This essay does not begin from the question of who betrayed which ideals, nor from a moral narrative of “faithfulness versus deviation.” Instead, it approaches modern Chinese political history as a long arc in which revolutionary spirit and institutional structure gradually separate, until structure absorbs and neutralizes the very ideals that once animated it.

By reframing these transformations through a spirit–structure political-economic lens, we can trace how participation, egalitarianism, and collective emancipation—core elements of early revolutionary ethics—were progressively replaced by stability, hierarchy, and administrative rationality. What changed was not simply ideology, but the structural position of power itself.

In its formative period, the revolutionary movement did not enter history as an inheritor of authority, but as a moral force positioned against power:

• defending the oppressed

• criticizing entrenched hierarchies

• mobilizing participation and social equality

Its legitimacy was grounded not in governance capacity, but in ethical opposition—a politics that claimed to represent those excluded by existing institutions. At this stage, “people–power–accountability” still existed as an open and living question.

The decisive shift came when the revolutionary actor moved from resisting power to administering it. This was not simply a moment of betrayal, but a structural transition:

The one who criticizes power must now maintain it.

From that point on, the Ship of Theseus begins to change plank by plank.
The ideals remain in language, but the institutional logic supporting them begins to transform.

• Spirit persists at the symbolic level

• Structure begins to determine practice

Gradually, continuity of narrative replaces continuity of ethos.

As governance stabilizes, the institutional order increasingly resembles a resource and risk-management system:

• bureaucratic strata acquire distributive interests

• survival logic overrides normative aspirations

• authority becomes intertwined with economic security

The movement ceases to operate as a community of ideal-bearers and instead becomes a mechanism for managing allocation, loyalty, and control.

Ideals are not removed; they are:

preserved symbolically, but displaced from decision-making power.

This is how spirit survives while practice changes.

Under conditions of structural consolidation, groups capable of intellectual critique and institutional correction become recoded as uncertainty or instability:

• internal deliberation capacities weaken

• corrective feedback loops disappear

• public reason withdraws from political space

A system that once thrived on mobilized critique now learns a new survival rule:

not to correct errors, but to prevent situations in which correction would be required.

At this point, history enters a single-direction reinforcement cycle.

When corruption and inertia deepen, those at the apex who still hold fidelity to original ideals often attempt:

to re-activate transformation through a second revolutionary push.

But by then:

• the rational-intellectual layer has been dismantled

• the public sphere cannot sustain deliberation

• mobilization shifts from reason to affect

The attempt at self-correction becomes revolution without reflexivity, and thus structurally tragic—not merely personally tragic.

In the absence of rational mediation, mass participation is easily re-coded into:

• administrative populism

• emotional mobilization

• symbolic participation mechanisms

The people are invited to “participate,”
but participation is absorbed back into the operational logic of power.

What remains is a residual image of agency—
the feeling of sovereignty without the capacity to exercise it.

This produces a lasting cognitive illusion:

society continues to imagine itself as a sovereign actor,
while the structural position of agency has already shifted.

Memory persists,
but the institutional environment is no longer the same.

Misrecognition accumulates—until rupture makes the gap visible.

When experiments in openness generate perceived systemic risk,
a predictable mechanism emerges:

• senior elite networks return to central influence

• reformist actors are structurally marginalized

• the order moves toward self-preservation

This is not simply “factional resurgence,” but a deeper rule:

entrenched interests restore themselves whenever redistribution threatens the system’s coherence.

The phrase “reform has entered deep waters” often signifies not technical complexity, but something more fundamental:

any real reform would destabilize the existing structure.

Thus:

• symbolic reform becomes the safest reform

• non-movement becomes the most stable form of movement

The window is not closed from the outside;
it is consciously sealed by the structure itself.

Local elections and participatory mechanisms do not disappear. Instead, they undergo symbolic survival:

• procedurally intact

• substantively hollowed

• participation ritualized

Autonomy remains as a form,
while its material power content is withdrawn.

This is a soft form of structural retreat.

By this point:

• the ship has the same name

• the same flag, the same story

• but every plank has gradually been replaced

Spirit survives,
yet the structure beneath it is no longer the same vessel.

Continuity exists at the level of narrative identity—
not structural function.

Viewed across decades, the trajectory forms a recurrent pattern:

• revolutionary spirit founds legitimacy

• governing structure absorbs and tames that spirit

• the rational-critical layer erodes

• self-reform transforms into populist mobilization

• elite consolidation re-stabilizes the order

• reform windows close

• ideals persist symbolically

• structure achieves systemic closure

The tragedy is not simply moral or intentional.
It is structural.

Revolution generates power,
power reconfigures structure,
and structure ultimately consumes the revolution’s emancipatory core.

To recognize this is not to mourn the past,
but to perceive how certain historical dynamics continue to repeat themselves whenever spirit and structure fall out of alignment.

The question that remains open is not whether ideals survive—
they always do—
but whether any future institutional configuration can prevent their cyclical absorption into structure once again.

This essay does not begin from the question of who betrayed which ideals, nor from a moral narrative of “faithfulness versus deviation.” Instead, it approaches modern Chinese political history as a long arc in which revolutionary spirit and institutional structure gradually separate, until structure absorbs and neutralizes the very ideals that once animated it.

By reframing these transformations through a spirit–structure political-economic lens, we can trace how participation, egalitarianism, and collective emancipation—core elements of early revolutionary ethics—were progressively replaced by stability, hierarchy, and administrative rationality. What changed was not simply ideology, but the structural position of power itself.

In its formative period, the revolutionary movement did not enter history as an inheritor of authority, but as a moral force positioned against power:

• defending the oppressed

• criticizing entrenched hierarchies

• mobilizing participation and social equality

Its legitimacy was grounded not in governance capacity, but in ethical opposition—a politics that claimed to represent those excluded by existing institutions. At this stage, “people–power–accountability” still existed as an open and living question.

The decisive shift came when the revolutionary actor moved from resisting power to administering it. This was not simply a moment of betrayal, but a structural transition:

The one who criticizes power must now maintain it.

From that point on, the Ship of Theseus begins to change plank by plank.
The ideals remain in language, but the institutional logic supporting them begins to transform.

• Spirit persists at the symbolic level

• Structure begins to determine practice

Gradually, continuity of narrative replaces continuity of ethos.

As governance stabilizes, the institutional order increasingly resembles a resource and risk-management system:

• bureaucratic strata acquire distributive interests

• survival logic overrides normative aspirations

• authority becomes intertwined with economic security

The movement ceases to operate as a community of ideal-bearers and instead becomes a mechanism for managing allocation, loyalty, and control.

Ideals are not removed; they are:

preserved symbolically, but displaced from decision-making power.

This is how spirit survives while practice changes.

Under conditions of structural consolidation, groups capable of intellectual critique and institutional correction become recoded as uncertainty or instability:

• internal deliberation capacities weaken

• corrective feedback loops disappear

• public reason withdraws from political space

A system that once thrived on mobilized critique now learns a new survival rule:

not to correct errors, but to prevent situations in which correction would be required.

At this point, history enters a single-direction reinforcement cycle.

When corruption and inertia deepen, those at the apex who still hold fidelity to original ideals often attempt:

to re-activate transformation through a second revolutionary push.

But by then:

• the rational-intellectual layer has been dismantled

• the public sphere cannot sustain deliberation

• mobilization shifts from reason to affect

The attempt at self-correction becomes revolution without reflexivity, and thus structurally tragic—not merely personally tragic.

In the absence of rational mediation, mass participation is easily re-coded into:

• administrative populism

• emotional mobilization

• symbolic participation mechanisms

The people are invited to “participate,”
but participation is absorbed back into the operational logic of power.

What remains is a residual image of agency—
the feeling of sovereignty without the capacity to exercise it.

This produces a lasting cognitive illusion:

society continues to imagine itself as a sovereign actor,
while the structural position of agency has already shifted.

Memory persists,
but the institutional environment is no longer the same.

Misrecognition accumulates—until rupture makes the gap visible.

When experiments in openness generate perceived systemic risk,
a predictable mechanism emerges:

• senior elite networks return to central influence

• reformist actors are structurally marginalized

• the order moves toward self-preservation

This is not simply “factional resurgence,” but a deeper rule:

entrenched interests restore themselves whenever redistribution threatens the system’s coherence.

The phrase “reform has entered deep waters” often signifies not technical complexity, but something more fundamental:

any real reform would destabilize the existing structure.

Thus:

• symbolic reform becomes the safest reform

• non-movement becomes the most stable form of movement

The window is not closed from the outside;
it is consciously sealed by the structure itself.

Local elections and participatory mechanisms do not disappear. Instead, they undergo symbolic survival:

• procedurally intact

• substantively hollowed

• participation ritualized

Autonomy remains as a form,
while its material power content is withdrawn.

This is a soft form of structural retreat.

By this point:

• the ship has the same name

• the same flag, the same story

• but every plank has gradually been replaced

Spirit survives,
yet the structure beneath it is no longer the same vessel.

Continuity exists at the level of narrative identity—
not structural function.

Viewed across decades, the trajectory forms a recurrent pattern:

• revolutionary spirit founds legitimacy

• governing structure absorbs and tames that spirit

• the rational-critical layer erodes

• self-reform transforms into populist mobilization

• elite consolidation re-stabilizes the order

• reform windows close

• ideals persist symbolically

• structure achieves systemic closure

The tragedy is not simply moral or intentional.
It is structural.

Revolution generates power,
power reconfigures structure,
and structure ultimately consumes the revolution’s emancipatory core.

To recognize this is not to mourn the past,
but to perceive how certain historical dynamics continue to repeat themselves whenever spirit and structure fall out of alignment.

The question that remains open is not whether ideals survive—
they always do—
but whether any future institutional configuration can prevent their cyclical absorption into structure once again.