the structure of charismatic mobilization: a case study of ...havenscenter.wisc.edu/files/asr...

Are social movements fated to become moreconservative as they become more organ-

ized? Weber offered a cogent explanation forwhy many social movement organizations fol-

low this path. Modern organizations, he argued,inculcate in their members a bureaucratic ori-entation toward rules and organizational hier-archies; this is especially true of organizationalofficials, who develop a rational orientationtoward the existing order, imprisoning them-selves within its rules.1 Elaborating on Weber’sideas, Michels ([1915] 1959) argued that organ-izations inherently concentrate power in thehands of officials, and even revolutionary par-ties abandon radical goals as their leadersaccommodate themselves to the status quo andsecure a comfortable place within it. These the-ses, concisely conveyed in Weber’s famousdescription of bureaucracy as an “iron cage” andin Michels’s “iron law of oligarchy,” have long

The Structure of CharismaticMobilization: A Case Study of RebellionDuring the Chinese Cultural Revolution

Joel AndreasJohns Hopkins University

This article makes a case for bringing the concept of charismatic authority back into thestudy of social movements. Three decades ago, with the paradigmatic shift frompsychological to strategic explanations, Weber’s concept virtually disappeared fromscholarship about collective action. Based on an investigation of the Chinese CulturalRevolution, I examine the distinctive structure and capacities of charismaticmobilization. During the Cultural Revolution, Mao Zedong called on students, workers,and peasants to attack the officials of his own party. Because Mao employed bothbureaucratic and charismatic methods of mobilization, this movement offers anopportunity to compare the structural characteristics of the two and evaluate theirdistinctive capacities. Through a case study of the most prominent Cultural Revolutionrebel organization, I demonstrate that the informal structure of charismatic mobilizationgave the movement a rule-breaking power that made it highly effective in underminingbureaucratic authority. I then suggest how the concepts of charismatic and bureaucraticmobilization might be used to analyze other social movements and to clarify issues inlong-standing debates about the tendency of social movement organizations to becomeconservative.

AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW, 2007, VOL. 72 (June:434–458)

Direct correspondence to Joel Andreas,Department of Sociology, Johns Hopkins University,Baltimore, MD 21218-2687 ([email protected]).Research for this article was supported by Fulbright-Hays, Spencer Foundation, and Peking Universityfellowships, and was facilitated by the TsinghuaUniversity Education Research Institute. I also thankthe many people connected with the university whograciously told me their stories. Rogers Brubaker,Michael Mann, Shaojie Tang, Xiaoping Cong,Chaohua Wang, Paul Pickowicz, Xiaowei Zheng,Andrew Walder, Yang Su, Margaret Kuo, Steven Day,Shengqing Wu, Eileen Cheng, Elizabeth VanderVen,Peter Andreas, William Rowe, Marta Hanson, TobieMeyer-Fong, Giovanni Arrighi, Beverly Silver,Melvin Kohn, Dingxin Zhao, Lili Wu, JonathanUnger, Jerry Jacobs, Vincent Roscigno, RandyHodson, and several anonymous readers gave mehelpful advice and comments.

1 A compilation of Weber’s essays on bureaucra-cy and charisma can be found in Weber (1978).Insightful interpretations can be found in Bendix(1960) and in Gerth and Mills’s (1946) introductionto their collection of Weber’s works.

Delivered by Ingenta to :Johns Hopkins UniversityTue, 12 Jun 2007 14:08:45

haunted those of us with an aversion to cagesand oligarchies.

Weber’s theory of bureaucracy, however, isonly one element of a larger cyclical theory ofrevolutionary change, in which conservativeorganizations are never immune from radicaltransformation or eclipse. Charisma, of course,is the agent of upheaval in Weber’s cycle.Unfortunately, charisma virtually disappearedfrom the study of social movements as a resultof a dramatic paradigmatic shift in the 1970s.While charismatic authority played a key rolein the earlier paradigm, which relied on social-psychological explanations, the new paradigm,which stressed the rational pursuit of interests,had little use for a concept so strongly associ-ated with irrationality. Consequently, the liter-ature spawned by the new approach almostentirely abandoned the concept of charismaticauthority. Yet the absence of charisma in schol-arly analysis has not prevented the regular emer-gence of social movements with charismaticcharacteristics; this is especially true of radicalmovements that challenge the existing order.By neglecting charisma, scholars have relin-quished a valuable tool with which to analyzethese movements and have lost half of a con-ceptual framework that might profitably be usedto understand the twists and turns of all socialmovements.

In this article, I make a case for bringingcharisma back into the study of social move-ments. I argue that employing the concepts ofbureaucracy and charisma in tandem sheds con-siderable light on issues at the center of long-standing debates about the conservativetendencies of social movement organizations. Iuse the Chinese Cultural Revolution to illustratethis point. Before delving into the particulars ofthis episode, however, it is necessary to revisitthe issues that led to charisma’s banishmentfrom social movements scholarship and to setforth a framework in which charisma can beintegrated into the current paradigm.

BRINGING CHARISMA BACK INTOSOCIAL MOVEMENT SCHOLARSHIP

In the social-psychological paradigm, whichreigned from the 1940s through the 1960s,social movements are caused by traumatic struc-tural changes that produce anxiety in individu-als. Charisma plays a critical role in this

“structural strain” model, as it provides a linkbetween individual anxiety and sustained col-lective behavior. Individuals uprooted from tra-ditional institutional arrangements are seen assusceptible to charismatic appeals, which offernew interpretations of the world, suggest targetsfor the hostility generated by structural strain,and generate powerful emotional bonds betweena leader and his or her followers. Talcott Parsons(1947:70–72), who helped introduce Weber’sconcept to the English-speaking world, outlinedhow charisma might be integrated into straintheories of collective behavior. Over the nextthree decades, the most influential general the-ories of collective behavior depended on charis-ma as an essential element (Gurr 1970;Kornhauser 1959; Smelser 1962; Turner andKillian 1957), and a number of scholars pro-duced more narrowly defined works on charis-matic movements and leaders (Downton 1966;Friedland 1964; Marcus 1961; Wallace 1956).2

Many of these scholars viewed disruptivecollective behavior with trepidation and attempt-ed to diagnose conditions that caused suchbehavior and identify effective methods of pre-vention and control. Advocates of the new par-adigm, in contrast, were more sympathetic withsocial movements, which they saw as potentialagents of positive social change. While the oldschool saw structural disruptions as causes ofstress, the new school saw these disruptions aspolitical opportunities; while the old schoolattributed successful collective action to thepsychological attraction of charismatic appeals,the new school attributed this success to theeffectiveness of a movement’s strategy and itsability to mobilize resources (Gamson 1975;McAdam 1982; McCarthy and Zald 1977; Tilly1978). Advocates of the new paradigm foundtwo aspects of the charismatic depiction ofsocial movements particularly unappealing: theportrayal of movement actors as irrational andthe emphasis on the leader. Much of the previ-ous literature depicted social movements as

THE STRUCTURE OF CHARISMATIC MOBILIZATION—–435

2 A number of scholars, often continuing to workexplicitly within the structural strain paradigm, haveproduced more recent studies that explore the natureof charismatic movements (e.g., Madsen and Snow1991; Rinehart 1997; Schweitzer 1984; Willner1984), but their work has largely been done in iso-lation from the now dominant paradigm.


comprised of a prophet-like figure and an amor-phous mass of true believers moved by emo-tional attachment and irrational beliefs. In thenew literature, both leaders and followers werestrategic actors pursuing their interests, and thefocus shifted to movement organizations ratherthan leaders (who were now political entrepre-neurs, rather than prophets). Weber’s concept,therefore, held little attraction for advocates ofthe new paradigm, who were partial to structuralexplanations and keen to recover the role of themasses (who had been left out of traditional“great men” accounts of history).

Since its triumph, however, the new para-digm has gradually made room for psycholog-ical and cultural factors, some of which recallelements of the old social-psychological para-digm (although they have been shorn of theearlier structural-functional framework andpathological connotations). The original hard-nosed objectivism of the strategic actor approachhas slowly softened as scholars have recognizedthe importance of understanding the subjectivemeanings that participants attach to their actionsand the sources of their commitment. As a result,identity formation, the crafting of collectiveaction frames, and other cognitive and psycho-logical processes have been incorporated intothe prevailing paradigm (Klandermans 1984;Snow 2004; Snow and Benford 1992). This hasallowed scholars to consider the role of move-ment leaders in these processes, especially theirrole in promulgating new conceptions of theworld that make the status quo seem unjust andthe impossible seem possible (Morris 1984;Morris and Staggenborg 2004).

As Melucci (1996), a leading proponent ofthe shift toward cultural and psychologicalapproaches, noted, Weber assigned these tasksto charismatic leaders. Scholars in the main-stream paradigm also have suggested thatcharisma plays a more important role than cur-rent theoretical models admit. Morris, whoargued that Martin Luther King Jr. and othersconverted the institutionalized charismaticauthority of churches into a force for pursuingmovement goals, called on social movementscholars to give more attention to charismaticleadership and the “deep cultural and emotion-al processes that inspire and produce collectiveaction” (Morris 2000:450–52). Thus, renewedappreciation for psychology and culture may bepaving the road for the reintroduction of Weber’s

concept into the mainstream of social movementtheory.

In this article, I integrate charismatic author-ity into the current paradigm, but not by wayof the psychological road. Instead, I extend thediscussion of charisma beyond social-psy-chology and into the realm of political strate-gy and mobilizing structures. While it isunderstandable that the social-psychologicalschool dwelt on the psychological aspects ofcharisma, there is no reason that discussion ofcharismatic authority should be restricted tothe psychological realm. Although the impor-tance of cognitive and emotional factors insocial movements cannot be denied, the conceptof charismatic authority has much broaderapplication. It is time to free the concept fromthe confines of social-psychology.

Charisma lost favor among practitioners ofthe current paradigm because of its associationwith irrationality, which many erroneouslybelieve makes it incompatible with strategicaction. While Weber (1978) characterizedcharismatic authority as irrational, his meaningwas different. “Bureaucratic authority,” hewrote, “is specifically rational in the sense ofbeing bound to intellectually analyzable rules,while charismatic authority is specifically irra-tional in the sense of being foreign to all rules”(p. 244). This definition does not exclude thepursuit of interests. Among Weber’s examplesof charismatic types, after all, were pirate chiefsand warlords, whose followers were certainlyinterested in worldly goods. Although manycharismatic movements promote asceticism,charisma is not defined by an indifference tomaterial or honorific interests, but rather by anaversion to routine, rule-bound economic activ-ity and the accompanying petty calculus, whichdistracts from the charismatic mission (Weber1978:1113). This leaves plenty of room forstrategic action. For example, the instrumentalconcerns that inspire a peasant, in ordinarytimes, to practice economic diligence and thriftmay not be altogether different from those thatinspire the same peasant, in extraordinary times,to join an insurrectionary movement that prom-ises land redistribution. In the first instance,interests are pursued by following the rules,while in the second they are pursued by break-ing the rules. This is the distinction Weber drewattention to when he contrasted bureaucraticand charismatic authority. It is a critical dis-

436—–AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW


tinction, and it generates valuable concepts withwhich to analyze not only the goals of socialmovements, but also their forms of organizationand mobilizing methods.

CHARISMATIC AND

BUREAUCRATIC MOBILIZATION

Although Weber never expressly defined hisconcept this way, charisma might also bedefined as the ability of a leader to mobilize peo-ple without the benefits or constraints of formalorganization. Bureaucratic and charismaticauthority are antithetical in principal and fre-quently at odds in practice. Charisma, Weberemphasized, is intrinsically hostile to the insti-tutional hierarchies, regulations, and proceduresthat characterize bureaucracies. Organization(with its bureaucratic offices and rules) hin-ders charisma, and charisma (with its contemptfor offices and rules) undermines organization.Yet, pragmatic considerations inevitably bringabout combinations of the two. Radical move-ments, in particular, require elements of both:they are inspired by a mission that challengesthe legitimacy of the existing order, but they alsodepend on formal organizational structures andnorms that facilitate cohesion and collectiveaction.

Charismatic and bureaucratic authority coex-ist uneasily within social movements, and thecombination is inherently unstable. The advanceof bureaucracy portends the extinction of charis-ma, and charismatic eruptions undercut bureau-cratic authority. Weber frequently returned tothis theme. He pointed out that political partiesoften start as charismatic followings, but devel-op bureaucratic hierarchies based on calculablerules, technical expertise, and a rational orien-tation to the existing order. This developmentresults in conflict between charismatic leaders,whose power derives from a transcendent mis-sion, and party officials, who favor bureau-cratic norms engendered by the partyorganization. In all types of organizations,bureaucratic routinization diminishes the powerof charismatic founders and enhances the powerof officials, but official power remains suscep-tible to new charismatic challenges. Such con-flict within organizations is part of a widercyclical pattern, in which charisma overturnsexisting structures and routines, only to give

way to new structures and routines (Weber1978:252–54, 1130–56).

Weber’s essays present us with two basicpropositions regarding the evolution of modernsocial movements: 1) conservative tendencies inradical organizations typically involve thebureaucratic routinization of charisma, and 2)radical tendencies in conservative organizationstypically have charismatic inspiration.3

We can also extrapolate from Weber’s basicconcepts two types of mobilization: charismat-ic and bureaucratic. Each is characterized by dis-tinctive types of organizational norms andmeans of producing cohesion. In bureaucraticmobilization, cohesion is produced by a bureau-cratic hierarchy of authority with formal deci-sion-making procedures and a clear chain ofcommand. Authority resides in offices and doesnot depend on the personal characteristics of theindividuals who occupy these offices, and pro-motion is carried out through formal process-es based on technical qualif ications. Incharismatic mobilization, cohesion is producedby a commonly accepted mission defined bycharismatic individuals. There is no formal hier-


3 In Weber’s revolutionary cycle, charisma alwaysplays the disruptive role, but normal routines canrely on either bureaucratic or traditional authority (ora combination of the two). To make full use of Weber’strilateral framework it would be necessary to also con-sider the role of tradition. I have nevertheless chosento focus on the simpler bilateral relationship betweencharismatic and bureaucratic authority because sucha focus allows for greater clarity of theoretical expo-sition. This focus is warranted on both general andspecific grounds. Although traditional authority con-tinues to be important, its role has declined as bureau-cratic norms have displaced traditional norms inmodern political organizations (both conservativeand insurgent). In the case under consideration here,the Chinese Communist Party’s bureaucratic hierar-chy was, indeed, infused with traditional-type rela-tionships, and these were reflected in the factionalconflicts of the Cultural Revolution (Walder 1986).But these relationships, which had been cultivated byparty officials over a long period of time, were mostimportant in the conservative factions that defendedthe local party establishment. The rebels did havepowerful patrons (including Mao and his disciples inthe center), but these were typically new relationshipsthat grew out of the extraordinary conditions of theCultural Revolution, and their character was essen-tially charismatic.


archy of offices, but rather a charismatic hier-archy of authority, in which a central leader issurrounded by disciples chosen because of theirdevotion to the cause, and local leaders gathertheir own followers. Each of these leadersbecomes an agent of the common mission, bor-rowing the charismatic authority of the centralleader, but also generating his or her own author-ity. The movement is bound together by infor-mal networks, and decision making andpromotion take place without set rules and pro-cedures.4 These are, of course, only ideal typescreated for analytical purposes, and actual socialmovements combine characteristics of both.Indeed, each type might appropriately describethe mobilizing structure of a single organizationat different historical moments.

In this article, I employ these two propositionsand two conceptual types to help explain the ori-gins and results of the Cultural Revolution, andI use this dramatic episode to illustrate and fur-ther elaborate these propositions and concepts.

RECONSIDERING THE ROLEOF CHARISMA IN THECULTURAL REVOLUTION

The Cultural Revolution was an unusual socialmovement in that Mao Zedong called on stu-dents, workers, and peasants to attack the localofficials of his own party. At the time, 17 yearsafter the 1949 Revolution, the ChineseCommunist Party (CCP) was at the height of itspower. Every school, workplace, and villagewas organized around a party branch, and theauthority of the local party secretary was vir-tually beyond challenge. The rebel movementMao called into being had little formal organi-zation and was led by inexperienced youths.Yet within six months, with Mao’s support, itcompletely undermined the authority of theparty organization, and young rebels declared

they had seized power from party committeesin schools and workplaces around the country.

Scholarship about the Cultural Revolutionalso experienced the paradigmatic shift thattransformed the social movements field. Theauthors of several of the earliest studies, orientedby the then prevailing social-psychologicalapproach, sought to identify the psychologicaldeterminants of participants’behavior (Hiniker1977; Lifton 1968; Pye 1968; Solomon 1971).Lifton, in particular, highlighted the irrational-ity of participants, portraying an image of youngRed Guards—“true believers” blindly devotedto Mao and prone to fanatical, violent behaviorin moments of collective excitement—that fitthe classic social-psychological model of charis-matic movements to a tee.

Subsequent scholars, inspired by the newparadigm, insisted that Cultural Revolutionactivists were rationally pursuing their owninterests, and they attempted to free their expla-nations as much as possible from the taint ofcharisma (Chan, Rosen, and Unger 1980; Lee1978; Wang 1995). In his analysis of factionalcontention in the industrial city of Wuhan, Wangpresented the most theoretically sophisticateddefense of the rational orientation of CulturalRevolution activists. Determined to counter theidea that they were blindly following Mao, Wangtitled his study The Failure of Charisma. Hefound that although activists considered them-selves to be Mao’s disciples, they interpreted hismessages according to their own interests.Furthermore, even though they said they werefighting for ideological goals (and perhapsbelieved this themselves), their actions showedthey ultimately had more instrumental con-cerns. Thus, in both the social-psychologicaland rational actor accounts of the CulturalRevolution, charisma is associated with a typeof irrationality that diverts participants frompursuing their own interests. Wang’s diligenteffort to parse the irrational appeal of charismafrom the pursuit of interests is an admirablyprecise expression of the misconception that iscommon to both the old and new paradigms: thatcharisma and strategic action are mutuallyexclusive phenomena.

Scholars who developed rational actoraccounts of the Cultural Revolution were par-ticularly determined to dispel previous accountsthat portrayed activists as an undifferentiatedmass. They identified differences among con-


4 For a discussion of the organizational principlescharacteristic of charismatic authority, see Weber(1978:242–46, 1112–19). For a worthy effort to fur-ther elaborate these principles, see Panebianco(1988:65–67, 143–62). Both Weber and Panebiancostressed the role of the central leader and neglectedthe fact that movements lacking bureaucratic organ-ization also require local leaders who gather their owncharismatic followings.


tending local organizations, which theyexplained in terms of group interests.Individuals from disparate disadvantaged groupsbanded together to form “rebel” factions, whichbattled “conservative” factions representingprivileged groups. In these accounts, Mao’sabrupt insistence that authorities desist fromsuppressing protests created political opportu-nities for the rebels, and the emergent massorganizations were constantly maneuvering totake advantage of factional struggles in theparty. Although these interest group explana-tions of the Cultural Revolution have been crit-icized for ignoring political complications(Walder 2002), they have been widely accept-ed.

I have previously disputed specific aspects ofthese interest group accounts, while acceptingtheir basic premise (Andreas 2002). Here I turnto a different problem. How can we explain thecohesion and effectiveness of the rebel move-ment? What convinced individuals, dispersedacross a huge country and connected by onlyfeeble organizational ties, to unite around a spe-cific set of political objectives and to act cohe-sively and decisively at critical moments? Howcould such fledgling and loosely organizedgroups overturn the entrenched power of localparty organizations? Neither the early social-psychological accounts nor the later rationalactor accounts provide satisfactory answers tothese questions. On the one hand, the authors ofthe social-psychological accounts were inter-ested in participants’motivations and the bondsthat tied them to their leader and their fellowactivists, but they were less concerned with theeffectiveness of strategies and organizationalforms. On the other hand, although the authorsof the interest group accounts turned their atten-tion to strategy and organization, their analysesof interests and political opportunities do notprovide an explanation for the rebels’ cohesionand effectiveness. Individual interests can aseasily divide as unite, common interests do notautomatically generate collective action, andpolitical opportunities are only a passive factor.

In this article, I develop an explanation for therebel movement’s cohesion and effectivenessby using the concept of charisma to analyze themovement’s structure. The rebel movement wasable to maintain cohesion despite its lack offormal organization because it had a charis-matic hierarchy of authority. Moreover, it was

highly effective in undermining bureaucraticauthority because of its lack of formal organi-zation, which encouraged a rule-breaking spir-it. It was the loose organization typical ofcharismatic mobilization that gave the move-ment its extraordinary destructive power.

RESEARCH AGENDA AND DATA

This article examines in detail a single organi-zation, the Jinggangshan Regiment of TsinghuaUniversity, China’s leading school of engineer-ing and technology. In part because of the statureof the university and its proximity to the centerof power in Beijing, Jinggangshan became themost famous rebel organization in the countryand its leader, a student named Kuai Dafu, cameto symbolize the seditious bravado that charac-terized the movement. I chose to conduct a casestudy of a single organization to obtain adetailed ground-level understanding of the polit-ical aims and organizational characteristics ofthe movement. Although the prominence ofJinggangshan made it peculiar in some ways, thebasic aims and organizational characteristicsdescribed below were largely shared by similarorganizations across the country.5

I conducted this research as part of a largerinvestigation into the postrevolutionary historyof Tsinghua University. Most data was collect-ed during 20 months of field research between1998 and 2001. Data was obtained from twomain types of sources: interviews and contem-porary factional publications. I interviewed 76people who were members of the TsinghuaUniversity community during the factionalfighting of the Cultural Revolution, includingstudents, teachers, clerical staff, workers, andschool officials. Among those interviewed wereleaders and members of both of the main con-tending factions.6 I also made use of other ret-rospective accounts, including personal memoirs


5 Song and Sun (1996) and Tang (1996) describedJinggangshan as typical of organizations in the rad-ical camp across China.

6 The interviews took place between 1998 and2006. Most were conducted in-person and were taperecorded. Many people graciously spoke with meon multiple occasions for many hours. With theexception of Kuai Dafu, I have not used the individ-uals’ real names.


and official, semiofficial, and unofficial his-tories. Contemporary sources include news-papers, pamphlets, and fliers published by therival university factions.

It was important not only to obtain a widevariety of perspectives, but also to comparecontemporary and retrospective accounts,which have complementary strengths andweaknesses. Contemporary newspapers andfliers recorded events from a period perspec-tive, while retrospective interviews providedaccess to personal experiences and interpreta-tions. While contemporary publications wereproduced under the political constraints andincentives of the period, memories of pastevents, motivations, and ideas have undergonea conscious or unconscious metamorphosis assubsequent events and political and ideologi-cal changes (official, collective, and personal)make their imprint.

ORIGINS OF THE CULTURALREVOLUTION

Before turning to the student movement atTsinghua University, it is necessary to explainthe origins of the Cultural Revolution. Theexplanation advanced here, which dependsheavily on previous scholarship, describes theupheaval as a product of contradictionsbetween the charismatic and bureaucratic ele-ments that together constituted the CCP. Allrevolutionary political parties must marry anideology that requires breaking society’s ruleswith an organizational form that requiresadherence to party rules. This combinationwas epitomized by the Leninist party, a high-ly successful model adopted by Marxist revo-lutionaries around the world, including ChineseMarxists. Communist leaders inspired theirfollowers with a millenarian vision, while mar-shalling their efforts through a highly disci-plined party organization. As Schurmannshowed in his classic work, Ideology andOrganization (1968), this was a potent com-bination that allowed the Chinese communiststo mobilize a successful insurrectionary move-ment, but it also harbored powerful contradic-tions that became especially acute after theCCP took power.

CONTRADICTIONS WITHIN BUREAUCRATIC

MOBILIZATION

The CCP, like other victorious communist par-ties, assumed responsibility for administering asociety based on class structures it was pro-grammatically committed to destroying. This ledto a tumultuous style of governance, as it did inthe early decades of the Soviet Union, punctu-ated by recurring state-led political movements.7

These movements, including land reform, col-lectivization, and the Great Leap Forward, wereinstruments of revolution from above, used bythe new regime to attack the old elite classes andtear down institutions on which their power andprivileges were based. Brief periods of calmwere broken by new class-leveling campaignsthat violently overturned elements of the statusquo, abrogating existing policies and practices,and creating new ones. These movementsinvoked transcendent communist goals in animmediate fashion that made existing struc-tures intolerable and radical change imperative.They conjured up visions of a bright commu-nist future, concentrated popular hostility againstelements of the prevailing order and existingelites (or already dispossessed and disenfran-chised elites), and radically transformed thesocial order. Although these campaigns werehighly disruptive, their methods were essen-tially bureaucratic, as they relied on mobilizinga vast party organization that extended down tothe basic levels of society. Orders were passeddown the party’s chain of command from thecenter to regional and local branches, whichmobilized subsidiary mass organizations, acti-vating hundreds of millions of people. Thus,even after the communists took power, the recipethat brought them to power, combining a tran-scendent class-leveling ideology with a bureau-cratic organization, had not yet exhausted itsrevolutionary potential.

Political movements were always initiated byMao, who had established for himself a positionabove party deliberations, a position Meisner(1982) likened to that of a prophet. Within thecentral party leadership, there was a widely rec-ognized division of labor, in which others han-


7 Tucker (1961) and Lowenthal (1970) endeav-ored to theoretically describe this type of revolu-tionary regime.


dled day-to-day administrative affairs, whileMao assumed responsibility for keeping alivethe communist goal of eliminating class dis-tinctions. The party’s transcendent ideologicalgoals and the practical demands of governancebecame embodied, respectively, in Mao andother party leaders. Like the war chief in a tribewhere power is divided between a war chiefand a peace chief, Mao’s power was ascendantduring moments of mass mobilization.

Several scholars have suggested that Leninistparties created political movements in whichcharisma was not embodied in an individual, butin the party. Lenin’s “party of a new type,” wroteJowitt (1983), was conceived of as “an amalgamof bureaucratic discipline and charismatic cor-rectness” that took the “fundamentally con-flicting notions of personal heroism andorganizational impersonalism and recast themin the form of an organizational hero” (p. 277).Constas (1961) suggested that victoriousLeninist parties created a “charismatic bureau-cracy,” in which expansion of bureaucraticpower became the charismatic mission. Each ofthese interpretations provides insights into theresults of the communist combination of charis-ma and bureaucracy, but by emphasizing theunified product of the merger they direct ourattention away from its contradictions.

Some scholars of postrevolutionary Chinahave taken the opposite tack, arguing that theCultural Revolution was a product of tensionsbetween Mao’s charismatic authority and thebureaucratic authority of the party organiza-tion.8 In seeking to explain Mao’s motivations,some emphasized personal power, while othersstressed ideological goals. These explanationsare not contradictory, of course, as Mao’s com-mitment to the communist mission was insep-arably tied to his conception of his own role inachieving this mission.

The Cultural Revolution can be seen as amanifestation of tensions that were present in all

Leninist parties that came to power by means ofindigenous revolutions. Starting with Lenin,communist leaders stridently denounced bureau-crats, and bureaucratic methods and attitudes,for impeding the implementation of the com-munist program.9 In his study of postrevolu-tionary Cuba, Gonzalez (1974) produced aninsightful analysis of this type of conflict, high-lighting the friction between Fidel Castro’scharismatic leadership style and the bureau-cratic norms of the party organization. Castropresented this conflict in ideological terms,appealing to the people to fight for “mass meth-ods” as opposed to administrative and techno-cratic methods, which he criticized as elitistand incompatible with “advancing the revolu-tionary process” (pp. 224–25). A communistparty’s transcendent mission inevitably clashedwith the bureaucratic rationality of its organi-zational form, and this dissonance was fre-quently exacerbated by conflicts between theparamount leader, whose authority was tied toadvancing the communist mission, and the partybureaucracy, which was charged with adminis-tering the country.10 Nowhere, however, were theeffects of this clash more pronounced than inChina.

CHALLENGING BUREAUCRATIC AUTHORITY

In 1966, Mao divorced the communist class-leveling mission from the party organizationand used his personal charismatic authority toturn the mission against the organization. Heabandoned conventional bureaucratic methodsof mobilization and instead appealed directly tostudents, workers, and peasants (including bothparty members and nonmembers), calling onthem to form rebel organizations that wereautonomous of party control and could, there-fore, direct their fire at the party organization.


8 Dittmer (1987) presented this thesis in the mostelaborate fashion, and Ahn (1974), Whyte (1974), andHiniker (1978) made similar arguments. Schwartz(1968), Schapiro and Lewis (1969), Tsou (1969),Lee (1978), and Meisner (1982) highlighted similardynamics in the conflict between Mao and the partyorganization, although they did not use the languageof charisma versus bureaucracy.

09 See, for instance, Lenin ([1923] 1975).10 Although the Leninist model stressed the impor-

tance of the organization, the prominence of indi-vidual leaders—for example, V. I. Lenin, Ho ChiMinh, Josip Tito, Enver Hoxha, Fidel Castro, andAmilcar Cabral—in successful communist revolu-tions suggests that the role of personal charismaremained important. Tucker (1968) argued that Lenintransformed the Russian Marxist movement into acharismatic one.


The off icial rationale for the CulturalRevolution can be found in the thesis that theSoviet Union, China’s model, was undergoinga process of “peaceful evolution” from social-ism into a form of “state capitalism.” Accordingto Mao and a group of radical theorists associ-ated with him, Soviet officials had become anexploiting class without fundamentally chang-ing the social structure. Since China had close-ly followed the Soviet model, the Chinese socialstructure was also seen as harboring the seedsof exploitation, and the main danger to the com-munist project came not from the overthrownpropertied classes or from external enemies,but rather from “new bourgeois elements” insidethe party. To avoid peaceful evolution to statecapitalism, Mao and his radical associates pro-claimed, it was necessary to carry out a “con-tinuing revolution under the dictatorship of theproletariat.” This revolution was to be directedagainst an emergent exploiting class, whichthey identified as “those in power in the partywho are following the capitalist road,” con-densed to the shorthand term, “capitalist road-ers.” Criticism of the capitalist roadershighlighted the problem of “bureaucracy,” theessential meaning of which, in the Chinese com-munist lexicon, was the concentration of powerin the hands of officials. In 1965, on the eve ofthe Cultural Revolution, Mao warned that partyofficials were becoming an incipient “bureau-cratic class.” “These people,” he wrote, “havebecome or are in the process of becoming bour-geois elements sucking the blood of the work-ers.” They were, he added, the “main target ofthe revolution” (Mao [1965] 1969).

Because Mao’s target was the party organi-zation, he could not rely on it to mobilize peo-ple to participate in this movement. Instead hewent outside the party organization to directlymobilize students, workers, and peasants.During the first two months of the CulturalRevolution, there was a dramatic transition frombureaucratic to charismatic mobilization. Thewatershed event in this transition was Mao’srecalling of work teams that had initially beendispatched by party authorities to lead the move-ment.

Party leaders had long employed work teamsto rectify problems in local party organizationsand ensure that political campaigns were imple-mented in the fashion intended by the center.

During Land Reform (1946 to 1952), forinstance, work teams spent months supervisingthe implementation of the campaign in villages,making sure local communist cadres were notprotecting landlords and rich peasants. Workteams were also charged with investigatingcadre corruption and abuses of power, an ongo-ing effort that culminated in the SocialistEducation Movement (1963 to 1966). Workteams temporarily took charge of villages, fac-tories, and schools—setting aside the local partycommittees—and organized peasants, workers,and students to help investigate and criticizelocal leaders. They inspired fear among localcadres and were effective in enforcing partydiscipline and rooting out cadre corruption.11

In 1966, therefore, it was quite natural forparty leaders to assume work teams would bethe appropriate method to carry out Mao’s lat-est initiative. This time, however, Mao was notsimply seeking to discipline errant officials; hewanted to challenge the authority of the entireparty organization. The work team method wasill-suited for this task because it relied on top-down methods, reinforcing the authority of theparty hierarchy. The problem with previousefforts to reform the party, Mao concluded, wasthat they were directed from above. “In the pastwe waged struggles in rural areas, in factories,in the cultural field, and we carried out theSocialist Education Movement,” he noted. “Butall this failed to solve the problem because wedid not find a form, a method, to arouse thebroad masses to expose our dark aspect open-ly, in an all-round way and from below.”12

During the early months of the CulturalRevolution, Mao allowed central party author-ities, led by President Liu Shaoqi, to send workteams to schools and workplaces, but he imme-diately undermined the authority of these teamsby commissioning a series of newspaper andradio commentaries that condemned efforts tocontrol the movement and declared that “themasses must educate themselves” and “liberate


11 For accounts of work team methods during LandReform and the Socialist Education Movement, seeHinton (1966), Friedman, Pickowicz, and Selden(1991), and Chan, Madsen, and Unger (1984).

12 Excerpt from a talk delivered by Mao inFebruary 1967, cited in Lin ([1969] 1972:447).


themselves.”13 This message incited confronta-tions between students and work teams (as wellas between workers and work teams), whichled to the emergence of a rebel movement thatpledged loyalty to no one but Mao. This processcan be observed in the dramatic events atTsinghua University that led to the creation ofthe Jinggangshan Regiment.

TRANSITION FROM BUREAUCRATICTO CHARISMATIC MOBILIZATION

On June 8, 1966, a work team composed ofseveral hundred party off icials arrived atTsinghua. It took charge of the school and sus-pended all university and department-levelcadres. Tsinghua had been in turmoil since theend of May, when a small group of radicalteachers at nearby Peking University publiclyposted a caustic “big-character poster” denounc-ing the school’s leadership for practicing a “revi-sionist education line.” Mao had endorsed theposter, and Tsinghua students had flocked to thePeking University campus, eager to witness theensuing controversy. Soon the Tsinghua campuswas embroiled in a debate about the school’sown leadership. Classes stopped and the wallsof campus buildings were covered with con-tending posters attacking and defending theuniversity administration. The work team, dis-patched by central party leaders, authoritative-ly settled the debate by condemning TsinghuaParty Secretary Jiang Nanxiang and the entireuniversity party committee. They began mobi-lizing students and teachers to write big-char-acter posters and participate in “criticism andstruggle” meetings denouncing the universityleadership.

Soon after the work team arrived, Kuai Dafu,a 21-year-old chemical engineering student,wrote a series of big-character posters accusingwork team leaders of trying to control the stu-dent movement and protecting Jiang and othertop university cadres by refusing to bring thembefore mass meetings. Kuai, whose parentswere both members of their village party branch,

had been very active in party-led student polit-ical activities. He was head of the editorial com-mittee at Tsinghua’s broadcasting station whenhe took this fateful first step on a path thatwould make him into the party organization’simplacable enemy. The work team, headed byYe Lin, deputy chairman of the State EconomicCommission, and populated by other distin-guished members including President LiuShaoqi’s wife, Wang Guangmei, had locked theuniversity gates, prohibited contact betweenstudents of different departments, and requiredadvance approval of big-character posters. In hisunapproved posters, Kuai called for the expul-sion of the work team from campus. “I didn’tlike the work team’s methods,” Kuai told me.“The newspapers said it should be a students’movement, but the work team wanted to controleverything very closely. That’s not what MaoZedong was urging us to do.|.|.|. Liu Shaoqi .|.|.didn’t understand Mao’s thinking; he thought theuniversities were very chaotic, so he sent thework teams to try to control the situation. Thework team .|.|. suppressed the students.”

On June 24, the work team convened a cam-puswide meeting to criticize Kuai, condemninghim as a “counterrevolutionary.” An unrepentantKuai denounced the work team, winning loudapplause from perhaps half of the thousands ofstudents crowded into and around the school’smain auditorium. A student selected by the workteam to help control access to the stage endedup supporting the opposition instead: “I didn’tknow who was wrong or right, but I felt .|.|. thework team didn’t let Kuai Dafu express himself,so I stopped .|.|. the work team’s people [fromapproaching the stage] and I helped Kuai Dafu.I felt that if it was a debate, then both sidesshould have the freedom to speak.”

Students and teachers, who were accustomedto the tightly controlled political environment atthe university before the Cultural Revolution,were astonished by Kuai’s defiance. “At thattime, you couldn’t doubt the leaders, so itbecame a big deal,” explained Ke Ming, a stu-dent who supported Kuai and later played animportant role in the movement. “That changedduring the Cultural Revolution—then you could.That was the impact of Mao Zedong thought.The extraordinary thing about Kuai Dafu wasthat he saw that back then, and he didn’t backdown.” The campus split into two incipient fac-


13 These slogans, which had frequently appearedin the press, were officially consecrated in CentralCommittee of the Chinese Communist Party ([1966]1972).


tions, one supporting and one opposing thework team. Although the team mobilized stu-dents to criticize classmates who had support-ed Kuai, labeling them “Rightists” and“counterrevolutionaries,” it was never able toreimpose the kind of control that had existedbefore the Cultural Revolution.

In late July, Mao ordered the work teamsremoved from schools, and a few days later heissued what he called his first big-characterposter, titled “Bombard the Headquarters.” Theposter sharply denounced the methods of thework teams: “In the last fifty days or so, someleading comrades from the central down to thelocal levels have .|.|. [proceeded] from the reac-tionary stand of the bourgeoisie, they haveenforced a bourgeois dictatorship and struckdown the noisy and spectacular GreatProletarian Cultural Revolution movement. Theyhave stood facts on their head, juggled black andwhite, encircled and suppressed revolutionaries,stifled opinions differing from their own,imposed a white terror, and felt very pleasedwith themselves” (MacFarquhar and Schoenhals2006:90).

A veteran teacher described the unprece-dented and somewhat bewildering situation thatmembers of the Tsinghua community encoun-tered after the work team was withdrawn:“Before we had learned to obey the party com-mittee; then after the party committee was gone,we listened to the work team because it repre-sented the party. After the work team left, therewas no more control, things were freer—if youwanted to, you could follow the students; if youdidn’t want to, you didn’t have to.”

Before the work team left, it hastily appoint-ed a Cultural Revolution PreparatoryCommittee, led by students whose parents weretop party officials, to take charge of the move-ment. Mao, however, encouraged everyone toform their own “fighting groups,” and over thefollowing weeks students, teachers, and work-ers at the university formed many small groups,which coalesced into two contending factions.The self-styled rebel faction condemned therecently departed work team, while their oppo-nents, led by members of the PreparatoryCommittee, supported it. The underlying ques-tion was whether or not the party organizationshould control the student movement.

Kuai Dafu and several of his classmatesestablished their own fighting group, which

they named Jinggangshan after the mountainstronghold in Jiangxi Province from which Maoand others launched their guerrilla strategy in1927. Kuai, who even while he was under inves-tigation by the work team in July had receivedvisits from leaders close to Mao, was rewardedfor his defiance with invitations to participatein Beijing-wide meetings to promote the mostradical of the new student organizations. InOctober, Jinggangshan and its allies at otherBeijing schools helped organize a huge rally tocondemn the “bourgeois reactionary line” car-ried out by the party authorities and the workteams, and to denounce the “conservative” stu-dent organizations that had come to the partyorganization’s defense.

With public support from close associates ofMao, Jinggangshan soon became the dominantrebel organization at Tsinghua and by the endof the year, after the conservative faction hadcollapsed, it took complete charge of the cam-pus. In the spring of 1967, however, more mod-erate students, increasingly dismayed by theradicalism of Kuai Dafu and other Jinggangshanleaders, organized a new coalition dedicated todefending the “good cadres” at the university.After that, students, teachers, and workers atTsinghua coalesced into two fairly stable con-tending factions, the “radicals” and the “mod-erates.” The radicals, led by Kuai, attacked thepre-Cultural Revolution status quo and the partyestablishment, while the moderates defendedthe status quo and the party establishment.14

Similar radical and moderate factions emergedin schools and workplaces across China, andconflict between these two camps gripped bothTsinghua and the country for the next 15months.15


14 Both factions emerged out of a split inJinggangshan and each insisted on keeping the orga-nization’s name; the radical faction was popularlyknown as the “Regiment,” and the moderate factionwas known as “April 14th” (the date of its foundingrally). I use “Jinggangshan” to refer to the radical fac-tion so as not to unduly burden the reader with orga-nizational names. Narratives by Hinton (1972), Tang(2003), and Zheng (2006) recount the twists andturns of the factional conflict at Tsinghua.

15 I use the term “rebels” to refer more broadly tothe antibureaucratic movement during the CulturalRevolution and “radicals” to refer more narrowly tothe camp that opposed the moderates after the springof 1967.


THE RADICALS’ MISSION

The goal of the Cultural Revolution,Jinggangshan activists declared in their news-paper, was to do away with the existing “hier-archical system, cadre privileges, the slavementality, the overlord style of work, and thebloated bureaucracy” (Jinggangshan, May 13,1967).16 Bureaucratism was the radicals’ maintarget and their solution was to implement “masssupervision” over cadres. They took up this taskwith relish, hauling university officials up onstages to be criticized, and sometimes cruellyhumiliated, by their subordinates. The mainpractical issue that divided the factions atTsinghua was the rehabilitation of universityofficials. The moderate faction thought thatafter cadres had made self-criticisms, most ofthem should be brought back to work; even ifthey had made mistakes, they argued, mostcadres were basically good. Kuai and the radi-cals adamantly opposed the rehabilitation of allbut a handful of university cadres.

The radicals directed their attacks againstboth individual party leaders and fundamentalfeatures of the underlying political system. Theychallenged the authority of the party commit-tee and party offices, criticized the party’s cul-ture of political dependency, and denouncedthe system of career advancement based onpolitical loyalty. The greatest gain of the CulturalRevolution, Jinggangshan activists declared,was “destroying the servile thinking” that hadbeen encouraged by the party organization(Jinggangshan, April 5, 1967). Radical effortsto condemn the culture of political dependen-cy were given a boost by a campaign Maolaunched in the spring of 1967 to criticize LiuShaoqi’s book, How to Be a Good Communist([1939] 1972), which was the principal guide forthe conduct of communist cadres and requiredreading for those aspiring to join the party. Inthe book, Liu, who was both the country’s pres-ident and the CCP’s organization chief, stressedthat party members must submit to the will ofthe party organization. Mao declared: “Partymembers in the past were isolated from the

masses because of the influence of How to Bea Good Communist, [they] held no independentviews, and served as subservient tools of theparty organs. The masses in various areas willnot welcome too quick a recovery of the struc-ture of the party” (Dittmer 1998:317).

Jinggangshan used the campaign as an open-ing to attack the modus operandi of Tsinghua’sparty organization, particularly its recruitmentapparatus. They claimed that university partysecretary Jiang Nanxiang, like Liu, had encour-aged careerism among party members anddemanded subservience in exchange for oppor-tunities to climb up the party hierarchy. Theydenounced Jiang’s motto, “Be obedient and pro-ductive,” and claimed that he had cultivated aparticularly servile group of cadres at Tsinghua.In a scathing essay published in theJinggangshan newspaper, a midlevel universi-ty cadre wrote that Jiang’s main criterion forselecting cadres was “obedience.” The author,who described himself as a “pure Tsinghua-brand cadre,” displayed a mastery of the criti-cism/self-criticism style required during theCultural Revolution: “To be a good cadre, youhad to obey ‘Comrade Nanxiang’ and the‘school party committee.’As long as you wereobedient, you could become an official, youwere placed in an important position, and youwere deeply grateful.” As a result of this kindof selection and lengthy training at the univer-sity, the author continued, Tsinghua cadres hadbeen particularly damaged by Liu’s “self-culti-vation” mentality: “They always stick to con-vention and have a slave mentality; in theirwork they are only responsible to those abovethem, and they care more about following theregulations than about right and wrong. Whilethey are subservient yes-men towards thoseabove them, they exercise a bourgeois dictator-ship over those below them and suppress diver-gent opinions” (Jinggangshan, April 18, 1967).

The radicals not only criticized universityparty officials but also enthusiastically attackedhigher-level party leaders. “Those taking thecapitalist road,” an article in Jinggangshan’snewspaper declared, “have captured part of thestate machinery in China (and it has becomecapitalist state machinery).” What was required,therefore, was “a great revolution in which oneclass overthrows another.” This was the task ofthe Cultural Revolution, “an explosion of thelong-accumulated class conflict in China” that


16 A collection of Jinggangshan, the daily news-paper published by the Jinggangshan Regiment atTsinghua University between December 1966 andAugust 1968, has been reproduced in Zhou (1999).


was essentially the same kind of thoroughgoingpolitical and social revolution as had taken placein 1949 (Jinggangshan, July 5, 1968). “Ourprimary target was those [party leaders] whowere taking the capitalist road,” Kuai Dafu toldme. “We thought they were the main source ofcapitalist restoration. Those who had alreadybeen overthrown—the so-called old Rightists,the old intellectuals, the old Nationalist Party—they were not the main problem. The danger ofrestoration came from within the CommunistParty’s own ranks, from some of its ownleaders.”

IDEOLOGY, INTERESTS, AND MOBILIZATION

How did the radicals convince people to jointhem in fighting for this cause? How did theyrally people to act as a cohesive and effectiveforce? In answering these questions, social-psy-chological accounts have stressed ideology,while rational actor accounts have stressed inter-ests, and in both cases paradigmatic predilec-tions have obscured the relationship between thetwo. This has created different kinds of problemsin each of the paradigms.

Hiniker (1978), author of one of the mostsophisticated social-psychological explanations,argued that Cultural Revolution activists weremotivated by the incongruence between postrev-olutionary reality and communist egalitarianideals. “Successful bureaucratization,” he wrote,“engenders cognitive dissonance in those ide-ologically committed to charismatic leadership”(p. 535). This cognitive dissonance drove thetruly committed to strive even harder to bringreality in line with their millenarian vision.Hiniker contrasted this ideological orientationwith the pragmatic orientation of others, whowere more concerned about material well-beingthan ideological goals. While the latter respond-ed to the bureaucratic leadership style that pre-vailed before the Cultural Revolution, the formerresponded to Mao’s appeal for redemption in1966. Hiniker thus identified two types of “fol-lowers” in China: one a pragmatist and the othera true believer.

Although there was a profound differencebetween the type of activism fostered by Mao’scall for rebellion during the Cultural Revolutionand that which had been fostered by the partyorganization before the Cultural Revolution,the difference was not that one was inspired by

ideological and the other by instrumental goals.Instead, the difference was whether activistspursued their goals, instrumental or ideological,by following or by breaking the rules. Politicalactivism in postrevolutionary China, whetherbefore or during the Cultural Revolution, alwaysinvolved a close connection between instru-mental and ideological goals. This commonfeature, along with the differences between thetwo types of activism, can be seen by compar-ing the criteria used to evaluate activists duringthe two periods.

Before the Cultural Revolution, membershipin the party and in its training and recruitingarm, the Communist Youth League, was veryimportant in terms of career considerations,and almost all Tsinghua students eventuallyjoined the league. To gain membership, theyhad to compete with other students in demon-strating their commitment to communist ideol-ogy and collectivist ethics, including awillingness to “serve the people,” exemplifiedby hard work, selflessness, and public spirit.Shirk (1982) noted the irony in this competition:to achieve their personal ambitions, studentshad to prove their selflessness. Nevertheless, shedid not find that her informants lacked ideo-logical commitment or a sense of moral duty,only that these were intimately linked with theirefforts to get ahead.

The process of joining Jinggangshan andadvancing to leadership positions in the organ-ization was much less formal, but rebel activistswere also expected to exhibit commitment tocommunist ideology and collective spirit. Thecriteria rebels used to evaluate their comrades,however, were different than those used by theyouth league and the party in one key respect.Because the youth league and the party wereintent on selecting young people who couldwork effectively in an organizational hierarchy,taking direction from above and giving directionto those under their supervision, compliancewith bureaucratic authority was highly prized.In contrast, rebel activists were expected todemonstrate a willingness to challenge bureau-cratic authority.

Like activists in the past, Cultural Revolutionrebels were keen to demonstrate their commit-ment to communist ideals and their selfless-ness, but altruism was now connected withtaking risks in thought and action. This is appar-ent in the way a Jinggangshan activist described



himself and his comrades: “Those who thoughtcreatively and had different opinions support-ed Jinggangshan. I didn’t care about the personalcost; if something was wrong—then challengeit.” Kuai Dafu, who eventually spent 17 years inprison as a result of his prominent role in therebel movement, repeated this theme of disre-gard for personal well-being, adding a sense ofhistorical drama: “We were acutely aware that[the Cultural Revolution] would probably failand we knew we would be on the losing side andwould be suppressed.|.|.|. Most people opposedthe Cultural Revolution—very few really fol-lowed Mao.|.|.|. But we felt we were an impor-tant minority and that it was our duty to fightfor his ideas.|.|.|. We were fighting for ideals, fora new world.”

Some of Kuai’s opponents were not so con-vinced of his altruism. A supporter of the mod-erate faction described him in a moreopportunistic light: “Kuai Dafu saw there wasan opportunity to become somebody differ-ent.|.|.|. When you come from a very poor back-ground [as he did] .|.|. you kind of have thenature of rebelling. When you get an opportu-nity, those people are brave; they stand up anddo something different that eventually may ben-efit them.” It is not easy to arbitrate betweenaltruistic and instrumental interpretations ofCultural Revolution activists’motivations. Kuaiwas certainly an ambitious young man, and itis likely that personal ambitions were involvedin his eagerness to take up the rebel cause. Toprove his rebel credentials, however, Kuai hadto demonstrate that he was willing to makegreat sacrif ices, even die, for the cause.Ambition and altruism were insolubly linked.

Thus, ideological and instrumental goalswere important both before and during theCultural Revolution. Before the CulturalRevolution, however, youth league activistsweighed moral and instrumental considerationsin an orderly world governed by calculable rules,while during the Cultural Revolution rebelactivists weighed moral and instrumental con-siderations in a world of revolutionary possi-bilities and dire risks. Both types of activistswere ambitious, but youth league activistssought to realize their goals—whether ideo-logical or instrumental—by working within thesystem, while Cultural Revolution rebels soughtto realize their goals by overturning the system.

By presenting Cultural Revolution rebels astrue believers indifferent to material interests,Hiniker made the movement impervious tointerest-based analysis. In contrast, Lee (1978),whose early analysis of factional contentionduring the Cultural Revolution remains one ofthe best of the rational actor accounts, did notbelieve any Cultural Revolution activists weretrue believers: “The mass organizations werealmost exclusively concerned with narrow groupinterests, particularly power interests. To them,ideological and policy considerations were meremeans to advance their political interests” (p. 5).The movement offered insurgent leaders achance to gain power, Lee argued, but it alsooffered rewards to their followers. Individualswho suffered disadvantages under the existingorder saw in the rebel movement the possibili-ty of changing the system and improving theirlot. Thus, material interests, not ideologicalconvictions, motivated the rebels.

The problem with explanations of radicalupheavals that depend so heavily on the unmedi-ated power of interests is that individuals’ con-ceptions of their interests under normalcircumstances are largely shaped by existinginstitutions and rules. As game theory suggests,rules confer interests. To conceive of practicalinterests that transcend existing institutionsrequires not only a creative imagination, but aconviction that these institutions can be over-turned. Under ordinary conditions, these arenot interests, but pipe dreams. The mobilizingsuccess of a radical movement can be measuredin terms of its ability to turn such impracticaldreams into practical goals. Interests do, indeed,propel people to join insurrectionary move-ments, but these are not routine everyday inter-ests; they are interests that can only be invokedby visions of radical change. Because pursuingthis type of interest requires sacrificing every-day interests, such a pursuit becomes a mis-sion, beyond the realm of everyday rationality.Such missions are fraught with danger anduncertainty, which is one reason they are sooften given by God or by History.

Many of the disadvantaged choose not tojoin rebel movements, and sometimes they evenjoin the forces of order. There are many reasonsfor this: individuals’ understanding of theirinterests might be so strongly tied to prevailingpower relations that they cannot imagine inter-ests that transcend those relations, they might



not believe the lofty promises made by rebelleaders about the new order they are fighting tobring into being, or they might not be convincedthey will prevail. The Cultural Revolution wasno exception—in factories and villages mem-bers of the most disadvantaged social groupsfought on both sides of the barricades.

In the elite confines of Tsinghua University,it was difficult to distinguish between the rad-ical and moderate camps in terms of their mem-bers’ social backgrounds, a situation that alsoprevailed at other universities (Rosen 1982;Walder 2002). There were children of intellec-tuals, party cadres, peasants, and workers onboth sides, and although a contemporary surveyrecorded that 63 percent of student party mem-bers and student cadres supported the moderatefaction, at least 27 percent supported the radi-cal faction (Shen 2004:115). Indeed, the radi-cals were led by students like Kuai, who hadunblemished family histories and seeminglybright futures in the political establishment—until they joined the rebel movement. AlthoughKuai and his confederates had the invaluablebacking of China’s paramount leader, they werefaced with the difficult task of convincingTsinghua students, a highly select group virtu-ally guaranteed comfortable and prestigiouspositions in the existing order, that they wereinterested in tearing down China’s elite educa-tional and political institutions to build a stillnebulous egalitarian world.17

At Tsinghua, as elsewhere, collective actionrequired more than the direct impetus of inter-ests. I am not arguing that interests were notimportant, but rather that, as Snow (2004) putit, “interpretative processes matter” (p. 383).To understand how social movements mobilizepeople to accomplish radical aims, it is neces-sary to study the dynamic relationship betweeninterests and ideology, as well as the mobiliz-ing structures that social movements employ. Itackle the latter problem here, employing theconcept of charismatic mobilization to analyzethe structure of the radical faction during theCultural Revolution. Charismatic mobilizationis particularly dependent on ideology becausethis type of movement, which lacks strong orga-

nizational forms, is held together largely bycommitment to a common mission, and thecapacity for coordinated action is generated bya charismatic rather than a bureaucratic hierar-chy of authority.

CHARISMATIC STRATEGY ANDORGANIZATION

TOP AND BOTTOM VERSUS THE MIDDLE

While most charismatic movements originatefrom below, the Cultural Revolution originatedfrom the top—Mao issued his call for rebellionfrom the very pinnacle of the state apparatus.Although unusual, this can be understood asan instance of a recurring historical patterndescribed by Weber, in which the power of anelite group is weakened by the concerted actionof a central ruler and social groups at lowerechelons of the social hierarchy. Such concert-ed action can take the form of a social movementthat is essentially charismatic because it relieson the personal authority of a central ruler whoabandons bureaucratic or traditional hierarchies,which normally underpin his authority, anddirectly appeals to the populace.

In his perceptive analysis of the CulturalRevolution, Lupher (1996) recognizes this pat-tern, which he calls the “top-and-bottom-versus-the-middle strategy of power restructuring” (p.13). Mao at the top and his rebel followers at thebottom shared the goal of undermining thepower of the officials who staffed the partyoffices in the middle. Moreover, Mao and therebels depended on each other. Without therebels, Mao’s crusade against the party bureau-cracy would have had little impact, and withoutMao’s support, the rebels could not have sur-vived. The personality cult surrounding Maoreached its height during the CulturalRevolution. His image, associated with a red sunthat conjured up divinity, was ever present andhis words were imbued with infallibility.Although Mao expressed discomfort withextreme manifestations of this “individual wor-ship” (Snow 1971:174–75), it certainly rein-forced his personal authority while he waschallenging the authority of the party organi-zation. The rebels were just as dependent onMao’s infallibility, which they invoked to justi-fy their existence and ward off recriminationsby local authorities.


17 For detailed analyses of the interests at stake andthe factional divisions at Tsinghua, see Andreas(2002) and Tang (2003).


The dynamics of this top-and-bottom-ver-sus-the-middle strategy were evident in KuaiDafu’s first big-character poster denouncingthe work team, in which he wrote: “We willoppose anyone who opposes Mao Zedongthought, no matter how great his authority orwho he is” (Kuai 1966:4). Kuai’s manifesto wasboth an unprecedented challenge to the author-ity of the party hierarchy and an expression ofunstinting loyalty to the party’s supreme leader(or, more precisely, to the mission expressed inhis thought). In fact, Kuai used his loyalty to thesupreme leader as a weapon to challenge partyofficials.

The key difference between bureaucratic andcharismatic mobilization in China was that theformer entailed following the guidance of theparty hierarchy, while the latter entailed fol-lowing Mao’s personal leadership. Mao enjoyedtremendous power and could change the courseof events simply by uttering a few words. ButMao was a distant god and his words were few.Once the authority of the party hierarchy hadbeen challenged in the summer of 1966, peoplegained unprecedented power to think and actindependently. Ironically, the extreme concen-tration of power in the hands of the CCP’s topleader provided an opening for people at the bot-tom to challenge the entrenched power of partycadres. Ke Ming, the Tsinghua student leader,described how the party hierarchy’s authoritywas undermined: “Before the CulturalRevolution, everything came down from above,one level at a time. You had to listen to thoseright above you. Then suddenly Mao wentaround the hierarchy and told the masses that thepeople between him and them had problems;that they should not listen to them.|.|.|. This wasthe first time we had room to think for our-selves.”

This new freedom was not limited to privatethoughts; individuals were encouraged and evenexpected to criticize university officials. A rad-ical activist at the middle school attached toTsinghua University compared the CulturalRevolution with the situation today: “The gov-ernment [today] criticizes the CulturalRevolution for being repressive, but for manyof the masses it was a rare opportunity to speakout and criticize the leaders. When else couldyou get up on stage and openly criticize yourleaders and debate? Who would get up on stageand criticize the president of Tsinghua today?”

Tsinghua students enthusiastically tookadvantage of this situation, covering the cam-pus with provocative big-character posters andengaging in vehement debates. In previous polit-ical movements, there had been debates andbig-character posters, but except for a six-weekperiod during the 1957 Party Rectification cam-paign, they had always been closely orchestrat-ed by the university party organization. Nowthere was no omnipotent organization to over-see and arbitrate the debate. Although accept-able political expression remained sharplylimited, students engaged in real debates. “Thetwo factions at Tsinghua were not just follow-ing blindly—they thought deeply about theseproblems,” explained student activist Ke Ming,who originally supported Kuai but later becamea leader of the moderate faction. “Of course, thethinking was also very limited. They all believedin Mao, but [different groups] had differentinterpretations of Mao.”

CHARISMATIC HIERARCHY OF AUTHORITY

Although Weber noted charismatic movements’aversion to bureaucratic rules and hierarchies,he wrote little about their organizational struc-ture. How can a large, geographically dispersedmovement act in a coordinated fashion withouta bureaucratic structure? How does such amovement function at the local level, far fromthe central leader? The Cultural Revolution pro-vides an instructive case because tens of millionsof people throughout a huge country wereinvolved, and the movement’s antibureaucraticmission made it particularly hostile to bureau-cratic organizational norms.

The organizational structure of CulturalRevolution factions bore little resemblance tothe bureaucratic machinery of the party. “Allorganizations during the Cultural Revolutionwere not very formal,” recounted Ke Ming.“They were not like the party, with clear mem-bership and leadership.” The discipline, regu-lations, procedures, and hierarchical structure ofthe party were replaced by much looser andmore haphazard organizational norms. Thecohesion of the movement depended on a hier-archy of authority, but this hierarchy had charis-matic rather than bureaucratic characteristics.

To lead the movement, Mao created theCentral Cultural Revolution Small Group(CCRSG). As Dittmer (1987) pointed out, the



group resembled the “personal staff ” of selectdisciples that, as Weber noted, often surroundcharismatic leaders. CCRSG members typical-ly shared two characteristics: ideological com-mitment to Mao’s radical program and a lack ofbureaucratic power in the party organization.The group was led by Mao’s personal secre-tary, Chen Boda, and Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing.Most other members were writers who haddemonstrated a devotion to Mao’s class-level-ing agenda. Although the CCRSG was formal-ly an ad hoc committee attached to the party’spolitical bureau, it answered to no one but Mao.It stood outside the party bureaucracy and ledthe attack against it.18

No formal organizational links existedbetween the CCRSG and the myriad local rebelorganizations. The most important structuralfeature of the rebel movement was that it wascomposed of self-organized local groups. Thisdoes not mean that the movement arose spon-taneously; on the contrary, it arose in responseto Mao’s call. Moreover, the rise to prominenceof specific local leaders and groups was in partthe result of intervention by powerful individ-uals associated with Mao. While rebel groupsdepended on the support of the CCRSG, themovement was not organized from above. Localrebel leaders nominated themselves and gath-ered their own followers. Although theyappealed to Mao and his lieutenants for recog-nition, no formal hierarchy of command wasever established.

The local organizations were structured likepolitical coalitions, reflecting their ad hoc ori-gin. Both the radical and moderate factions atTsinghua were alliances made up of small fight-ing groups organized by students, teachers, anduniversity workers. After these fighting groupsaffiliated with one faction or the other, theyremained the basic units of the larger organi-zations. Membership in the fighting groupsfluctuated as individuals joined and left andentire groups sometimes quit one coalition tojoin another.

The leadership structure of the student-ledfactions reflected their character as coalitions.Both Jinggangshan and its moderate rival were

led by committees that co-opted members fromamong leaders of the largest and most influen-tial fighting groups that made up their ranks. Thefighting groups were expected to adhere to deci-sions made by the leadership committees, butthere was little semblance of a chain of com-mand in either organization. With time, each fac-tion developed a fledgling bureaucraticapparatus, with ad hoc and permanent com-mittees assigned to develop political positionsand take responsibility for aspects of the organ-izations’ work. Nevertheless, political activitywas still largely the work of the small, fluidfighting groups that made up the larger organ-izations. Members of these groups discussed theissues of the day and collectively wrote big-character posters. When factional contentionturned violent, each group often procured ormade its own weapons.

The rival factions at Tsinghua maintainedinformal ties with organizations around thecountry. These were based largely on personalrelationships established during the Great Link-Up movement in the fall and winter of 1966,when millions of students from Tsinghua andother schools traveled around the country to“link-up” with others and “exchange revolu-tionary experiences.” Mao insisted that localauthorities welcome these rebel emissaries andprovide them with free transportation, food, andlodging. These agents of rebellion went to otherschools, factories, and villages, spurring theformation of local rebel groups. The Great Link-Up was designed to break the power of localparty officials and make certain no party com-mittee escaped unchallenged. Mao’s proclama-tions were essential to this effort, butinsufficient, as local leaders proved adept atsimulating compliance with Cultural Revolutiondirectives without actually relaxing control overtheir subordinates. Mao encouraged what everypolitical establishment fears most: an oppositionmovement extending across geographic, insti-tutional, sectoral, and class boundaries that rais-es not only local and partial grievances, butfocuses on the governance of the country.

During the Great Link-Up, people deter-mined their own itineraries and Tsinghua stu-dents fanned out around the country to promotethe organization of local rebel movements. Somestudents stayed in other provinces, where, dueto the prestige of the Tsinghua Jinggangshanorganization, they often played leading roles in


18 For analyses of the CCRSG and its members, seeLee (1978), Dittmer (1987), and MacFarquhar andSchoenhals (2006).


local rebel organizations. Although these stu-dents represented themselves as emissaries fromthe Tsinghua organization, their ties to Beijingwere informal and they operated with wide lat-itude.

Because Kuai and other Jinggangshan lead-ers enjoyed direct personal ties with membersof the CCRSG, the Tsinghua organizationbecame an important node in an amorphousradical network that extended to all corners ofthe country. It acted as an informal link betweenlocal organizations and the central group, relay-ing messages in both directions. Nevertheless,this was an unruly network. Jinggangshan lead-ers were particularly feisty, joining abortivecampaigns against some of their powerfulpatrons in the CCRSG, including Kang Sheng,Xie Fuzhi, and Zhang Chunqiao, none of whomwere men to cross lightly.19

Despite the informality of these factionalnetworks, their capacity for coordination was insome ways very impressive. The daily newspa-pers published by Jinggangshan and its moder-ate rival were distributed across China throughinformal activist networks. During the height ofthe factional contention, Jinggangshan’s news-paper had a greater circulation than any othernewspaper in China, with the exception of theCCP’s flagship, People’s Daily (Dittmer1998:247).

The charismatic hierarchy of authority thatheld together the rebel movement was muchmore fluid and volatile than the party’s bureau-cratic hierarchy. It was not based on the “charis-ma of office” Weber described in his discussionof the bureaucratic routinization of charisma, butrather a charisma more true to his ideal type.Charismatic authority was diffused through theentire movement, from top to bottom. Localleaders, such as Kuai Dafu, never had Mao’scelestial status, but they all nominated them-selves, gathered their own followers, and estab-lished their own charismatic credentials. Theyshared the authority emanating from Mao’s mis-sion, but they also had to demonstrate their ownseditious mettle and mobilizing ability.Moreover, this was true not only of the leadersof local factions, but also of the students, teach-ers, and workers who led the small fighting

groups that made up these organizations.Although Mao provided the general orienta-tion, his followers were all qualified to interpretthe mission and determine the local road for-ward. This amorphous structure made the rebelmovement susceptible to violent schisms, but italso fostered an insubordinate temperament thatgave the movement devastating force.

“REBEL SPIRIT” AND THE IMPACTOF THE REBEL MOVEMENT

Mao’s phrase, “It’s right to rebel,” became themotto of Cultural Revolution activists. Membersof Jinggangshan took pride in their “rebel spir-it”—their independent thinking and willing-ness to challenge authority. Kuai Dafu, whoowed his leadership position to his defiance ofthe work team, was fond of citing the tradi-tional insurgent maxim that was also a favoriteof Mao’s: “He who does not fear death by onethousand cuts dares to pull the emperor from hishorse.” The chaos of the Cultural Revolutionpromoted a type of activist who thrived in con-ditions of political upheaval. This was true bothof Jinggangshan and the moderate faction. Evendefense of the status quo fell to activists whoshared with their radical adversaries a procliv-ity for ideological polemics, political battles, andhistorical drama.

The impact of the rebel movement wasextraordinary. The authority of the party organ-ization, which before the Cultural Revolutioncould not be challenged, was shattered. Thisoutcome required the combined efforts of Maoat the top and rebel organizations at the bottom.Mao depended on millions of rebel activists tochallenge the authority of local party organiza-tions, and the rebels depended on Mao’s per-sonal authority to protect and legitimate theirmovement.

The Cultural Revolution redistributed power,benefiting the top and the bottom at the expenseof the middle. On the one hand, the rebel assaulton the party organization further concentratedpower in the hands of Mao. Ke Ming expressedthis in a cogent metaphor: “During the CulturalRevolution all power went to Mao Zedong. Allthe small gods were overthrown—there wasonly one big god. Before, the party committeesecretary had been a small god; not anymore.”On the other hand, the movement dispersedpower at the bottom. Power passed from local


19 See Tang (1996:52), Hunter (1969:230), Hinton(1972:284), and Jinggangshan (August 26, 1967).


party officials to fledgling mass organizations,all of which were competing for mass support.Students, workers, and peasants gained unprece-dented power to exercise “mass supervision”over the officials who previously had tremen-dous control over their lives. The fate of indi-vidual cadres in schools, workplaces, andvillages was debated at mass meetings in whichthe participants evaluated their self-criticismsand discussed who among them should berestored to leadership positions.

In the summer of 1968, after contentionbetween radical and moderate factions haddegenerated into increasingly violent con-frontations that brought China to the brink ofcivil war, Mao countenanced the suppression offactional activity. The contending factions weredisbanded and the party organization was grad-ually rebuilt.20 The extraordinary authority thatparty officials had enjoyed before the CulturalRevolution, however, was never completelyrestored. Mai Qingwen, a senior official atTsinghua, explained that rebel attacks on partycadres had permanently damaged the party’sweixin, a term that can be translated as prestige,popular trust, or authority. “All the leadingcadres were criticized, and whether or not thecriticisms were correct, the conclusion was thatthey were all bad,” he told me. “So the weixinof the party fell.”

In China today, the years before the CulturalRevolution are widely remembered as a periodwhen the CCP enjoyed tremendous prestige andlocal cadres had unchallenged authority. Manypeople I interviewed remembered this highlyeffective system of political control with nos-talgia, while others felt deep antipathy. Most,including Mai, were ambivalent, expressingboth nostalgia and antipathy. Whatever theirfeelings, there was general agreement that theauthority of the party organization was never thesame after Mao let loose a tide of popular crit-icism against communist officials in 1966.

The destructive antibureaucratic power ofthe Cultural Revolution was made possible byits charismatic structure. This loose structure notonly had room for rebels, but it cultivated andrewarded their subversive inclinations. The“rebel spirit” celebrated by Cultural Revolutionactivists could not have survived long if theirown organizations had been governed by formalrules and hierarchies of authority. In elaborat-ing this explanation, I hope to have convincedreaders that the concept of charisma can beemployed to answer questions posed by the cur-rent social movements paradigm about the effi-cacy of mobilizing structures withoutundermining the paradigm’s theoretical prem-ises.

DISCUSSION

CHARISMA AND THE EFFICACY OF

INFORMAL ORGANIZATION

In their seminal book, Poor People’s Movements(1977), Piven and Cloward advanced the con-troversial thesis that informally organized move-ments can be more effective than formallyorganized movements in accomplishing radicalgoals.21 Echoing Weber and Michels, theyargued that formal organization is inherentlyconservative because it concentrates power inthe hands of officeholders, who tend to favoraccommodation with the existing order (in termsof both methods and goals) to preserve theorganization and their own positions in it. Highlystructured movement organizations, therefore,often stifle the element that makes radical massmovements effective—their capacity to disruptthe status quo. In those critical and transitorymoments when large numbers of people aresuddenly willing to break the rules and disruptthe established order, mass collective actiondoes not require formal membership, bylaws, orelaborate organizational hierarchies, and it isoften better off without them.

This article lends support to Piven andCloward’s thesis. The rebel movement during theCultural Revolution was effective because of its


20 I have previously analyzed Mao’s efforts to insti-tutionalize the antibureaucratic program of theCultural Revolution during the last years of his life,which included fostering a system of factional con-tention within the party and creating institutionalizedmechanisms of “mass supervision” over cadres. SeeAndreas (2006).

21 Piven and Cloward (1977) stirred an ongoingdebate. See, for instance, McAdam (1982), Gamsonand Schmeidler (1984), Cress and Snow (1996), andBarker (2001).


amorphous organizational principles. The rebelswere only able to break the entrenched power ofthe party organization because of their viscer-al antipathy toward bureaucratic authority andtheir enthusiasm for breaking the rules—a “rebelspirit” fostered by the loose organizationalnorms of charismatic mobilization. At the sametime, this article addresses a concern that haslong troubled Piven and Cloward’s critics:Without formal organization, how can move-ment participants act in a coordinated fashion?In the case of the Cultural Revolution, the rebelsacted cohesively and decisively at key momentsdespite their lack of formal decision-makingprocedures and organizational hierarchies. Theircohesion was produced by a hierarchy of author-ity, but one that was not based on a formal chainof command. It was based, instead, on com-mitment to a common mission proclaimed by acharismatic leader, and charismatic authoritywas diffused from the top to the bottom of themovement.

Charismatic authority, I would suggest, isoften a critical element in the type of infor-mally organized radical movements to whichPiven and Cloward called attention. At the heightof these movements, when ordinarily quiescentpeople are swept up in a quest for denied rightsthat suddenly seem not only just but also attain-able, a multitude of charismatic leaders andfledgling organizations spring forth to champi-on the cause. The African American movementof the 1960s, for instance, was led by manyindividuals with this kind of inspiration, includ-ing Elijah Muhammad, Martin Luther King Jr.,Malcolm X, James Farmer, Stokely Carmichael,Gloria Richardson, Huey P. Newton, and manyothers. No single figure dominated the entiremovement, but this is true of many charismat-ic movements.22 The power and resiliency of themovement, Gerlach and Hine (1970) argued,was due in large part to its charismatic charac-

ter and decentralized structure. In using charis-ma to analyze the structure of social move-ments, Gerlach and Hine explored the territorythis article has begun to chart. Their investiga-tion into the effectiveness of mobilizing struc-tures made them pioneers in the new socialmovements paradigm, but their interest incharisma unfortunately found little echo amongtheir colleagues.

While Piven and Cloward’s thesis about thedisruptive power of informal organization issound, there is reason to doubt their thesis if itis rendered absolute—that only informallyorganized movements can accomplish radicalgoals. History is replete with examples of for-mally organized insurgent movements that haveprofoundly changed society. The Chinese com-munists, for example, could not have sustaineddecades of rural insurrection without buildinga disciplined party organization, and ultimate-ly they were able to use bureaucratic methodsof mobilization to overturn and fundamentallytransform the existing order. Gamson (1975) andMcAdam (1982) had reason to argue that eventhe most radical challengers must develop for-mal organizational structures to sustain theirmovements. Indeed, most movements createsome bureaucratic form of coordination, and tothe extent they do, they move toward bureau-cratic methods of mobilization.

Both charismatic and bureaucratic mobiliza-tion can accomplish radical goals, but they eachhave distinct structural characteristics, whichgive them different types of disruptive capaci-ties. Despite its martial name, the JinggangshanRegiment could not have carried out the pro-tracted rural warfare that brought the CCP topower; nor could the CCP have generated thetype of rebel spirit that enabled Jinggangshan torouse the masses against it.

The concept of charismatic mobilization isdesigned to capture common structural charac-teristics of an extremely varied set of actualsocial movements. Although I have used therebel movement during the Cultural Revolutionas an example, no single case can serve as adefinitive template for charismatic mobiliza-tion. The Cultural Revolution can certainly bedisqualified from such an assignment becauseof its peculiarity. The movement’s top-and-bot-tom-versus-the-middle strategy sets it apartfrom most charismatic movements, whichemerge from below. Moreover, China at that


22 Movements that coalesce around a central charis-matic figure are often the result of one leader risingabove a field of charismatic rivals. In his investiga-tion of Melanesian cargo cults, Worsley (1974) foundboth centralized and decentralized movements. Thecommon image of charismatic movements, in whicheveryone follows a single leader, is probably an arti-fact of teleological selection (because unified move-ments usually have greater impact).


time was governed by a revolutionary regime inwhich bureaucratic institutions were still infusedwith elements of charisma, enhancing the poten-tial for charismatic mobilization and weakeningthe bureaucracy’s capacity to resist.

Nevertheless, the rebel movement during theCultural Revolution shared certain essentialfeatures with other instances of charismaticmobilization. Even when a single leader enjoystremendous authority within such a movement,formal organization is only weakly developedand local groups are largely self-organized.Without formal organization, the movement’scohesion depends on self-nominated local lead-ers who embrace the paramount leader’s missionand become its local interpreters. The movementis united by a common mission, rather than byformal hierarchies and organizational disci-pline. This type of structure, which fosters dis-regard for established authority, engenders thedistinctive power of charismatic mobilization.If successful, a movement of this kind can effec-tively challenge the legitimacy of the existingorder and, on this basis, mobilize huge numbersof people and generate intense commitmentand energy. Although such moments are oftenbrief, their impact can be profound.

The Cultural Revolution rebel movement pro-vides a dramatic example of how this kind ofloose, mission-driven structure facilitates therebellious, rule-breaking power of charismaticmobilization. At the same time, the movementalso manifested some of the characteristic flawsand limitations of this type of mobilization.Although the rebels were united in their deter-mination to challenge the party organization’sauthority, they were hardly a unified movement.The profusion of local charismatic figures didnot always facilitate cooperation, and rebelsfought with other rebels, as well as with mod-erate defenders of the establishment. The move-ment was resistant to mundane notions ofrationality, it tended to see the world inManichean polarities, and it imbued its topleader with extraordinary personal powers. Itwas short-lived, unstable, and convulsive—morefit for destruction than construction.

The fact that charisma has unattractive fea-tures, however, is no reason to banish the con-cept from social movement scholarship. Itspurpose is analytical, and its utility should bedetermined by its ability to accurately describeand predict actual phenomena, whether or not

these are entirely pleasing to the observer. Oncewe make charismatic mobilization a topic ofserious inquiry, we can begin to analyticallyaddress the causes and consequences of its lessattractive features, as well as evaluate methodsof mitigation (in the same manner as many havediscussed the unattractive features of bureau-cracy).

THE CONSERVATIVE TENDENCY OF SOCIAL

MOVEMENT ORGANIZATIONS AND THE

WEBERIAN CYCLE

In the long-standing debate about why socialmovement organizations tend to become con-servative, many scholars have begun their con-tributions by identifying Weber (or Michels) asthe author of a theory that predicts movementbureaucratization, and have then proceeded toidentify means of avoiding this fate.23 For thelast three decades, Weber’s twin concept ofcharisma has been largely absent from this dis-cussion. In this article, I have suggested that wecan better understand the twists and turns ofsocial movement organizations by using theseconcepts in tandem: while radical movementsthat take advantage of the bureaucratic effi-ciencies of formal organization tend to becomemore conservative, all bureaucratic organiza-tions are susceptible to charismatic upheavals.In the Weberian cycle, bureaucratic structuresare built only to be torn down again.24

Weber’s famous “iron cage” analogy wasbased on the following insight: it is ultimatelyimpossible to counter the conservative tenden-cies of bureaucratic organization by means ofinstitutional arrangements because the effec-tiveness of such arrangements, no matter howwell-intentioned and intelligently designed, iscircumscribed by their innate respect for thespecific rationality that underpins the existinghierarchies of authority. This thesis has longbeen considered pessimistic. In the long run,however, it is only pessimistic if it is combined


23 For recent contributions to this discussion, seeRucht (1999), Voss and Sherman (2000), Barker(2001), and Clemens and Minkoff (2004).

24 Michels’s “iron law of oligarchy” is also a the-ory of revolutionary cycles, and, as Gouldner (1955)pointed out, it might just as well be called an “ironlaw of democracy.”


(as Weber did in his darker moments) with aprediction that bureaucratic rationality is des-tined to overcome the threat of charismatic chal-lenges once and for all. Is there persuasiveevidence for such a prediction?

Despite the virtual absence of charisma frommainstream social movement scholarship forthe past three decades, the world today is hard-ly lacking in movements that Weber would havedescribed as charismatic. Recent events inMexico, Bolivia, Georgia, Lebanon, Iraq, Nepal,and elsewhere continue to demonstrate thepower of charismatic appeals. Some of thesemovements have religious inspiration, whileothers are adamantly atheist; some reject anyassociation with existing states, while othershave captured the commanding heights of statepower; some have been created from scratch,while others have converted established organ-izations into vehicles for pursuing new charis-matic missions; some rally the poor, while otherschampion a disenfranchised middle class; andsome require a vow of poverty, while othersmobilize their followers with promises of mate-rial rewards. What they all share is a determi-nation to accomplish their goals by breaking therules.

Bureaucracy and charisma are most valuablewhen used in tandem, not only because theydefine each other by contrast and are constituentelements of a single cycle, but also becausethey are bound together in practical combina-tions and by their intrinsic opposition. As I havenoted, all radical movements inherently con-tain elements of both, and the tension betweenthem is played out dramatically as these move-ments rise and fall. In China, the contradictionscreated by the CCP’s marriage of charisma andbureaucracy ultimately gave rise to the CulturalRevolution, a charismatic challenge to bureau-cratic conservatism. Such a challenge mightcome from the top of an organization, as it didin China, or it might come from the middle orthe bottom. Martin Luther, John L. Lewis,Ruhollah Khomeini, and Hugo Chavez come tomind when thinking of individuals wholaunched charismatic movements from posi-tions of authority within conservative organi-zations. In each case, the challengers reachedback to the charismatic origins of their organi-zations (whether in the immediate or the distantpast) to find language with which to questionthe legitimacy of prevailing institutional

accommodations. Charismatic challenges toconservative institutions can come from with-in as well as from without, and the CulturalRevolution is a prominent example of the for-mer.

Joel Andreas is Assistant Professor of Sociology atJohns Hopkins University. He studies class relationsin China and is completing a book, Rise of the RedEngineers, that analyzes the contentious merger of oldand new elites during the communist era. His currentresearch involves changing labor relations in Chinesefactories between 1949 and the present.

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