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Rectification as an approach to inner–Party discipline emphasizes persuasive methods and education, but it does not eschew coercive measures including the purge. As students of Chinese politics are well aware, this form of coercive persuasion was comprehensively developed in the early 1940s as Mao Tse–tung consolidated his leadership, rectification theories were expounded, and the first rectification campaign of 1942–44 was carried out. Official histories and much scholarly analysis identify rectification with Mao while asserting that other leaders advocated sharply contrasting approaches. Thus CCP leaders before 1935 purportedly pushed coercive disciplinary methods – dubbed "ruthless struggles and merciless blows " – while Mao attempted to foster systematic education. Mao's undoubted contributions to rectifi cation notwithstanding, the following analysis argues that this view both overstates actual differences and overlooks the developing nature of Mao's position.

In my article, "Before and after the Cultural Revolution" (Report from China, The China Quarterly, No. 58), I reported that while "most" graduates of Chinese universities were slated to return to their original production units some received assignments from the The Assignment of University Graduates in China, 1974 state. At the time (September–October 1973) Chinese officials were unable to provide a breakdown of the two types ostensibly because no university classes had yet graduated. In November 1974, a discussion with members of a delegation from the Academia Sinica to Australia provided important new information on this question. Speaking of Peking University which graduated its first post-Cultural Revolution class in January 1974, delegation members did not give a precise or even rough statistical breakdown but did say "most" had returned to their original posts or original localities – a significantly more elastic formulation than that used in 1973. Moreover, they further stated that students selected from factories mostly returned to those factories while students who had been educated youth sent to the countryside were mostly allocated by the central planning agency to various departments. The body doing the actual allocation is the Office for Science and Education under the State Planning Commission.