Twentieth-Century China

Abstract:

A recently published collection of archival documents provides not just a trove of records on the history of one particular development campaign but also a rich resource for the study of political dynamics and socioeconomic patterns in Mao’s China and the early years of the Reform era. The collection, titled Xin zhongguo xiao sanxian jianshe dangan wenxian zhengli huibian (Compilation of archival documents about New China’s Small Third Front; Shanghai: Shanghai kexue jishu wenxian chubanshe, 2021), is the product of a research group headed by Xu Youwei. Documents spanning the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s in the compilation’s eight volumes shed light on industrial policy, government-enterprise and civil-military relations, factional politics of the Cultural Revolution, welfare benefits, the urban-rural divide, cultural activities, the education sector, family life, gendered practices, and elements of everyday life, among other topics.