ABSTRACT
Domestically, the campaign generated anxiety among intellectuals who remembered the persecution of the Cultural Revolution. The vital goal of integrating China’s intellectuals, especially those with technical knowledge, into the development effort, was thus adversely affected since the campaign once again seemed to raise questions about their political reliability. The hardening of the line on the Cultural Revolution was accentuated by well-publicized purges, arrests, and sentences meted out to factional leaders found guilty of frame-ups, torture, and other acts of violence during the Maoist upheaval. The anti-leftist direction of the political line was further reinforced at the end of the year by two startling developments, one on the ideological and one on the cultural front. The pattern of political conflict was shaped by a campaign against “spiritual pollution” that began in October 1983 and caused a reaction of magnitude that the reform process, instead of being arrested as intended, was further accelerated.
