ABSTRACT
One of the most intensely contested debates in Chinese studies is the question of continuity versus change across the 1949 divide. The current fashion is to emphasize continuity over change, to take issue with the idea of a revolutionary climacteric. Take the following example:
[T]hese glorious artifacts of Chinese civilization are gone, if not torn down by mindless modernizers then destroyed by Maoist radicals in their zeal to discard the old, combat religious superstition, and free the socialist present from its feudal past. (Skinner 1999: 63)
Skinner is writing here on the specific subject of the impact of urban reconstruction, and its impact on traditional Chinese buildings. However, his view is indicative of a mindset that longs for a return to a lost golden age.1 This issue – how should we see the Chinese past? – is important because any assessment of the impact of Maoism depends very much on how we view the socio-economic system that it displaced. If the late Imperial and Republican economy was on the brink of take-off, it follows almost as a matter of course that the Maoist path to modernity was at best unnecessary and at worst a fatal detour – and that we should see the Dengist regime as resuming in 1978 where Chiang Kaishek left off in 1937.
