ABSTRACT
It is much easier to rationalize such mass massacres when the individuals are viewed as “man-eating tigers” and “running dogs” rather than as starving souls. The Chinese Communists were now accusing internal enemies of collaborating with external enemies in an attempt to destroy the new Republic. As Chart 5-3 indicates, with the exception of “bureaucrat-capitalism,” all of the other four categories of enemy reached their first peak of salience in July 1950, to a level that had not been reached during the previ-ous nine months. During the following two months, only the “imperialism” category became dramatically more pronounced, as opposed to the diminishing frequency of the “unaffiliated adversaries,” “counter-revolutionaries,” and “feudalism.” The language pattern strongly suggests that Korean War had a great impact on the CCP’s sense of crisis, both internally and externally.
