ABSTRACT
In today's political science literature on China, a name said to refer to an event that 'engulfed the entire country' some thirty years ago is regularly evoked. The 'Cultural Revolution' has become part of the rhetorical erector set – a box of conceptual nuts, screws and braces – out of which authors build their explanations of the here and now. A red piece with holes in it, the 'Cultural Revolution' can be made to fit ever so snuggly against the past and present with the help of one large Mao Zedong and a few nuts. Rarely, if ever, does one come across explanations that dispense with it: even the least historically minded political scientists seem to be unable to resist the temptation to speak of how it came to 'reinforce', 'undermine' or otherwise 'impact upon' this or that aspect of Chinese politics.
