Politics and Purges in China. Rectification and the Decline of Party Norms, 1950–65

Politics and Purges in  China was basically written during the lifetime of Mao Zedong, with  the final  editing and conclusion finished just after the epochal Third Plenum of December 1978. 1  In  the intervening period much has changed in  the People's Republic of China (PRC) as a result of the reform policies growing out of the Third Plenum. Besides the multifaceted impact on the lives of the Chinese people, the post-1978 changes have also involved a significant enhancement of the quantity and quality of available sources which have allowed scholars, both foreign and Chinese, far greater access to detailed information on
Chinese politics and given them reason to reconsider their earlier analyses and conceptualizations of political processes  in  the PRC. While the new edition of Politics and Purges presents the same text as the 1979 version, this new introduction offers some reflections on the interpretations and arguments of the book which have been stimulated by the materials that have become available over the past dozen plus years.