The Zigs and Zags in the Treatment of Intellectuals

Abstract

The Chinese Communist Party's economic reforms have at times slowed down and have even halted, but they have not deviated from their course of loosening government controls, moving towards a more market-orientated economy, and opening up to the outside world. The Party's policy towards the intellectuals, whose skills are crucial to economic modernization, have generally followed the shifts in the economic sphere, but the shifts in the intellectual sphere have been more extreme and have at times deviated from the course. This was the case in the autumn of 1983 with the campaign against western spiritual pollution. Although the campaign quickly dissipated in the economic realm and scientific community, it continued on into 1984, specifically against those intellectuals who were influenced by such western thinkers as Sartre, Freud, Kafka and Euro-Marxists. The Party charged them with causing ideological confusion and questioning of the Party and socialism.