The Mass-Line, 1917 to 1989: Chinese Experience

Abstract

The article explores the tangled relationship between activism and state power in China, post-1917, exploring how it sheds light on a perennial problem in radical thought: namely, how universal prescriptions and structures of power relate to localized instances of activism. Grassroots mobilization and community-building has been held up as a solution that keeps revolution “revolutionary” by reforming social relations and personal conduct. By making all politics mass-politics, Chinese Maoists hoped to prevent a slide into a repressive social order. However, the “mass-line” achieved the opposite end and created a hollowed-out politics through reactionary violence. In the post-1989 era, new articulations of state power and activism encourage reflection on changing material conditions and how they affect the possibility of mass-politics and class consciousness.