This article uses newly available Chinese sources to take a different look at aspects of the Chinese political system and the Chinese state during 1958 to 1965. While not challenging the literature on elite power issues, it demonstrates that much more was going on within the Chinese state than has been widely appreciated. In particular, the article focuses on the formal legal process, where it appears that the use of courts was extensive throughout the per-Cultural Revolution period and where the verdict of not guilty, not punished occurred more frequently in China than it did in American federal criminal cases; on the growing breakdown of the Party elite; and on Chinaʼs preparation for war, basically an ongoing process of the Chinese state from 1962 on, with extensive militarization even earlier.