April 8, 2008
Harvard’s Roderick MacFarquhar delivers 2008 Hunsberger lecture
Leading Asia specialist and Harvard professor Roderick MacFarquhar gave the 11th annual Warren S. Hunsberger lecture at the School of International Service on Apr. 2.
Drawing on his latest book, Mao’s Last Revolution, coauthored with Michael Schoenhals, MacFarquhar refuted the common belief that Mao’s cultural revolution (1966–1976) was primarily a power grab generated to solidify his position as chairman. Yes, Mao’s motivations were about power, MacFarquhar stated, but not solely or even primarily so, “because after the first few years of the decade-long revolution all Mao’s perceived enemies had been purged; yet he pressed on with the revolution.” Mao’s essential character and motivation, says MacFarquar, were centered on his fervent and essentially mad belief in revolution. Mao thrived on revolution, and at the core of Maoist communism was the existential need to keep things perpetually in a state of revolution.
Responding to questions MacFarquhar additionally observed that many international analysts believe China’s increased prosperity will eventually lead, peacefully, to a fundamental change in economic and political form away from communism and collectivism to capitalism and democracy. MacFarquhar believes, however, that through the excesses of the cultural revolution and Deng Xiopang’s reforms, the communist party lost its authority, its ideology of revolution. It’s replacement ideology—the “competence mandate”—is weak.
Despite the fact that China is now wealthier than ever in its history, it is a fragile state because the party is weak. There is a history of violence spilling over into something larger in China, and no one knows which of the many fragilities of this regime might spill over. “No one anticipated,” MacFarquhar said, “Tiananmen Square, the Falun Gong,” or in fact, the current riots in Tibet.
Commenting further on the future of power in China, MacFarquhar replied: “I think we haven’t seen yet the rise to power of the Red Guard generation. At the end of the cultural revolution that generation was given another chance to return from the country and be educated.” These men “don’t yet have full power,” said MacFarquhar. Though he expects that power to emerge slowly because the number of party members who remain in need of employment is in the tens of thousands. “Things won’t change that quickly,” he said.
Introducing Professor MacFarquhar and David Hunsberger, son of Warren Hunsberger, Dean Lou Goodman described the origins of SIS’s Asia program.
‘When I came to SIS as dean in 1986, professor Hunsberger approached me saying I should be ashamed of myself.” When Goodman asked “why,” Hunsberger expressed his dismay that the international school did not have an Asia program. Goodman told him there weren’t funds to implement an Asia program, Hunsberger went about securing an initial grant. There are now 20 Asia specialists at SIS.
