ABSTRACT
The Cultural Revolution marked a major watershed in the study of contemporary China. The remarkable political activism displayed by ordinary citizens during the course of that movement served to discredit the prevailing totalitarian model and to engender new approaches that assigned greater influence to social forces. Important as social forces were in the unfolding of the Cultural Revolution, they tugged in contrary directions. The "wind of economism" that blew across the urban Chinese landscape in the winter of 1966- 1967 graphically demonstrated the significance of socioeconomic cleavages among the populace. Demands raised during the high tide of economism call attention to the socioeconomic cleavages that lurk, like fault lines, just beneath the surface of the Chinese political system. The local "political opportunity structure" in Shanghai was much more conducive to rebel hegemony than was the case elsewhere in China. In Shanghai, after the January Revolution, power was largely shared by worker and literati rebels.
