The Explanatory Power, Tension, and Boundaries of Emotion Research in the Study of Party History
汪效驷:情感研究在党史研究中的解释力、张力与边界
In recent years, the “emotional turn” in historical research has not only been a trend in international historiography but has also provided new analytical dimensions and explanatory frameworks for deepening the study of the history of the Chinese Communist Party (CPC). The history of emotions focuses on people’s emotional experiences, expressions, and interactions within historical contexts, offering a perspective that starts from the “heart” to understand why the CPC won popular support and gathered the forces of change. Drawing wisdom and strength from history requires, in particular, grasping the deep emotional bond between the Party and the people. The history of emotions is precisely an important academic pathway for deeply understanding the Party’s original aspiration and founding mission, its great spirit, and its governing foundation. In recent years, a multitude of related research results have emerged, marking the gradual entry of the history of emotions into the central vision of Party history research. However, while the history of emotions expands the explanatory space of Party history, issues such as the inherent tensions in its methodology and its research boundaries have become increasingly prominent. How to establish a balance between theoretical borrowing and empirical research, and to form a dialogue between emotional interpretation and the structural analysis of Party history development, is the key to advancing the study of the history of emotions to a deeper level.
近年来,历史研究的“情感转向”不仅是国际史学发展的趋势,更为深化中共党史研究提供了新的分析维度和解释框架。情感史关注历史情境中人的情感体验、表达与互动,为我们理解中国共产党何以赢得人民拥护、凝聚变革力量,提供了从“心”出发的观察视角。从历史中汲取智慧和力量,尤其需要把握党与人民之间深厚的情感纽带。而情感史正是深入理解党的初心使命、伟大精神与执政基础的一条重要学术进路。近年来,诸多相关研究成果不断涌现,标志着情感史正逐渐进入党史研究的中心视野。然而,情感史在拓展党史解释空间的同时,其方法论的内在张力与研究边界等问题也日益凸显。如何在理论借鉴与实证研究之间建立平衡,在情感诠释与党史发展的结构性分析之间形成对话,是推动情感史研究走向深入的关键。
Expansion of Explanatory Power for the Study of Party History
对党史研究的解释力拓展
The explanatory power of the history of emotions is first reflected in enriching and deepening the traditional research paradigm of Party history. Traditional Party history narratives focus on the causal connections and macro-significance of policy lines, organizational construction, and major events. The history of emotions, in contrast, places previously relatively neglected factors such as Party members’ emotions, popular mentality, and collective sentiments under investigation, aiming to reveal the emotional logic and psychological mechanisms driving historical behavior. The author once took the “change of uniform” incident during the reorganization of the Red Army at the beginning of the total war of resistance against Japan as a case study to explore the operation of emotional politics during political transformation, analyzing the complex path from emotional shock to identity reconstruction. This type of research not only focuses on the policy logic and organizational adjustments of the Red Army’s reorganization under the backdrop of the total war of resistance but also concentrates on the identity anxiety, emotional struggle, and meaning reconstruction experienced by officers and soldiers when faced with drastic changes in revolutionary symbols, thereby restoring the spiritual trajectory of individuals or groups within the grand narrative. This “from the inside out” analytical path makes the historical picture richer and more three-dimensional.
情感史的解释力,首先体现在对传统党史研究范式的丰富与深化。传统党史叙事侧重于路线政策、组织建设与重大事件的因果关联和宏观意义,情感史则将曾被相对忽视的党员情感、群众心态与集体情绪等置于考察视域,致力于揭示驱动历史行为的情感逻辑与心态机制。笔者曾以全民族抗战初期红军改编过程中的“换装”事件为案例,探讨政治转型中情感政治的运作过程,剖析从情感冲击到认同重构的复杂路径。此种研究不仅关注全民族抗战背景下,红军改编的政策逻辑与组织调整,更聚焦官兵面对革命符号剧变时所产生的身份焦虑、情感挣扎与意义重构,从而在宏大叙事中复原个体或群体的心灵轨迹。这种“由内而外”的解析路径,令历史图景更为丰富和立体。
The history of emotions also helps connect the macro-structure of Party history with micro-experiences. By employing meso-level analytical concepts such as “emotional governance” and “emotional mobilization,” we can overcome the emptiness of grand narratives and the triviality of micro-descriptions. The “speaking of bitterness” (诉苦) during the land reform is a typical example. It stimulated the “sense of grievance” among the peasantry through “speaking of bitterness,” providing emotional legitimacy for class struggle, and then used “emotion” to verify “reason,” demonstrating the “rationality” of land reform. Scholars such as Ying Xing and Li Lifeng have revealed, from the perspectives of emotional guidance and technical operation, how emotion became a key medium for policy implementation and social reorganization. This model was also applied in emotional mobilizations such as the Resist US and Aid Korea Movement, achieving the capture, reshaping, and directed output of individual emotions through a complete logical chain of guiding memory, defining suffering, attributing responsibility, and pointing out the way forward. Its success lay in touching and harnessing the deepest emotional forces within social change.
情感史还有助于连接党史的宏观结构与微观经验。借助“情感治理”“情感动员”等中观分析概念,我们得以克服宏大叙事的空疏与微观描述的琐碎。土地改革中的“诉苦”便是典型例证。其通过“诉苦”激发农民群体的“冤屈感”,为阶级斗争提供情感正当性,继而以“情”证“理”,论证土地改革的“合理性”。应星、李里峰等学者正是从情感引导与技术操作层面,揭示了情感如何成为政策落地与社会重组的关键媒介。这一模式还被运用于抗美援朝运动等情感动员中,通过引导记忆、定义苦难、归因责任、指明出路的完整逻辑链,实现了对个体情感的捕捉、重塑与定向输出。其成功之处在于触及并驾驭了社会变革中最深层的情感动力。
Most importantly, the history of emotions provides an opportunity to construct a research framework for Party history with Chinese characteristics. Over its long-term practice of revolution, construction, and reform, the CPC has formed a unique tradition of emotional work and political ethics. From the fundamental purpose of “serving the people wholeheartedly” to the working method of “from the masses, to the masses”; from the organizational life principle of “criticism and self-criticism” to the working mechanism of “heart-to-heart talks”; from the “Cave Dialogue” [1]1 The “Cave Dialogue” (窑洞对) refers to a famous exchange in 1945 in Yan’an between CPC leader Mao Zedong and visiting democratic personage Huang Yanpei, where Huang raised the historical cycle of rise and fall, and Mao responded that the CPC had found a way out through popular supervision. in the Yan’an period to the New Era’s “popular sentiment is the greatest politics” [2]2 “Popular sentiment is the greatest politics” (民心是最大的政治) is a frequently cited formulation by Xi Jinping, emphasizing that the will and support of the people are the ultimate measure of political legitimacy. — all embody the indigenous wisdom of integrating emotional connection with political identity. This tradition not only inherits the ethical genes of Chinese culture, such as “the fusion of reason and emotion” and “benevolent governance and love for the people,” but has also developed into a systematic and institutionalized system of emotional governance in concrete historical practice. Investigating the generation mechanism, operational logic, and social efficacy of this system of emotional governance becomes an indispensable link in breaking the monopoly of Western discourse, constructing an autonomous Party history narrative based on China’s own experience and logic, and thereby providing more penetrating and persuasive academic support for better understanding “why the CPC can.”
尤为重要的是,情感史为构建具有中国特色的党史研究框架提供了契机。中国共产党在长期革命、建设与改革实践中,形成了一套独具特色的情感工作传统与政治伦理。从“全心全意为人民服务”的根本宗旨,到“从群众中来,到群众中去”的工作方法;从“批评与自我批评”的组织生活原则,到“谈心谈话”工作机制;从延安时期的“窑洞对”到新时代的“民心是最大的政治”,无不体现着情感联系与政治认同相融合的本土智慧。这套传统既承继了中国文化中“情理交融”“仁政爱民”的伦理基因,更在具体历史实践中发展为一套系统化、制度化的情感治理体系。对这套情感治理体系的生成机制、运作逻辑与社会效能进行考察,便成为打破西方话语垄断、从中国自身经验与逻辑出发,构建自主性党史叙事不可或缺的一环,进而为更好理解“中国共产党为什么能”提供更具穿透力与说服力的学理支撑。
Internal Tensions and Methodological Challenges
内在张力与方法论挑战
While demonstrating its unique explanatory power, the history of emotions also contains multiple tensions, requiring researchers to maintain a clear methodological self-awareness and seek a prudent balance between borrowing and critique, the universal and the particular, and emotion and other explanatory dimensions.
情感史在展现其独特解释力的同时,亦内含着多重张力,要求研究者保持清醒的方法论自觉,在借鉴与批判、普遍与特殊、情感与其他解释维度之间寻求审慎的平衡。
The first is the interpretive tension between the emotional expression in historical texts and the authentic experience. The emotional materials relied upon in Party history research — diaries, letters, memoirs, etc. — are often products of post-hoc reflection, political rhetoric, and narrative construction. For example, the interweaving of private emotions and revolutionary discourse in red family letters, or the fusion of personal experience and collective narrative in revolutionary memoirs, require researchers to carefully distinguish in textual analysis the complex relationship between “narrated emotions” and “historical emotions.” “Narrated emotions” are the emotional expressions presented on the surface of the text, conforming to specific discourse norms; “historical emotions” refer to the initial, but more complex and contradictory, psychological states of historical figures at the time of the event. Researchers should avoid simplistically reducing emotions in Party history, producing “emotional stories” detached from historical reality.
首先是历史文本的情感表达与真实体验之间的诠释张力。党史研究倚重的日记、书信、回忆录等情感材料,往往是经过事后反思、政治修辞与叙事建构的产物。例如红色家书中私人情感与革命话语的交织,或是革命回忆录中个人体验与集体叙事的融合,都要求研究者在文本分析中审慎辨析“被叙述的情感”与“历史中的情感”之间的复杂关系。“被叙述的情感”是文本表面呈现的、符合特定话语规范的情感表达;而“历史中的情感”则指向历史人物在事件发生时的初始的,但更为复杂和矛盾的心理状态。研究者应避免对党史中的情感进行简单化还原,产出脱离历史实际的“情感故事”。
The second is the fit between borrowed theoretical tools and indigenous empirical materials. Current research on the history of emotions often borrows concepts from the sociology of emotions, a significant portion of which originate from specific Western academic and social contexts. For instance, the concept of “emotional labor” proposed by American sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild was initially used to analyze the commercialized behavior of service industry workers managing their emotional expressions for remuneration. However, the Party’s advocacy in mass work for “having deep feelings for the masses” or “working with feelings,” while also involving the expenditure and management of emotions, constructs a practical model where emotional connection and political ethics mutually nourish and reinforce each other. Its internal logic is fundamentally different from “emotional labor” in the Western context. Directly applying the concept of “emotional labor” might simplistically interpret the Party’s mass work as a kind of “emotional manipulation technique” similar to that in the West, ignoring the political ethics, historical traditions, and deeper intentions behind it, which would be inconsistent with historical reality. Therefore, how to explain and elevate the Party’s experience of emotional governance using a discourse system that adapts Marxism to the Chinese context and the needs of the times is an important task facing research on the history of emotions.
其次是外来理论工具与本土经验材料之间的适配关系。当前情感史研究对情感社会学概念多有借鉴,其中相当部分源自西方特定的学术与社会语境。如美国社会学家霍克希尔德提出的“情感劳动”概念,最初用于分析服务业从业者为获取报酬而管理自身情感表达的商业化行为。而党在群众工作中倡导的“对群众要有深厚感情”或“带着感情做工作”,虽然也涉及情感的付出与管理,但构建的是一种情感联系与政治伦理相互滋养、相互促进的实践模式,其内在逻辑与西方语境下的“情感劳动”存在本质差异。若直接套用“情感劳动”这一概念,则可能会将党的群众工作简单理解为一种类似西方的“情感操控技术”,而忽略其背后的政治伦理、历史传统以及深层意图,与历史实际不符。因此,如何用中国化、时代化的话语体系阐释并升华党的情感治理经验,是情感史研究面临的重要课题。
The third is the cognitive tension between the universal human nature presupposition of emotions and the particularity of the Party history context. Many emotional classifications and theories derived from modern psychology are rooted in specific cultural backgrounds and may not be directly applicable to the emotional forms within CPC history. For example, in mainstream psychological theory, “sadness” is usually understood as an individual’s painful emotion caused by the loss of an important object; but in the context of Party history, the expression of personal sadness is often replaced by “turning grief into strength,” thereby transforming individual sadness into higher loyalty and enthusiasm for the collective cause. The “sacrificing life and forgetting death” during the revolutionary war years, the “selfless dedication” during the socialist construction period, and the “pioneering and forging ahead” during the reform and opening up process — these emotion-laden expressions, bearing the imprint of their times, are deeply embedded in the ideals and beliefs, historical environment, and collective mobilization of specific historical stages. Therefore, researchers must be wary of the potential risk of “using the hearts of today’s people to measure the emotions of the ancients,” and through solid historical source analysis, strive to understand and restore the unique emotional logic and world of meaning within the context of Party history.
再次是情感的普遍人性预设与党史情境特殊性之间的认知张力。源自现代心理学的许多情感分类与理论,根植于特定的文化背景,未必能直接适用于中共党史中的情感形态。例如在主流心理学理论中,“悲伤”通常被理解为个体因失去重要客体而产生的痛苦情绪;但在党史语境下,取代个人悲伤表达的往往是“化悲痛为力量”,从而将个体的悲伤情绪转化为对集体事业的更高忠诚与热情。革命战争年代的“舍生忘死”、社会主义建设时期的“无私奉献”、改革开放进程中的“开拓奋进”,这些饱含时代印记的情感表达都深深嵌入特定历史阶段的理想信念、时代环境与集体动员之中。因此,研究者需警惕“以今人之心,度古人之情”的潜在风险,通过扎实的史料辨析,力求理解并还原党史脉络中特有的情感逻辑与意义世界。
Finally, there is the problem of coordinating and balancing the dimension of emotional explanation with other explanatory dimensions. The development of Party history is the result of the complex interweaving and joint action of theoretical innovation, institutional construction, economic and social change, and even contingent factors. Emotion often plays the role of catalyst, intensifier, or symbolic expression within this, rather than being an independent, fundamental driving force. Emotion research should not stop at describing the presentation of emotions such as loyalty, faith, and enthusiasm in Party history; it must go further to deeply analyze how these emotions are shaped by the Party’s ideology, how they are combined with the fundamental interests of the people, and how they are cultivated, transmitted, and sublimated through organizational life, propaganda systems, and cultural symbols. Only by examining emotions within the interactive field of multiple factors—political, economic, social, and cultural—can we truly grasp the complex threads of Party history’s development in the dialectical unity of emotion and reason, spirit and matter, individual experience and structural change.
最后是情感解释维度与其他解释维度之间的协同平衡难题。党史发展是理论创新、制度构建、经济社会变革乃至偶然性因素复杂交织、共同作用的结果。情感在其中往往扮演着催化、强化或象征性表达的角色,而非独立的、根本性的驱动力量。情感研究不应止步于描述忠诚、信念、热情等情感在党史中的呈现,更应深入分析这些情感如何被党的意识形态所塑造、如何与人民群众的根本利益相结合,又如何通过组织生活、宣传系统与文化符号得以培育、传递与升华。唯有将情感置于与政治、经济、社会、文化等多种因素互动场域中进行考察,我们才能在情感与理性、精神与物质、个体体验与结构变迁的辩证统一中,真正把握党史发展的复杂脉络。
Explanatory Boundaries and Methodological Integration
解释边界与方法整合
While the study of the history of emotions displays its multi-dimensional tensions, its reasonable explanatory boundaries are also becoming increasingly clear.
情感史研究在展现其多维张力的同时,其合理的解释边界亦日益明晰。
At the level of source material use, the study of emotions in Party history faces unique challenges. First-hand emotional records that directly and truthfully reflect the inner worlds of historical figures are often scarce. The emotional expressions found in the large volume of surviving Party history documents, propaganda materials, literary and artistic works, and even memoirs usually carry clear intentions and purposes. Researchers must carefully distinguish between the emotional expression strategies of the text and the possible differences from the real experiences behind them. Through comparison and cross-verification of multiple types of materials—archives, newspapers, diaries, oral accounts, physical objects, etc.—they can gradually approach the complex reality of historical emotions within the interweaving of political discourse and individual experience.
在史料运用层面,党史中的情感研究面临特有的挑战。直接、真实反映历史人物内心世界的一手情感记录往往稀缺。大量留存的党史文献、宣传品、文艺作品乃至回忆录中的情感表达,通常承载着明确的导向与意图。研究者必须仔细辨析文本的情感表述策略,与其背后可能存在的真实体验之间的差异,通过对档案、报刊、日记、口述、实物等多类型材料的比对与互证,在政治话语与个体经验的交织中,逐渐接近历史情感的复杂本相。
At the level of analytical methods, the interpretation of emotions in Party history inevitably carries the subjective coloring of the interpreter. Faced with the same text, different researchers, based on different perspectives, may form interpretations that each have their own emphasis yet are all reasonably valid. To enhance the objectivity and persuasiveness of research, we should actively draw on mature text-processing methods such as discourse analysis, content analysis, and narrative analysis, systematically sorting out the emotional rhetoric in revolutionary discourse, the emotional currents in collective narratives, and the patterns of mentality in political expression. Genuine methodological self-awareness is embodied in the ability to flexibly select and organically integrate multiple research methods according to the problem under study, thereby forming an analytical paradigm for emotions that conforms to the disciplinary characteristics of Party history.
在分析方法层面,党史中的情感解读不可避免地带有阐释者的主观色彩。面对同一文本,不同研究者基于不同视角,可能形成各有侧重却均具合理性的阐释。为增强研究的客观性与说服力,我们应当主动借鉴话语分析、内容分析、叙事分析等成熟的文本处理方法,系统梳理革命话语中的情感修辞、集体叙事中的情绪脉络、政治表达中的心态模式。真正的方法自觉,体现在能根据所研究的问题,灵活选择并有机整合多种研究方法,进而形成符合党史学科特点的情感分析范式。
At the level of explanatory efficacy, we must soberly recognize the actual boundary of the role of emotional factors in Party history. Although emotions can strengthen identification, catalyze action, and influence decision-making, they ultimately find it difficult to become the fundamental driving force of historical development on their own. Party history shows that it is precisely by relying on correct political lines, scientific theoretical guidance, a rigorous organizational system, and the ability to continuously respond to the people’s needs that our Party has been able to lead the people to continuous victory. If the role of emotions is overemphasized or even exaggerated, it is easy to fall into the rut of “emotional determinism,” thereby obscuring the more fundamental institutional, structural, and socio-economic driving forces in the historical process. Researchers should uphold dialectical materialism, clearly define the scope, conditions, and methods of emotion’s role while affirming its agency, and maintain a moderate restraint and boundary awareness in academic interpretation.
在解释效力层面,必须清醒认识到情感因素在党史中的实际作用边界。情感虽然能够强化认同、催化行动、影响决策,但终究难以单独成为历史发展的根本动力。党的历史表明,正是依靠正确的政治路线、科学的理论指导、严密的组织体系和不断回应人民需求的能力,我们党才能带领人民不断取得胜利。若过度强调甚至夸大情感的作用,容易陷入“情感决定论”的窠臼,从而遮蔽历史进程中更为基础性的制度、结构与社会经济动因。研究者应当秉持唯物辩证法,在肯定情感能动性的同时,清晰界定其作用的范围、条件与方式,保持学术阐释的适度克制与边界意识。
It is precisely the existence of these explanatory boundaries that raises the demand for a higher level of academic self-awareness and integrative capacity in the study of emotions within Party history. Specifically, the author believes that methodological construction and integration should be continuously advanced in at least the following three directions.
正是这些解释边界的存在,对党史中的情感研究提出了更高层次的学术自觉与整合能力要求,具体而言,笔者认为至少应在以下三个方向上持续推进方法论建设与融合。
First, adhere to the two-way cross-verification of close textual reading and historical context. Emotional analysis must never stop at extracting emotional words and phrases from materials; rather, every document must be re-examined by placing it back within the relational networks, power structures, and historical backgrounds in which it was produced. By investigating the text’s generative mechanisms, the author’s identity positioning, the expressive norms and discursive constraints of the time, we can distinguish which aspects of emotional narration may belong to personal experience at that time, which belong to post-hoc recognition and construction based on Party spirit principles, which more reflect individual feelings, and which are internalized or represent the collective will of the Party organization.
其一,坚持文本精读与历史语境的双向互证。情感分析绝不能止步于对材料中情感词句的摘取,而必须将每一份文献重新置于其得以产生的关系网络、权力结构与历史背景中加以审视,通过考察文本的生成机制、作者的身份定位、当时的表达规范与话语约束,辨析情感叙述中哪些可能属于彼时的个人体验,哪些属于基于党性原则的事后追认与建构,哪些更多反映个体感受,哪些则内化或代表了党组织的集体意志。
Second, promote the organic combination of micro-level case studies and macro-level comparison. On the one hand, it is necessary to select representative historical emotional fields—such as the Yan’an Rectification Movement[n], the Resist US and Aid Korea Campaign[n], and the ideological emancipation at the beginning of reform and opening up—and, by sorting out the mechanisms of emotion generation, interaction, management, and transformation in specific situations, reveal the intrinsic connection between emotions and major historical processes. On the other hand, we must go beyond single cases, adopting a comparative perspective across periods, fields, and even cultures to examine the continuity, change, and innovation of the Party’s tradition of emotional governance. On the basis of empirical research, we can refine analytical concepts and middle-range theories with universal explanatory power.
其二,推动微观个案与宏观比较的有机结合。一方面,需要选取诸如延安整风、抗美援朝运动、改革开放初期思想解放等具有代表性的历史情感场域,通过梳理具体情境中情感的生成、互动、管理与转化机制,揭示情感与重大历史进程之间的内在关联。另一方面,必须超越单一案例,通过跨时期、跨领域乃至跨文化的比较视野,考察党的情感治理传统的延续、变迁与创新,在经验研究的基础上,提炼具有普遍解释力的分析概念与中层理论。
Third, promote dialogue and complementarity between humanistic interpretation and social science methods. The study of emotions in Party history must both hold fast to its humanistic foundation, using methods such as thick description, hermeneutics, and narratology to capture the complex mentalities, emotional fluctuations, and belief transformations of Party members and the masses at specific historical junctures, striving to restore the vivid lives and spiritual worlds—bearing ideals, loyalty, sacrifice, and struggle—in the Party’s history; and also be open to borrowing analytical methods and tools from neighboring disciplines such as sociology, political science, and communication studies, to accurately grasp historical experiences such as how the Party shaped collective emotions and how organizational mobilization relied on and reshaped emotional networks. Thus, on the basis of methodological self-awareness, we can more fully understand the role emotions have played in the Party’s historical process.
其三,促进人文阐释与社会科学方法的对话与互补。党史情感研究既要坚守人文底色,运用深描、诠释学、叙事学等方法,捕捉党员、群众在特定历史关头的复杂心态、情绪波动与信仰嬗变,致力于还原党的历史上那些承载着理想、忠诚、牺牲与奋斗的鲜活生命及其精神世界;也要开放借鉴社会学、政治学、传播学等相邻学科的分析方法与工具,准确把握党的历史上如何塑造集体情感、组织动员如何依赖并重塑情感网络等历史经验,从而在方法论自觉的基础上,更完整地理解情感在党的历史进程中所发挥的作用。
In sum, the significance of the study of the history of emotions lies not only in opening up a humanistic dimension full of warmth for the narrative of Party history, but also in prompting us to continuously reflect on the complex relationship between objectivity and subjectivity, regularity and experientiality in the study of Party history. When researchers can clearly recognize what they “can do” and “cannot do,” when it can both delve into the inner worlds of historical figures and maintain a prudent attitude toward the overall complexity of Party history, the history of emotions can truly become an indispensable component of Party history research. In the New Era, the study of emotions in Party history should be even more committed to providing vivid historical footnotes for understanding the Party’s past, present, and future; within the unity of rigorous academic norms and clear value orientation, it should contribute unique wisdom and strength from Party history research to the construction of a philosophical and social science system with Chinese characteristics.
总之,情感史研究的意义,不仅在于为党史叙事开辟了充满温情的人文维度,更在于它促使我们不断反思党史研究中客观性与主体性、规律性与体验性之间的复杂关系。当研究者能够清晰认识到自己“能做什么”与“不能做什么”,当它既能深入历史人物的内心世界,又能保持对党史整体复杂性的审慎,情感史便能真正成为党史研究不可或缺的组成部分。在新时代,党史中的情感研究更应致力于为理解党的过去、现在与未来提供鲜活的历史注脚;在严谨学术规范与明确价值导向的统一中,为构建中国特色哲学社会科学体系贡献来自党史研究的独特智慧与力量。
(Author: Wang Xiaosi, is a specially appointed researcher at the Anhui Provincial Research Center for the Theoretical System of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics and a professor at the School of History, Anhui Normal University.)
(作者:汪效驷,系安徽省中国特色社会主义理论体系研究中心特约研究员、安徽师范大学历史学院教授)
Notes
- The “Cave Dialogue” (窑洞对) refers to a famous exchange in 1945 in Yan’an between CPC leader Mao Zedong and visiting democratic personage Huang Yanpei, where Huang raised the historical cycle of rise and fall, and Mao responded that the CPC had found a way out through popular supervision. ↩
- “Popular sentiment is the greatest politics” (民心是最大的政治) is a frequently cited formulation by Xi Jinping, emphasizing that the will and support of the people are the ultimate measure of political legitimacy. ↩
- The Yan’an Rectification Movement (1942–1944) was a Party-wide campaign to study Marxist-Leninist texts, criticize subjectivist and sectarian tendencies, and establish Mao Zedong’s ideological leadership.
- The Resist US and Aid Korea Campaign (1950–1953) was the Chinese name for the Korean War, framed as a volunteer effort to defend China’s border against US-led forces.