Southeast Review of Asian Studies Scholarly Note: Science Innovation during the Cultural Revolution 227
Volume 31 (2009), pp. 226–32
closed. That fall Mao relocated to the countryside over ten million intellec-
tuals, city cadres, and students, including Red Guards (Simon and Gold-
man 1989). One of those sent down to the countryside proved to be the fu-
Science Innovation during the Cultural ture Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao (b. 1942), who had studied geology before
his February 1968 exile to the deserts of Gansu province (Solomone 2006).
Revolution: Notes from the Peking Review Scientists initially seemed protected from the Cultural Revolution. The
Peking Review in 1966 encouraged the “soaring revolutionary enthusiasm”
DARRYL E. BROCK of the masses, but it also urged caution at scientific research establishments
lest it “affect the normal progress of production” (Peking Review 1966;
Fordham University
Wang, Chia, and Li 1966). Despite the Review’s assurances, the fact is that
of the four hundred technical journals extant in 1965, most soon ceased
In this scholarly note, Darryl Brock utilizes numerous articles from the Peking Review
publication, with only twenty journals remaining in 1969 (Jia 2006).
to argue that scientific and technical innovation among the “mass line” existed at sur- Joseph Needham (1900–1995), the eminent biologist and sinologist,
prising levels during the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966–76). commented in Nature on the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, based on a
trip he took to China in April 1978. Needham branded the Gang of Four as
“fundamentally anti-intellectual, and inimical to scientists and technolo-
The Cultural Revolution: A “Disaster” for China? gists in particular,” adding they had added to the list of eight evil kinds of
people a “stinking ninth category” of intellectuals and scientists. An in-
The story of the Cultural Revolution is well known. Chairman Mao (1893– credulous Needham cites various atrocities, including torture of scientists.
1976) and the “Gang of Four” shut down universities, dismantled scientific In one case an esteemed pathology professor was required to “lecture on
institutes, and punished intellectuals for elitist, bourgeois inclinations. Mil- carcinogenesis to medical students while they were picking cotton” (Need-
lions of scientists and students suffered banishment to the countryside to ham 1978, 832, 833).
spend wasted years being re-educated by peasants. The death of Chairman Notwithstanding Needham’s sober assessment of the excesses, one
Mao ushered in an era of modernization by Deng Xiaoping (1904–97) and should not overlook the achievements of the Cultural Revolution. China
the new leadership. They focused not only on repealing the strictures of the launched its first earth satellite in 1970 as a result of Mao-era innovation,
Cultural Revolution but also on undoing its damage and implementing new, followed by a scientific satellite in the subsequent year. There was also pro-
enlightened policies to support innovation, with a goal of eventually rejoin- gress in lasers, semiconductors, electronics, and computing technology.
ing the world as a leading scientific nation. Even in theoretical research there was the breakthrough of synthesizing the
That may be a familiar account, but it is an incomplete one. The “mass world’s first biologically active protein, crystalline pig insulin, using the
line” of the Cultural Revolution in fact catalyzed surprising levels of scien- method of X-ray diffraction. This development laid the groundwork for
tific innovation, particularly as revealed in the pages of Peking Review (later Shanghai becoming the cradle for biotechnology in China (Sigurdson 1980).
renamed the Beijing Review), a weekly English-language news magazine es-
tablished in 1958 to communicate economic, political, and cultural news The Peking Review: A Chronicle of Innovation
and developments with the rest of the world.
Those are not isolated occurrences of scientific innovation; in fact, the
Science under Siege? Communist news publication Peking Review reveals high levels of technical
innovation. During the 1966–70 period alone, which covers the early, most
Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution moved swiftly to establish control of radical years of the Cultural Revolution, I have identified ninety-four indi-
Chinese institutions. By 1967 “Revolutionary committees” composed of vidual articles that focus primarily on scientific and technological innova-
student Red Guards, members of the People’s Liberation Army, and party tion. These cover agriculture, industry, military defense, and broad areas of
cadres assumed governmental authority in manufacturing, scientific insti- science and technology such as chemistry, geology, and paleontology. Rec-
tutions, and elsewhere. As 1968 commenced, universities had already been ognizing the critical categories presented by the post-Mao leadership, I
have organized innovations into the categories of Deng Xiaoping’s Four
© 2009 Southeast Conference of the Association for Asian Studies
228 D. E. Brock Scholarly Note: Science Innovation during the Cultural Revolution 229
Modernizations of the post-Mao era: Agriculture; Industry; Defense; and Fifty-six articles that focused on industry appeared in the Peking Re-
Science and Technology. view between 1966 and 1970. Although most relate to manufacturing inno-
vations, several of the articles focus on civil engineering projects, such as
Agricultural Innovation bridges, or launching of new merchant marine ship classes. A 1966 report
Inadequate technical support has characterized a nation that through on developing an indigenous-frequency clock for power metering repre-
the Cultural Revolution found at least 80 percent of the population engaged sented a technical challenge: Such precision clocks must lose only one sec-
in agricultural production (Sigurdson 1980). Even so, Mao’s policies before ond per day. Representing significant mass-line experimental effort,
and during the Cultural Revolution to engage the masses did have a posi- worker-technician Fang Ku-Ken reported feeling shame that a Chinese-
tive effect of upgrading peasant technical skills and capabilities. By the end built hydroelectric power station would be equipped with a fragile 1920s era
of the Cultural Revolution, some 14 million peasant agro-technicians had bourgeois, Western-imported frequency clock. Fang experimented for
upgraded their practical farming skills, their training varying from semi- months in a small concrete cell, sweltering in the summer heat, until he
nars on fertilizer application to multi-year agricultural study programs detected the reason for a 0.3-second variance in a swinging pendulum. He
(Volti 1982). then implemented an innovation of separating the pendulum from the
Nine agriculture-focused articles appeared in the Peking Review be- gears, employing “oscillations by means of electricity” to signal the gears
tween 1966 and 1970. These present research ranging from developing po- from the pendulum. A “triumph” of Mao-inspired thought, his team intro-
tato strains resistant to degeneration, to the design of China’s first self- duced the frequency clock in September 1965 (Fang 1966, 27, 28).
propelled combine harvester. A charming example of peasant science—the
science of the mass line—is the 1966 report on peanut research by the ener- Defense Innovation
getic peasant-scientist Yao Shih-Chang, who admitted to only four years of Military research and development occurred with much less interrup-
formal schooling. Selecting only two peanut plants for study, he admittedly tion than in other areas, its scientists enjoying protection from the Cultural
exhibited flawed understanding of experimental design: the peasant- Revolution due to the national security considerations related to their work.
scientist had no idea of variability among treatments and no conception of These high-priority fields included nuclear physics, missile research, and
the need for at least three samples per treatment in order to perform even military research (Ridley 1976). The result: remarkable technology achieve-
the simplest of statistics. Even so, he demonstrated remarkable dedication, ments including the 1964 atom bomb explosion, the hydrogen bomb three
taking data several times a night and sometimes sleeping next to his plants. years later, production of integrated circuits by 1968, and an orbital satellite
He claimed to have discovered a new method of cultivation, increasing pea- by 1970 (Berner 1975).
nut yields by 10 to 23 percent. The internal evidence supports this account Eight articles that focused on military defense appeared in the Peking
as relatively accurate, for a thoughtful propagandist would likely have manu- Review between 1966 and 1970. Most of these relate to nuclear testing and
factured a more knowledgeable and impressive peasant-scientist (Yao 1966). nuclear delivery systems. China’s first hydrogen-bomb explosion claimed
the headline on June 17, 1967. The Review proclaimed: “after five nuclear
Industrial Innovation tests in two years and eight months, China successfully exploded her first
Mao’s epistemology claimed that production represented the sure path hydrogen bomb over the western region of the country.” A tribute to Chair-
to knowledge. During the Cultural Revolution, production workers grew man Mao, their great helmsman, said: “In the fields of the struggle for pro-
more familiar with technology as experts worked alongside them. Industrial duction and scientific experiment . . . man has constantly to sum up experi-
innovation, however, proved more an Edisonian “trial-and-error” approach ence and go on discovering, inventing, creating and advancing.” Proudly
rather than one relying on a theoretical, scientific basis (Suttmeier 1974). reminding that China has atom bombs, guided missiles, and now the
Innovation also served specific individual motivations: Technical workers hydrogen bomb, the Review explained the importance of this achievement:
recently from the university recognized that, by proving themselves with “This greatly heightens the morale of the revolutionary people throughout
innovations, they could shorten their political re-education on the work- the world and greatly deflates the arrogance of imperialism, modern re-
shop floor, thereby securing promotions. Their management also valued visionism, and all reactionaries” (Peking Review 1967b).
innovation; it allowed them to pursue projects unofficially as worker-
innovations when difficult state regulations could not be met. As a result,
innovation came to be routine and desirable (Dean 1979).
230 D. E. Brock Scholarly Note: Science Innovation during the Cultural Revolution 231
Science & Technology Innovation qualified success. On the other hand, post-Mao leadership typically viewed
By 1968 a Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) “Study Group of Mao the Cultural Revolution as an unmitigated catastrophe for China. Sigrid
Zedong Thought” had organized, soon denouncing a number of natural- Schmalzer cautions that “there are compelling reasons why we should not
sciences theories. The first target that emerged was Albert Einstein’s theory entirely abandon the earlier, positive accounts and follow the post-Mao nar-
of relativity, which was viewed contrary to dialectical materialism (Hu 2007). rative too slavishly” (2007, 579).
Genetics research also came to a halt in 1966 with the last issue of the pres- So what conclusions does the Peking Review reveal about scientific in-
tigious journal of the CAS Genetics Institute, though it began to revive novation during the Cultural Revolution? Universities shut down and aca-
somewhat by 1972 with Zhou Enlai’s (1898–1976) efforts (Schneider 1989). demic research came to a halt, but state-protected science related to defense
On the other hand, the mass line seemed to benefit various sciences, such as and national prestige remained. Innovation continued, but it was primarily
seismology. By the end of the Cultural Revolution, 100,000 amateur seis- related to production in an Edisonian, non-theoretical way. The physics of
mologists manned 10,000 stations, complementing 300 professionally staffed relativity and the science of genetics took major hits, but the mass line
stations. Meteorology and national weather forecasting also benefitted. The proved to have benefits in areas where millions of field assistants could be
post-Mao era inherited a network of 16,000 commune-run weather posts employed—fields such as seismology and weather monitoring. Future dec-
and rain-measuring stations, working in collaboration with weather sta- ades would witness a gap between science and talent among professionals,
tions and the Central Meteorological Observatory, primarily to serve agri- due to the “dead weight” of the poorly prepared Cultural Revolution gen-
culture (Sigurdson 1980). eration; however, millions of rural peasants gained access to science and
Twenty-one articles that focused on science and technology in the technology for the first time. Despite the general disaster of the Cultural
broadest sense appeared in the Peking Review between 1966 and 1970. The Revolution, it may be argued that, in some ways, Chairman Mao’s science
disciplines covered are varied, including physics, chemistry, biochemistry, policy did have benefits to scientific innovation and that the mass line
paleontology, geology, medicine, and science education. Some specific emerged better prepared to meet a technological future in the final decades
achievements included China’s first benzene workshop, a survey of Mt. Ev- of the twentieth century.
erest (Mt. Jolmo Lungma), and the locating of subterranean water. The
world-shaking report of the first total synthesis of crystalline insulin ap- Note
peared on January 1, 1967, oddly enough more than a year after the actual
September 17, 1965, event. As Sigurdson (1980) has pointed out, this work The author expresses appreciation to Egyptian Ambassador Sallama Shaker for her
had been initiated in the late 1950s, during the Great Leap Forward (1958– suggestions and insights into the original project that led to this paper.
61). The discovery represented “man’s great effort to unveil the secrets of
life and provides powerful new evidence for the materialist-dialectical the- References
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