Records of enemies and puppets: Qingcha Diwei Dang’an Xiaozu Dang’an and modern Chinese historical research

This note discusses a special type of archival materials: those that were compiled and retained by working groups established to detect counterrevolutionaries during the Cultural Revolution by examining existing records known as diwei dang’an (records of enemies and puppets). The note first introduces the general nature and special holdings of these archives and then discusses their accessibility and utility on the basis of the author’s experience. In doing so, this note shows that a creative approach to such materials could help historians of twentieth-century China to overcome the official restrictions on these primary sources and to piece together their content, if only to a limited degree.