Books in Brief

Peking’s Red Guards, by Stephen Pan and Raymond de Jaegher (Twin Circle,, $1.95). China’s so-called “cultural revolution” has stirred convulsions on the Communist mainland and confusion in the West. Amid tales of purge and counter purge, wall posters and paeans to Mao’s “thought,” the question of who was doing what to whom, and why, has had no very certain answer. As part of Twin Circle’s excellent series on aspects of the Communist challenge, sinologists Pan and de Jaegher have put together a comprehensive account of the “Red Guard” upheaval, richly documented from Communist sources and bottomed in the authors’ knowledge of Chinese history and Communist theory alike. They describe, step-by-step, the efforts of Mao Tse-tung and Lin Piao to shore up their sclerotic despotism by fomenting youthful revolution from the throne, to deploy the energies of youthful “rebellion” in service to the most rigid conformity. Resemblances to the New Left phenomenon in America are apparent on many counts—Marxian substance, dictatorial technique, and structural connection to senior orthodoxy. The Pan-de Jaegher narrative may be read for systematic instruction about the ills of Chinese society and flashes of insight into our own.

M. S. EVANS

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Peking’s Red Guards, by Stephen Pan and Raymond de Jaegher (Twin Circle,, $1.95). China’s so-called “cultural revolution” has stirred convulsions on the Communist mainland and confusion in the West. Amid tales of purge and counter purge, wall posters and paeans to Mao’s “thought,” the question of who was doing what to whom, and why, has had no very certain answer. As part of Twin Circle’s excellent series on aspects of the Communist challenge, sinologists Pan and de Jaegher have put together a comprehensive account of the “Red Guard” upheaval, richly documented from Communist sources and bottomed in the authors’ knowledge of Chinese history and Communist theory alike. They describe, step-by-step, the efforts of Mao Tse-tung and Lin Piao to shore up their sclerotic despotism by fomenting youthful revolution from the throne, to deploy the energies of youthful “rebellion” in service to the most rigid conformity. Resemblances to the New Left phenomenon in America are apparent on many counts—Marxian substance, dictatorial technique, and structural connection to senior orthodoxy. The Pan-de Jaegher narrative may be read for systematic instruction about the ills of Chinese society and flashes of insight into our own.

M. S. EVANS