ABSTRACT
Protest movements in Communist China have seldom exhibited sustained cooperation between workers and intellectuals. The Cultural Revolution (CR) was a notable exception to the general pattern of isolation between intellectuals and workers that characterized protest movements in the People's Republic of China (PRC). In spring 1964, more than two years before the formal launching of the CR, Jiang Qing had accompanied her husband to Shanghai on a two-month excursion to promote a new style of revolutionary opera. The first secretary of the Shanghai Party Committee (SPC) at the time, Ke Qingshi, was known as sympathetic to Jiang's radical brand of cultural experimentation. The first major confrontation of the CR in Shanghai, the Anting Incident—in which workers attempted to hijack a train for Beijing—was largely undertaken without student involvement. Interaction between workers and intellectuals was a critical part of the Cultural Revolution story, but the limitations of this engagement reflect the political manipulation that underpinned the entire movement.
