Maggie Clinton

This dissertation investigates the idea of "cultural revolution" promoted by the Chinese right during the 1920s and 1930s. It explains how and why a notion more commonly associated with Chinese Marxism became centrally important to the fascist factions that dominated the ruling Nationalist Party from 1927-1937. Using period print and visual materials, it documents how "cultural revolution" formed a cornerstone of the right's anti-communist and anti-imperialist agendas. In tracing the circulation of this concept beyond its familiar Marxist iteration and revealing its currency among opposing political camps, this study accounts for its malleability and significance to longer-term patterns of mass mobilization in China.