The Material Construction of “Socialist New China”: Technopolitics and Grassroots Agency at the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge

Hui Pan, Boston College

This paper examines the construction of the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge (completed in 1957) in the People's Republic of China, treating it as a key entry point for understanding the materiality of state power and the technopolitics of socialist modernity. Long-standing views of modernity as a homogeneous blueprint have obscured the exploration of how modernity is generated bottom-up through local practices, and in this light, the socialist modernity, in particular, is often described as a movement of fanatical political fervor led by charismatic political leaders. Based on archival research, this paper seeks to explore the materiality and generativity of socialist modernity. Specifically, how the bridge project became a material practice through which "Socialist New China" shaped its modernity. In particular, it examines how frontline cadres and technical experts at the construction site exercised agency, engaging in continuous interactions among the grand blueprint of national planning, the unique and severe hydrological conditions of the Yangtze River, and the technical and resource constraints of the engineering bureau. This includes how they translated technical schemes into ideological narratives for political leaders and resolved technical disputes through political means. By focusing on these micro-level interactions, the author argues that China's socialist modernity was not a top-down, monolithic ideological imposition, but a hybrid product resulting from the continuous interaction between the state's ambitious goals and pragmatic grassroots actions. Grassroots actors not only possessed diverging understandings of what "socialism" entailed but also consciously performed creative interpretations of macro-ideological and technical engineering narratives to reconcile various contradictions during construction. It was precisely through these concrete and continuous interactions that frontline cadres and technical experts ultimately shaped the material landscape of “Socialist New China.”

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 Presented in Session 194. Socialist Construction, Economic Reform, and Ideological Production in China and Taiwan