Temporalités révolutionnaires dans la correspondance d’un couple « rouge et expert » (1962-1965)

Building on the literature exploring the relationship that societies and individuals maintain with their pasts and their futures, this article focuses on the appropriation by individuals of a specific “ regime of historicity”: a “ revolutionary temporality”, produced during the Socialist Education Movement in China, a period directly preceding the Cultural Revolution. We analyze the echoes of this temporality in the private letters exchanged between a cadre couple, one of whom directly participates in the Socialist Education Movement in the countryside. By virtue of their social position, both spouses are not merely affected by but also directly involved in the ongoing “ revolutionization” of society. Consequently, their daily experiential relationship with time both reflects and contributes to the crystallization of this new regime of historicity. In their letters, this revolutionary temporality manifests itself at multiple levels : in the organization of daily life, in the prioritization of their time, but also as a way to justify their actions and to arbitrate disputes by relying on different relationships with both past and future. Our analysis shows a hierarchy in their use of time. Priority is given to the revolution, with for the family subordinated to work and participation in political movements. Thus, the sacrifice of personal and family time is portrayed as a necessary condition to build the common future, both in the national sense and, consequently, for the family. Through this study, we deepen the understanding of the construction of socialist subjectivity, by exploring how the reorganization of temporal relations exerts a transformative power, through “ the rectification of the past,” the decorrelation of past and future, and the adoption of behaviors in alignment with the times to come.