The first half of Anita Chan et al’s Chen Village: Revolution to Globalization gives a very close look at the cultural revolution at the level of a single village. The author’s emphasise it isn’t representative of ALL villages, but the book gives the most in depth look at the day-to-day of cultural-revolutioning I’ve seen. The second half looks at the history of the village post-Mao.

Mobo Gao’s The Battle for China’s Past: Mao and the Cultural Revolution is a fullthroated historical defence of Mao, the Cultural Revolution and tthe Great Leap Forward written by a Chinese maoist. It has a lot of citations to Chinese works, which is RARE for something written in English. Unfortunately, I don’t speak Chinese so I can’t really check what sort of sources they are.

Xiaojia Hou’s Negotiating Socialism: Mao, Peasants and Local Cadres in Shanxi, 1949-53 falls outside the period you’re asking about, but if you want to understand the Great Leap Forward, I’d advise giving it a look if you can find it online/in a library. Very detailed and close engagement with CPC sources to look at the foundations of the PRC’s economic systems which show the various issues at the top, mid level and at the grassroots that would lead to the Great Leap.

Wen Tiejun’s work 10 Crises: The Political Economy of China’s Development, 1949-2020 covers the GPCR and the GLF from a more abstract-economical perspective. Instead of ideological terms, both are looked at in terms of economic cycles, responses to foreign relations and strained government costs.

Here’s a post where I left short reviews of various books, an old list but there might be something in there that piques your interest

Well for the history end I have the hardest time finding stuff, I have to listen because of how my life works but I have found a podcast that covers the history at some depth from a sympathetic point of view with digressions into other revolutionaries and movements. Would recommend.

Although I don’t know how far after the revolution they plan to do now that I think about it, it may be more useful as background than as what you’re more interested in.

This is gonna be an unpopular opinion because it’s questionable whether this counts as theory, but Simalcra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard was the single most influential book I read when getting into being a leftist. It’s a dense and hard to read piece of work, but its thesis is actually pretty easy to understand imo.

I recently asked a similar question and was recommended Mao’s China and After by Meisner and Mao: The Real Story by Pantsov.

I bought Meisner’s but it hasn’t arrived yet so I can’t tell you what I think about it myself, but they both might be worth looking into.

Shenfan by William Hinton (and it’s precursor Fanshen)

Bookchin