History & Area Studies / Chinese History / Contemporary China (1949-present)

The Price of Order-Domestic Rebellion and Suppression in China: Andrew G. Walder – 1966–1971

Domestic Rebellion and Suppression in China: 1966–1971

Andrew G. Walder

Domestic Rebellion and Suppression in China: Andrew G. Walder – 1966–1971(Andrew Walder) In Domestic Rebellion and Suppression in China: 1966–1971, Andrew Walder uses 2,213 local gazetteers and internal archives for in-depth statistical analysis, systematically reconstructing the turbulent landscape of the early Cultural Revolution. The article’s central finding overturns the conventional view that “Red Guard rebellion caused most casualties,” pointing out that among the estimated 1.1 to 1.6 million deaths, the vast majority resulted from state-led suppression campaigns after 1968, rather than from mass armed conflict. The author divides the Cultural Revolution process into three stages—mass rebellion, factional warfare, and state repression—emphasizing that the restoration of order was more lethal than the chaos itself, amounting to a systematic terror campaign initiated by the authorities, similar in nature to Stalinist purges. By comparing China’s situation with global political catastrophes such as those in the Soviet Union and Cambodia, the study not only quantifies the severity of this historical disaster but also reveals the extreme destructiveness displayed by highly centralized party-state systems in reshaping power structures.