary data culled from a corpus of recently declassified intercept transcripts. It argues that the creation of an alternative modernity—labelled communism but defined by discipline and quantifiable order rather than simply by ”freedom from want”—was attempted by China’s then political leadership, but ultimately abandoned in favour of the quiet... (More)
This chapter posits the existence of a nexus of modernity and surveillance in the People’s Republic of China in the untidy post-Liberation decade of the 1950s. It identifies the state’s interception and perlustration of ordinary people’s correspondence for the purpose of discovering what they were thinking as a central component of that nexus, and it illustrates this identification with contemporary data culled from a corpus of recently declassified intercept transcripts. It argues that the creation of an alternative modernity—labelled communism but defined by discipline and quantifiable order rather than simply by ”freedom from want”—was attempted by China’s then political leadership, but ultimately abandoned in favour of the quiet consolidation of really existing socialism with Chinese characteristics. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
organization
publishing date
type
Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Modernity, China, history, politics, Mao, mass dictatorship
in
Mass Dictatorship and Modernity
editor
Kim, Michael; Kim, Yong-Woo; Schoenhals, Michael; ; and
volume
#2 in book series "Mass Dictatorship in the 20th Century"
pages
53 - 70
publisher
Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN
978-1-137-30432-2
project
Nittonhundratalets massdiktaturer
Åsiktsregistrering och social kontroll i Kina – Vad arkiven har att berätta
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
23c81b2f-5209-432a-a18a-abd21859c418 (old id 2344806)
date added to LUP
2012-02-24 10:34:30
date last changed
2018-05-29 11:01:54
@inbook{23c81b2f-5209-432a-a18a-abd21859c418,
  abstract     = {This chapter posits the existence of a nexus of modernity and surveillance in the People’s Republic of China in the untidy post-Liberation decade of the 1950s. It identifies the state’s interception and perlustration of ordinary people’s correspondence for the purpose of discovering what they were thinking as a central component of that nexus, and it illustrates this identification with contemporary data culled from a corpus of recently declassified intercept transcripts. It argues that the creation of an alternative modernity—labelled communism but defined by discipline and quantifiable order rather than simply by ”freedom from want”—was attempted by China’s then political leadership, but ultimately abandoned in favour of the quiet consolidation of really existing socialism with Chinese characteristics.},
  author       = {Schoenhals, Michael},
  editor       = {Kim, Michael and Kim, Yong-Woo and Schoenhals, Michael},
  isbn         = {978-1-137-30432-2},
  keyword      = {Modernity,China,history,politics,Mao,mass dictatorship},
  language     = {eng},
  pages        = {53--70},
  publisher    = {Palgrave Macmillan},
  series       = {Mass Dictatorship and Modernity},
  title        = {Nebulous Nexus : Modernity and Perlustration in Maoist China},
  volume       = {#2 in book series "Mass Dictatorship in the 20th Century"},
  year         = {2013},
}