Efecto Liminal - Movs. Sociales

The Liminal Effects of Social Movements: Red Guards and the Transformation of Identity
Author(s): Guobin Yang

Source: Sociological Forum, Vol. 15, No. 3 (Sep., 2000), pp. 379-406
Published by: Springer
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Sociological Forum, Vol. 15, No. 3, 2000
The Liminal Effects of Social Movements: Red
Guards and the Transformation of Identity1
Guobin Yang2
Social movements transform participants' identities. Why they do so is an
unresolved puzzle. I argue that for participants, social movements are liminal
phenomena characterized by varying degrees of freedom, egalitarianism,
communion, and creativity. As such, the transformative power of social
movements depends on their degree of liminality. Those that approximate
most to the pure type of the liminal offer to the participants high degrees of
freedom, egalitarianism, communion, and creativity. They transform identi-
ties most powerfully. In the 1960s, China's Red Guards experienced a pro-
foundly liminal movement. As a result, an age-cohort that was coming of
age began to recreate itself The personal transformations of the Red Guards
would persistently bear on Chinese politics and society up to the 1989 Chinese
student movement.
KEY WORDS: liminality; identity; social movements: Red Guards.
INTRODUCTION
It is widely recognized that involvement in social movements trans-
forms participants' identities (Fendrich, 1977; Morris, 1984; Mueller, 1987;
Rupp and Taylor, 1987; Fantasia, 1988; McAdam, 1988, 1989; Calhoun,
1991, 1994; Taylor and Whittier, 1993; Whittier, 1995, 1997; Lichterman,
1996; Taylor, 1996; Downton and Wehr, 1997; Robnett, 1997). Yet there
tRevised version of a paper presented at the 1998 Annual Conference of the American
Sociological Association in San Francisco.
'Department of Sociology, University of Hawai'i-Manoa, Social Sciences Building 247, 2424
Maile Way, Honolulu. Hawaii 96822.
379
()884-8971/()0()/()()-()379$18.()/()/ ? 2()()() Plenum Publishing Corporation
380 Yang
is no sustained explanation of the conditions that make movement participa-
tion an identity-transforming experience. This paper draws on Victor Turn-
er's notion of liminality (Turner, 1969, 1979) to specify these conditions. I
will propose that social movements are liminal phenomena. They separate
participants from preexisting structural constraints and give them the free-
dom and power to remold themselves and society. For those involved, the
total effect is a threshold effect-the experience becomes a dividing line
in personal histories with immediate and long-term consequences.
The historical case under study is the Great Linkup (da chuanlian)
period of China's Red Guard Movement (May 1966-July 1968). I will
argue that the preexisting structural conditions before the Great Linkup
intensified its liminal effects. Four immediate effects will be identified,
namely, freedom, egalitarianism, communion, and creativity. I will then
identify a parallel transformation of identity among Red Guards, a new
"inwardness" and an "outward" turn toward democratic ideals. I will fur-
ther suggest that this parallel transformation of Red Guard identity would
persistently bear on Chinese politics and society up to the 1989 student
movement.
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND THE TRANSFORMATION
OF IDENTITY
The construction of identity in social movements has become a promi-
nent field of research over the past few decades (Touraine, 1971; Cohen,
1985; Mueller, 1987; Calhoun, 1991; Friedman and McAdam, 1992; Hunt,
et al., 1994; Melucci 1989, 1996; Cerulo, 1997). Many scholars have studied
the influences of identity construction on movement emergence (Melucci,
1989; Taylor and Whittier, 1992; Johnston et al., 1994; Gould, 1995). Others
focus on the biographical consequences of movement participation and
study how movement participation affects participants' identities and subse-
quent activism (Fendrich, 1977; Morris, 1984; Rupp and Taylor, 1987; Fanta-
sia, 1988; McAdam, 1988, 1989; Calhoun, 1991, 1994; Taylor and Whittier,
1993; Whittier, 1995, 1997; Lichterman, 1996; Taylor, 1996; Downton and
Wehr, 1997; Robnett, 1997). It is to this second group of works that I now
turn in order to situate my study and glean useful insights.
Work on the biographical impact of movement participation falls into
two categories. One category emphasizes immediate impact and includes
the work by Morris (1984), Fantasia (1988), Calhoun (1991, 1994), and
Lichterman (1996), among others. The other stresses longer term effects
and includes the work by Mueller (1987), Rupp and Taylor (1987), McAdam
Liminal Effects of Social Movements 381
(1988, 1989), Taylor and Whittier (1993), Whittier (1995, 1997), Robnett
(1997), and Downton and Wehr (1997).
Work in the first category shows that the experience of involvement
affects participants such that they tend to become more committed activists.
Thus Lichterman (1996: 43-45, 78-81, 114-116) finds that various com-
mitment practices among environmentalists help create activist identities.
Calhoun (1994) shows how involvement in high-risk protest transformed
initially self-centered Chinese students into activists brave enough to face
death. Fantasia (1988) argues that solidarity among workers is created in
the process of collective action. Finally, Morris shows that "meaningful
face-to-face social interactions" transformed "members of an oppressed
group who appear docile" into active protesters (1984:94-96).
Research on the long-term effects of movement participation reveals
close relations between movement experience and sustained commitment
to political activism. Follow-up studies of the American student and civil
rights movements, for example, consistently demonstrate a powerful and
enduring effect of participation (see McAdam, 1989, for a review of the
literature). In his influential study of Freedom Summer activists, McAdam
concludes that activism "does indeed have the potential to trigger a process
of alteration that can affect many aspects of the participants' lives," and
that "the consequences of this process may be lifelong or at least long-
term" (1989:758). Similar conclusions are found in studies of the American
women's movement. Among others, the work by Rupp and Taylor (1987),
Verta Taylor (1989), Taylor and Whittier (1993), and Whittier (1995) sug-
gests that even in a hostile political environment, the women's movement
remains vital, due partly to activists' long-term commitment. Thus Rupp
and Taylor find that between 1945 and the 1960s, a period conventionally
characterized as "the bleak and lonely years" of the women's movement,
activists still "saw themselves as the heirs of the suffrage movement, worked
on activities to promote what traditionally had been defined as 'women's
rights,' and identified with feminism" (1987:7). Taylor and Whittier write
that "The most active feminists in the late 1980s and 90s have been women
who became involved with the movement during the late 1960s and 1970s,
were transformed by their involvement, and formed a lasting commitment
to feminist goals" (1993:545).
Work on the immediate and long-term effects of movement participa-
tion underscores the transformative power of participation experience, re-
vealing how collective experience shapes individual identities. In explaining
why collective experience can have such power, most authors emphasize
social interactions. Social interactions in the process of collective action
deepen commitment (Morris, 1984; Fantasia, 1988; Lichterman, 1996) and
provide structural ties for sustained activism (Rupp and Taylor, 1987;
382 Yang
McAdam, 1989; Whittier, 1995). Scholars emphasize different sources of
the power of social interactions, however. Some consider preexisting organi-
zational structures as a crucial element. Morris, for instance, suggests that
local institutions with which people are affiliated heavily shape their atti-
tudes and activism (1984:96). Others underline the emotional aspects of
social interactions (Calhoun, 1994; Whittier, 1997; Robnett, 1997). As
Robnett puts it, emotions are "the catalyst through which individual trans-
formations emerge, new ideas are embraced, and actions are undertaken
that are against one's own self-interest, such as risking one's life for the
movement" (1997:34). Still others implicitly distinguish social movements
from routine political and social processes. In this they seem to endorse
the hypothesis that it is the nonroutine character of social movements that
makes participation a transformative experience. Thus, in his analysis of
the identity practices in the Ridge Greens movement, Lichterman finds
that "Becoming a green did not mean being radicalized into established
traditions and organizations . . . so much as being individually jarred out
of taken-for-granted cultural pathways" (1996:46, original emphasis). Simi-
larly, Fantasia maintains that the process of collective action is crucial to
identity construction because in this process previously dominant social
institutions and cultural practices are replaced by a "counterhegemony"
(1988:22) and a new order emerges through collective action. The implicit
argument is that, channeled through existing structures, social movements
paradoxically break the bounds of these same structures and bring about
change.
This literature review indicates that various scholars have shown that
movement participation changes participants' identities and that this effect
is related to the nature of social movements (for example, as a "counterhe-
gemony"). The specific question to be examined is: What is it about social
movements that makes them an identity-transforming experience? I draw
on Victor Turner's notion of liminality to address the question.
LIMINALITY AND THE THRESHOLD EFFECTS OF
MOVEMENT PARTICIPATION
Liminality, from the Latin word limen, means threshold. In Turner's
anthropology of the ritual process, the liminal is the second phase of a
three-stage ritual process. The first stage, separation, separates the ritual
subject from previous structural conditions.3 The second stage, the liminal,
-Following Turner, I define structure as "a more or less distinctive arrangement of specialized
mutually dependent institutions and the institutional organization of positions and/or of
actors which they imply" (Turner, 1969:166-167).
is antistructural, where the ritual subject redefines his/her identity under
conditions that have "few or none of the attributes of the past or coming
state" (Turner 1969:94). The final stage of aggregation marks the subject's
settling back into the social structure.
The liminal stage involves one or all of three kinds of separation:
spatial, temporal, and social/moral. When ritual subjects are separated from
the familiar space, the routine temporal order, or the structures of moral
obligations and social ties, they enter a liminal time/space. In Turner's
imaginative language, this is "an instant of pure potentiality" (1979:41),
when much of what has been bound by social structure is "liberated," and
the transgression of norms and conventions becomes possible. For Turner,
the pilgrimage is an archetype of the liminal, because it entails spatial,
temporal, and social/moral separation of the pilgrims from social structures
all at once.4
Although Turner develops the concept of liminality through analyses
of preindustrial societies, he clearly intends to use it to capture general
social processes. He suggests that there are two major models for social
relationships. One is of society "as a structured, differentiated, and often
hierarchical system of political-legal-economic positions"; the other, which
emerges in the liminal period, is of society as "an unstructured or rudimen-
tarily structured and relatively undifferentiated comitatus, community"
(1969:96). Social life is a dialectical process involving structure and commu-
nity, differentiation and homogeneity.
As an antistructure, a liminal condition entails the suspension of normal
structural constraints. In this sense, liminality can be seen as in an inverse
relationship with bureaucracy. In its pure type, bureaucracy is characterized
by (1) the principle of hierarchy, a firmly ordered system of super- and
subordination (2) a system of abstract rules that govern its operation (3)
the spirit of formalistic impersonality, devoid of any emotional element
and (4) by implication, strict adherence to the above principles instead of
human creativity for achieving the highest degree of bureaucratic efficiency.
In contrast, a liminal situation is characterized by freedom, egalitarian-
ism, communion, and creativity. Freedom results from a rejection of those
rules and norms that have structured social action prior to the liminal
situation. Egalitarianism is characterized by a weakening, unsettling, or
reversal of the structural relations organized in terms of caste, class, ranks,
or other institutionalized forms. Egalitarianism contributes to a sense of
4It is no accident that pilgrimages, and travels in general, have always gripped the human
imagination. Seen as liminal happenings, they are always potentially emancipating and trans-
formative. For an excellent analysis of the relationship between pilgrimage and knowledge
in medieval English literature, see Zacher (1976). For a sociological study of travel and its
implications for a sociology of knowledge, see Adler (1989).
384 Yang
communion, or communitas, as Turner calls it. Communion represents a
rejection of alienation from the generic bond of humanity. In fostering
emotions and glorifying personal ordeals, communion helps refashion the
self. Finally, liminality fosters human creativity. Turner notes that myths,
symbols, rituals, philosophical systems, and works of art are frequently
generated under liminal conditions. They amount to "reclassifications of
reality and man's relationship to society, nature, and culture" (1969:128-
129). Here we may recall Turner's fascination with the practices of pilgrim-
age. By relieving pilgrims from daily routines, established social relations,
and other constraints, a pilgrimage provides a nourishing environment for
creative action and thought.5
Liminality is related to bureaucracy in one other way: both contain a
paradox. By virtue of its impersonal rationality, bureaucracy has a leveling
effect on social differences. Carried to its purest, however, it promotes
administrative efficiency at the expense of individual autonomy (Giddens,
1971:180). The paradox of liminality is similar. Liminality is inherently
emancipating. The sense of egalitarianism and communion it creates tends
to level out existing social structures, much as the impersonality of bureau-
cracy makes everyone equal before the rule. However, just as the imperson-
ality of bureaucracy may limit individual freedom, so, conversely, the free-
dom of liminality, when carried to an extreme, "may be speedily followed
by despotism, overbureaucratization, or other modes of structural rigidifi-
cation" (Turner 1969:129).6
Theoretically, a social movement can be conceptualized as a liminal
happening in general social processes. It separates its participants from
existing social structures and locates them in a liminal situation. The charac-
teristics of the liminal situation-freedom, egalitarianism, communion, and
creativity-provide the conditions for personal change. With the decline
or demise of the movement, participants face the challenge of settling back
into the routines of ordinary life. They may be empowered or disillusioned
'Writing from a different perspective, Adler (1989:1382-83) reached similar conclusions in
her study of travels: "Undertaken as a way of acting on consciousness, travels performed in
a particular manner do not merely reflect views of reality but create and confirm them.
Playing with the body, space, and time in which the traveler lives his life, travel differs from
arts involving deliberate constructions of completely fictive time, space, and character. But,
like the greatest arts, travel serves to invoke realities that cannot be encountered in the same
way through any other means."
6It is to be noted that "despotism," or violence in collective action, is not an inherent feature
of liminality. Theoretically, violence can only be a potential, not an inevitable, result of
liminality, and it occurs only when the freedom of liminality is carried to an extreme. Readers
interested in the theoretical issues concerning the relationship between freedom and domina-
tion should refer to the classic studies by Max Weber, Georg Simmel, and Zygmund Bauman.
Foucault's (1997) writings on governmentality also contain numerous discussions of this rela-
tionship.
(Tarrow, 1994:173). Many persist in their activism (Rupp and Taylor, 1987;
McAdam, 1988, 1989; Taylor and Whittier, 1993; Whittier, 1995, 1997;
Downton and Wehr, 1997). Rarely do they remain the same, due to the
liminal experience of the movement.
The degree of personal change may vary with the depth of the liminal
experience. Liminal experience varies in depth because social movements
are not liminal to the same degree. To the extent that social movements
are antistructural, they are liminal. Insofar as all social movements (the
liminal) are not equally removed from institutional politics (structure),
liminality is relative. Thus the high-risk movements that McAdam (1989)
and Calhoun (1994) analyzed, because of their radical departure from
institutionalized politics, may be expected to have more liminal power than
the environmental movements studied by Lichterman (1996), although both
have liminal characteristics absent from, say, interest group politics. It is
in the sense that movements constitute an emancipating departure from
institutionalized politics that, I suspect, Fantasia (1988:22) refers to the
movements he studied as cases of a "counterhegemony."
While many contemporary social movements are episodic, part-time
projects bordering on institutional politics, the purely liminal movements
are the furthest from such politics. The relative liminality of social move-
ments implies that they do not transform identities equally. As a hypothe-
sis, we may assume that the degree of personal transformation depends
on the extent to which participants are freed from previous structural
conditions and on the depth and intensity of the new experience of
participation. The stronger the contrast between preparticipation struc-
tural embeddings and the leveling effects unleashed by the movement,
the greater the liminal effect, and the more profound the transformative
power of participation.
STUDYING THE RED GUARD MOVEMENT
Was the Red Guard Movement a social movement? This depends on
how one defines a social movement. Although social movements are a
prominent field of sociological research, there is little agreement on exactly
what they are and are not. Movement scholars study a wide variety of very
different phenomena, ranging from revolutions and strikes to demonstra-
tions and other forms of public rallies. Because these events often involve
an element of protest, and the protest is often targeted at power structures-
particularly the state-it has almost become customary to think of a social
movement as the opposite of the state and other forms of authority. While
it is important to define movements in their relationship to the state, a
386 Yang
hidden and ultimately misleading logic in this conception is to view social
movements as only those collective challenges that spring from outside the
state. Consequently, the attitudes of the authorities have become a yardstick
with which to measure social movements. Demurring, Tilly argues that any
number of collective action may be opposed, tolerated, or encouraged by
the authorities, so "Why let the boundary of our subject matter depend
on the attitude of the authorities?" (1981:17). A similar view holds that
there exists a "paradox of protest," meaning protest against authorities
often entails varying degrees of "license" from the authorities: "Those who
pursue protest as an ongoing tactic must in effect gain license from the
authorities in the system to do so" (Eisinger, 1973:27). In this sense, even
the concept of "protest" may be used generically and not limited to noninsti-
tutional political challenges (see also Lofland, 1985). The most recent articu-
lation of the need for a broad conceptualization of social movements is
found in McAdam et al. (1996). Mapping the terrain of "contentious poli-
tics," they argue that "there is no fundamental discontinuity between social
movements and institutional politics" and that social movement activity is
a "situationally-determined alternative to a variety of other forms of behav-
ior, ranging from unstructured collective action to interest group organiza-
tion to activism within political parties and institutions" (McAdam et al.,
1996:27). Seen in this light, social movements are always embedded in
general social processes and constitute part of the dialectic of these pro-
cesses.
This view is consistent with my conceptualization of social movements
as liminal phenomena. Turner argues that all social processes follow the
dialectic of structures and antistructures. If liminal phenomena represent
antistructures, then social movements may be conceptualized as antistruc-
tural processes in a dialectical relationship with such structural entities as
institutionalized politics and bureaucracies. Such a conception helps bypass
the trap of measuring social movements with the yardstick of the "attitudes
of the authorities." It suggests that the antistructural, liminal phenomena
known as social movements are happenings that fluctuate between two
ends of a social process.
For decades, the Chinese socialist state was highly successful in pre-
venting the rise of social movements (Zhou, 1993). That popular protests
did occur was due to a number of factors, not the least of which was a
peculiar state-society relationship. This relationship was characterized by
the state's penetration of civil society and by its dependence on political
campaigns and mass mobilizations to deal with social, political, and eco-
nomic problems. It turned the state into the unwitting initiator of popular
protest. As Zhou puts it, "Participating in state-initiated political campaigns
provides an opportunity for individuals and groups to pursue their own
agendas and exploit new opportunities. State-initiated political campaigns
provide opportunities for unorganized groups and individuals to act to-
gether" (1993:61). The Red Guard Movement followed this pattern. It
emerged among small groups of secondary school students, underwent a
period of political contention before gaining state support and political
legitimacy, and evolved into widespread collective challenges against all
sorts of authorities.
Some early observers did not regard the Red Guard Movement as a
social movement. It was claimed that Red Guards were a political "shock
force" of the Chinese state, and the Red Guard Movement was part and
parcel of state politics (Pan and de Jaegher, 1968; Heaslet, 1972; Hsu,
1975). This view became increasingly untenable in light of new scholarship.
Psychocultural theories similar to Lewis Feuer's explanation of the Ameri-
can student movement of the 1960s see Red Guard rebellions as an outburst
of suppressed impulses of aggression and hostility (Pye, 1968; Solomon,
1971). Socioeconomic explanations show that Red Guard activism was
determined by their socioeconomic positions-those attacking the status
quo generally came from disprivileged social groups, while those defending
it came from privileged ones (Lee, 1978; Rosen, 1982). Recent studies
reveal more nuanced dimensions of Red Guard activism. Forster (1990),
for example, suggests that class background was not as important in de-
termining Red Guard factional allegiances as has sometimes been claimed.
Rather, factional alignments often divided along assessments of the "revolu-
tionary credentials" of local leaders, which means common enemies or
friends often served as cohesive factors in collective action. Wang (1995)
shows how Red Guards' personal interests undermined charismatic author-
ity. Perry and Li (1997) reveal subtle connections between student Red
Guards and labor activists.
Thus, while earlier scholars saw Red Guards as political tools of state
power, minimizing the element of popular protest, recent analysts have
foregrounded the Red Guard Movement as a case of popular protest. My
position is consistent with these recent perspectives. I further suggest that
the Red Guard Movement was an especially important social movement
in contemporary Chinese history because of its far-reaching social conse-
quences. Current literature on the Red Guard Movement, however, focuses
on its causes and neglects its consequences. This paper aims to redress this
tendency by analyzing the impact of movement experience on participants'
identities and on Chinese politics and society.
The historical survey of the Great Linkup is based on contemporaneous
news media materials and the voluminous archive of Red Guard Publica-
tions (Hongweibing ziliao). Analysis of the biographical consequences is
based on biographical and autobiographical accounts, including two diaries
388 Yang
about the Great Linkup. Data sources used for this study are listed sepa-
rately in the Appendix.7
THE GREAT LINKUP: A HISTORICAL SURVEY
The Great Linkup officially started on August 31, 1966, when Mao
reviewed Red Guards for the second time. The Red Guard Movement had
been born amid the rumbles of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution
(GPCR, 1966-1976).8 The first Red Guard organization had been estab-
lished on May 29, 1966, by a group of students in the Secondary School
Attached to Qinghua University in Beijing. In their denunciations of school
authorities, this and many other Red Guard groups that emerged in its
wake had faced strong opposition. Local students made their way to Beijing
to have their cases heard while Beijing Red Guards set off to the provinces
to give on-site support (Yan and Gao, 1996:85). That was the beginning of
interschool and intercity linkup.
Linking up for the purpose of information exchange compounded with
the upsurge of the Red Guard Movement. From early June to late July of
1966, Red Guard organizations remained officially unrecognized; some
were labeled as "counterrevolutionary" organizations. Information about
Red Guard organizations in other schools and cities was a source of strength.
The opposition faced by some early Red Guard organizations and the
uncertainty about their political legitimacy made mutual support and infor-
mation exchange vital to their sense of identity.
Official recognition of Red Guards came with Mao's support. On
August 1, 1966, Mao wrote a laudatory letter to the first Red Guard organi-
zation. On August 18, Mao publicly reviewed 1 million Red Guards on
Beijing's Tiananmen Square. From then on, the Red Guard Movement
gained legitimacy, power, and prestige.
On August 31, 1966, when Mao again received Red Guards on Tianan-
men Square, Red Guards were called on to start an "exchange of revolu-
tionary experiences" by engaging in a "revolutionary linkup" through long-
7Note that most of the sources cited in the empirical part of the paper will be found in the
source list in the Appendix, not in the References.
XThere is little doubt that Mao Zedong himself launched the GPCR, although his motives
for doing so are source of intense debate. Interested readers may refer to Schoenhals (1996;
source listed in Appendix) for English translations of primary documents on the launching
of the GPCR. The most thorough treatment of the subject is a three-volume study by
MacFarquhar (1974, 1983, 1997). Historians of the GPCR disagree about its periodization
as much as about Mao's motives in launching it. For the purpose of this paper, the Red
Guard Movement covered the period from May 1966 to July 1968, and the GPCR lasted
from 1966 to 1976. For a debate on periodization, see Chan (1992) and Moody (1993).
distance traveling (Renmin ribao [People's Daily], September 1, 1966).
Transportation, food and lodging were to be provided free to Red Guards
on linkup trips. Initially, most Red Guards traveled by train. Beginning
in October 1966, traveling on foot became the fashion. Partly because
of transportation and other logistic problems created by the constant
flow of large numbers of travelers, official notices were issued on October
29, November 16, and December 1 of 1966 to urge a temporary stop
to the Great Linkup. The movement did not come to an end until
March 1967, however, when another notice was issued by the state to
call it off.
The waning of the Great Linkup marked a new stage in the Red
Guard Movement. With most Red Guards back in school, the politics
of factionalism began to intensify (Kwong, 1988). Violence broke out
in some cities, in some cases leading to deaths (Wang, 1995). In July
1968, Mao sent a "Workers Propaganda Team" to Qinghua University,
the birthplace of the Red Guard Movement, to suppress factional fighting
(Hinton, 1972). The GPCR lingered on, but the Red Guard Movement
had come to an end.
There are no definitive statistics on the number of Red Guards who
participated in the Great Linkup. By one count, in August 1966 alone,
over 2 million went to Beijing University for linkup (Chen, 1996:75). Over
900,000 visited Jinggang Mountain, one of the most famous "holy sites of
revolution" (Editorial Board, 1997). From August to November, 1966, Mao
reviewed 11 million Red Guards from all over the country (Peking Review,
December 1966, pp. 6-9). In 1966, secondary school students totaled 14
million in China, while university students totaled 534,000 (Liu, 1993). At
the peak of the Great Linkup, campuses became deserted and classrooms
were empty (sources in Appendix: Bennett and Montaperto, 1972; Gao,
1987; Zhai, 1992). One Red Guard reports that 43 of his 45 classmates
went on a linkup trip (source in Appendix: Yan, 1993:172). There is good
reason to believe that the great majority of China's secondary school and
college students took part in the Great Linkup.9
Red Guards traveled to as many places as their enthusiasm and physical
strength could carry them. Some reached remote frontier regions, some
visited the countryside, some crossed mountains. The major attractions
were of two kinds. One was the capital city Beijing, where Red Guards
went in the hope of seeing Mao. The other was the so-called "holy sites of
revolution," significant historic sites of the Chinese Communist Revolution.
9Most participants in the Great Linkup were secondary school and college students, though
some elementary school students and nonstudents (including teachers and workers) were
also involved. No attempt is made here to distinguish these categories due to the lack of
data on nonstudent participants.
390 Yang
Among the best-known of these were the Jinggang Mountain, Yan'an,
Zunyi, and Mao's birth place, Shaoshan.
Wherever they went, Red Guards stirred up enthusiasm and action.
There were reports of property damage and violence. Many Red Guard
newspapers and leaflets also reported bravery and humane warmth. There
was a fascination with tourism, as well as a genuine seriousness in carrying
out the revolution-"Leisure activities and sight-seeing were out-
irrelevant to the revolution" (source in Appendix: Chang, 1991:314).
The official objective of the Great Linkup was to exchange experience
and information in order to spread the GPCR to the entire society. The
Great Linkup was also envisioned as "a great school and a great cauldron"
to temper the younger generation in the lessons of class struggle (Renmin
ribao [People's Daily], October 22, 1966). By all appearance, these
objectives had been achieved. National mobilization had been ostensibly
accelerated. By January 1967, Red Guards were proclaiming they had
become "wiser . . . and nobler after . . . extensive contacts with society
and after learning from the workers and peasants" (Peking Review,
January 1, 1967, p. 5). However, exactly how Red Guards came out of
the Great Linkup "wiser and nobler" is a historical and empirical
question yet to be determined. Judging by the changing stance of the
state toward Red Guards during that period, we know some of their
new "wisdom" was "unwise" by official standards. For example, some
Red Guard organizations had expanded too rapidly, grown too powerful,
and become an independent political force. That is why the government
issued a series of official notices banning nationwide Red Guard organiza-
tions in the early months of 1967 (for a sample, see source in Appendix:
Schoenhals, 1996:54-56). It is therefore reasonable to assume that Red
Guards were gaining a new, but unwelcome wisdom that came as an
unintended consequence of their experience.
THE RED GUARD MOVEMENT AS A LIMINAL PHENOMENON
The Red Guard Movement was the first major youth movement after
the victory of the Chinese Communist Revolution. The Chinese Communist
Revolution had started as a youth movement, and the Communist Party had
always relied on the youth as revolutionary vanguards (Schram, 1974:20). In
the two decades after the Communist victory, the question of cultivating
revolutionary successors took on unprecedented urgency (Townsend,
1967:46; Schram, 1974:21). The socialist state devoted great attention to
the making of the new socialist person (Townsend, 1967; Ridley et al.,
1971). By the eve of the Red Guard Movement, the first age-cohort to be
so made was coming of age. It was this age-cohort that found itself in the
middle of the movement.
This age-cohort had been cultivated as revolutionary romantics. Ac-
cording to a study of elementary school readers in use between 1957 and
1964, the political and behavioral values being taught were devotion to the
new society, benevolence of the new society, glorification of Mao Zedong,
evils of Guomindang China, social and personal responsibility, achievement,
and altruistic behavior (Ridley et al., 1971:186). The ideal socialist person
would have an unquestioning belief in the Communist leaders and the
socialist state and be ready to make self-sacrifices for their sake.1"
This extraordinary identification with the socialist state was characteris-
tic of Chinese youth before the Red Guard Movement. Patriotism had
been a dominant force in the making of twentieth-century Chinese history.
It was a major inspiration for Chinese youth dedicated to national liberation
and modernization (Li, 1987). The socialist state successfully inducted this
historical energy into new circumstances and transformed it into a passion
for the socialist state and its charismatic leaders.
Parallel to this passion was a utopian vision of the future. Gloating
over the recent victory of their revolution, Chinese communist leaders
imagined the imminent realization of Marx's vision of a communist society.
National projects of industrialization were launched to accelerate this pro-
cess (see MacFarquhar, 1983, for a detailed study of one of these cata-
strophic projects). With a historical identity of revolutionary vanguards,
Chinese youth were the "moral elect" to whom the call of utopianism
appealed directly. Mao's faith in youth, as expressed in the following, was
once an inspiration to millions: "The world is yours as well as ours, but in
the last analysis, it is yours. You young people, full of vigor and vitality,
are in the bloom of life, like the sun at eight or nine in the morning. Our
hopes are placed in you" (quoted in Solomon, 1975:158).
Thus, the coupling of socialist patriotism with a utopian vision of the
future supplied the mainstay of the identity of Chinese youth before the Red
Guard Movement. This identity cried out for action, while the structural
conditions in China barred any individual or collective action without state
initiation (Zhou, 1993).
For examples of structural barriers, consider two forms of immobility,
geographic and symbolic. Geographic immobility resulted from political
and economic conditions. The household registration system implemented
in the 1950s not only minimized the chance of migration, but bound large
"There is no reason to assume that such an ideal person ever existed. However, interview
data suggest that many youth had taken these values to heart. See Solomon (1968).
392
Yang
sectors of the population permanently to their place of birth (Cheng and
Selden, 1994). In addition, transportation costs ruled out the option of
tourism. Students attending colleges away from home traveled between
home and the college during vacations, but sightseeing stopovers were
beyond their means. Even during vacations, not all students could afford
to go home due to the costs of transport (Price, 1975:94).
The systematic use of social and political labels by the Chinese socialist
state was a major cause of symbolic immobility (White, 1989). Among these
labels was a category based on class origins. Three broad types of class
origins, good, middle, and bad, respectively dubbed "red," "gray," and
"black," were distinguished on the basis of the head of household's eco-
nomic and political status in the years before the Communist Party took
over power (see Unger, 1982, for a discussion of these class labels). Different
class origins bespoke different political and social statuses. Thus the good
ones ranked highest socially, the middle ones were neither entirely trusted
nor discriminated against by the party-state, and the bad ones were con-
demned and stigmatized. This class system both divided the society and
put its members under strict control. Class labels, once assigned, went into
everyone's dossiers and would permanently affect almost all aspects of
one's life, from educational opportunities to careers. Labels like these
created and perpetuated ascribed statuses and social stigmas.
Thus on the eve of the Red Guard Movement, Chinese youth stood
on the verge of a romantic precipice. They had a sense of power, but were
powerless. Unable to act, they were impatient for action. The structural
conditions of the socialist state set the stage for the birth of the liminal.
The Red Guard Movement opened up opportunities for action. Smashing
what they regarded as "old" and "bourgeois" cultures, challenging and
overthrowing all levels of authorities, setting up their own organizations,
publishing their own newspapers, traveling across the country and seeing
new places and meeting new people-these and many others were things
they had never imagined they could do. In the midst of these myriad actions,
an age-cohort that was coming of age began to recreate itself.
With traveling as its central component, the Great Linkup was the
quintessentially liminal part of the Red Guard Movement. For Turner, the
pilgrimage is the archetype of the liminal because it combines all the three
dimensions of liminal separation-spatial, temporal, and social/moral. Inso-
far as the Great Linkup entailed all three kinds of separation, it can be
considered as a genuine modern-day pilgrimage, an archetypal liminal phe-
nomenon. It is not a matter of accident that former Red Guards often refer
to their linkup trips as pilgrimages (sources in Appendix: Chang, 1991;
Liao, 1993; Liang and Shapiro, 1983:103). The next section analyzes the
immediate effects of Red Guard "pilgrimages."
RED GUARDS ON THE ROAD: THE IMMEDIATE EFFECTS OF
THE LIMINAL
The Great Linkup turned Red Guards into revolutionary pilgrims.
They were transported from their familiar milieus into a state of unprece-
dented mobility. This new mobility separated them from their social bond-
age, with immediate consequences. A sense of freedom, solidarity, and
egalitarianism was strong. Creativity was the order of the day, both in the
narrower sense of solving practical problems and in Turner's broader sense
of new understandings of self and society. Thus, emotionally and cogni-
tively, Red Guards on the road experienced a profound sense of emancipa-
tion. All available data attest to this effect.11
1. Freedom. A society of extreme regularity and discipline tends to
breed yearnings for freedom and a desire to reject rules and discipline.
This is the dialectic of structure and antistructure. Red Guards embraced
the Great Linkup Movement wholeheartedly because it offered a rare
opportunity for freedom-freedom from school and home and from sched-
ules and punctuality, freedom to see the world and defy or create rules.
One Red Guard on a linkup journey expresses the sense of freedom this
way: "In Fochow, I had no restraint, no worry, at all. I had neither relatives
nor friends nor even casual acquaintances. All this was so different in
Amoy, where I had thousands of worries and constantly felt the conflict
between my family and upbringing" (source in Appendix: Ken Ling
1972:93).
The rise of the Red Guard Movement disrupted normal school order,
but students' daily activities were still divided between home and campus.
It was the Great Linkup that shifted the stage of action to the road and
the society at large. Not only were school and family routines suspended,
but mobility offered anonymity and protection. Students from "black"
family backgrounds often report that this anonymity provided protection
against social stigmatization and helped renew self-dignity and a sense of
equality (sources in Appendix: Gao 1987; Hu and Zhang 1989).
2. Egalitarianism. The suspension of norms was conducive to egalitari-
anism. The Great Linkup provided an opportunity to smash taboo barriers
such as class labels. Red Guard membership restrictions relaxed during
the Great Linkup. Kong Jiesheng, a student from a "black" family origin
previously excluded from the Red Guard organization, relished a sense of
personal liberation on his linkup trip (source in Appendix: Leung, 1994).
"Twenty-six titles are listed in Part II of the Appendix. They all devote substantial space to
the Great Linkup, while a few are entirely records or recollections about the authors' linkup
trips. Contemporaneous reports convey the sense of freedom and excitement as much as
retrospective accounts recall them with pride and nostalgia.
394 Yang
Hu Ping recalls that at home his family origin weighed upon him like a
heavy burden. On a long march to the Jinggang Mountain, he recovered
his self-esteem (source in Appendix: Hu and Zhang, 1989). Chang recalls
that the "color codes" of "red" and "black" family categories began to
lose their meaning during these trips (source in Appendix: Chang, 1991:314).
3. Communion. A sense of communion was strong among fellow travel-
ers. No former Red Guard has written or talked about the experience of
the Great Linkup without mentioning this. Some report singing of songs
and similar liveliness and camaraderie on the train (sources in Appendix:
Bennett and Montaperto, 1972:89; Ken, 1972:109). Some recall strong fel-
lowship feelings among travelers on foot: "Within half a day we began to
encounter other New Long March teams. . . . We struck up an instant
camaraderie, singing songs together, encouraging each other, exchanging
information about what lay ahead" (source in Appendix: Liang and Shapiro
1983:103). Some testify to the trust among crowds on Tiananmen Square
(sources in Appendix: Chang, 1991; Feng, 1991). For instance, Chang writes
that although she longed for the warmth and comfort of home, she would
miss the feeling of solidarity she derived from being among enormous
numbers (source in Appendix: Chang, 1991:321). Finally, many write of
their traveling experience with deep nostalgia: "Afterwards I never forget
that once upon a time on winding mountain roads tens of thousands of
Red Guards walked to the north, sharing a dream. On this road, strangers
were not strangers. People truly cared about one another" (source in
Appendix: Yang, 1997:150).
4. Creativity. Turner notes that myths, symbols, rituals, philosophical
systems, and works of art are frequently generated under liminal conditions,
indicating the extent to which liminal conditions can nourish creativity. In
the context of the Great Linkup, creativity can be understood on two levels.
First, it refers to Red Guards' creative responses to the practical problems
of traveling. Traveling long distances away from home was a new experi-
ence, with many unexpected problems. To be able to make creative deci-
sions and choices had never been as important. One group of travelers had
to take care of a sick member, something they had never done before
(source in Appendix: Ken, 1972). Another did not want to return to school
after the Great Linkup was called off, yet with no official support, food
and tickets became a problem. They had to fall back on their own resources
to solve the problem, "by hook or crook (source in Appendix: Gao,
1987:160). Still another group put on a small-scale hunger strike to demand
lodging (source in Appendix: Liang and Shapiro, 1983:106). Second, creativ-
ity can also refer to deeper ways in which the traveling experience stimulated
thought and action. To a largely immobile population, the Great Linkup
offered unprecedented opportunities of seeing the world. Such a horizon-
broadening experience generated new ways of thinking, if not new "philo-
sophical systems" as Turner puts it. Reflecting on his linkup journeys, one
former Red Guard writes, "I realized that it was far from enough just to
know what was happening in the cities and on the top. I should also know
the conditions at the very bottom of society in order to understand the
real conditions of this society" (source in Appendix: Wei, 1981:315). Said
another, "I learned a great deal during these trips" (source in Appendix:
Feng 1996:11). These statements point to deeper changes among Red
Guards-a new understanding of themselves and of Chinese society, a
transformation of identity.
A PARALLEL TRANSFORMATION OF IDENTITY
The Great Linkup had both immediate and long-term influences on
its participants. These influences are deep and complex, deep because they
transformed a generation of people, complex because in the long run they
were compounded by other historical factors such as changing political
conditions. Since the goal of this paper is to develop the use of the concept of
liminality for analyzing the identity-transforming experience of movement
participation, it is not necessary or possible to trace and analyze the full
spectrum of the biographical influences of the Great Linkup here. However,
to show that the liminal conditions of a social movement do offer an identity-
transforming experience, it will be helpful to delineate the contours of a
transformed identity among Red Guards. To do so will fulfil the additional
task of linking this new identity to subsequent social movements in China,
thus giving further weight to the impact of the liminal experience of the
Great Linkup.
Two broad patterns of identity transformation can be distinguished
among Red Guards, a growing "inwardness" and an "outward" turn toward
democratic ideals. "Inwardness" refers to reflexivity, and relatedly, inde-
pendence and authenticity. It is a defining feature of the modern self, the
self as agency (Charles Taylor, 1989). While "inwardness" represents a
turn toward the self, the "outward" turn means reaching out from the self
toward a more universalistic source of identity, in this case, the people.
To understand how these changes began to develop among Red Guards
during the Great Linkup, recall the notion of the socialist person, a person
defined by altruistic behavior and identification with Communist Party
leaders and the socialist party-state. This identity stresses self-sacrifice. As
the first generation to grow up under the socialist system, the age-cohort
that was to become Red Guards represented the ultimate achievement of
the new system. The identity of this age-cohort was tied to the party-state
396 Yang
and premised on the rejection of the self (Solomon, 1968). Even as they
rebelled, Red Guards still enunciated such an identity at the beginning of
the Red Guard Movement. Members of the first Red Guard organization,
for example, pledged that they would be the "guards of red power" at the
cost of their lives (Yan and Gao, 1996:57).
This identity began to change during the Great Linkup. On one level,
the sense of freedom, egalitarianism, and communion provided a self-
awakening emotional experience among groups of fellow travelers. Aware-
ness of the body and its associated desires and impulses, made possible by
the objective conditions of traveling, turned the travelers inward to face
their sublimated selves. For many Red Guards, youths at the stage of
identity crisis of the Eriksonian type, the Great Linkup gave them an
emotional catharsis and emotional education. Recalling his linkup journey
on a crowded train, one former Red Guard wrote: "It was the first time
that I was so close to a girl. ... If the car had not been so packed, then
our postures would have appeared too bold. However, we were not the
only ones in such postures. All male and female Red Guards, whether they
knew each other or not, looked as intimate as we did. This was an intimacy
created by the lack of space" (source in Appendix: Liang, 1988:258).
The experience of the Great Linkup was also self-awakening on a
cognitive level. Earlier I suggested that the socialist educational system had
predisposed Red Guards to thinking optimistic thoughts. Such predisposi-
tions began to change during the Great Linkup. Exposed to the destitute
aspects of ordinary life, Red Guards began to question what they saw.
"The experience of traveling . .. started me thinking about lots of things,"
one former Red Guard said. The people "didn't resemble the carefree
and happy people depicted in the dances on stage at all . . . . I started to
wonder after the trip, what kind of a revolution is this?" (source in Appen-
dix: Feng, 1991:85, 87). Another wrote the following diary entry about what
they saw at a village they passed on a linkup trip: "December 7 [1966],
23rd day of long march. The first home we went to, we saw an elderly
woman at meal. We saw clearly that the meal she was having was no more
than a few vegetable leaves floating in a pot of soup. There was no grain.
We were so deeply moved that we couldn't utter a word. Beloved poor
peasants-haven't they given us clothes and food like our own parents!"
(Zhang, 1992:293).
This passage illustrates a new self-understanding rooted in personal
experience. The author and his teammates were urbanites. Whatever knowl-
edge they had of the rural areas had been indirect and difficult to relate
to. Personally seeing a grueling aspect of rural life was painful, but it incited
thoughts about one's own life conditions as well as the conditions of the
ordinary Chinese people.
397
Liminal Effects of Social Movements
This growing inwardness was intimately tied to the other form of
identity transformation, the "outward" turn. Indeed, the diary entry just
cited shows that these two forms of transformation in fact had the same
origin-the first-hand experience of the Great Linkup. The experience
generated reflections about the conditions of the ordinary people as well
as introspections and a questioning spirit. This parallel transformation,
"inwardness" and the "outward" turn toward the people, signaled the
weakening of Red Guards' identification with the party-state and its charis-
matic leaders and a growing identification with democratic ideals embodied
by the people. It was a historically significant shift, because it made the
Red Guard Movement and the Great Linkup the starting point of a crisis of
political confidence that would last well into the 1980s (Harding, 1991:214).
Understanding this shift is also essential for understanding political activism
in the two decades after the Red Guard Movement. From the Li Yizhe
Incident in 1974 to the Democracy Wall Movement of 1978/79, from the
campus elections of 1980 to the student movement in 1989, the impact
of the personal transformation of the Red Guard generation endured. It
manifested itself in various forms. The easiest to see is the fact that in
almost all these political movements, former Red Guards played prominent
roles. This was certainly the case in the Li Yizhe Incident (source in Appen-
dix: Chan et al., 1985), the Democracy Wall Movement (sources in Appen-
dix: Seymour, 1980; Goodman, 1981; Siu and Stern, 1983) and the campus
elections in 1980 (sources in Appendix: Tao, 1980; Benton, 1982). More
indirectly, the impact was also felt in the student movement in 1989 (Hager,
1990; Israel, 1992; Black and Munro, 1993; Calhoun and Wasserstrom,
1999), leaving no doubt that decades later, Red Guard activism continued
to bear on Chinese society and politics in significant ways.
CONCLUSION
Why is movement participation an identity-transforming experience?
This is the theoretical question at the center of this paper. I started by
suggesting that the concept of liminality could be used to address this
question. According to Turner (1969), the liminal is the transformative
stage in a ritual process. By separating ritual subjects from existing social
structures, the liminal stage of the ritual process endows subjects with the
freedom and power to transcend structural constraints and to refashion
themselves and society. Contrasting liminality to the ideal type of bureau-
cracy clarifies the specific characteristics of the liminal condition. These
characteristics are freedom, egalitarianism, communion, and creativity.
Conceptualizing social movements as liminal phenomena helps explain
398 Yang
the transformative power of movement participation. Like the liminal stage
in a ritual process, a social movement is a liminal happening in general
social processes. In its break with existing social structures, a social move-
ment gives its participants the power to transcend structural constraints.
In this process of freedom, egalitarianism, communion, and creativity, of
emotional and cognitive liberation, movement participants develop new
understandings of themselves and society. They forge new identities.
Social movements are not liminal to the same degree. Contemporary
social movements in Western democracies are often indistinguishable from
institutional politics-they can be routinized and bureaucratized to the
extent of becoming part and parcel of institutional politics. These kinds of
social movements are relatively less liminal because they do not separate
their participants as radically from existing social structures. The pure type
of liminal social movements tend to emancipate their participants from
social structures. They involve total immersion, total commitment, total
freedom. In terms of emotional and cognitive experience, they give partici-
pants a complete break from what they have been structurally conditioned
to experience.
China's Red Guards experienced a social movement that approximated
to the purely liminal. Cultivated as China's new moral elect, they had been
socialized into an identity tied to the party-state and its charismatic leaders.
The identity called for self-sacrifice and action, which, however, were inhib-
ited by the objective social and political conditions. As practices of modern-
day pilgrimages, journeys during the Great Linkup relieved Red Guards
from the constraining social conditions. They experienced unprecedented
levels of freedom, solidarity, and creativity.
Both emotionally and cognitively, such experience was horizon-broad-
ening, leading to two forms of identity transformation among Red Guards,
a growing "inwardness" and an "outward" turn toward democratic ideals.
This parallel transformation provides the crucial biographical linkage be-
tween Red Guard activism and political activism in the two decades after
the Red Guard Movement.
APPENDIX: PRIMARY SOURCES
I. Media Materials and Collections and Translations of
Historical Documents
Periodicals
Peking Review.
Renmin ribao (People's Daily).
Red Guard Publications
1975 Hongweibing ziliao (Red Guard Publications), 20 Vols. Washington,
DC: Center for Chinese Research Materials.
Other Collections and Compilations of Historical Documents
Benton, Gregor
1982 Wild Lilies: Poisonous Weeds: Dissident Voices from People's
China. London: Pluto Press.
Chan, Anita, Stanley Rosen, and Jonathan Unger, eds.
1985 On Socialist Democracy and the Chinese Legal System: The Li Yizhe
Debates. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.
Goodman, David S. G
1981 Beijing Street Voices: The Poetry and Politics of China's Democracy
Movement. London: Marion Boyars.
Schoenhals, Michael, ed.
1996. China's Cultural Revolution, 1966-1969: Not a Dinner Party. Arm-
onk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.
Seymour, James D
1980 The Fifth Modernization: China's Human Rights Movement, 1978-
1979. Stanfordville, NY: Human Rights Publishing Group.
Siu, Helen F. and Zelda Stern, eds.
1983 Mao's Harvest: Voices from China's New Generation. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Tao Sen
1980 "Letter of Proposal." In Documents of the Democracy Movement
in Communist China, 1978-1981. Stanford University: East Asian
Collection, Hoover Institution Library and Archives.
II. Biographical and Autobiographical Materials
Interviews
Leung, Laifong
1994 Morning Sun: Interviews with Chinese Writers of the Lost Genera-
tion. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.
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Diaries
Tian Fan
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Biographical and Autobiographical Accounts
An Wenjiang
1989 "Wo bu chan hui" [I Don't Repent]. In Zhou Ming (ed.), Lishi zai
zheli chensi-1966-1976 nian jishi [History Ponders Here-A True
Record of 1966-1976], Vol. 5:299-343. Taiyuan: Beiyue wenyi chu-
banshe.
Bennett, Gordon A. and Ronald N. Montaperto
1972 Red Guard: The Political Biography of Dai Hsiao-ai. Garden City,
NY: Anchor Books.
Chang, Jung
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Chen Kaige
1993 "Women du jingli guo de rizi-shaonian Kaige" [The Days We
All Experienced-The Teenager Kaige]. Zhongguo zuojia [Chinese
Writers] 5:4-28.
Feng, Jicai
1991 Voices from the Whirlwind: An Oral History of the Chinese Cultural
Revolution. New York: Pantheon Books.
1996 Ten Years of Madness: Oral Histories of China's Cultural Revolu-
tion. San Francisco: China Books and Periodicals.
Gao Yuan
1987 Born Red: A Chronicle of the Cultural Revolution. Stanford, CA:
Stanford University Press.
Hu Ping and Zhang Shengyou
1989 "Lishi chensi lu-Jinggangshan hongweibing da huanlian ershi
zhounian ji" [Historical Reflections in Memory of the 20th Anniver-
sary of Red Guards' Great Linkup Trips to the Jinggang Mountain].
In Zhou Ming (ed.), Lishi zai zheli chensi-1966-1976 nian jishi
[History Ponders Here-A True Record of 1966-1976], Vol. 5:1-68.
Taiyuan: Beiyue wenyi chubanshe.
Ken Ling
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Ballantine Books.
Liang Heng and Judith Shapiro
1983 Son of the Revolution. New York: Random House.
Liang Liang
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count of a Red Guard Founder]. Zhongguo qingnian [China
Youth] 10:5-7.
Liang Xiaosheng
1988 Yige hongweibing de zibai [The Confessions of a Red Guard].
Sichuan wenyi chubanshe.
Liao Xing'er
1993 "Zouxiang zhongguo de maijia" [Toward China's Mecca]. In Liu
Tao (ed.), Da Chuanlian: 54-58. Beijing: Zhishi chubanshe.
Liu Xiaoqing
1992 "Wo zai Mao Zedong shidai" [My Life in the Era of Mao Zedong].
Zhongguo zuojia [Chinese Writers] 5:86-96.
Lo, Fulang
1989 Morning Breeze: A True Story of China's Cultural Revolution. San
Francisco: China Books and Periodicals.
Luo Zi-ping
1990 A Generation Lost: China Under the Cultural Revolution. New
York: Henry Holt.
Wei Jingsheng
1981 "Autobiography." In Dalu dixia kanwu huibian [Underground Pub-
lications Circulated on Chinese Mainland], Vol. 5:308-325. Taipei:
Institute of the Study of Chinese Communist Problems.
Yan Fan
1993 Dachuanlian-yichang shiwu qianli de zhengzhi luyou [The Great
Linkup-An Unprecedented Occasion for Political Tourism].
Beijing: Jingguan jiaoyu chubanshe.
Yang, Rae
1997 Spider Eaters. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Zhai Zhenhua
1992 Red Flower in China. New York: Soho Press.
Zhang Chengzhi
1994 "Dao Yishui" [Lamenting River Yi]. In Zhang Chengzhi, Lu Feng
Tu [Green Customs and Lands]. Hong Kong: Cosmos Books.
402 Yang
1995 "San fen meiyou yin zai shu shang de xuyan" [Three Unpublished
Prefaces]. In Selected Works of Zhang Chengzhi: 327-329.
Hainan chubanshe.
Zhang Xinxin and Sang Ye
1987 "Red Guards." In W. J. F. Jenner and Delia Davin (eds.), Chinese
Lives: An Oral History of Contemporary China: 279-284. New York:
Pantheon Books.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research was supported by a travel award from the University
Center for International Studies of the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill, a 1995-1996 CCS/CJS Asia Library Travel Grant from the
Center for Chinese Studies of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor,
and a predissertation fellowship from the Graduate School of Arts and
Sciences of New York University. For helpful comments, I thank Judith
Blau, Judith Farquhar, Doug Guthrie, Jeff Goodwin, Ron Krabill, Kelly
Moore, Steve Pfaff, the editor and three anonymous reviewers of Sociologi-
cal Forum, and members of the Workshop on Politics, Power, and Protest
and the Wooden Fish Colloquium in the Sociology Department of New
York University. To Craig Calhoun, very special thanks for his longstanding
moral and intellectual support.
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The Liminal Effects of Social Movements: Red Guards and the Transformation of Identity

Author(s): Guobin Yang

The Liminal Effects of Social Movements: Red

Guards and the Transformation of Identity1

Social movements transform participants' identities. Why they do so is an

phenomena characterized by varying degrees of freedom, egalitarianism,

communion, and creativity. As such, the transformative power of social

movements depends on their degree of liminality. Those that approximate

freedom, egalitarianism, communion, and creativity. They transform identi-

foundly liminal movement. As a result, an age-cohort that was coming of

KEY WORDS: liminality; identity; social movements: Red Guards.

It is widely recognized that involvement in social movements trans-

forms participants' identities (Fendrich, 1977; Morris, 1984; Mueller, 1987;

Sociological Association in San Francisco.

'Department of Sociology, University of Hawai'i-Manoa, Social Sciences Building 247, 2424

Maile Way, Honolulu. Hawaii 96822.

()884-8971/()0()/()()-()379$18.()/()/ ? 2()()() Plenum Publishing Corporation

is no sustained explanation of the conditions that make movement participa-

tion an identity-transforming experience. This paper draws on Victor Turn-

er's notion of liminality (Turner, 1969, 1979) to specify these conditions. I

total effect is a threshold effect-the experience becomes a dividing line

in personal histories with immediate and long-term consequences.

period of China's Red Guard Movement (May 1966-July 1968). I will

intensified its liminal effects. Four immediate effects will be identified,

namely, freedom, egalitarianism, communion, and creativity. I will then

identify a parallel transformation of identity among Red Guards, a new

"inwardness" and an "outward" turn toward democratic ideals. I will fur-

persistently bear on Chinese politics and society up to the 1989 student

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND THE TRANSFORMATION

The construction of identity in social movements has become a promi-

the influences of identity construction on movement emergence (Melucci,

focus on the biographical consequences of movement participation and

study how movement participation affects participants' identities and subse-

turn in order to situate my study and glean useful insights.

Work on the biographical impact of movement participation falls into

two categories. One category emphasizes immediate impact and includes

(1997), and Downton and Wehr (1997).

Work in the first category shows that the experience of involvement

mitment practices among environmentalists help create activist identities.

Calhoun (1994) shows how involvement in high-risk protest transformed

initially self-centered Chinese students into activists brave enough to face

death. Fantasia (1988) argues that solidarity among workers is created in

the process of collective action. Finally, Morris shows that "meaningful

face-to-face social interactions" transformed "members of an oppressed

group who appear docile" into active protesters (1984:94-96).

Research on the long-term effects of movement participation reveals

close relations between movement experience and sustained commitment

to political activism. Follow-up studies of the American student and civil

rights movements, for example, consistently demonstrate a powerful and

enduring effect of participation (see McAdam, 1989, for a review of the

literature). In his influential study of Freedom Summer activists, McAdam

that "the consequences of this process may be lifelong or at least long-

term" (1989:758). Similar conclusions are found in studies of the American

gests that even in a hostile political environment, the women's movement

remains vital, due partly to activists' long-term commitment. Thus Rupp

characterized as "the bleak and lonely years" of the women's movement,

on activities to promote what traditionally had been defined as 'women's

were transformed by their involvement, and formed a lasting commitment

to feminist goals" (1993:545).

Work on the immediate and long-term effects of movement participa-

tion underscores the transformative power of participation experience, re-

vealing how collective experience shapes individual identities. In explaining

social interactions. Social interactions in the process of collective action