Search results

Having described the context of the anti-spiritual pollution drive, the study traces its rise and demise from October 1983 through January 1984, drawing attention to key activists and targets. Main issue in the criticism of spiritual pollution on the ideological and literary art fronts were humanism and alienation in socialist society. Development of strong opposition within the Chinese Communist Party to the external opening, social freedoms and internal party reforms over the past five years

Bands of young men took to the streets of Shanghai in late 1978, shouting slogans, vandalizing stores, putting up wall posters, imprisoning municipal officials in their offices and disrupting rail traffic. To many Shanghainese, it was déjà vu, a replay of Red Guard activities during the Cultural Revolution (CR), and small wonder, as the participants were those same youths who had rampaged through the city and then foresworn the urban security of Shanghai to go up to the mountains and down to the countryside to build socialism. Now, a decade later, disillusioned, alienated, in dire economic straits, unmarried and abandoned, they had ridden a "back to the city wind" and were determined to stay.