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One of the principal failures of mass mobilization during Cultural Revolution was factional fragmentation which occured irrespective of class background, privilege, or economic interest. Quite often, two factions would contain members who had more or less identical backgrounds-
This "apolitical politicization" often pitted identical ideological positions against one another, rendering the factional struggles to be little more than "neutralized" power conflicts, expressing no substantive direct correlation to theory or the logic of class struggle.
This is not true in every case, however. Indeed there were many conflicts in the GPCR which were contingent upon if not determined by traditional interest group politics - a good example being the struggle in Shanghai between the conservative "scarlet Guards" and the radical WGHQ
But it's important that we understand the process by which fragmentation & factionalism proliferated through the PRC throughout 1966-67, while often pitting those who had nearly everything in common against one another. This had the effect of blunting the movement's radical edge.
How did this process occur? Andrew Walder, in his book "Agents of Disorder", uses a model whereby political orientations in the GPCR can be understood as choices made in response to shifting contingencies based on perceived self interest in a given situation. He breaks this down:
First, (Per Walder), an individual in the Cultural Revolution would have to determine whether to support or oppose those in authority (bosses, academic authorities, cadres), especially once an accusation had been made against a specific individual or group of individuals.
Second, those who chose to 'rebel' (i.e. oppose an individual sitting in authority) would weigh whether to gain more concessions from authority or instead seize power in their locale. Third, the question them becomes: would you support the power seizure or oppose it? And finally:
Should one support or oppose military units sent to restore order following a local power seizure, & if so, should armed violence be used? Decisions weren't necessarily dependent upon background, & coalitions condensed through a combination of background, contingency & choice.
