Q. What’s another reason for not liking the anniversary this year?

A. It was really a three-year period. The Red Guards were part of it, but there was more violence in 1968-69, when Mao sent the army and tried to restore order by setting up Revolutionary Committees. But my pessimistic expectation is the anniversary will mostly focus on Red Guard chaos narratives, and suffering of elite intellectuals.

Q. Intellectuals write history.

A. Intellectuals write books and their experiences do matter. But we tend to forget how the majority of people lived.

Q. Who else do we need to hear about?

A. We don’t hear too much about the “rebels.” They were workers in factories, not Red Guards, and they got a seat at the table when the Revolutionary Committees were set up in 1968. They ran factories and many workplaces along with the army. They were the ones who got scapegoated at the end of the Cultural Revolution. They’re not super literate or well-connected enough to get their stories out, and their stories are embarrassing to the officials who used them and survived and did well after the Cultural Revolution. They’re called “Gang of Four elements.” We don’t know much about them at all.

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Q. Your new edited volume is meant to be a corrective. You have one amazing piece by Yang Kuisong at East China Normal University on a man who was persecuted for his homosexuality. And your piece shows how people could have their “class label” changed by friends or rivals.

A. One thing all the contributors found is that policies didn’t take effect simultaneously across China. Things were happening at a different timeline in villages and factories. People also didn’t understand the policies — they were confusing and contradictory — and did what made sense to them. They were reading the newspaper or listening to the broadcast and figuring out what the policy was going to be, but it didn’t translate into what happened in a village.

Q. In some ways it’s surprising how things did work in the Mao era.

A. We often have images of mass rallies, but many people opted out. Don’t forget, most people didn’t go. It’s interesting to think of that — most did not participate. And the economy kept going. There were no widespread famines. People still went to school in unprecedented numbers.