Talking Toads and Chinless Ghosts: The Politics of "Superstitious" Rumors in the People's Republic of China, 1961-1965

Since the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, there has been an astonishing revival in the People's Republic of China of what the government calls “feudal superstition”; this in spite of the fact that under Mao the regime waged a fierce onslaught against the “four olds”—old thinking, old culture, old customs, and old habits—especially during the Cultural Revolution. The 1980s and 1990s saw a rush to rebuild temples and ancestral halls, the resurgence of spirit mediumship and exorcism, renewed interest in divination and geomancy, the reemergence of heterodox religious cults, notably Falungong, and the appearance of “jade emperors descended from heaven.”1 The rapidity and extent of this upsurge in once-proscribed beliefs and practices raised questions about the power of the Maoist state, suggesting that despite its intensive propaganda campaigns and bouts of repression, its capacity to remold popular thinking and behavior was much less than scholars had once supposed. This, in turn, raised questions about the nature of the beliefs and practices that revived during the era of economic reform. Were these manifestations of a tradition that had been preserved unscathed in the face of turbulent socioeconomic and political transformations? Or were these substantially new configurations of beliefs and practices adapted to the changed power relations of the reform era?2 One form of “feudal superstition”—what the authorities call “superstitious rumors”—maintained a vigorous existence through the Maoist era, serving to articulate popular concerns and to perpetuate a religious cosmology radically at odds with that of the party-state. The present article aims, first, to explore the meaning of superstitious rumors in the context of the early 1960s, asking what they tell us about the mentality of Chinese peasants and workers and about how they coped with pervasive social uncertainty; second, it explores the politics of superstitious rumor, asking whether the more explicitly political of these rumors can be construed as a form of popular resistance to the party-state.3 The article conceptualizes rumors as stories about the way the world is, stories rooted in social beliefs about the nature of the human and supernatural worlds. On the one hand, such stories represent responses to the social and political milieu, which refract in a culturally specific idiom the conscious and unconscious concerns of those who retail them; on the other, they intervene in that social and political milieu by investing it with new meanings, and thus potentially have the capacity to change it.4 On July 2, 1962, the Ministry of Public Security of the People's Republic of China (PRC) issued a confidential circular to public security organs on the prevention and suppression of rumor.5 It claimed that “In the most recent period, the number of rumors in circulation has been large” and linked this increase to the activity of counterrevolutionaries, especially Guomindang (GMD) agents, who were said to be using rumor to undermine the authority of the state. The circular coincided with a noisy campaign in the press and on the radio to warn the population of the dangers of spreading and giving credence to rumors. This campaign explained rumormongering entirely in terms of the evil machinations of counterrevolutionaries, hostile class forces, and “bad elements.” By contrast, the confidential circular offered a more subtle explanation of the epidemic of rumor. It classified rumors into three categories: those that arose from inadequate understanding of the complicated international situation and the difficult domestic economic situation, those that expressed the “complaints and grumbling of a minority of malcontents,” and those that were “fabricated and propagated by counterrevolutionaries and malcontents.” In contradiction to everything said in the public campaign, the circular admitted that “not many” rumors fell into the latter category, “although they are very dangerous.” By far the largest number, it said, were rumors that “arise from inadequate understanding” of the international and domestic situations.6 These included rumors of war—said to be the most widespread at the time—rumors about the state of the economy, and “superstitious” rumors. The circular recommended that education and propaganda be stepped up to deal with these. On superstitious rumors it said nothing very specific. Yet the increased access to provincial and local archives that has become possible since the 1990s makes it clear that superstitious rumors were rife in the PRC at this time.7 For Communist regimes, rumor represented a form of thus a to social and a into popular and This the of the regimes, which on the one were of to about of public in and on the were to what were thus into the and of In this was in in the early had the of on the of at on and as in to an on the population to on in to Communist in was to the public to to that be to remold popular and in with the In local public security and and the with of rumors in and Public security these rumors in on local which they to security The it were of the of the classified to the social class of those were social class as the that the social to from these were in a by the China circulation and state under the of was an it of about and those that were to suggesting that the authorities to be at with the of present in and in Communist it to a as it in as in which the In the the were by the it a pervasive of in that from the in and were as nothing in the the the they about in and were said to that the People's and about the international In a Communist it to the this the rumors about economic about political about in international relations to what the was to In to the of rumor as much of the the of rumor as a to of to are of rumors as a way of the of in the meaning of In this rumor popular and and on this that rumors to and as to how to of the world in which they The and on of there an of have a in whether a rumor to be and were present in in the PRC in the early and the PRC was by what was the in human in terms of the number of The of that than be on the of been at Yet the and propaganda said a about the through to the and that during what to be as the In the of 1962, to as and were to as were and as the The death to in and to than In the PRC the in in its it was in this of than in the the was at its most that the 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