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Lauren Nogay
Dr. Wanner
History 142H
3 November 2015
The Creation of the Culture of Self and Social Policing
From a Western perspective, the understanding of a communist state often produces
images a secret police with immense and oppressive power. This comes from the understanding
of communist regimes in Russia and other Eastern European states from the rise of communism
in the early 20th century to its demise in 1989. However, communism in China under Chairman
Mao Zedong proved to be different. Communist China had no secret police in the same sense as
its European counterparts. One may find this puzzling, as in many communist countries, the
secret police perpetuated communism as its base of power.
The Chinese communist state was able to continue without a secret police because of the
creation of a culture of self-policing and social vigilance amongst the people. Additionally, this
culture instilled a sense of importance of the individual, which incentivized Chinese citizens to
participate in this policing. In her autobiography, Chinese expatriate Jung Chang writes, Mao
managed to turn the people into the ultimate weapon of dictatorship. That was why under him
there was no real equivalent of the KGB in China. There was no need. (Chang). Instead of
relying on a few police officers to control political crimes, the higher-ups in the Communist
Party skillfully created a culture where average members of the population became their own
police officers. This carefully crafted culture involved the creation of intense loyalty to the
government and belief in the existence of unsavory individuals trying to stifle the beloved

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government, whether real or constructed. Communist China did not have a secret police because
it instead created a culture of policing in the general populace.
For a culture of self-policing to work, the Communist Party had to plant the seeds early in
its development, namely in the Revolution. The Communist Revolution created a divided China
with two groups, those in favor of Chiang Kai-Shek's Kuomintang and those in favor of the
Communists. This clear divide created intense loyalty among the followers of both sides. After
the victory of the Communists, those in support of the Kuomintang suffered wide array of
consequences, including manual labor, exile, and in some cases, death. To avoid the risk of
facing consequence, people began to show their intense loyalty to the Communists. Thus, this
created the culture of intense loyalty to the Communist Party. To this day, the Communist Party
remains the only political party allowed to exist in China. Refusal to support the Party clearly
labels an individual as an outsider. This serves a if you're not with us, you're against us
mentality. Through this, people began to check to make sure everyone they knew was a loyal
member of the party, which started the culture of social policing. Social policing grew due to the
efforts of the now powerful Communist Party.
The creation of a unified China stood as one of the Communist Party's main goals; they
wanted a society with all people equal and participatory for the greater good of the country. Mao
wanted all citizens to contribute to the growth of the state; he believed that with all people united
in their goal, all would benefit. In this sense, everyone became a political actor. Refusing to
contribute labeled one as an unsavory force that ran counter to the development of China. The
government labeled these people as counter-revolutionaries. In Mao's Ten Great Relationships,
he describes a counter-revolutionary as ...a negative element, a destructive element. It is not a

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positive element. It is a force opposed to positive elements. (Mao 76). The meaning of this is
markedly unclear, as one could draw several different interpretations of the meaning of
negative element. The unclear definition of what people should and should not do caused
people to begin to strictly police themselves, becoming hyper-aware of their actions. People had
to carefully choose their actions so as to not accidentally do something someone could construe
as counter-revolutionary. In turn, this too contributed to the culture of social policing, as Mao
also instructed people to keep a keen eye on the actions of others. In the same passage, Mao
writes: Our social discipline is very good, but we still should not relax our vigilance. (Mao 77).
The desire to fall in line with party beliefs relies on intense belief that that party and those in
power always do the right thing.
Belief in the Communist Party can be boiled down to belief in Chairman Mao. The
government and people elevated Mao to an infallible, god-like status. According to Chang, the
creation of a cult of personality around the leader proved to be quite simple, as Chinese antiquity
contains the roots of this notion. She writes, The religious feeling in which people in other parts
of the world have toward a god have in China always been directed toward the emperor. (Chang
261-262). Despite all the efforts of the Communist Party, they could not erase all old Chinese
sentiments. In this case, the Party used this to their advantage. With this, the Party easily
managed to elevated Mao to the status of a god. They did so by rehashing bad memories of preCommunist China where children went without schooling and people commonly starved
(ignoring, of course, the period of famine under communism in 1958 to 1962).This intense love
and loyalty felt toward Chairman Mao made everyone more willing to participate in self and
social policing.

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Many people felt personality indebted to Mao. They felt as though he had personally
alleviated their struggles and strife. They viewed Mao not as an arbitrary leader of the revolution,
but as a great savior and liberator of China. As a result of this intense passion for Mao, most
people genuinely had no desire cross him. People believed in the infallibility of Mao, disagreeing
with him was akin to treason. Because of this, the Chinese people wanted to defend their beloved
leader and punish anyone who acted against him. This made people begin to police themselves
and others. Many could not even imagine going against the word of Mao, which made them
strictly police their own thoughts and behavior. Additionally, people knew that others would
construe the slightest disagreement with Mao as treason, and they would find themselves
publicly denounced for their actions. Because the Chinese people viewed Mao as the ultimate
revolutionary force, people who disagreed with him clearly became one of the negative
elements that Mao spoke of in his Ten Great Relationships. Because people policed each other,
it made them even more careful while policing themselves. This aggressive policing eventually
culminated in the Cultural Revolution.
The Cultural Revolution in China sought to destroy what they referred to as the Four
Olds: old customs, old culture, old habits, and old ideas. People viewed things that fell into any
of these four categories as counter-revolutionary. To them, these old ideas held China back
from development. The Cultural Revolution lasted ten years, from 1966 to 1976. During this
time books were burned, ancient temples were demolished, and practitioners of old customs were
publicly humiliated. Mao called on the young people, the generation of people whose parents had
lived through the Communist Revolution. The Cultural Revolution became their time to
contribute to the Revolution, and it also presented a good opportunity to rebel against their

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parents. Participants in the Cultural Revolution called themselves the Red Guards. They
adopted several slogans for their goals; this one in particular defines their mission: We vow to
launch a bloody war against anyone who dares to resist the Cultural Revolution, who dares to
oppose Chairman Mao! (Chang 283). Red Guards considered their work justified and
benevolent.
The Red Guards became a special kind of police force. They very outwardly announced
their mission and marked themselves by wearing red bands around their arm. Nothing was
secretive about them. They constructed themselves as a civilian-run police force, blurring the line
between themselves and police forces operated by the government. In many cases, the Red
Guards dealt out much harsher punishments that the government's police. Though not explicitly
created by the government, the Red Guards had the blessing of Chairman Mao. This further
justified their actions. In this way, the Red Guards became the ultimate culmination of social
policing. They often broke into people's houses, tearing them apart in search of anything that one
could possibly construe as counter-revolutionary. The Red Guards proved just how effective a
culture of self and social policing can be when well implemented.
The equivalent of the KGB did not exist in China simply because China did not need one.
They instead implemented a culture where people, for various reasons, policed themselves and
each other without a need for a secret police to do so. In comparing the communist states of
Eastern Europe and China, one must wonder which method of policing proved more effective:
the European method of secret-police making people seemingly disappear over night, or the
Chinese method of public social policing. From a Western perspective, the Chinese method
might seem strange or potentially ineffective, but perhaps in reality, China's method was even

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more effective in controlling thought than the methods of the KGB.

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Works Cited
Chang, Jung. Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991. Print.
Mao, Zedong. On the Ten Great Relationships. In Mao Tse-tung unrehearsed : talks and
letters, 1956-71. Stuart Schram, Ed. ; translated [from the Chinese] by John Chinnery
and Tieyun. Harmondsworth : Penguin, 1974. pp. 61-83.