The Purge of the Inner Mongolian People’s Party in the Chinese Cultural Revolution, 1967-69: A Function of Language, Power and Violence

During the Chinese Cultural Revolution from 1967 to 1969, some 16,000 Mongolians died and over a quarter of a million suffered injury during the purge of what was claimed to be a separatist party in the Inner Mongolian region. This study looks at the purge through an analysis of the voices found in contemporary documents - those of Red Guard groups, local leaders felled during the campaign, and the new leaders put in place by the central government in Beijing. At the heart of this was the struggle for domination by a central government asserting national unity, opposed to any expression of local particularities in Inner Mongolia. The author examines the discourse strategies by which central government attempted to impose total control , asserting a dominant ideology and narrative based on Marxism-Leninism. The volume offers a unique insight into the relationship between language and culture of political power in modern China, at a time of crisis and violence.