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1:52

Before the land reform, what was rural China like? Did

1:54

Chinese villagers have a clear perception

1:56

of class identities, such as land

1:59

laws and a proper... If

2:01

not, how were these labels assigned

2:03

to and internalized by Chinese villages?

2:06

Who designed these campaigns and how did they

2:08

work in reality? Also, what

2:10

kind of resistance did it encounter

2:12

in grassroots China? Based

2:15

on extensive archival research and deep

2:17

analysis, the new book we will

2:19

discuss today provide a

2:21

picture about Chinese land reform

2:23

and more mobilization in

2:26

the campaigns. I'm very

2:28

excited to have an interview with the

2:30

author of the book and my guest

2:32

today is Dr. Jeffrey Jervat. So welcome

2:34

to New Book Network, Jeff. Thank

2:38

you so much for having me. Thank you

2:40

for joining us. Jeff's new

2:42

book, Righteous Revolutionaries, Morality, Mobilization and

2:44

Violence in the Making of the

2:47

Chinese State is published by the

2:49

University of Michigan Press in 2022. Jeffrey

2:53

Jervat received his PhD from the Department

2:55

of Government at Harvard University. He

2:57

is currently a staff product growth

3:00

researcher at Apollo. Before

3:02

moving to TAC, he was a research

3:05

fellow and a research director at the

3:07

University of Michigan where he studied mobilization,

3:09

violence and a rule of morality in

3:11

politics. So Jeff, I

3:13

can't wait to talk about Righteous

3:15

Revolutionaries, which is your first marvelous

3:18

monograph. But before that, I

3:20

think it might be good for our audience to

3:23

know more about you. So might

3:25

I invite you to give a short self introduction

3:27

about yourself and to our audience, especially

3:30

what brought you to China and the Chinese studies? Sure,

3:34

yeah. Well, I think you

3:36

hit some of the major points

3:38

already. So yeah, again, I'm Jeff.

3:40

I received my PhD in government

3:42

from Harvard where I was trained

3:44

as a comparativist, specialized in comparative

3:46

politics, the focus on Chinese politics.

3:50

My doctoral research, which

3:52

became the basis of my book, examined

3:54

the dynamics of mass mobilized violence and

3:56

state building in the formative years of.

4:00

the People's Republic of China, early 1950s.

4:03

And my interest in China and

4:05

China studies came from my undergrad

4:07

years. I had gone into my

4:09

PhD knowing that I wanted to focus on China,

4:12

gone to China as a

4:14

freshman in college actually, studied

4:18

China in many different aspects,

4:20

everything from literature,

4:22

classical Chinese, to

4:26

Chinese politics, sociology, et cetera, and

4:28

then decided to go into

4:30

political science as I felt like

4:32

that was probably where in the

4:34

early 2010s there

4:38

was like a critical mass of China

4:40

scholars doing social science,

4:43

China related social science research.

4:47

The specific focus on the 1950s

4:50

was something I developed though

4:53

during my doctoral studies. After

4:55

finishing my PhD, I was a

4:58

postdoctoral fellow at the Leberthal-Rogle Center

5:00

for Chinese Studies, also

5:02

affiliated with the Weiser Center for Emerging

5:04

Democracies and the Institute for Social Research

5:07

all at the University of Michigan. And

5:09

it was actually during that time where

5:12

I pivoted my research towards the social

5:14

media space and

5:16

began doing research a little

5:19

bit more relevant to the tech sphere.

5:21

And that was actually inspired

5:24

by my work on Maoist China and

5:28

looking at how the dynamics of mass

5:31

mobilization that we saw

5:33

in the Maoist era could translate

5:36

to the online social media space.

5:38

And so my

5:40

friend and coauthor Yza Ding and I, we wrote, published

5:43

a paper on popular

5:46

morality on Chinese social media.

5:49

And then I was also doing

5:52

some work on the side looking

5:54

at similar dynamics of violent political

5:56

mobilization on

5:58

American social media. And

6:01

that was kind of my gateway into

6:03

the tech industry. Fascinating.

6:07

And I always want to

6:10

know more about, you know, its origin

6:12

story about, you know, the study and

6:14

the book and yours is very interesting

6:16

and fascinating. We will talk about it

6:18

later. And so let's talk

6:20

about the book. I think Righteous Revolutionaries

6:22

is based on your PhD dissertation

6:24

research at Harvard, but I see this

6:26

book presents much more than what is generally

6:29

required for a PhD study. Especially

6:31

it is a book about China, but as

6:33

you mentioned, it also has

6:35

the value beyond the Chinese context. So

6:37

as you also itself of this

6:39

book, what do you think this book is about? Yeah,

6:43

so at

6:45

a high level, I think, so the book is about

6:49

China, but it's also about something

6:51

I think greater than China and

6:53

Chinese politics. So like the high

6:55

level, I see the book as

6:57

being about two like interlocking phenomena.

7:00

First, how political actors can

7:02

weaponize moral beliefs. And

7:04

by moral beliefs, I mean beliefs about

7:06

what is right and wrong in society

7:08

at a given point in time in

7:11

a particular historical context. Essentially

7:13

a weaponization of moral beliefs to

7:16

create collective identities that can be

7:18

used to mobilize people to condone

7:20

or participate in extreme violence against

7:22

others. And then

7:25

secondly, how political actors

7:27

can leverage and take

7:29

antagonistic collective identities for larger

7:31

nation state building goals. And

7:34

I see like the former as a process

7:37

that enables the success of the

7:39

latter. And of

7:41

course, the book is looking at these two phenomena

7:43

in the context of the lay and

7:45

reform movement in China in the early 1950s, which

7:48

is just a couple of years after the

7:50

founding of the People's Republic of China. So

7:55

you may or may

7:57

not know this, the China's Lambert

7:59

form. In the early 50s

8:01

was in fact the largest and

8:03

most violent redistribution of land in

8:05

history, estimated that

8:07

somewhere around 1 million people were

8:10

potentially killed and far more persecuted

8:12

in the name of

8:14

class warfare. They

8:17

were accused of being landlords or

8:20

class enemies, etc. But

8:23

what I think is particularly remarkable

8:25

about this period is that this

8:27

violence was meant to be participatory.

8:30

So Mao and much of the

8:32

CCP leadership were very committed to

8:34

this idea of revolutionary subjectivity, this

8:36

idea that the peasantry needed to

8:38

get its hands dirty in

8:41

the violence of the revolution in order

8:43

to become revolutionary subjects. And so

8:45

unlike the Soviets, who were happy

8:47

to some extent to carry

8:49

out violence on behalf of the people,

8:52

the CCP was very adamant that the

8:54

peasantry had to participate

8:56

in the violence itself. Much

9:00

of this violence was conducted in

9:02

what were known as struggle sessions,

9:05

these mass rallies held

9:07

on stages in open clearings throughout

9:09

the countryside where a

9:12

crowd would watch as people

9:15

as a, quote unquote, struggle target

9:17

was denounced or

9:19

beaten or even executed before

9:22

the local community. So

9:29

it's a particular

9:32

kind of violence. It's state violence,

9:34

but it's state violence that involves

9:37

a great deal of popular

9:40

participation. So I

9:42

guess a

9:44

few of the questions here then that kind of

9:46

motivate the book. One, I

9:48

wanted to understand how the CCP, which

9:51

had just won a war against the

9:53

nationalists and had limited

9:55

organizational and coercive resources, how

9:58

did they mobilize all of this violence? In

10:00

some cases, they only

10:03

had a handful of people going

10:05

into villages to carry out this

10:07

mobilization. They carried out this mobilization

10:09

very rapidly in the

10:12

course of a few months in Eastern China

10:14

and throughout the entire country in just a

10:16

matter of a couple years. And

10:19

this is while they were gearing up for a war in

10:21

Korea in 1950. Moreover,

10:26

as I think you already alluded to,

10:28

China has historically never had strong class

10:31

identities in the traditional Marxist sense. So

10:34

how was the CCP mobilizing all

10:36

of this violence using these Marxist-defined

10:38

terms like landlord, middle peasant, poor

10:41

peasant that had weak cultural roots?

10:44

And lastly, I wanted to understand

10:46

how this process of violent mobilization

10:49

during land reform fit into this larger

10:51

process of state building after

10:54

1949 and what the legacies of

10:57

that were. So

10:59

that's kind of like at a high level what

11:01

the book's about, what the

11:03

main questions are. I

11:06

do think for a political science audience, there are a

11:08

few things to be said here as well. The

11:12

political science literature on state building

11:14

has historically focused mostly

11:16

on the coercive aspects of state

11:19

building, not so much on

11:21

the normative or symbolic aspects of it.

11:24

And so this was something that also was

11:26

kind of bothering me that I wanted to

11:28

explore in the book. So

11:30

this like Weberian definition, the state that it's

11:32

the entity that has the

11:36

monopoly on the legitimate use of

11:38

coercive force, essentially whoever has the

11:40

biggest guns and is seen

11:43

as the authority in town

11:45

is the state. And

11:47

I kind of felt like that was an unsatisfying

11:49

definition of a state and

11:51

also how a state comes

11:53

into power, how a state

11:56

acquires legitimacy and authority. Sociologists

12:00

have talked about states and state

12:02

building in terms of its symbolic

12:04

aspects, I'm thinking here of like

12:07

Bordeaux, but hasn't quite

12:09

always connected that to the state

12:11

building enterprise. Like, how does a

12:13

state acquire symbolic authority

12:16

and legitimacy? And so

12:18

I think another thing that this book is

12:20

about is from a state building

12:22

perspective, how does

12:24

a state kind of marry these

12:27

coercive and normative dimensions together to

12:29

create state

12:33

authority? And so I'm

12:35

arguing in this book that the state

12:37

is that state building is simultaneously the

12:40

coercive and normative process.

12:42

So states are establishing

12:44

and consolidating their authority

12:46

by physically,

12:48

militarily subduing their rivals, but also

12:51

delegitimizing them as unfit and morally

12:53

retrograde. So you have these like

12:55

two twin processes the same

12:58

time. So this involves dislodging

13:00

and negating the symbolic foundations

13:03

of the elite that you

13:05

are physically overthrowing in

13:08

order to position the new state

13:10

as the new legitimate moral order,

13:12

obviously backed by a military and

13:14

coercive power, but also with these

13:16

like moral, moralistic

13:19

trappings of authority. Thank

13:23

you for this fantastic introduction of the book.

13:25

I think it's well, very helpful for our

13:27

audience to grasp what is this book is

13:29

about. And also I totally

13:31

agree with you. I think nation state

13:33

is not only ruled by power domination,

13:36

but also by symbolic control and also

13:38

by emotion. And we will talk about

13:40

it later in our interview. And

13:43

for me, I think Righteous Revolutionary is a very

13:46

special book because it has an interdependence

13:48

and disciplinary vision. That is to say

13:50

it is a book aiming to answer

13:52

the typical political science question, but

13:55

use sociological theories and the

13:57

writing in the way of history

14:00

study. So what brought you to

14:02

this interdisciplinary vision and why do

14:04

you think it's necessary to have

14:06

this interdisciplinary synthesis and produce your

14:09

book? And another question

14:11

is about when you're writing this book,

14:13

what is your expected audience? Are

14:15

they from political science or from history studies

14:17

or from, you know, I don't know. And

14:19

I just want, I'm very curious about it.

14:23

Yeah, these are great questions. So I think

14:26

most of the interesting research out

14:28

there occurs at the intersection of

14:30

disciplines because that kind of research,

14:32

interdisciplinary research isn't beholden to the

14:35

rigid paradigms of any particular field,

14:37

which I personally think is a

14:39

good thing. I believe

14:41

ultimately that research needs to draw

14:43

on whatever methods or theories necessary

14:45

to answer the question at hand,

14:48

regardless of what discipline it's coming

14:50

from. And so for me, like

14:52

to understand this question of

14:54

state building in China in

14:56

the early 50s, I

14:59

felt like I had to draw from

15:02

political science, sociology, psychology,

15:04

history. I

15:07

never personally felt wedded to

15:09

a particular discipline throughout my career. I

15:12

actually was a sociology undergrad and then moved

15:14

into political science. I think a lot of

15:16

China scholars are similar in

15:18

that they've moved between disciplines or

15:21

that they kind of view

15:23

disciplines. They

15:26

view disciplinary boundaries as

15:30

relatively fuzzy. But

15:34

yeah, like going back to the book, I just feel

15:36

like I don't know how else I could have understood

15:38

this moment in time,

15:41

this complexity during the early 50s without

15:43

taking into account the, psychological

15:46

micro foundations of the mobilization that

15:48

the CCP was carrying out, the

15:50

sociology of the boundary work and

15:52

identity creation that was going on,

15:55

the elite and local politics

15:57

of the CCP, and then

15:59

the law of the CCP. larger historical context in which

16:01

all of this was happening. And so

16:03

I feel like necessarily

16:05

I had to draw on all of

16:07

these disciplines together in order to properly

16:10

understand this period. To

16:12

answer your question about the intended audience. So

16:14

I wrote this book as an academic monograph

16:17

aimed at China scholars and comparativists

16:21

and political science who are working on

16:23

state building, political violence and

16:26

revolution. Though, to be

16:28

honest, I wanted the book to

16:31

end its overall message to be more

16:33

accessible to a general audience as well.

16:37

Because I do feel like

16:39

some of these concepts have

16:41

resonant outside of China and

16:43

particularly in our current historical

16:45

moment. But frankly,

16:47

I just didn't really have time to reframe the

16:50

book in order to do that. I thought, okay,

16:52

this would be great as like a second book

16:54

project. But for now, like given

16:56

the research that I had done and the questions

16:58

I wanted to answer, like this was enough for

17:00

one book. I would one day

17:02

love to do a follow up or something that was that

17:05

was scared for a

17:08

more public audience. But perhaps

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sounds great. It sounds great. I'm very looking forward

17:45

to having a more readable

17:47

version. But this one, I think is is

17:49

already very visible for amateur readers

17:51

to know about China and about

17:53

land reform. So fascinating. And

17:56

I'm always curious about and very

17:58

impressed by. your archival

18:01

research because your mastery of archival

18:03

material is super impressive. I know

18:05

you created a massive archival

18:08

database for this book and also

18:10

spent a year doing fieldwork in

18:12

the Chinese mainland. So as we

18:14

know, I think getting access to

18:16

archives and doing fieldwork in the

18:18

PRC is sometimes very difficult for

18:20

researchers, especially for those registered in

18:22

foreign institutions. So what are the

18:25

ways you accessed all these

18:27

archives and how did you analyze this archive?

18:30

Yeah, wow. So gaining

18:33

access to the archives was extremely

18:35

difficult. And frankly, today I imagine

18:37

the kind of work that I

18:40

did would be impossible

18:42

now. I

18:44

was doing my field research between 2013-2015, so just a few years

18:46

into the Xi era. And

18:51

I really do feel like that

18:53

was the last window for extensive

18:55

archival research in China, not just

18:58

for foreigners, but also for Chinese

19:00

nationals. Back

19:03

when I was doing the fieldwork, and I'm sure that's still

19:05

true today, archives varied tremendously

19:07

in the amount of access

19:09

they gave researchers, again

19:11

foreigners or Chinese nationals, kind of

19:13

depends on the city, the locality

19:15

you're going to. Some provinces were

19:18

known to have open archives, others were

19:21

known to have completely closed their archives

19:23

to everyone. Some cities, like

19:26

Shanghai, for example, had one of

19:28

the most open archives in all

19:30

of the country, and I did

19:33

do some of my archival work there. But

19:35

a lot of other archives, it

19:38

was kind of, frankly, random, how

19:40

much access you could get. And

19:43

I would imagine across the board now

19:45

that access is lessened. So

19:49

how did I do it? So a few things

19:51

to cover here. So while I

19:53

did have direct access to some archives,

19:55

I relied quite heavily on fellow Chinese

19:58

academics and institutions. And

20:00

as I mentioned in my book, most

20:02

of the people I collaborated with requested

20:04

not to be named because of the

20:06

sensitivity of this topic that

20:09

was becoming increasingly politically sensitive

20:12

while I was there in China. An

20:15

interesting detail here. When I was in

20:17

China around 2014,

20:19

there was a pretty high-profile case

20:21

of someone who had

20:23

been arrested for posting something

20:26

on social media denouncing the

20:28

land reform movement as essentially

20:30

an unjust act by

20:33

the party state against the landlord. Essentially,

20:35

this was a period of

20:38

persecution of millions

20:42

of innocents by the party state. But

20:46

claim reform, it's important to keep in

20:48

mind, is still seen as an integral

20:51

part of the party state's foundational narrative,

20:53

as we'll talk about I'm sure, because

20:56

it portrays the party state as

20:58

this righteous force that came in

21:00

and rectified all of these historical

21:02

injustices that had afflicted pre-communist China.

21:07

As your listeners – your listeners may not

21:09

know this, but the

21:11

reformers, Deng Xiaoping and the reformers,

21:14

they apologized for the Cultural Revolution

21:16

and the other excesses of the

21:18

Maoist period in the 80s. The

21:22

reformers did in the 80s. I forget

21:25

the very famous convention essentially

21:27

in which the reformers were essentially

21:30

making an official statement on what

21:32

had happened in the Maoist period

21:34

in which they described Cultural Revolution,

21:36

for example, as like 10 years

21:39

of a national

21:41

catastrophe. They

21:43

never apologized for land reform. Land reform

21:45

is still seen as a good thing, and

21:48

it is very politically

21:50

sensitive and, frankly,

21:53

inappropriate to say otherwise. And

21:55

so the people I worked with

21:57

on this project, I think – who

22:02

had helped me quite tremendously, they

22:06

stopped being able to share archives

22:08

with other researchers. And I

22:10

think this, it just became very clear

22:12

that this period, the 1950s, that

22:15

I think scholars had

22:17

hitherto thought was a pretty

22:20

accessible period to study and

22:23

to access archives for was just no

22:26

longer a period that you could

22:29

really research. So

22:34

anyway, that's all

22:36

to say that researching land reform

22:38

meant that I had personally very limited and

22:40

uneven access to archives. I did have some

22:42

direct access to archives, but I did have

22:45

to rely on other folks who had collected

22:47

or found archives that they were willing to

22:49

share. In other

22:51

cases, I collected internal

22:53

or nébous documents from

22:57

the 50s that the party

22:59

had published. And folks

23:02

had actually been selling

23:05

online. People who had kept

23:07

some of these books around was like memorabilia and

23:10

were selling them through used booksellers.

23:12

So I was able to acquire

23:14

some other materials that way. For

23:18

anyone who's interested, I lent nearly all

23:20

of those materials to

23:22

the Fung Library at Harvard and to the

23:25

Asia Studies Library at University of Michigan so

23:28

that they're accessible and digitized so

23:31

that future researchers interested in the topic would

23:33

also have access to these. Not

23:35

the archives themselves because Chinese

23:38

archives stipulate that they don't want

23:40

you to digitize and

23:43

upload any of their documents, but for

23:45

these nébous documents, anything that I was

23:47

able to acquire secondhand, I

23:49

have provided to open access

23:52

libraries. As

23:56

for analyzing the archives, I

23:58

included an appendix section. in

24:00

my book to cover this topic, because

24:02

it's a very thorny topic. Like how

24:05

do you actually analyze archives

24:08

properly? Well, I

24:10

was fortunate in that I was able

24:12

to collect and triangulate data across a

24:14

lot of different sources. So

24:16

I had done some interviews and

24:18

oral histories. I collected memoirs, these

24:21

neighborhood documents, the archive

24:23

documents where I could get them, facial

24:26

pamphlets and handbooks,

24:28

these show that had also

24:30

been published by the party

24:32

back then and local gazetteers.

24:34

And so I have a

24:36

database of, the

24:40

county gazetteers that I made into

24:42

a quantitative database. So I

24:44

didn't have to rely just on archives. I

24:46

had archives and then all of these other data

24:50

sources together so that

24:52

I could triangulate and try to mitigate

24:55

the bias that all of these sources

24:58

inherently have. So

25:00

I try to be very conscious of that in

25:02

my analysis. For example,

25:04

we're looking at archives, like who was

25:06

the intended audience for a given document?

25:09

It was meant to be seen by

25:11

a superior. We can say that there's

25:14

probably a certain amount of self-censorship because

25:17

reporting up to the superior, you don't wanna make your

25:19

locality look bad. If it's a

25:21

directive coming from above, down

25:23

to below, we can't be sure

25:25

that the people receiving those directives

25:28

are actually acting on them faithfully.

25:32

But if we do get some of the

25:35

more interesting documents that are more kind of

25:37

lateral, like local level

25:39

documents that other localities perhaps are

25:41

using to communicate with each other

25:43

at the grassroots, you get some

25:46

interesting insights into

25:49

the real problems that local officials

25:51

are encountering and scrambling

25:53

to fix before reporting back up

25:56

to the province. So

25:58

yeah, I try to be very conscious of that. to be very conscious

26:00

of the authors of these

26:03

documents, the direction in which

26:05

this information is flowing, the source,

26:08

etc. But

26:11

I do have a pretty strong conviction in

26:13

the conclusions of this book because I did

26:16

triangulate against across so many

26:19

sources and this

26:21

process of moral mobilization that's at the heart

26:24

of the book was a theme that emerged

26:27

and threaded through all of these

26:29

sources that I

26:31

had analyzed. Great

26:34

and I think your database will

26:36

be valuable resources for future researchers

26:38

and thank you for this marvelous

26:40

contribution to the

26:43

intellectual field. And so I think it's

26:45

time to delve into your book and

26:47

my first question is about the keyword

26:49

of the book. So what is moral

26:51

mobilization and how can we understand this

26:53

term? Yeah

26:55

so again like I mentioned before

26:57

you can think of this book

26:59

at a high level outside of

27:01

the China context and what it

27:03

means for China specifically

27:06

the land reform movement. And so

27:08

as an abstract concept I define

27:10

moral mobilization as the process by

27:12

which political actors leverage

27:15

shared norms of right and

27:17

wrong behavior to demarcate a

27:19

virtuous in-group and a villainous

27:22

out-group eliciting sympathy for

27:24

the former and outrage against

27:26

the latter. Often

27:28

though not necessarily this moral

27:31

mobilization uses outrage to mobilize

27:33

violence or at least to

27:37

increase the acceptance of violence against this

27:39

out-group. In the

27:41

context of China and the land

27:43

reform movement I use moral mobilization

27:46

to refer to how the CCP

27:48

was coming into the newly conquered

27:50

territories after the civil war after

27:56

the Chinese civil war and physically and

27:58

symbolically destroying the old elite. impugning

28:01

their moral character and positioning

28:03

the CCP as this new,

28:05

righteous, legitimate source of authority

28:07

that was righting all of the

28:09

wrongs that the old political order

28:11

had wrought on the Chinese peasantry.

28:14

And so in the longer term,

28:16

this was a way for the

28:18

party state to forge new collective

28:20

identities that could be used for

28:22

further state mobilization, this virtuous in-group

28:25

of the peasantry and the other so-called

28:27

good classes loyal to the state. And

28:30

then secondly, this morally tainted

28:32

out-group of class enemies, counter-revolutionaries,

28:34

etc., could be routinely mobilized

28:37

against. Thank

28:40

you for this clarification. It's

28:42

super useful and this concept, I think,

28:44

is a very useful context to understand

28:46

not only land reform but

28:48

also contemporary Chinese politics. And

28:51

in the book, I think you

28:53

quote a term from the existing

28:55

literature called theatriality. That is to

28:57

say, for ordinary Chinese people, especially

28:59

in rural China, politics is understood

29:02

in the form of drama or

29:04

theater. So to what extent do

29:06

you think this feature of theatriality

29:08

contributed to moral mobilization in land

29:11

reform and subsequent political campaigns in

29:13

China? Yeah,

29:15

so that's a huge question. So I

29:17

will address some of it when we

29:19

talk a little bit more about the

29:21

process of moral mobilization. But one of

29:24

– I see moral mobilization as

29:26

having a few sub-processes,

29:29

one of which I call moral

29:31

theatrics, which is

29:33

the dramatization of the

29:35

alleged wrongs of this vilified out-group to

29:42

stir the crowd at the struggle sessions

29:44

to violence. And this

29:46

was, again, speaking about the struggle

29:48

sessions, these

29:50

mass rallies in

29:52

which violence is being

29:54

mobilized. There was so much

29:57

pageantry and theatricality around how

29:59

– were presented to the

30:01

audience how they were denounced, the

30:07

stories, the very dramatic stories that were

30:09

told about them, et cetera.

30:14

But to back up a bit

30:16

about this bigger question of theater

30:18

and rural politics in China, I

30:21

talk about this a little bit in the book when

30:24

looking at the cultural foundations of

30:26

moral mobilization in China. Political

30:30

rural opera was a very

30:32

important part of

30:36

local culture in the Chinese countryside.

30:38

And in fact, these

30:42

tropes of right versus wrong

30:44

of the imperial government

30:46

and enlightened officials coming

30:50

in and eradicating

30:52

corrupt elites that were oppressing the

30:55

people were tropes that were

30:57

used a lot in rural folk opera.

30:59

And interestingly, there's

31:01

an entire genre of land

31:03

reform operas that often

31:06

use similar melodies and

31:09

even roles and plaques as these

31:11

traditional operas. And

31:17

the CCP actually

31:19

had performing troops.

31:23

And this is well before the 1950s that

31:25

would go around to perform these land

31:28

reform operas. And this

31:30

was a way of, I

31:32

think, how to put it, bringing

31:36

this very kind of like Marxist

31:38

idea of class warfare and making

31:40

it more relatable to people and

31:43

making it more

31:45

palatable and relatable to rural

31:48

Chinese audiences. And

31:50

what's, I

31:52

think the other thing that's

31:59

interesting about this is that It's a

32:01

way of teaching the

32:04

peasantry what some of

32:06

these techniques of violence look like and how

32:08

they should be used, such as struggle sessions.

32:12

One of the most famous land

32:14

reform operas of its time was

32:17

the white-haired girl, which actually has

32:19

a struggle session acted out on

32:21

stage, which is very meta in

32:24

that the peasantry was

32:26

then asked to recreate these

32:28

struggle sessions themselves that were

32:30

also very theatrical and orchestrated.

32:32

But there was literally a

32:34

play, a land reform opera,

32:37

that had staged

32:40

this very theatrical act for them.

32:42

So yeah, there's like layers of

32:44

theatricality at

32:47

play here, the use of actual theater,

32:50

and then the use of theatrical

32:52

techniques in

32:54

these techniques of violence. And

32:57

I think we'll probably touch

32:59

upon that a little bit later as well. Yeah,

33:03

for sure. I think the word

33:05

theatricality has provided a

33:07

very important background information for

33:09

mobilization to help us understand

33:11

why moral mobilization can happen.

33:15

It is not from nowhere, but

33:17

from some cultural background in rural

33:19

China. So my next question is

33:21

about how can we understand the

33:23

continuation and rupture in moral mobilization

33:26

during Chinese land reform? So in

33:28

other words, if we acknowledge moral

33:30

mobilization, how is soil or roots

33:33

in Chinese history? What is particularly

33:35

special about moral mobilization during the

33:37

land reform? Sure.

33:40

Well, I think it's

33:43

definitely drawing on a

33:47

certain cultural repertoire in China. Again,

33:50

I think these kinds of monarchy

33:53

and tropes of good versus evil that

33:55

you see in rural folk opera, also

33:58

the use of— of

34:01

morality in neo-Confucian

34:05

governance in China as

34:08

well during the imperial period. But

34:14

I think what makes it very different

34:17

is the

34:20

insistence on revolutionary subjectivity,

34:22

participatory violence. In the

34:24

early imperial China, you

34:26

did not have the

34:28

government orchestrating mass violence.

34:32

The state was

34:34

– if there was any violence that he

34:36

had, the state was orchestrating itself, and

34:39

it was not asking people to conduct violence

34:41

on its behalf or in their own name.

34:44

So that was quite different. But

34:47

in terms of some of the, I

34:49

think, language and pageantry and

34:51

tropes, there are definitely similarities.

34:56

There is some interesting, I think,

35:01

work that's been done about speaking

35:04

bitterness, which was a technique used

35:06

a lot during land reform. This

35:10

is essentially

35:12

a very theatrical act in

35:14

which people were invited to

35:17

essentially just

35:21

emotionally express their

35:24

hardships and just their

35:27

trials and tribulations, often

35:31

to a public audience. And

35:34

this was something

35:36

that was used a lot in

35:38

struggle sessions but also in other

35:40

forms of meetings to kind of,

35:42

again, create revolutionary subjectivity, in-group bonding,

35:44

et cetera. And

35:46

there is something to

35:49

be said about that

35:51

having certain cultural antecedents

35:54

in China. The

35:58

idea of this perhaps being a – a

36:01

practice, perhaps not again,

36:04

not a state sanctioned practice, but

36:06

perhaps a practice that you would

36:08

see in the

36:10

countryside, something

36:12

essentially that essentially the

36:15

communist did not invent this

36:17

particular technique, they may have have

36:19

used it as

36:21

a political technique. But again,

36:24

I think the

36:26

CCP was taking

36:29

certain parts of China's cultural heritage

36:31

and marrying it to its own

36:34

political agenda.

36:38

Thank you. I think it's a perfect answer to

36:40

show the continuity and

36:43

also the difference between the

36:46

previous political technique and

36:48

the technique used by the

36:50

CCP during land reform. And I recommend

36:52

the readers to read this book and

36:54

to know about the specific difference. And

36:57

about moral mobilizations, specific operation,

37:00

you adopt a procedural perspective

37:02

to show how moral mobilization

37:05

works in reality and conducted

37:07

by this cadre in

37:10

Russia's China. So what are the

37:12

different stages of a typical moral mobilization?

37:16

Yeah, so I describe moral mobilization

37:18

as a recursive

37:20

or repeatable

37:22

process with three principal

37:24

stages. First, there's

37:27

moral boundary work. Now, this is a

37:29

concept that I'm drawing from sociology, actually.

37:34

Moral boundary work is a

37:36

process that defines an outgroup

37:39

and cast its members

37:41

outside of society's span

37:44

of sympathy. This is a term that I

37:46

borrow from the sociologist, Coser,

37:49

by alleging that members of this

37:52

outgroup are morally bankrupt and

37:54

building solidarity within this

37:57

in-group by cultivating sympathy for the

37:59

people. the plight of its fellow members

38:01

who are being allegedly victimized by this

38:03

vilified out

38:06

group. Second, after

38:10

this initial boundary work

38:12

has been done, there's moral

38:14

theatrics, which is the very

38:18

kind of theatrical, dramatic stage

38:20

of moral mobilization. Moral

38:23

theatrics dramatizes specific alleged

38:25

transgressive acts by

38:28

this vilified

38:32

out group to provoke outrage from the in

38:34

group against members of the out group. This

38:38

outrage serves to diminish

38:40

sympathy for the

38:43

alleged transgressors, these members of

38:45

this out group, and to

38:47

motivate support or participation in

38:49

violence against them. And

38:52

then at the end of this process

38:54

the violence itself and the

38:56

repeated engagement in or witnessing

38:58

an acceptance of this violence

39:01

crystallizes these in group

39:03

out group boundaries from that initial

39:05

moral boundary work stage

39:07

and facilitate further mobilization

39:10

using these identities. Again,

39:13

land reform wasn't

39:15

a one time

39:18

mobilization like your

39:20

locality is going through multiple

39:24

struggle sessions and multiple people within

39:26

a struggle session are being struggled

39:28

against. And so

39:30

the violence is happening again

39:32

and again and again. And these boundaries are

39:34

just being more and

39:36

more reinforced as people's

39:39

emotions frankly are being whipped

39:42

up and manipulated time and time again. So

39:46

that's what it looks like at

39:49

a high level, but I can talk a

39:51

little bit more about what that looked like

39:53

from the perspective of a land

39:56

reform cadre or like the work teams. So

39:59

when we look at at how moral

40:02

mobilization was put into practice

40:05

at this time. So a

40:09

land reform team would be dispatched to

40:11

a locality to work with local countries

40:14

or activists to investigate local conditions. This

40:16

work team could be just a couple of

40:19

people, often

40:21

sent down from cities. The

40:24

work team would spend days, if

40:27

not weeks, researching

40:29

the history of the locality,

40:31

uncovering historical conflicts, grievances, injustices,

40:34

et cetera,

40:37

and collecting evidence of

40:40

alleged wrongdoings against the community.

40:43

They held

40:45

these manta nue, or these small group

40:47

meetings, often in

40:50

people's houses to let peasants,

40:53

especially the poor, share their stories

40:55

and struggles to speak bitterness among

40:57

each other. Sometimes until the

41:00

late hours of night. And this,

41:03

in a way, almost resembled a form

41:05

of group therapy in which people were

41:07

encouraged to speak bitterness, to cry together,

41:10

and to build

41:12

this sense of shared

41:14

suffering and solidarity. And

41:16

so during this initial stage of moral

41:19

boundary work, there's no violence being mobilized.

41:21

People are just talking, and they're sharing

41:23

their experiences. But these

41:26

ideas of being

41:28

part of the poor

41:30

peasantry and being part

41:33

of the oppressed

41:36

masses versus these

41:40

landlords, these oppressors,

41:42

these class enemies, these ideas

41:45

are being introduced and reified

41:47

as people's stories,

41:49

as people are telling their

41:52

stories to one another.

41:54

And the poor kings and cadres are

41:56

reframing these stories and fit into this

41:58

more of a narrative. kind of Marxist

42:01

narrative. What's

42:03

also interesting is that at

42:06

this time, more teams are

42:08

gathering materials that they

42:10

can use as they

42:12

approach the stage of moral theatrics

42:14

when we actually move towards the

42:17

public acts of violence. So

42:20

they're drawing these moral boundaries, cultivating

42:22

these nascent collective identities, while also

42:24

kind of preparing for

42:26

the actual mobilization of

42:29

violence. There's

42:32

sort of this, so before we go

42:34

into this moral theatrics stage, there is

42:36

this sort of interim where the work

42:39

team is also, and then cadres are

42:41

working to pick struggle targets

42:43

as well. They're choosing who are

42:46

we going to actually inflict violence

42:48

against? And what

42:50

I thought was very interesting in

42:52

the historical record is that the

42:55

idea was that these targets would be

42:57

selected very, very deliberately. If

42:59

you look at the

43:02

statistics for the number of people

43:04

who were labeled as landlords or

43:06

rich peasants, the so-called bad classes,

43:09

and you look at the percentage

43:12

of people were given those labels and the percentage

43:15

of people who were actually put on

43:17

stage, were

43:20

put up at these struggle

43:22

sessions to be struggled against. And

43:25

actually a small proportion of

43:27

them, probably according to my

43:29

estimation, around like maybe 10%

43:31

of people given bad class

43:33

labels were actually subject to

43:36

struggle sessions. And you

43:38

also see from the archival record

43:40

that the party,

43:42

the party was ordering cadres to

43:45

be very, very selective. They wanted

43:48

them to prioritize targets on whom they

43:50

had a lot of dirt. They had

43:52

a lot of quote unquote evidence, whether

43:55

or not that evidence is accurate

43:57

or true or being, you know,

44:00

know, manipulated to frame

44:02

someone worse in a

44:04

bad light. Essentially,

44:07

where can you find, who

44:10

are the cases that are kind of easy

44:12

sells, people you can kind of vilify

44:14

easily for whom you have the

44:18

evidence to kind of create a

44:20

more sensational storyline. And

44:23

in the book, I also talk a

44:25

little bit about how this,

44:29

these targets and the offenses

44:32

they were being accused of were being

44:34

tailored to the local moral economy. And

44:37

so essentially the, you know, what

44:39

were the moral norms and practices

44:42

that featured heavily in peasants

44:44

everyday lives. So when

44:48

thinking about the kinds of people to select

44:50

and put on stage, this might look

44:52

different in different parts of China. So

44:57

in the book, I compare

44:59

Huaibei in Northern

45:02

Anhui and Jiangsu with Southern

45:05

Anhui and Jiangsu, the

45:07

region of Jiangnan. In Huaibei, you

45:10

actually had a more equal distribution

45:12

of land ownership and a

45:14

less pronounced landlord class versus Jiangnan,

45:16

which is certainly one of the

45:19

wealthiest and most unequal

45:21

parts of the country where

45:23

you have a more traditional

45:25

landlord class. You see a

45:28

different set of people being

45:30

targeted and the alleged crimes

45:35

also look different as well. So

45:38

in Huaibei, the people being targeted

45:40

here are lesser traditional landlords

45:42

and more strongmen, bandits, petty thieves,

45:45

many of whom didn't actually fit

45:47

into the class labeling system that

45:50

the party state had devised, but

45:54

had offended

45:57

the community in some way or,

45:59

again, to whom the community was

46:01

already pretty upset and angry. So

46:06

that's kind of happening

46:09

kind of in between this boundary

46:12

work stage and this moral theatrics

46:14

stage. So by the time we

46:19

get to struggle sessions, cadres

46:23

have already done a great

46:25

deal of groundwork. They have

46:27

created, they've planted the seeds

46:29

of these collective identities, they've

46:32

collected evidence on people

46:34

who would be struggled against, they've

46:36

made a list of people and

46:39

now it was

46:42

time to essentially orchestrate it, to

46:44

orchestrate the violence. Yeah

46:47

and I think your answer basically shows

46:50

moral mobilization is not

46:53

naturally trained or

46:55

naturally emerged but is carefully

46:58

designed by the cadres and officials.

47:01

On the other hand, I think

47:03

moral mobilization also requires mass participation

47:06

which leads to uncertainty to the

47:08

campaign. So according to your archival

47:10

research, when does moral mobilization fail

47:13

and what will happen when moral

47:15

mobilization fails? Sure.

47:19

Well I think there's something to

47:21

be said about why it succeeds

47:24

that I don't know if I highlighted.

47:27

So all of

47:30

this preparatory work I just

47:32

described, the idea was to

47:34

be able to create struggle sessions that

47:36

elicited an emotional

47:40

outburst that resulted in violence and

47:44

cadres had done, would

47:47

do quite a few things to ensure

47:49

that, to really heighten the emotional power

47:51

of these struggle sessions and to ensure

47:53

that they were setting

47:56

off waves of violence. When

48:02

we think about why more mobilization fails,

48:04

it helps to understand why it succeeded.

48:09

And ideally, what were they

48:11

doing that made it so effective?

48:15

One thing that the cadres were

48:17

doing with all this evidence that

48:19

they were collecting, they were bringing

48:22

this evidence to struggle

48:24

sessions in a way that could whip up the

48:26

crowd. They

48:29

would – the struggle sessions

48:31

would have physical

48:36

evidence presented like phones of people

48:38

who were allegedly murdered, bloody clothing,

48:41

weapons, people would show their physical

48:43

scars. And the cadres had chosen

48:45

people to give oral testimony to

48:47

speak bitterness again, but before the

48:50

whole community,

48:53

cadres would be coaching

48:58

people who would be invited to

49:00

denounce struggle targets on stage and

49:02

curating who those people were to

49:04

ensure that the emotional

49:06

impact of these stories

49:09

was as great as

49:11

possible. They

49:13

tried to convince the elderly,

49:15

women, sympathetic figures to be

49:17

principal denouchers at struggle sessions.

49:21

They matched the

49:23

audience to particular

49:26

targets during struggle sessions.

49:28

Essentially, what audience would

49:30

be most sympathetic to

49:37

the plight of the people denouncing

49:39

struggle targets in a particular session.

49:42

In the book, I talk about an

49:45

instance where this woman who was accused

49:47

of being morally loose,

49:50

sewing discord between husbands and wives

49:52

and selling women was

49:54

struggled against before an

49:56

audience exclusively of women,

49:58

precisely for the first time. for that reason

50:01

of how can we find an audience that would

50:03

be sympathetic to

50:05

this person's alleged victim and

50:08

also most likely to get

50:10

enraged and use violence

50:12

against them. Cadres

50:15

would also then like sequence the order

50:18

of the people that were being put on stage

50:21

to elicit as strong

50:23

of an emotional response as

50:25

possible at the very beginning. So

50:27

if you had someone whom, let's

50:32

say you knew you could whip up, if

50:34

you could whip the crowd into a frenzy

50:36

with the first person

50:39

or two that you put on stage,

50:41

you could harness that anger and that

50:43

emotion for the rest of

50:45

the struggle session. And

50:47

it was interesting because you saw that the

50:49

party was, could at times be very strategic

50:51

about this. They would forefront

50:54

people who were very hated or known to

50:56

have upset a lot of people in the

50:58

village. They would be the ones struggled against

51:00

first and maybe political

51:03

enemies, people

51:05

accused of being spies for the Guo

51:07

Minang, for example, were thrown in at

51:09

the end of the struggle session because

51:11

the crowd at that point would have

51:13

been so angry that they would literally

51:15

beat up and kill anyone who was put

51:17

on stage. So

51:19

there was an interesting, yeah, definitely,

51:23

when you look at the quote unquote success

51:25

cases for the CCP, there

51:28

was a lot of strategy involved,

51:30

but to your point, then why did

51:32

it fail? So this is kind

51:34

of the problem with the archival record, much

51:36

of which is being produced by the party

51:38

state itself. There are more examples

51:42

of reported successes

51:44

and failures, but there

51:46

were still a fair enough, a

51:50

fair amount of failure cases that

51:53

I found that I could use to draw some inferences.

51:55

And so at the crux of it,

51:58

I think moral mobilization failed. where

52:00

cadres lost what I called the

52:02

war for sympathy. At the end

52:04

of the day, the cadres needed

52:07

to get locals to sympathize with

52:09

each other, to feel

52:11

that they were part of this oppressed

52:13

in-group, and desensitize

52:16

themselves from the

52:18

people they were supposed to struggle against. They

52:20

were supposed to not feel pity or

52:23

any remorse for the people

52:25

you were using violence against. But

52:28

the reality is, the cadres were

52:31

not the only people in

52:35

playing this discursive game. In

52:37

fact, there are many instances

52:39

where you see landlords and

52:41

other struggle targets counter-mobilizing to

52:43

make themselves seem more sympathetic.

52:47

For example, essentially hiding back, arguing

52:49

back about the details of stories,

52:51

dressing up to look more

52:54

destitute, or having their own stories

52:56

of hardships to tell, threatening

52:59

self-harm. These

53:02

were all ways in which struggle

53:04

targets and landlords, etc., were fighting

53:06

back and trying to convince

53:10

the peasantry that, no, in fact, violence was

53:13

not legitimate against them. In fact, they

53:15

were not

53:18

worthy of – they were

53:20

not deserving of violence.

53:24

And so, there

53:27

are a lot of cases of that, but there

53:29

were also cases in which cadres were

53:32

losing this war for sympathy

53:35

because they were simply not competent

53:38

organizers. I don't know how else to put

53:40

it. So,

53:43

again, looking at the success criteria

53:46

that I just described about sequencing,

53:48

target selection, there were plenty of

53:50

cases where local cadres were just

53:52

choosing the wrong people, or

53:55

at least they were choosing people who

53:58

were actually – very

54:01

sympathetic and liked by

54:03

the local villagers. And

54:05

in fact, this would backfire, and people would

54:07

get really upset and be like, we don't

54:10

want to participate in this. We actually don't

54:12

think this is just. And so this narrative

54:14

of righteous violence is failing

54:16

because the people you're choosing,

54:18

the locals are having a very hard

54:20

time believing, oh, this person doesn't

54:24

deserve to be treated

54:26

this way. The

54:29

other reason why

54:32

I find more mobilization failing

54:34

is more structural. So

54:37

using the GAS interior data set, I

54:39

also was looking at the

54:41

role of coercive control in mobilization.

54:45

I found that areas

54:47

where the party was struggling

54:50

to maintain coercive control over

54:52

a territory, these were the

54:54

areas that struggled against fewer

54:57

people per capita during

54:59

land reform. The context here is that

55:01

we have to remember that the land

55:03

reform campaign is happening nearly a year

55:05

or two after the war

55:07

with the nationalists. There's

55:10

still significant violent resistance in

55:12

the countryside, and people are

55:15

scared. Locals are scared to participate

55:18

in land reform to cooperate with

55:20

the communists because they're not even sure if the

55:22

communists are going to last for

55:25

the next, you know, in the next

55:27

year or two. The country had gone

55:29

through so much political chaos, civil war

55:32

with the Japanese, and then

55:34

just decades preceding that. So

55:37

in areas where there was still

55:41

fighting between the CCP and

55:43

their enemies, you actually saw

55:48

opponents of the regime kidnapping

55:50

land reform work

55:53

team members threatening locals who

55:55

would participate in struggle sessions,

55:58

et cetera. I did

56:00

find quantitatively where we saw those

56:02

kinds of reports that fewer people

56:04

on average were being subject to

56:06

struggle sessions. Yes,

56:10

I would say those were kind of

56:12

the main criteria in determining success or

56:14

failure of this kind of mobilization. Thank

56:17

you. I think it is a very comprehensive answer.

56:20

And about the impact and

56:22

the influence of moral mobilization,

56:24

besides the mass killing and the

56:26

tragic death in rural China,

56:28

in the book you mentioned that

56:30

the most significant impact of moral

56:33

mobilization is shaping Chinese

56:35

patterns as revolutionary subjectivities. And

56:40

I just want to know how does

56:42

this accomplish and why is this important?

56:44

If possible, could we link

56:46

the establishment of this kind

56:48

of revolutionary subjectivity to China's

56:51

subsequent political campaigns, such as the

56:54

Cultural Revolution? Yeah,

56:57

so that's

56:59

a big question. I think at

57:02

the end of the day, moral

57:04

mobilization during labor reform was an

57:06

attempt to translate abstract,

57:08

this abstract idea of class,

57:11

which again, most Chinese scholars have noted, did

57:14

not really have natural resonance in

57:16

pre-communist China. It's just something meaningful

57:19

and relatable to the peasantry. And

57:25

so it was easier to

57:27

create this revolutionary subjectivity,

57:29

this idea of class, if

57:33

you were to define and think about

57:35

things like class enemy in terms of

57:38

cruelty, abuse of power,

57:42

versus simply having

57:44

a lot of land or being part

57:46

of the exploiting

57:48

class. And

57:52

in a way, this kind of repetitive

57:56

participation, either witnessing or

57:58

actually physically, basically arming

58:01

people according to

58:03

this logic creates,

58:07

makes this identity feel more real. And

58:10

what happens then after land

58:12

reform is very interesting, these class

58:14

labels that I would say made

58:17

very little sense when they were first

58:19

introduced become a caste

58:23

system in the Maoist era. Children

58:26

literally now inherit them from their

58:28

parents during the Maoist period. It

58:31

affects your employment, your ability to

58:33

receive education, etc. And

58:35

subsequent mobilization campaigns are invoking these

58:38

labels and making them more and

58:40

more real. But

58:42

at the end of the day, they're rooted in, I

58:44

think, this very elaborate

58:52

process of most

58:54

conflating moral

58:57

behavior and this notion of

58:59

class. How

59:04

it's then used subsequently, even

59:07

before the Cultural Revolution – I look at this a little

59:09

bit in the book – it's

59:12

being used in pretty much all

59:14

of these major

59:16

and minor mobilization campaigns

59:21

beforehand, the anti-Ritus campaign. Landlords,

59:24

again, in the countryside were

59:28

potential targets. During

59:32

the anti-Ritus campaign, I found that

59:36

anti-Ritus violence during the anti-Ritus campaign

59:38

was higher in areas that had

59:40

labeled a larger proportion of their

59:43

population as landlords during land reform.

59:46

And then

59:49

obviously, by the time of

59:51

the Cultural Revolution, you have now this

59:54

class label system that has become synonymous

59:56

with being a good or a bad

59:58

person. not think that

1:00:00

would have been possible It's

1:00:20

a very important opinion, it's a very

1:00:22

important view and I think

1:00:24

as a researcher, as you mentioned before,

1:00:27

your research focuses not only on the

1:00:30

early years of the CCP, but

1:00:32

also you also study contemporary politics

1:00:34

and also social media. So

1:00:36

the land reform was such an important

1:00:38

event in Chinese recent history, and in

1:00:40

your opinion, do land

1:00:43

reform and moral mobilization leave a

1:00:45

legacy for contemporary China, and if

1:00:47

so, what is it? So

1:00:49

it's important to note that in the reform era,

1:00:53

moral mobilization and

1:00:56

the techniques of violence during land

1:00:59

reform persist

1:01:01

for a little bit. The

1:01:03

strike hard campaigns of the

1:01:05

80s and 90s recycled a

1:01:08

lot of the techniques of

1:01:10

violence from the land reform period.

1:01:14

They weren't called struggle sessions per se, I

1:01:16

think they were just called public sentencing,

1:01:19

but

1:01:22

the strike hard campaigns used very

1:01:25

similar, I think a very

1:01:27

similar kind of mobilization process

1:01:29

and rhetoric around like bad

1:01:31

societal elements. It

1:01:34

was a campaign that was

1:01:36

focused very much on

1:01:38

murder and alleged

1:01:41

murders and rapists and

1:01:43

criminals right

1:01:45

after the

1:01:48

opening of reform. And

1:01:51

in a way, I think it was Ralph

1:01:53

Faxon who has argued that this was in

1:01:57

part a way of re-bolstering the authority.

1:02:00

of the party state after the death

1:02:02

of Mao. And

1:02:06

I think similarly this mobilizing

1:02:10

along these lines of

1:02:12

this like vilified outgroup versus

1:02:14

this like victimized, innocent

1:02:19

in-group has

1:02:22

a lot of parallels with

1:02:25

more mobilization during land reform. And

1:02:27

I guess the techniques of violence as

1:02:29

well, these like public sentencing, parading

1:02:32

people around on

1:02:34

trucks and whatnot and before

1:02:37

like a mob of people. I

1:02:40

believe strike

1:02:43

hard didn't involve as much

1:02:45

participatory violence as

1:02:47

land reform and the culture revolution, but it

1:02:49

did involve a lot of the same like

1:02:52

pageantry. And I

1:02:54

think that's where the

1:02:56

differences appear. When we look

1:02:59

at the legacy of moral

1:03:01

mobilization in China today, I

1:03:03

think we see some similarities. We

1:03:05

see some continuities in terms of

1:03:07

some of the techniques and

1:03:10

language, for example, the

1:03:12

use of, again,

1:03:19

I think tropes

1:03:22

around moral transgression and

1:03:26

sensationalizing alleged excesses

1:03:29

and abuses by

1:03:33

corrupt cadres in the anti-corruption campaign.

1:03:38

Certainly there is no

1:03:40

participatory element there. The

1:03:43

locals, the Chinese citizens

1:03:45

are not being asked to

1:03:47

participate in violence against alleged corrupt officials,

1:03:50

but the way in which their trials

1:03:53

are being televised and

1:03:55

showcased, the way they're being described

1:03:57

and the reason why they are...

1:04:01

being purged is couched

1:04:04

in these very, very moralistic terms. Corrupt

1:04:07

officials are

1:04:09

linked to things like prostitution and

1:04:12

drugs and fidelity, all of this

1:04:14

stuff beyond what you would

1:04:16

just call corruption. So they're portrayed as these

1:04:20

bad people in

1:04:22

some way to elicit a

1:04:26

response of moral outrage. I

1:04:30

think televised confessions have

1:04:33

some interesting commonalities

1:04:35

with the not-speaking

1:04:39

bitterness, but the forced

1:04:41

self-confessions that landlords

1:04:43

and struggle targets would sometimes

1:04:45

be made to give during

1:04:47

struggle sessions. Again,

1:04:51

the, I think, use

1:04:54

of essentially the pulling of emotions

1:04:57

and heartstrings in order

1:04:59

to get buy-in for

1:05:02

the persecution

1:05:06

and oppression of political

1:05:08

opponents of the regime. But

1:05:11

the big difference is that it's not participatory.

1:05:14

People are not being asked to get their hands

1:05:16

dirty. The party

1:05:18

state wants to be in full control

1:05:20

of what violence it meets out and

1:05:23

how it meets it out. But

1:05:25

it's happy to have a public audience, and it's

1:05:28

very happy to frame this violence

1:05:30

in these highly moralized

1:05:33

terms. Yeah,

1:05:36

exactly. I can totally see

1:05:39

why today there is a

1:05:41

decrease in mass participation, because

1:05:43

mass participation actually introduced some

1:05:46

chaotic elements into the campaign.

1:05:48

So it is more uncontrollable

1:05:50

for a neoliberal state,

1:05:52

basically. So I think morality

1:05:55

is worth your central research interest, and

1:05:57

morality is always a important

1:06:00

issue in any social movement in

1:06:02

any political campaign. This

1:06:04

is why I think your book can

1:06:07

bring insights across cultural boundaries just

1:06:09

beyond the Chinese context. So can

1:06:12

you give us some examples of

1:06:14

how moral moralization continues to play

1:06:16

a role in contemporary politics, all

1:06:18

side China, maybe? Sure.

1:06:21

Yeah. Well, I think a

1:06:23

lot about moral boundary work specifically, in

1:06:25

current US

1:06:28

politics, particularly in the Trump era, I

1:06:30

was actually finishing the dissertation right around

1:06:32

the time of the 2016 election. I

1:06:37

think the Trump campaign masterfully

1:06:39

manipulated and mobilized this identity

1:06:41

of white victimhood by dealing

1:06:43

in this narrative of an

1:06:46

evil criminal outgroup of illegal

1:06:49

immigrants whom he has

1:06:51

in his, I think to this

1:06:54

day has called murders, rapists that are crossing

1:06:56

the border who are victimizing innocent

1:06:58

white Americans. For

1:07:02

Trump, the white

1:07:05

Americans had been

1:07:07

forgotten, which is why we

1:07:09

needed to make

1:07:13

America great again, according to his

1:07:15

logic. And back

1:07:18

when he was first campaigning, something

1:07:20

that really struck me with his

1:07:22

use of stories of victims of

1:07:24

violence by undocumented immigrants, he would

1:07:26

actually bring the family members of

1:07:29

these victims to his mass rallies to

1:07:31

give emotional speeches, which immediately

1:07:33

reminded me of, of course,

1:07:36

like the CCP's use of speaking bitterness

1:07:38

in their moral boundary work and at

1:07:40

struggle sessions. Because

1:07:43

again, as I've said, moral

1:07:45

boundary work isn't about fomenting

1:07:48

violence as much as it's

1:07:50

about consolidating victim oppressor identities

1:07:52

in group out group

1:07:54

identities that can be potentially mobilized

1:07:57

for other Purposes. This

1:08:00

boundary work this more about ever continued

1:08:02

into his presidency. I think it was

1:08:04

treated. For. State of the

1:08:06

Union Address in which he announced

1:08:09

the creation of a Voice program,

1:08:11

The And Victims Of Immigrant Crime

1:08:13

Engagement. Whose. Goal was to come. Ah,

1:08:16

Compile stories of cry and

1:08:18

by on undocumented immigrants. And

1:08:21

it was leaked. Dot. Homeland Security

1:08:24

Secretary John Kelly had been putting

1:08:26

pressure on the program to ensure

1:08:28

that it was documenting the most

1:08:31

vivid and lurid an advocate and

1:08:33

story is a crime. And.

1:08:35

For me I just is

1:08:37

literally just sounded like the

1:08:39

Ccp ah, internal communications calling

1:08:41

on cadres to identify the

1:08:43

most lured and extreme examples

1:08:45

of landlord abuse that could

1:08:47

be used in struggle session.

1:08:49

So rile up the crowd

1:08:51

and to convince. The

1:08:53

people that ah, violence, ah

1:08:55

that it was necessary to meet

1:08:58

out on this violence. And.

1:09:01

I do think in the Trump

1:09:03

era like this is a I

1:09:06

think it has made American politics

1:09:08

experts take more seriously the importance

1:09:10

of morality. In Us

1:09:12

Politics. I'm. A

1:09:15

I'm sure, but actually recommend a

1:09:17

book. Ah, When. Recent. Okay,

1:09:19

I think. Ah, that's really

1:09:22

interesting. Here is Nathan Camo

1:09:24

and will be in Masons

1:09:26

book: Radical American Partisanship. They

1:09:28

examine why some Americans have

1:09:30

come to accept using violence

1:09:32

and other extreme methods like

1:09:35

insurrection the further their own

1:09:37

partisan agenda. And. They identify

1:09:39

moral disengagement as a critical predictor

1:09:41

of acceptance of violence against targets

1:09:44

than opponents. Ah, That

1:09:46

it's like people who built differently

1:09:48

than you and for their moral

1:09:50

disengagement is this extreme vilification of

1:09:52

rival partisan seen them as evil

1:09:55

or less than humans and they

1:09:57

find that. These extremely

1:09:59

strong. The fan identities.

1:10:01

Are. Held by people who are

1:10:04

most. Morally. Disengaged from their

1:10:06

rivals and I look at this

1:10:08

and I just think like I would

1:10:10

I would add that this is the

1:10:13

product of moral boundaries work. Like.

1:10:16

I I'm very much believe in

1:10:18

their correlation that radical extreme partisans

1:10:20

also are the most morley. Disengaged.

1:10:23

But how did that happen? I

1:10:25

think. That was an act of political process

1:10:27

and I do think as. The

1:10:29

product of moral boundary work

1:10:31

by people like Trump, other

1:10:33

conservative elites with systematically vilified

1:10:35

demonize political opponents using these

1:10:38

morally charge language claims, techniques,

1:10:40

etc. Thank

1:10:42

you! I think this point really

1:10:44

shows the realistic value of your

1:10:46

book and I think there's a

1:10:48

lesson that we should always be

1:10:50

alert to the moralized and dehumanized

1:10:52

language and rituals and politics to

1:10:54

as we are approaching the end

1:10:57

of today's poll. Cause could you

1:10:59

please share with us or what

1:11:01

topics are you cover the interested

1:11:03

in and also we have already

1:11:05

know that you are you have

1:11:07

a book project and the clue

1:11:09

Please share more with us about

1:11:11

your current project. And a future plans. Ah

1:11:15

yeah, so. I'm.

1:11:17

I'm no longer formerly in academia,

1:11:20

but I am, but I have

1:11:22

been thinking about continue. It's continuing

1:11:24

to write and publish. Research

1:11:26

for as I think everything before

1:11:29

a more general audience I spawn

1:11:31

about ways to read, contextualize more

1:11:33

mobilization in contemporary American politics. Ah,

1:11:37

Would. Actually, be very interested in exploring that in

1:11:39

the context of Sino American relations, the way

1:11:41

in which. China is portrayed

1:11:43

in thought about in America now

1:11:46

I think with with how to

1:11:48

talks been demonized with our on

1:11:50

China and Chinese people are being

1:11:53

attacked them vilified during covered their

1:11:55

a lot of examples where I

1:11:57

think. We. see more

1:11:59

mode being used in

1:12:01

the US in the context of

1:12:04

Sino-American relations. But

1:12:08

I've kind of also just

1:12:10

moved on to some other topics. I

1:12:13

moved into the tech space and I've

1:12:15

been doing a lot of research around

1:12:18

AI machine learning and

1:12:20

just the way that's been affecting

1:12:22

society. I think the way

1:12:25

in which these

1:12:28

technologies are revolutionizing,

1:12:30

changing the way we perceive the world, form

1:12:33

opinions, relate to each other,

1:12:35

experience moral emotions is

1:12:37

something that I've been thinking about

1:12:39

a lot. And perhaps

1:12:42

from more of a – this I would

1:12:44

say is more of like a general audience

1:12:46

book, almost something a little bit – maybe

1:12:48

a little bit more philosophical. It's

1:12:51

just been something that I've been

1:12:53

wanting to explore and write

1:12:55

about for some time now. Thank

1:12:58

you for sharing with us your ideas,

1:13:00

both in academia and in tech. I

1:13:02

think they're all fascinating and I look

1:13:04

forward to benefiting from your insights in

1:13:06

the future. So thank you

1:13:08

for joining us in our

1:13:10

today's poke call. And I think

1:13:13

we will always

1:13:15

welcome you to do another interview about your

1:13:17

new source and maybe your new work. Thank

1:13:21

you so much for having me. Thank you.

1:13:23

So in today's poke call, I talk

1:13:25

with Dr. Jeffrey Jevitt about his new

1:13:27

book titled, Righteous Revolutionaries. Morality,

1:13:30

Mobilization and Violence in the Making of

1:13:32

the Chinese State, published by the University

1:13:35

of Michigan Press in 2022. This

1:13:37

book situates itself within broader

1:13:39

literature on modern Chinese history

1:13:42

and contributes significantly to our

1:13:44

understanding of China's land reform

1:13:46

campaigns and state building. Thank

1:13:48

you for listening to New Book Network and we

1:13:50

will see you next time. Okay,

1:14:06

round two. Name something

1:14:08

that's not boring. A laundry?

1:14:11

Ooh, a book club. Computer

1:14:13

solitaire, huh? Ah,

1:14:16

sorry, we were looking for Chumba

1:14:18

Casino. chumbacasino.com.

1:14:23

Number six. Ooh, a minute. I'm

1:14:25

on it. I'm just gonna finish the play.

1:14:27

One second, I'm gonna get some... chumbacasino.com. Number

1:14:29

six. Ooh, a minute. I'm on it. I'm

1:14:32

just gonna finish the play.