Moving The Masses: Emotion Work In The Chinese Revolution

“The two revolutionary efforts differed from top to bottom in the extent to which they relied upon what Hochschild has termed “emotion work”—or “the act of trying to change in degree or quality an emotion or feeling”—in pursuing their goals (Hochschild 1979).”

“See, for example, Thompson (1971).”

“So too did structural factors such as class cleavages, international pressures, and state weakness (Moore 1966; Skocpol 1979).”

“…recently begun to address: the translation of radical ideas and images into purposeful and effective action demands not only conducive environmental conditions, but also substantial emotional engagement on the part of leaders and followers alike (Gamson 1992; Taylor 1995; Aminzade and McAdam 2001).”

“As previous scholars have noted, such techniques drew creatively upon dominant themes in Chinese political discourse that emphasize group—more than individual—bases of morality (Lifton 1963; Cialdani 1993; Solomon 1971).”

“See, for example, Thompson (1971).”

“This distinction was evidently related to a Confucian emphasis (consistent with MarxismLeninism) on the fundamental malleability and perfectibility of human beings (Lifton 1963: chapter 20; Munro 1977).”

“See also Reddy (1999).”

“Although the Nationalists also made attempts to develop a popular following, they were hampered in these efforts by a conservative outlook that bespoke a deep distrust and fear of mass spontaneity (Hung 1994).”

“To a lesser extent, scholars have stressed the organizational superiority of the Communists (Hofheinz 1977; Chen 1986).”

“2 See Esherick and Wasserstrom (1994) for the impact of this theatrical tradition on the Tiananmen Uprising of 1989.”

“As Paul Cohen has discovered in his study of national humiliation commemorations, as soon as the Nationalists gained political control in the spring of 1927, they moved swiftly to tame and formalize these expressions of mass emotion (Cohen 2002).”

“For one thing, Communist cadres tended to issue from somewhat lower socioeconomic backgrounds than their Nationalist counterparts, thereby putting them on a closer footing (culturally and psychologically, and materially) with most of the people they were attempting to mobilize (North 1952).”

“The link between violent acts and emotional liberation had been clearly recognized at the outset of the revolutionary process, perhaps as a product of the early Communists’ fascination with anarchist ideas (Zarrow 1990; Dirlik 1991).”

“To a lesser extent, scholars have stressed the organizational superiority of the Communists (Hofheinz 1977; Chen 1986).”

“…of land reform, while highlighting the ideological aims of the movement, nevertheless provide valuable information on ways in which the Communists encouraged— indeed demanded—public expressions of anger, fear, and shame (Myrdal 1965; Hinton 1967; Snow 1963; Crook and Crook 1979; Endicott 1991).”

“According to the post mortem of a central participant, the Tiananmen protests of 1989 were fatally flawed by the students’ own unconscious acceptance of many of the tenets of Maoist revolution (Liu 1994).”

“For example, Perry (2002) shows how the Communist Party under Mao used “ emotion work ” in order to mobilize people for political campaigns like land reform efforts.”

“…however, shows the influence of leaders in addition to pre-existing cultural traits and 7 This is not to say that the revolutionary ardor necessarily cools, as some leaders (Mao in China, for example), periodically stoked the fires of populism in order to renew the populist zeal (Perry, 2002).”

“Similar to what I am proposing here, Elizabeth Perry (2002) and Deborah Gould (2002) have demonstrated how activists target both society and state through working on feelings.”

“52 Goodwin, Jaspern and Poletta 2001; Goodwin, Jasper, and Poletta 2000; Jasper 1998, 2011, 2014, ; Pearlman 2013; Flam and King 2005; Benski and Langman 2013; Gould 2009; Eyerman and Jamison 1991; Albert 2013; Cadena-Roa 2002; Taylor and Rupp 2002; Perry 2002.”

“…Harre, 1986) has been applied to social movements to examine the relevance of concepts such as emotion culture (Taylor, 2000; Taylor and Rupp, 2002), emotional achievement (Yang, 2000), emotional habitus (Calhoun, 2001), emotional labour (Groves, 1995) and emotion work (Gould, 2002; Perry, 2002).”

“Perry (2002), for example, illustrated the relationship between cultural resonance and conscious strategic “emotion work by the Communist Party in China during and after the Cultural Revolution.”

“…en un contexto social, cultural y político en el que, como demostraron Maney, Woehrle y Coy (2009), no hay que desestimar el impacto de la dimensión emocional de la hegemonía ni el uso estratégico de las emociones por parte del Estado o de los partidos políticos, como también destaca Perry (2002).”

“However, buying stability and resorting to relational connections cannot be easily applied on a large-scale basis because Hence, many local authorities fail to fully accommodate protesters because financial resources the downward trend of collective protests in China after the mid-2010s.”

“9 It certainly seems that liberals’ labeling and problematization of anti-gay beliefs help to chip away at the legitimacy of overtly anti-gay statements and policies, but we must attend to what emerges to fill in the gap—is it equality, or in what ways might it work as a different form of heterocentrism? As in other c…”

“9 Perry 2002, 112. shaping of emotions into revolutionary forms.”

“68 Perry 2002.”

“These studies suggest that the Chinese government and the CCP employs a model of ‘ emotion work ’ that utilizes emotions such as fear, sadness, anger, and shame to exert a sustainable in fl uence on contemporary Chinese politics (Perry 2002).”

“It developed a foundation of emotion work, which was systematized and standardized following the CCP’s 1949 political victory [31].”

“Perry (2002) borrowed Hochschild’s (1979) term “emotion work” to understand how the CPC heightens emotional commitment among cadres and ordinary recruits to their cause.”

“One of the CCP’s founding strengths was evoking an emotional response among supporters (Perry 2002, Perry 2013), and part of its appeal lay in the promised trajectory toward a communist utopia.”

“Scholars including Elizabeth Perry (2002) and Yu Liu (2010) have discussed the mobilization of emotions in Chinese political discourse, accompanied by various rituals and rituallike campaigns to reinforce the connection between passion and politics expressed through a specific term, re’ai 熱愛…”

“The techniques applied to achieve thought reform— whether they were so-called “brainwash[ing]” (Lifton, 1961), “criticism and self-criticism” (Dittmer, 1973), “speaking bitterness” (Wu, 2013), “accusation” (Strauss, 2002), or “emotion work” (Perry, 2002)—were all premised upon the belief that the human mind was highly…”

“The term “citizen” ( gongmin ) literally translates into “public person” and connotes a Confucian notion of public service (Goldman and Perry 2002: 4).”

“In accordance with this idea, during the Maoist era, “emotion work”14 was an explicit and prominent feature in techniques of mobilizing the masses, through changing the degree or quality of their emotional disposition in order to pursue revolutionary goals (Perry, 2002).”

“The studies gathered here draw their signi fi cance from the Chinese party-state ’ s long history of producing affective regimes (Perry 2002).”

“Within China’s political tradition, ‘emotional work’ has long been one of the decisive factors in the outcome of revolution (Perry, 2002).”

“Many scholars have noticed the close relationship between Communist principles and traditional Chinese ethics (Liu, 2010; Perry, 2002; Pye, 1992).”

“In the conduct theorised as “ moral performance ” (Xu 2016), “ cultural governance ” (Perry 2002), “ perfor-mative governance ” (Ding 2022), scholars have demonstrated that the central fi gures in these showcases of the state ’ s legitimacy and successful management are masculine, father-like…”

“But it does not look more deeply at the ways in which feeling and thinking might be intimately and dynamically linked in this process, nor does it range more widely than highly inflammatory mass campaigns (Perry, 2002: 111–128).”

“Other works by Perry and Wasserstrom on cultural politics, albeit not sociological, are worth noting here, given their historical depth and affinity with the tenets of cultural sociology (Esherick and Wasserstrom, 1990; Perry, 2002, 2012; Wasserstrom, 1991).”

“Techniques of emotional provocation were extensively used in political campaigns to construct various kinds of fear and hate figures, through which Mao is regarded as “a master at connecting passion and politics” (Perry 2002, 112).”

“…the determining factor of emotion work in CCP propaganda and mobilization efforts, as old emotional ties were replaced with what Lee calls the “socialist grammar of emotion,” and new ways of feeling either usurped or rode as parasite upon old emotional bonds (Lee 2006; Lee 2019, 23–24; Perry 2002).”

“The success of this mobilization strategy is the sincerity hidden behind the strategy, just as Perry (2002) notes,”

“Research suggests that the CCP has employed a model of “ emotion work, ” utilizing emotions such as fear, grief, rage, and shame to exert a sustainable in fl uence on contemporary Chinese politics (Perry, 2002).”

“As subject of these struggle sessions, Deng was exposed to peasants’ “speaking bitterness”, an important means of emotion control in Maoist China (Perry 2002).”

“As Elizabeth Perry points out, it was Mao’s peasant simplicity that moved his compatriots to tears and anger, and then to revolutionary action (Perry, 2002).”

“A few studies try to theorize it (Gould, 2010; Perry, 2002).”

“Elizabeth Perry (2002) and others have pointed out that the Chinese Communist Party’s success can be explained in several different ways — for example, by structural factors (Moore 1966; Skocpol 1979), by the CCP’s organizational superiority (Hofheinz 1977; Chen 1986), and, recently, by “the…”

“Writing under socialism was not an easy job; however, the regime itself used and widely abused the potential of arts and literature to act as mass media, and influence the general opinion, modulate beliefs, and shape emotional group processes (12, 17).”

“Scholarship in this area is multifaceted and varied, addressing an array of topics, such as the ways in which emotions incite collective action and persuade individuals to join movements (Gould 2001; Jasper 1997, 1998; Robnett 2004), how emotions factor into movement persistence (Perry 2002) or deterioration (Klatch 2…”

“Historically, affective strategies employed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), including emotional mobilization and rituals such as “ speaking bitterness, ” criticism, and self-criticism, have effectively rallied popular support since revolutionary times (Perry, 2002).”