Victims, Perpetrators, and the Role of Law in Maoist China

The relationship between politics and law in the early People's
Republic of China was highly contentious. Periods of intentionally
excessive campaign justice intersected with attempts to carve out
professional standards of adjudication and to offer retroactive justice
for those deemed to have been unjustly persecuted. How were victims and
perpetrators defined and dealt with during different stages of the
Maoist era and beyond? How was law practiced, understood, and contested
in local contexts? This volume adopts a case study approach to shed
light on these complex questions. By way of a close reading of original
case files from the grassroots level, the contributors detail
procedures and question long-held assumptions, not least about the
Cultural Revolution as a period of "lawlessness."

Auteur

Daniel Leese, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg.

Puck Engman, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg.

Résumé
The relationship between politics and law in the early People's
Republic of China was highly contentious. Periods of intentionally
excessive campaign justice intersected with attempts to carve out
professional standards of adjudication and to offer retroactive justice
for those deemed to have been unjustly persecuted. How were victims and
perpetrators defined and dealt with during different stages of the
Maoist era and beyond? How was law practiced, understood, and contested
in local contexts? This volume adopts a case study approach to shed
light on these complex questions. By way of a close reading of original
case files from the grassroots level, the contributors detail
procedures and question long-held assumptions, not least about the
Cultural Revolution as a period of lawlessness.

Contenu

• Introduction (Daniel Leese, Puck Engman)

• Beyond "Destruction" and "Lawlessness": The Legal System during the Cultural Revolution (Xu Lizhi)

• The Intelligence Sleeper Who Never Was: Han Fuying and Case 5004 (Michael Schoenhals)

• Vetting the People's Servant: On the Principles of Revolutionary Integrity (Puck Engman)

• A Policeman, His Gun, and an Alleged Rape: Competing Appeals for Justice in Tianjin, 1966-1979 (Jeremy Brown)

• A Different Category of Life: The Counterrevolutionary Case of a Rural Schoolteacher (Wang Haiguang)

• From Denial to Apology: Narrative Strategies of a "Perpetrator" after the Cultural Revolution (Zhang Man)

• The Floating Fate of a Rebel Leader in Guangxi, 1966-1984 (Song Guoqing)