Asian History Commons^™

Wei Jingsheng And The Democracy Movement In Post-Mao China, Merle David Kellerhals Jr.

Institute for the Humanities Theses

The hypothesis tested in this thesis was whether there has been an evident evolution in the democratic thought of those engaged in China's Democracy Movement in the post-Mao era. The activists of the Democracy Movement of 1978-79, following a long-standing tradition of remonstrance, were among those substantially influenced by the events of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. The activists initiated big character posters on Democracy Walls throughout China--but among the most influential was Beijing's. Wei Jingsheng, though certainly not the only voice, represented the more vocal and extreme democratic position in his wall poster The Fifth Modernization: Democracy, which first …