SEVENTEEN YEARS after his Communist Party came to power, Chairman Mao Tse-tung launched the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" to cleanse the Party of its bureaucratic tendencies. The resulting turmoil attracted the attention of many Americans who had already focused on Asia because of the Vietnam War escalation.

Stanley Karnow was among the few American journalists to cover the Cultural Revolution from its inception. His dispatches from Hong Kong in The Washington Post from 1965 to 1970 were thorough and revealing. It is no surprise that his book shares the same merits. The writer has succeeded in sifting diverse sources to produce a composite picture of the period.

Karnow has anchored his discussion on the theory that Mao is a revolutionary who could not adjust to the transition from warfare to stable government. Frustrated by self-seeking Party-bureaucrats, Mao instigated the Cultural Revolution to bring a new era in which citizens would focus their efforts on strengthening the state and not on personal advancement.

The Red Guard youth groups, Mao's standard-bearers of the Cultural Revolution, were a grave disappointment. Instead of promoting a new civilization in China, the Red Guards pursued personal goals, and they split into a myriad of factions. Party bureaucrats throughout China took advantage of Red Guard disunion and indecisiveness to organize their own youth contingents which staged battles with the Mao-inspired radicals. Workers, who were jealous of Red Guard privileges, frequently took the opportunity to chastise Mao's "Little Red Generals." As the level of violence rose throughout the country in 1967, Mao called on the army to restore order. Karnow notes a comment by Mao in August 1968, to the effect that the Red Guards "won't even be fit to take over county committees."

Some of the radical students dared to reveal a similar low regard for Mao. One radical Red Guard publication commented in January 1968, that Mao had made an "abstract prediction" in 1966 when he had forecast that the Cultural Revolution would midwife a Communist "utopia." "Everything remains the same after so much ado," the youths lamented.

Ten years earlier when China was in the throes of recovery from a crash industrialization program, one of the Chairman's most outspoken right wing critics asserted that Mao had placed undue faith in politics rather than in economic realities. Mao responded with a threat to recruit a new Red Army which would overthrow the present Communist Party should it disobey him. He told his comrades, "You ought to try sleeping pills if you're tense."

IT IS STRIKING that from both the left and right came accusations of indifference to reality. The criticism must have come as a great blow to Mao, who--especially in his military writings--prides himself on his insight into the reality of situations and his close contact with the masses. Regardless, it seems hard to believe that China has not profited from Mao's campaigns.

The ensuing decade promises to provide the opportunity for Americans to evaluate China's application of Communism first-hand. Stanley Karnow has helped lay the groundwork for future analysis of China. For those unfamiliar with Chinese history, the first 125 pages provide background data. For scholars, Karnow's massive research--completed at Harvard while he was a Nieman Fellow during 1970-71--will provide a starting point for the construction of broader theories. And for people solely interested in human interaction, the Cultural Revolution and its participants will emerge in the flesh.