ABSTRACT
This chapter concentrates on the Party's stance toward the intelligentsia and the latter's response during the Reform era. Whereas most communist parties were founded by urban intellectuals, the vicissitudes of history have led to a transformation of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that was different from that of the Soviet party. The Yan'an rectification movement inaugurated a pattern of Mao's policy toward intellectuals. In periods of radicalization of the revolution, the emphasis was put on the transformation of intellectuals and the repression of their creativity. During the 1980s, the rightist generation, and the Cultural Revolution intellectuals who had graduated in the wake of Mao's demise, succeeded in extending their sphere of intervention. When the CCP was faced with a legitimacy crisis after Mao's demise, the Party led by Deng used the intelligentsia to renew the ideological foundation of the regime and co-opted its members in the Party apparatus, making sure that they did not question its leadership.
