Day: November 3, 2023

Hi all,

In my ever-increasing age, I no longer wish to provide the public with key information. When I started writing these posts, I thought I had an opportunity to do some good, really make a change, and help the CCP and Mao to build this new communist utopia. I think that a lot of people felt this way and we have been taken for fools. Land reform was a bloody mess, the great leap forward introduced a need for citizens and friends to lie and incriminate their fellow man just so they wouldn’t be struggled against, and the cultural revolution was just a way for the intellectuals like many of the people reading this right now and for cultural heritage to be suppressed. I am willing to give up on the party but I haven’t known anything else, I was just 20 when the CCP started with the long march to Yenan. I had the extreme honor of interviewing with a journalist friend of a friend named Liang Heng, who is preparing to release a memoir of his time under the reign of the CCP. While it was a short interview, he did give me one piece from his memoir that I thought had some significance. He was talking about the Red Guard changing the names of the streets when he told me, “All this was extremely confusing, especially for the old people, and everybody was always getting off at the wrong bus stop and getting lost. To make matters even worse, the ticket-sellers on the buses were too busy giving instructive readings from the Quotations of Chairman Mao between stops to have much time to help straighten out the mess.” (Heng 68). This quote given to me was very powerful for the understanding of the cultural revolution for a number of reasons. When he speaks about the confusion that people were feeling it goes deeper than just the changing of the street names. The constant shifts from political ideals to what Mao wanted to do to the different campaigns and policies, were enough to cause the masses to stop understanding what they were supposed to do, what they were supposed to comply with, and what false narratives they were supposed to believe. The statement where he says the ticket people were too busy reading from the Little Red Book was interesting because that could be because they were also nervous about slipping up and not knowing what to say or believe the next time a Red Guard member talked to them, everyone knows what they would do to you if you said something not in line with Mao’s teaching and were labeled a rightist. Or are they too busy praising Mao and not paying attention to the many changes that are being constantly made to the world around them, to just care how the changes are affecting real people in everyday life? This quote also shows how the party wanted to control not just the actions of the masses but the thoughts of the masses. If people are seeing Mao’s teaching during every waking moment, even during their commutes to their party-ordered work units, then they can’t stop to think about how many changes are happening, let alone how rapidly they are occurring and why the party can’t seem to make a policy decision and stick with it. I do give some praise to the party for their ability to pull this off. The revolution has been headlined by a changing of ways, out with the old and in with the new. But this has been in the works since the great leap. They systematically removed those from society who didn’t believe in the party or who were not willing to conform and formed their thoughts and actions to what they wanted them to do and think. It makes sense that people couldn’t see this happening, all the people who warned them are gone and this constant change of policies and enemies has been the way of decades. The Cultural Revolution has been characterized by the systematic eradication of Chinese culture, customs, and beliefs. It has been a period marked by a relentless pursuit of ideological purity. This quote is important to understanding the cultural revolution because it exemplifies the extreme measures taken by the party to inculcate the ever-changing Maoist beliefs in the population, including utilizing public transportation (and every part of a citizen’s waking life) as a venue for ideological indoctrination.

Dear Comrades and Fellow Reporters,

As I take a moment to write this farewell message memories come rushing back connecting my life as a farmer, with the journey that brought me into the world of journalism. China, our homeland has undergone changes from the tumultuous 1930s to the recent conclusion of the Cultural Revolution. These past years have been filled with upheaval and resilience. We have sailed through times in Yenan reported on Land Reform and observed the passion of the Great Leap. Now as we say goodbye to our role as keepers of history it becomes our duty to capture and document the essence of this period that has shaped our nation. I stand united with you in mourning for our Chairman Mao while finding solace in putting an end to the chaos caused by the Gang of Four.

Now as we pass on this responsibility to a generation there is one task, at hand. Uncovering and presenting layers upon layers of insight into the Cultural Revolution for our readers. During this pursuit Liang Heng, the son of the Liang Shan graciously shared a manuscript that chronicles his familys experiences during that time. I was deeply moved by Liang Hengs memoir titled “Son of the Revolution” which provided an poignant account of those times. As I delved into Liang Heng’s memoir “Son of the Revolution ” there was a passage, on page 82 that caught my attention. It beautifully captures the essence of the Cultural Revolution revealing its fervor and chaotic nature; “We all had to be revolutionaries tearing down the world demolishing the values and completely transforming ourselves from head to toe.” This quote vividly portrays the ideology that fueled the Cultural Revolution. It represents a determination to erase the past establish an order and conform to the prevailing beliefs of that time. The relentless pursuit of change even if it meant dismantling standing traditions and historical legacies was a fundamental principle, during that turbulent era. To truly grasp the nature of the Cultural Revolution it is crucial to understand the meaning behind this quote and to acknowledge the diverse experiences shared by individuals, like Liang Heng. It encompasses their struggles, sacrifices and deep yearning for autonomy amidst an overwhelming wave of ideological fervor.

As we take a moment to reflect on our roles, as storytellers and hand over the responsibility to a generation of journalists it becomes crucial for them to truly understand the core of our history. By delving into memoirs like Liang Hengs and other narratives they have the opportunity to untangle the intricacies of our past and pave the way for a future, in our China.

 

It has been my pleasure.

 

Yours Truly,

Zeng Yongzheng

Dearest readers and friends at our publishing company,

 

What a journey we have been through in the past decades. As I read through all of my past journal entries during the Cultural Revolution, I recall that my original goal in taking up this post here was to record this pivotal moment in China’s history. I believe that not only I, but all of us have succeeded in that, and that it has amounted to many more than just one moment. With the Gang of Four put away for good now, we can all finally take a breath of fresh air and return to honest, personal journalism. 

Not only journals, but other writings are beginning to come out recording the memories of our nation’s tumultuous journey, particularly through the Cultural Revolution. My fellow reporters and I have received early copies of Liang Heng’s memoir Son of the Revolution, which was painful yet poignant to read. Though we can all relate to it, it pained me to read about the Cultural Revolution through the perspective of a child. While many of us had seen our way through the beginnings of communism and maintained some semblance of independent thought, this whole generation of youth that they call The Lost Generation, quite aptly, has grown up indoctrinated into the Cult of Mao. 

One of the most powerful sections of Liang Heng’s Son of the Revolution was pages 206-207 in “Interrogation” in which the author had contemplated suicide after many accusations and the prospect of being struggled against. The fact that one could become so hopeless as to consider taking their own life for being labeled as politically undesirable shows the absurdity of the Cultural Revolution, and how it did almost the opposite of what Mao had promised with communism. Communism promised a building and bolstering of community and rights, yet it destroyed every unit of society, sowing discord in every aspect of life from the family to the school. As Liang Heng considered living through whatever pain he may endure, he became fully disillusioned with the party as he questioned every unnecessary moment of suffering that had happened to his family members and those around him in the name of revolution. Regarding such suicidal ideation, I think back to the story of Li Lili and her husband. An acclaimed actress of pre-revolutionary times, Jiang Qing harbored jealousy and hatred against her former co-star, blaming her for her lack of success on the screen. Jiang Qing had her and her husband tortured for personal reasons to the point that Li Lili’s husband killed himself. Yet the stories of her husband and Liang Heng are not unique. No one has escaped suffering in the Cultural Revolution. What was meant to cleanse Chinese society of abuse, inequality and hierarchy only created a new form of each sin. Yet we as a people, as a nation, can move past this.