The origin, interruption, and relaunch of local gazetteers

The compilation of local gazetteers is an established and venerable tradition in China. During the imperial era, the central court mandated the compilation of local gazetteers, positioning them as critical tools for documenting local information, preserving historical records, and maintaining state unity. These initiatives were often directed from the provincial level to sub-provincial subordinates, or by local officials or eminent local gentry who voluntarily undertook gazetteer projects to gain prestige (Dennis Reference Dennis2015: 4–29). The compilation of imperial gazetteers was primarily an elite-centered activity, in which officials independently recruited authors and collected materials.

Similar to its imperial predecessor, the county gazetteers of Communist China were foremostly considered “state archives” (Zhongguo Difangzhi Xiehui 1991b: 52). The production of local gazetteers is essentially a governmental activity, so administrative authorities have facilitated the systemic access to historical archives and original materials that are relatively richer and more accurate than unofficial sources (Wang Reference Wang2009; Xue Reference Xue2010). However, the central government is also found to consistently intervene into the composition of local gazetteers through ideological guidance as well as publication and review protocols. These gazetteers were required to incorporate socialist elements to intentionally distinguish them from their imperial predecessors.

The origin of local gazetteers in Communist China can be traced to 1956, when the People’s Daily published an initiative to restart local gazetteer compilation (Wang Reference Wang1956). In 1958, Local Gazetteer Group (difangzhi xiaozu 地方志小组) was established under central government as a working group to lead the national production of local gazetteers (Zeng Reference Zeng1981). Within the same year, the group issued the document “Several Opinions on the Compilation of New Local Gazetteers,” which officially advocated for the innovation of the imperial gazetteer format and introduced the concept of “new gazetteers” (xinzhi 新志). It proposed several new principles, such as “serving socialism” and “ prioritizing contemporary over ancient history” (houjin bogu 厚今薄古) (Zhongguo Difangzhi Xiaozu 1991: 71–72). These principles were later adopted in the official guidelines in the early 1980s.

During the Cultural Revolution, the compilation of local gazetteers was suspended due to significant political turbulence. Following Mao’s death, the handling of Mao’s legacy became a focal point of debate for the reconstruction of party ideology and propaganda. In June 1981, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party issued Resolution on Certain Historical Issues of the Party since the Founding of the People’s Republic of China, acknowledging the “political errors” of Mao and identifying the Gang of Four and their associates as legally responsible. This reassessment of the party history aimed to reconcile a then deeply divided party and society, paving the way for subsequent political and economic reforms.

In 1981, the Chinese Local Gazetteers Association (Zhongguo Difangzhi Xiehui 中国地方志协会) was established. Two years later, the Chinese Local Gazetteer Guidance Group (zhongguo difangzhi zhidaoxiaozu 中国地方志指导小组) was formed to oversee the gazetteer composition process. This group comprised several key members of the previously disbanded Local Gazetteer Group as well as newly appointed officials and scholars (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences 1991: 99–101). Subsequently, the compilation committees were established at the national, provincial, city, and county levels. These committees were led by the main local government leaders and were integrated into the government hierarchy as working bodies with administrative functions.

The paramount leader of the time Deng Xiaoping specifically instructed that gazetteer editing and writing should adhere to the principle of “be rough, not detailed” (yicu buyixi 宜粗不宜细), as recording history in local gazetteers was now considered risky, potentially disclosing state secrets or documenting content conflicting with the central political stance (Deng Reference Deng2011: 385–403). The official guidelines from the Chinese Local Gazetteer Guidance Group also explicitly mandated that “(the new local gazetteers) have to maintain alignment with the central committee of the party in political matters” (Zhongguo Difangzhi Zhidao Xiaozu 1985: 9). As a result, local gazetteers were expected to avoid detailed descriptions of historical events, especially those with politically sensitive content, and instead adopt vague narratives and general remarks.

The power dynamics behind gazetteer compilation

Such a state interventionist approach has led many scholars to explore the structural control imposed by the central government. These studies often adopt textualist and/or ideological approaches, emphasizing the dichotomy between historical professionalism and top-down ideological control. Local gazetteer compilation is typically depicted as a form of unilateral governance, where the central government enforces strict ideological control, regulates content through administrative pressure and political scrutiny, and imposes standardized production methods without considering regional variations (Clausen Reference Clausen2004; Vermeer Reference Vermeer1992; Xue Reference Xue2010). This depiction indicates a clear distinction and defined administrative boundaries between the state authorities and editors.

Local editorial groups are generally seen as a cohesive entity with high homogeneity. Gazetteer editors as a whole are responsible for not documenting information that could damage the reputation of their local government, so they rigorously and repeatedly engage in self-censorship practices. For instance, sensitive details such as the number of deaths during the Great Leap Forward have been systematically excluded from local records (Cao Reference Cao2005).

The strict review edicts of the compilation process imply that the content in local gazetteers can be strictly (self-)censored, prompting scholars to use empirical knowledge to verify the authenticity and reliability of the recorded information. Walder and Su’s analysis (Reference Walder and Su2003) of county gazetteers across provinces shows positive correlation between the detailness of the reports of the Cultural Revolution and the number of victims reported. Even the most detailed local gazetteers are shown to have deliberately underreported death and casualty figures. More recently, scholars have begun to open the black box of the local gazetteer review process by examining the processes and causes of data manipulation, rather than merely verifying data authenticity of the text itself. Yan and Xiao (Reference Yan and Xiao2024) identify the presence of internal review draft manuscripts (neibu pingyigao 内部评议稿) throughout the production process of county gazetteers. Their study assesses the censorship process in recording political events in local gazetteers in Guangxi Province, noticing a significant decline in data quality in the final published versions in comparison to the more flexible draft manuscripts circulated internally for review and commentary by local cadres.

The analytic lens of top-down governance is rather limited, as it overlooks the autonomy and subjectivity of local editors who strive to preserve their own historical narratives and editing practices. In fact, many officials in the field of local gazetteers had received professional historical training before the founding of Communist China, while retired intellectual cadres were also appointed at their political level from provincial to county. Given their dual identity as victim witnesses and government officials within the bureaucratic structure, local gazetteer editors may have opposed a monolithic historical viewpoint, instead expressing perspectives different from official mandates and negotiating within the political system for their own historical truths.

We observe that during this period, the production of local gazetteers marked a departure from the traditional model of unilateral governance. The authoritarian intervention of the central government had declined, allowing local entities to exert greater influence over the writing and interpretation of the local history. As Thogersen and Clausen (Reference Thogersen and Clausen1992: 167) note, “the real power over the [gazetteer] project seems to rest in the hands of the local bureaucracy rather than at the central level.” Consistent with this approach, scholars have already noted the presence of localized historical agency and narratives in Wenshi Ziliao (文史资料), a fragmented local collection of historical materials that includes personal testimonies, informal sources, lesser-known local events, and non-official historical perspectives. Using Wenshi Ziliao, scholars have documented multi-layered local historical perspectives on key contentious topics such as ethnic minorities, colonial history, and socialist mobilization (Fromm Reference Fromm2019). However, while Wenshi Ziliao faced relatively less direct official control given its purpose, it received limited editorial resources and professional review compared to local gazetteers (Chang Reference Chang2000). For these reasons, we contend that Wenshi Ziliao plays a more peripheral role in state-sponsored historical production than local gazetteers, which provides more nuanced insights into official historiographical construction and power dynamics shaping historical narratives of the post-Mao era.

The production of historiography and social knowledge

By analyzing the production mechanisms of local gazetteers, we seek to expand the social theory of knowledge production into the production of historical knowledge in authoritarian contexts. Existing research has highlighted the processes of new knowledge generation in different areas of the humanities and social sciences, whether through library research infrastructure, peer reviews, or academic conferences (Camic et al. Reference Camic, Gross, Lamont, Camic, Gross and Lamont2011; Trouillot Reference Trouillot1995). But how knowledge producers navigate the review of their work from political authorities, especially under authoritarian governments, remains relatively unexamined.

In this article, we uncover the internal power dynamics of knowledge production by examining the negotiations and interactions among local state historians and guiding institutions across multiple government levels. We reveal the process through which the boundaries of knowledge production are dynamically and interactively negotiated and reshaped between power agents and producer subjects. Our study reaches beyond previous research examining how power determines the production and manifestation of certain knowledge through archival resources, cultural imperialism, and research evaluation (Friedrich Reference Friedrich2018; Stark Reference Stark, Camic, Gross and Lamont2011; Trouillot Reference Trouillot1995). Instead of simply being instructed on what is proper or sensitive, promising or unworkable, and memorable or unremarkable, the subjects of historical knowledge production can also leverage “weapons of the weak” to negotiate over the substance, meaning, and process of knowledge production. In this sense, the knowledge production is a contested terrain in which those working within have developed dyadic, iterative, and formalistic strategies of negotiation in the official recording of history under authoritarian governance.

The nature of local gazetteers: Historical or reference books

Starting from the early 1980s, there was extensive discussion on the format of local gazetteers, focusing on their thematic focus, classification, selection, and arrangement of archival materials. Specifically, the debate was centered on the nature of local gazetteers: whether they should be more historical books or reference materials.

This debate was a continuation of academic debates between Qing Dynasty scholars Dai Zhen and Zhang Xuecheng over the extent to which local gazetteers are geographical, historical, or encyclopedic in their nature (Du Reference Du2023; Zhang Reference Zhang2019). Some editors saw gazetteers as an integral part of historical studies with an interdisciplinary approach (Sun Reference Sun1983), and others placed local gazetteers within the broader context of historical scholarship, considering them as “mature historical sciences” that should “maintain historical authenticity” against any form of censorship or external distortion (Wang Reference Wang1985).

The central leadership viewed the main purpose of gazetteers as collecting historical information for “patriotic education” and “researching historical and past realities” (Zhongguo Difangshizhi Xiehui 1991). Qiaomu Hu, a member of the CPC Politburo, attempted to settle the debate decisively by defining local gazetteers in the mid-1990s as “plain, rigorous, scientific reference books…. [that] eliminate any empty words and rid of any propaganda biases” (Hu Reference Hu and Qiaomu1994b: 234). Hu was a Communist Party propagandist and arguably the most prominent party historian, who also directed the Party History Research Office. These definitions from the top authorities and leaders were eventually adopted into the national standard document “Interim Regulations for the Compilation of New Local Gazetteers.”

However, this definition was not set in stone, as the term “interim” indicates that the center intended to leave room for local experimentation and adaptation. While a broad consensus was largely reached by the late 1980s, not all local leaders and compilers immediately embraced it – higher-level directors might not have fully influenced the actual authority in local compilation processes. For example, in his 1987 speech at the Shanghai Local Gazetteers Compilation Committee’s inaugural meeting, then-secretary of Shanghai, Jiang Zemin, still emphasized the importance of preserving historical materials for educational purposes:

Liang Hanbing (梁寒冰), a distinguished gazetteer scholar who also served as the Deputy Director of the National Archives Administration, proposed to liberate local gazetteers from traditional binary classifications of history and geography by designating them as an entirely new discipline. This perspective had significant implications for so-called “new gazetteers” in Communist China (Liang Reference Liang1984, Reference Liang1985). Specifically, local gazetteers were now seen as distinct from Party and revolutionary histories, focusing less on manifesting “the laws of historical development” of the revolution but more on the practical utility of material compilation to “serve the future development and building of the country” (Liang Reference Liang1981: 4–5).

The debate regarding the fundamental nature of local gazetteers revolved around two core questions: whether they should function as an independent discipline, distinct from other official or scholarly historical subfields, and the degree of autonomy gazetteer editors could exercise in relation to interventions from other government departments, such as the Office of Party History. Framing local gazetteers as historical documents enables authors to anchor their narratives within historical traditions of the imperial era that were already associated with, and historically granted, a higher level of editorial autonomy. Conversely, categorizing local gazetteers more as reference books would require a more detached presentation of historical events that permits less room for subjective and ethical assessments of controversial historical periods.

The formality of ‘scientificity’: Marxism vs neutrality

The second field of negotiation concerned the scientific formality of gazetteers under the leadership of the party state. The word “scientificity” (kexuexing 科学性) was widely regarded by editors as an essential feature of local gazetteers. However, interpretations of what counted as “scientific” significantly varied across different negotiation participants.

For the top leadership, Marxism was argued to constitute the core of “scientificity,” thus fundamentally distinguishing the socialist gazetteer from its imperial predecessor. The latter was critiqued for its “limited representation of the real history of people” due to “its historical limitations and the control by the old ruling class” (Zhongguo Difangzhi Xiaozu 1991: 71). In his 1980 speech at the Chinese Historical Society, Hu Qiaomu advocated for compiling local gazetteers with “new perspectives, methods, and materials” (Hu Reference Hu and Qiaomu1994a: 110), which was later crystallized as part of the “basic tasks” for gazetteer compilation. In his 1981 speech at the founding of the Chinese Local History and Gazetteers Association, Hu further elaborated on the idea of “being innovative,” stating that “new local gazetteers should be more scientific and modern than old (imperial) ones” (Zhi Reference Zhi1985: 2).

Following Hu’s guidelines on “new perspectives, methods, and materials,” Dong Yibo (董一博), the vice president of the Chinese Local History and Gazetteers Association, emphasized that “new perspectives” are to conform to Marxist philosophy and Maoism. He argued that “only by adhering to them (Marxist philosophy) could gazetteers be infused with ideological, knowledge-based, contemporary, local, and informational qualities, thus becoming truly scientific reference books” (Dong Reference Dong1989b: 73). He further elaborated that new methods included Marxist dialectical materialism, the application of modern natural and social science research results, and the use of new technologies such as electronic storage. New materials, according to Dong, referred to categories often excluded or dismissed in imperial era gazetteers, such as social statistics, local chronicles, and charts (Dong Reference Dong1984). This implied a particular theoretical disposition to treat Marxism and new information technologies as intricately intertwined. That is to say, only those editors aligning with Marxist principles and seriously endorsing this ideology could aptly employ modern scientific technology to faithfully represent the authentic conditions of local society in their documentation.

The views of top-level officials were influential but did not impede local autonomy in interpreting the concept of “scientificity.” Contrary to the ideologically charged interpretation, scientificity was seen by editors as a move towards professionalization with the highest possible degree of “political neutrality.” Some local editors pointed out that “politicization” – the decision-making on what and how to record events from political consideration – obstructed the transformation of local gazetteers into truly scientific compilations of materials (Yang Reference Yang1989). These editors vividly recounted the experiences of averting potential political risks as cadres during past political movements, which, in turn, would certainly compromise the scientific integrity of local gazetteers (Chen Reference Chen1987). They argue that a “scientific attitude” was necessary to record history directly and restore its original appearance, including the mistakes and setbacks of political movements in the Mao era (Geng and Wang Reference Geng and Wang1989). Consequently, they advocated for a more depoliticized approach to report issues related to social class, economic activities, and historical development.

Depoliticization, however, did not mean avoiding political content entirely. Local bureaucracy sought to find a consensus on “scientificity” that aligned with the principles of socialism, historical professionalization, and modern scientific research methods. “Scientificity” sometimes served as the umbrella term under which editors justified their adoption of new methodological and technical approaches in gazetteer compilation to increase its credibility and research values over political instrumentality. In this view, political content could and should be included, but its scientific interpretation and assessment should not be predetermined – in a positive or negative direction. Editors argued that local gazetteers should not adopt a predetermined stance or serve as a tool to advocate for the legitimacy of a specific government policy in the past. However, if empirical data have proved the effectiveness of this policy, it should be truthfully recorded in the gazetteer (Zhong Reference Zhong1993).

Some editors attempted to reconcile the two conflicting interpretations of scientificity, believing that true scientific rigor and Marxist ideologies were not contradictory and could be reconciled. For instance, one editor explained that the scientific presentation and organization of economic data and figures effectively illustrated the basic principles of Marxist political economy. Other technical aspects, such as logical categorization and clearly organized writing, were also recognized as elements of scientificity by local editors (Wang Reference Wang1989).

However, concerns about the “over-scientification” of local gazetteers were raised by critics who argued that transforming these documents into textbooks diminished their neutral “informational and referential values” (Tang Reference Tang1985). One editor from Shanghai highlighted the problematic tendency to periodize gazetteer writing by political era, indicating this as a flawed approach:

In short, scientificity was a negotiable concept for editors of the time, as the tensions between interpretations of “Marxist logic” and “neutrality” highlighted. Local editors cautiously attempted to establish a specific mode of documentation within the framework of scientificity for local gazetteers. This involved distinguishing them from historiography of the imperial period, striving to maintain neutrality and objectivity, introducing and adopting new information technologies, and aligning with the most updated political guidance. Though individual editors tended to favor particular aspects under scientificity, as a group, they generally reached broadly acceptable consensus. Overall, their collective efforts in negotiating scientificity significantly improved the scientific validity of local gazetteers.

The principle to record political mistakes: ‘Not detailed’ vs ‘utter uprightness’

The documentation of political movements, especially those during the Mao era, remained a contentious issue among local gazetteer compilers. There were lengthy, intensive, and sometimes belligerent discussions, especially regarding the structure and sequence of chapters addressing such movements. The debate was framed as one between the principles of reporting historical facts as “be rough, not detailed” (yicu bu xiyi) versus “writing history with moral uprightness” (bingbi zhishu 秉笔直书). The former approach often required editors to passively report commonly accepted facts, avoiding controversial figures or events, and mandated that the presentation of “politically negative movements” and “political mistakes” of the party state be rigorously scrutinized before publication. The latter approach, by contrast, required that editors truthfully report historical facts and not obscure the responsibilities of powerful politicians involved in historical controversies and state-sponsored political violence.

At the central level, the party state strongly opposed documenting any facts “detrimental to the Party’s mission and unity, or facts that could incite grievances among the masses towards the Central Party Committee” (Zhongguo Difangzhi Zhidao Xiaozu 1985: 9–14). According to this principle, it was considered “inappropriate” to specifically report the political violence in movements such as the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution in any chapter. Particularly under the “not detailed” guidelines, this included “no individual names, no trivial details, no individual cases, no comprehensive statistical data and no investigation of individual responsibility” (Zhongguo Difangzhi Zhidao Xiaozu 1986: 51).

At the local level, some local editors were committed to writing history with integrity and conscientiousness as a means of maintaining moral uprightness. They held that historical documentation should directly confront political mistakes with profound reflections and thus advocated for more candid and critical records of political movements during the Mao era. For instance, compilers from Heilongjiang Province openly expressed their disapproval of a deceased high-ranking provincial leader accused of misconduct during the Cultural Revolution, despite strong objections from his family.Footnote ¹ They maintained that this approach adhered to the principle of “writing history with moral uprightness” (Heilongjiang Sheng Difangzhi Bianzuan Weiyuanhui 1999).

However, the central leadership disputed the very existence of the so-called ancient Chinese historical tradition of “writing history with moral uprightness.” As Liang Hanbing himself argued, “the study of history and gazetteers should serve specific classes and social groups” (Liang Reference Liang1988a: 19–20). Accordingly, he urged gazetteer compilers to adhere to Marxist historical interpretation and exercise caution when recording their local histories, ensuring they aligned with the Party’s policy line of class struggle:

Despite such central directives, local editors managed to maintain a degree of autonomy. Chen Yuanfang (陈元方), a retired provincial Party secretary and director of the Shaanxi Provincial Gazetteer Committee, collaborated with other party intellectuals to push the boundaries in recording Mao’s political movements. In some parts, they successfully persuaded the central authorities to adopt their recommendations for more accurately recording these highly sensitive events.

Chen actively advocated for thoroughly uncovering the political movements of the Cultural Revolution and their devastation. He argued that since the accountable individuals and parties had already been criticized or sentenced, critiquing and learning from these events rather supported political stability. He emphatically titled one article “Failing to document the Cultural Revolution in local gazetteers is a distortion of modern Chinese history” in order to express his stance (Chen Reference Chen1992). In another piece, he argued that “local gazetteers are the ‘complete history of a locality’. If some events (during the Cultural Revolution) are not documented as if they never occurred, this is the act of historical nihilism.” (Chen Reference Chen1987: 7). According to Chen, this was the historical duty of those producing local gazetteers. Failing to fulfill this duty, he contended, contradicted the principles of historical materialism and reflected an irresponsible attitude towards both the people and the history. Such omissions, he asserted, “would lead to the condemnation from both the people and history itself” (Chen Reference Chen1989: 161).

Chen’s efforts garnered extensive support from liberal party intellectuals at various levels, both within and outside Shaanxi Province. An author affiliated with the Central Institute of Socialism mentioned that after reading Chen’s works, he felt a strong impulse to write articles supporting Chen (Ling Reference Ling1992). Articles with titles such as “Local gazetteers should have special volumes dedicated to recording the Cultural Revolution” (Li Reference Li1992), “Local gazetteers should record the Cultural Revolution” (Zhang Reference Zhang1992), and “Documenting the Cultural Revolution is an indispensable part of the county gazetteers” (Yue Reference Yue1992) appeared widely in various gazetteer bulletin journals. This sparked a significant surge in the advocacy for recording past political movements across the country since the mid-1980s.

This wave of support successfully shaped the decision of the central leadership, leading to a notable shift in its policy. In June 1988, at a national seminar, Liang acknowledged that Chen’s views had brought significant attention and prompted a reassessment of their earlier principles regarding the Cultural Revolution. He noted that it was “insufficient to solely address format-related issues,” asserting that the quality of political content must also be discussed by local gazetteer editors, particularly the recording of the Cultural Revolution (Wang Reference Wang1990: 23). This acknowledgment by the leadership in Beijing signified their recognition of the need to reevaluate how to document the series of political movements during the Mao era.

Despite this shift, all gazetteer compilers were still expected to assert that their ideological stance aligned with that of the party state, with variations emerging only from the way of interpretation. Even when openly documenting the detrimental consequences of political movements, they had to frame their stance as supporting the party’s leadership and intended solely to prevent similar future upheaval and destruction.

Political factor: Historical justice following post-totalitarian transition

In the years following the tumultuous Cultural Revolution, there was an extensive and prolonged effort for political restitution and rehabilitation. The post-Mao era saw an authoritarian system attempting to address its violent past. Specifically, with the “Resolution on Certain Historical Issues of the Party since the Founding of the PRC” issued by the Central Committee in 1981, the party state launched a comprehensive rehabilitation campaign to address the grievances and injustices of the Cultural Revolution. Many individuals implicated in Mao-era injustices, chaos, and atrocities were investigated and punished.

During this rehabilitation movement, Yaobang Hu, the General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee in the 1980s and noted liberal reformer, effectively positioned the new leadership as guardians of a new political culture characterized by openness, democracy, and socialist legality. This shift promoted a relaxation of official control in propaganda under the slogan “liberating thought” (Leese and Shuman Reference Leese and Shuman2023). This post-totalitarian institutional context is not unique to China. Markwick (Reference Markwick and Jones2006) argues that in political systems where history serves as a centerpiece of legitimacy, political reforms and historical revisionism often go hand in hand. For instance, the “de-Stalinization” movement during the early Khrushchev era led to a push toward professionalizing the historical academic sphere, transforming it into a scientific discipline rather than merely an agency for propaganda. During this period, government-appointed historians like Eduard Burdzhalov, the deputy editor of the journal Questions of History, endeavored to move away from the paradigms of Stalinism and the Short Course, albeit within the doctrinal orthodoxy of “Marxism.”

The political culture of post-totalitarian transition during this period facilitated the inclusion of diverse viewpoints among local gazetteer editors. At a national academic conference on local gazetteers, editors across the nation engaged in vigorous debates on various topics such as the attributes, functions, and formats of local gazetteers, with all conflicting viewpoints being equally recorded. Contrary to the tradition, where the central government might typically prescribe conclusions or guidance before the conference, editors this time enjoyed substantial freedom to express their opinions. As a result, participants “unanimously agreed” that the conference was “lenient, harmonious, and democratic” (Zhongguo Difangzhi Xiehui 1991a: 173), illustrating a political atmosphere that maintained respect, tolerance, and courtesy towards intellectuals, thereby allowing for a certain degree of non-orthodox expressions. Even so, historical justice after the transition is not assured by the state nor realized without discursive tactics fitting in dominant political ideology, which were carefully crafted by local historical writers.

Organizational factor: Institutional flexibility encouraging local experimentation

The compilation of local gazetteers during the 1980s was not as institutionalized and regimented as the post-2010 era. This relative administrative flexibility afforded local officials more space and time for reflection and debate. The “new gazetteers” were designed to distinguish themselves from their imperial predecessors, thus fostering an environment conducive to local experimentation and innovation to fulfill this prominent mandate. According to working notes from the Chinese Local Gazetteers Association (1991a), there was recognized divergence in genre, guiding theories, viewpoints, and resources across different localities. Consequently, central directors did not impose strict constraints but instead encouraged “breakthroughs” and “innovation,” deciding to defer the standardization of formats and the establishment of common procedures.

To achieve “breakthroughs” and “innovation,” local gazetteers incorporated various modern social scientific elements, such as statistical forms, charts, demographic concepts, and methods, while avoiding excessive emotional expression. Indeed, many central leaders expressed concerns that over-emotional expression or an overemphasis on negative aspects of political movements during the Mao era was “unscientific” or “overly subjective.”

Additionally, the extended hiatus in local gazetteer compilation during the Mao era resulted in a lack of practical experience among the senior directors of the central leadership. Consequently, their proposed viewpoints to localities were generally broad and open to negotiation. Often, their stances and opinions were solidified and established through negotiations with lower-level practitioners. For instance, Liang Hanbing (Reference Liang1981: 4) initially recognized only the vague grounds of categorizing new gazetteers as “encyclopedic compendiums.” However, after discussions with local bureaucracies, he later provided more affirmative responses, recognizing “city gazetteers” as a city’s “encyclopedia” and a collection of historical materials (Liang Reference Liang1988b: 45).

Social network factor: Key opinion leadership of retired senior cadres

Many local gazetteer officials and directors, including Chen Yuanfang from Shaanxi Province, were retired senior cadres of local party branches who had been targeted and suffered during previous political campaigns, especially during the Cultural Revolution. As key witnesses to local political historical events and victims of Mao’s political movements, they felt a strong urge to accurately reflect the past political mistakes of the Mao era. These retired senior cadres, with their extensive connections to former comrades at the central level, possessed sufficient political authority and intellectual capital to debate or reinterpret specific compilation guidelines. This allowed them to ensure that the compilations aligned with their own perspectives, narratives, and practices.

Although these retired senior cadres tried to push boundaries, they remained aware of the “red line” and argued that the common interpretation of “seeking truth from facts” did not fully capture its true essence. Instead, only by “preserving truth and seeking reality” could one record history truly and faithfully. They demonstrated this commitment by arguing against the tendency to primarily attribute turmoil, chaos, and atrocities of the Cultural Revolution to certain policies implemented by the Gang of Four without implicating the top leadership.

It is important to note, however, that these so-called “red lines” or disputed principles were often not very clearly defined and articulated in documents in the course of actual practice. Even some senior editors did not perceive them as such. Their interviews revealed that emphasizing the rigor and depth of their writing process was often enough to secure support on their coverage of political issues from higher authorities. This approach has provided sufficient legitimacy to their negotiation and pursuit of autonomy, as one interviewee explained regarding the unwritten rules of their work, “Documents? There won’t be any public documents showing details on how to reflect the troubled political history … Everyone has their own understanding. You know what should be written and what should not be” (interview with CXTSG02-G).

Cultural-psychological factor: Imperial literal tradition as subjective motivation

Local gazetteers in China have been preserved as a valued historical tradition from the imperial era. Hu Qiaomu vehemently stressed that the newly established Communist government should continue the compilation of local gazetteers “to avoid future historians accusing contemporary ones of disrupting the continuity of the notable historical tradition” (Zhongguo Difangzhi Xiehui 1991b: 52). For editors, this advice underscored the importance of connecting with the legacy of imperial gazetteers and emulating the virtues of ancient Chinese historians like Confucius and Sima Qian in recording a fair and truthful history (Rogacz Reference Rogacz2019). This specific historiographical tradition of “writing history with moral uprightness” inspired rank-and-file local editors to engage in the work deemed as “unrewarding” and “sacrificial” (Thogersen and Clausen Reference Thogersen and Clausen1992).

These discourses that are connected with traditional historian virtues highlight an often-overlooked cultural-psychological factor: the sense of responsibility and sacred mission. The local gazetteer editors we interviewed all shared this similar sentiment, underscoring the sacredness of their work. In a sense, it was this ethical component of historiography that motivated them to perform documentative work:

This sense of responsibility may have motivated editors to negotiate with their superiors and fight for their own space to preserve the historical memory of their localities. For editors who valued the importance of local gazetteers, the task was unlikely to be seen merely as a routine administrative procedure. Instead, they perceive their compilation work as active construction of historical meaning and the powerful expression of their identity as local intellectuals.