Southeast Review of Asian Studies
Volume 31 (2009), pp. 226–32
Science Innovation during the Cultural
Revolution: Notes from the Peking Review
DARRYL E. BROCK
Fordham University
In this scholarly note, Darryl Brock utilizes numerous articles from the Peking Review
to argue that scientic and technical innovation among the “mass line” existed at surprising levels during the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966–76).
The Cultural Revolution: A “Disaster” for China?
The story of the Cultural Revolution is well known. Chairman Mao (1893–
1976) and the “Gang of Four” shut down universities, dismantled scientic
institutes, and punished intellectuals for elitist, bourgeois inclinations. Millions of scientists and students suffered banishment to the countryside to
spend wasted years being re-educated by peasants. The death of Chairman
Mao ushered in an era of modernization by Deng Xiaoping (1904–97) and
the new leadership. They focused not only on repealing the strictures of the
Cultural Revolution but also on undoing its damage and implementing new,
enlightened policies to support innovation, with a goal of eventually rejoining the world as a leading scientic nation.
That may be a familiar account, but it is an incomplete one. The “mass
line” of the Cultural Revolution in fact catalyzed surprising levels of scientic innovation, particularly as revealed in the pages of Peking Review (later
renamed the Beijing Review), a weekly English-language news magazine established in 1958 to communicate economic, political, and cultural news
and developments with the rest of the world.
Science under Siege?
Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution moved swiftly to establish control of
Chinese institutions. By 1967 “Revolutionary committees” composed of
student Red Guards, members of the People’s Liberation Army, and party
cadres assumed governmental authority in manufacturing, scientic institutions, and elsewhere. As 1968 commenced, universities had already been
© 2009 Southeast Conference of the Association for Asian Studies
Scholarly Note: Science Innovation during the Cultural Revolution
227
closed. That fall Mao relocated to the countryside over ten million intellectuals, city cadres, and students, including Red Guards (Simon and Goldman 1989). One of those sent down to the countryside proved to be the future Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao (b. 1942), who had studied geology before
his February 1968 exile to the deserts of Gansu province (Solomone 2006).
Scientists initially seemed protected from the Cultural Revolution. The
Peking Review in 1966 encouraged the “soaring revolutionary enthusiasm”
of the masses, but it also urged caution at scientic research establishments
lest it “affect the normal progress of production” (Peking Review 1966;
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
publication, with only twenty journals remaining in 1969 (Jia 2006).
Joseph Needham (1900–1995), the eminent biologist and sinologist,
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 technologists in particular,” adding they had added to the list of eight evil kinds of
people a “stinking ninth category” of intellectuals and scientists. An incredulous Needham cites various atrocities, including torture of scientists.
In one case an esteemed pathology professor was required to “lecture on
carcinogenesis to medical students while they were picking cotton” (Needham 1978, 832, 833).
Notwithstanding Needham’s sober assessment of the excesses, one
should not overlook the achievements of the Cultural Revolution. China
launched its rst earth satellite in 1970 as a result of Mao-era innovation,
followed by a scientic satellite in the subsequent year. There was also progress in lasers, semiconductors, electronics, and computing technology.
Even in theoretical research there was the breakthrough of synthesizing the
world’s rst biologically active protein, crystalline pig insulin, using the
method of X-ray diffraction. This development laid the groundwork for
Shanghai becoming the cradle for biotechnology in China (Sigurdson 1980).
The Peking Review: A Chronicle of Innovation
Those are not isolated occurrences of scientic innovation; in fact, the
Communist news publication Peking Review reveals high levels of technical
innovation. During the 1966–70 period alone, which covers the early, most
radical years of the Cultural Revolution, I have identied ninety-four individual articles that focus primarily on scientic and technological innovation. These cover agriculture, industry, military defense, and broad areas of
science and technology such as chemistry, geology, and paleontology. Recognizing the critical categories presented by the post-Mao leadership, I
have organized innovations into the categories of Deng Xiaoping’s Four
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D. E. Brock
Modernizations of the post-Mao era: Agriculture; Industry; Defense; and
Science and Technology.
Agricultural Innovation
Inadequate technical support has characterized a nation that through
the Cultural Revolution found at least 80 percent of the population engaged
in agricultural production (Sigurdson 1980). Even so, Mao’s policies before
and during the Cultural Revolution to engage the masses did have a positive effect of upgrading peasant technical skills and capabilities. By the end
of the Cultural Revolution, some 14 million peasant agro-technicians had
upgraded their practical farming skills, their training varying from seminars on fertilizer application to multi-year agricultural study programs
(Volti 1982).
Nine agriculture-focused articles appeared in the Peking Review between 1966 and 1970. These present research ranging from developing potato strains resistant to degeneration, to the design of China’s rst selfpropelled combine harvester. A charming example of peasant science—the
science of the mass line—is the 1966 report on peanut research by the energetic peasant-scientist Yao Shih-Chang, who admitted to only four years of
formal schooling. Selecting only two peanut plants for study, he admittedly
exhibited awed understanding of experimental design: the peasantscientist had no idea of variability among treatments and no conception of
the need for at least three samples per treatment in order to perform even
the simplest of statistics. Even so, he demonstrated remarkable dedication,
taking data several times a night and sometimes sleeping next to his plants.
He claimed to have discovered a new method of cultivation, increasing peanut yields by 10 to 23 percent. The internal evidence supports this account
as relatively accurate, for a thoughtful propagandist would likely have manufactured a more knowledgeable and impressive peasant-scientist (Yao 1966).
Industrial Innovation
Mao’s epistemology claimed that production represented the sure path
to knowledge. During the Cultural Revolution, production workers grew
more familiar with technology as experts worked alongside them. Industrial
innovation, however, proved more an Edisonian “trial-and-error” approach
rather than one relying on a theoretical, scientic basis (Suttmeier 1974).
Innovation also served specic individual motivations: Technical workers
recently from the university recognized that, by proving themselves with
innovations, they could shorten their political re-education on the workshop oor, thereby securing promotions. Their management also valued
innovation; it allowed them to pursue projects unofcially as workerinnovations when difcult state regulations could not be met. As a result,
innovation came to be routine and desirable (Dean 1979).
Scholarly Note: Science Innovation during the Cultural Revolution
229
Fifty-six articles that focused on industry appeared in the Peking Review between 1966 and 1970. Although most relate to manufacturing innovations, several of the articles focus on civil engineering projects, such as
bridges, or launching of new merchant marine ship classes. A 1966 report
on developing an indigenous-frequency clock for power metering represented a technical challenge: Such precision clocks must lose only one second per day. Representing signicant mass-line experimental effort,
worker-technician Fang Ku-Ken reported feeling shame that a Chinesebuilt hydroelectric power station would be equipped with a fragile 1920s era
bourgeois, Western-imported frequency clock. Fang experimented for
months in a small concrete cell, sweltering in the summer heat, until he
detected the reason for a 0.3-second variance in a swinging pendulum. He
then implemented an innovation of separating the pendulum from the
gears, employing “oscillations by means of electricity” to signal the gears
from the pendulum. A “triumph” of Mao-inspired thought, his team introduced the frequency clock in September 1965 (Fang 1966, 27, 28).
Defense Innovation
Military research and development occurred with much less interruption than in other areas, its scientists enjoying protection from the Cultural
Revolution due to the national security considerations related to their work.
These high-priority elds included nuclear physics, missile research, and
military research (Ridley 1976). The result: remarkable technology achievements including the 1964 atom bomb explosion, the hydrogen bomb three
years later, production of integrated circuits by 1968, and an orbital satellite
by 1970 (Berner 1975).
Eight articles that focused on military defense appeared in the Peking
Review between 1966 and 1970. Most of these relate to nuclear testing and
nuclear delivery systems. China’s rst hydrogen-bomb explosion claimed
the headline on June 17, 1967. The Review proclaimed: “after ve nuclear
tests in two years and eight months, China successfully exploded her rst
hydrogen bomb over the western region of the country.” A tribute to Chairman Mao, their great helmsman, said: “In the elds of the struggle for production and scientic experiment . . . man has constantly to sum up experience and go on discovering, inventing, creating and advancing.” Proudly
reminding that China has atom bombs, guided missiles, and now the
hydrogen bomb, the Review explained the importance of this achievement:
“This greatly heightens the morale of the revolutionary people throughout
the world and greatly deates the arrogance of imperialism, modern revisionism, and all reactionaries” (Peking Review 1967b).
230
D. E. Brock
Science & Technology Innovation
By 1968 a Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) “Study Group of Mao
Zedong Thought” had organized, soon denouncing a number of naturalsciences theories. The rst target that emerged was Albert Einstein’s theory
of relativity, which was viewed contrary to dialectical materialism (Hu 2007).
Genetics research also came to a halt in 1966 with the last issue of the prestigious journal of the CAS Genetics Institute, though it began to revive
somewhat by 1972 with Zhou Enlai’s (1898–1976) efforts (Schneider 1989).
On the other hand, the mass line seemed to benet various sciences, such as
seismology. By the end of the Cultural Revolution, 100,000 amateur seismologists manned 10,000 stations, complementing 300 professionally staffed
stations. Meteorology and national weather forecasting also benetted. The
post-Mao era inherited a network of 16,000 commune-run weather posts
and rain-measuring stations, working in collaboration with weather stations and the Central Meteorological Observatory, primarily to serve agriculture (Sigurdson 1980).
Twenty-one articles that focused on science and technology in the
broadest sense appeared in the Peking Review between 1966 and 1970. The
disciplines covered are varied, including physics, chemistry, biochemistry,
paleontology, geology, medicine, and science education. Some specic
achievements included China’s rst benzene workshop, a survey of Mt. Everest (Mt. Jolmo Lungma), and the locating of subterranean water. The
world-shaking report of the rst total synthesis of crystalline insulin appeared 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
had been initiated in the late 1950s, during the Great Leap Forward (1958–
61). The discovery represented “man’s great effort to unveil the secrets of
life and provides powerful new evidence for the materialist-dialectical theory on the origin of life.” The report accurately stated it to be the “rst crystalline protein” and “the largest biologically active natural organic compound
ever to be synthesized” (Peking Review 1967a). In an article published on
December 25, 1970, the Review reported another achievement: the trial production of a Shanghai electron microscope capable of 400,000-times magnication. Although the Shanghai Electronics and Optics Research Institute
had been working on such microscopes since 1958, this latest, most advanced model was presented as a result of the Cultural Revolution. The Review adds that such a precision instrument is a culmination of science and
technology in “radio electronics, electron optics, high electric voltage, high
vacuum and precision mechanical engineering” (Peking Review 1970).
Scientic Innovation: Victim or Victor?
The Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution left a mixed impact and legacy.
On one hand, the era’s reports represented the movement as a virtually un-
Scholarly Note: Science Innovation during the Cultural Revolution
231
qualied success. On the other hand, post-Mao leadership typically viewed
the Cultural Revolution as an unmitigated catastrophe for China. Sigrid
Schmalzer cautions that “there are compelling reasons why we should not
entirely abandon the earlier, positive accounts and follow the post-Mao narrative too slavishly” (2007, 579).
So what conclusions does the Peking Review reveal about scientic innovation during the Cultural Revolution? Universities shut down and academic research came to a halt, but state-protected science related to defense
and national prestige remained. Innovation continued, but it was primarily
related to production in an Edisonian, non-theoretical way. The physics of
relativity and the science of genetics took major hits, but the mass line
proved to have benets in areas where millions of eld assistants could be
employed—elds such as seismology and weather monitoring. Future decades would witness a gap between science and talent among professionals,
due to the “dead weight” of the poorly prepared Cultural Revolution generation; however, millions of rural peasants gained access to science and
technology for the rst time. Despite the general disaster of the Cultural
Revolution, it may be argued that, in some ways, Chairman Mao’s science
policy did have benets to scientic innovation and that the mass line
emerged better prepared to meet a technological future in the nal decades
of the twentieth century.
Note
The author expresses appreciation to Egyptian Ambassador Sallama Shaker for her
suggestions and insights into the original project that led to this paper.
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