Realistic Revolution

"Revolution, according to Mao Zedong, cannot be compared to "writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery" because it cannot be "so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous." Revolution is an "act of violence." During the decade after the death of the Great Helmsman, Chinese intellectuals began to question not only the necessity of violent revolution but also the notion of radical change. The belief that there was "no making without breaking" (bupo buli) had not only permeated Chinese socialist modernity, they argued, but also China's famous twentieth-century political-cum-cultural movement, the May Fourth Movement (1917-21). In the political, historical, and cultural discourse of the early 1990s, intellectuals said goodbye to the radicalism of twentieth-century China."--Provided by publisher.