The Afterglow Before the Storm: The Forgotten Confucian Revival of 1962 in Maoist China

This paper focuses on a brief yet profoundly significant Confucian revival in Maoist China in 1962. Following the disastrous Great Leap Forward and widespread questioning of the Party’s political trajectory, the Chinese Communist Party moderately relaxed its ideological control, leading to a rapid resurgence of Confucian discourse and ritual traditions across official and popular domains. Crucially, rural society witnessed a nationwide grassroots fervor for recompiling genealogies, restoring ancestral halls, and resuming Confucius worship ceremonies. However, hardline aversion quickly halted this resurgence, triggering the Socialist Education Movement and foreshadowing the Cultural Revolution. Integrating elite political discourse with grassroots research, this study challenges the unilinear narrative of total cultural eradication during the Maoist era. It reconceptualizes Confucianism as a resilient tradition and symbolic shelter for communities, enriching Cultural Revolution historiography and providing an indispensable context for the CCP’s contemporary reappropriation of Confucian symbols.