Day: November 4, 2023

Greetings Readers,

Much has happened in China since my last post. After our unfortunate series of disasters, I thought things were looking up for our great nation. Then, the Gang of Four launched the Cultural Revolution. My family was lucky enough to survive the Cultural Revolution relatively unscathed, but it was not easy. I am finding it hard to return to normal life in my community after this time of great turmoil. 

I am grateful to have recently received a copy of Son of the Revolution by Liang Heng and Judith Shapiro, a memoir that describes Liang’s experience during the cultural revolution which happened to occur during the most formative years of his life. His story was touching and compelling, and I am sure it will resonate with many Chinese people. There was one quote that really stood out to me.

“The desire to live came strong then, stronger than the desire to die. I remember Father excitedly recording the peasant boy’s folk song by torchlight, still a man of letters even in the midst of greatest trouble. I thought of Mother and Waipo, waiting for me in Changsha, and Liang Wei-ping sharing her rice baba among the peasants. The hoodlums had cared for me so well on the streets, and Teacher Luo had forgiven me so graciously for the caricatures I had drawn of him. There was so much good in this crazy world, but so much more that was impossible to understand” (Liang 207). 

This quote comes immediately after he had thoughts of suicide after he received word that he was being investigated for counterrevolutionary behavior and assumed he would be jailed. Those that he considered to be friends had turned on him in the name of revolution, and likely out of fear. I am struck by this positive sentiment as he is being struggled against. The reminder of the good in the world, and hope for the future. 

The quote is followed by anger at the Revolution for giving the people so little when they “had sacrificed everything for it” (Liang 207). This notion is in line with most tales we hear of the Cultural Revolution. The injustice of it all, the harm it did to our country. However, I remind you, my readers, that we managed to bring ourselves out of this chaos. Liang Heng’s reasons to live in a dire situation can be echoed in the memories of our families and communities.  His positivity resonates with me. There was so much darkness during the Cultural Revolution, and much of it is expressed in this memoir. However, during his darkest hour, Liang Heng uses both the positivity he found and the anger over injustices during the Cultural Revolution to power through. After the night that he considered suicide, he thought: “if I was to live, it would no longer be numbly and aimlessly. I would live bravely” (Liang 207).

The Chinese people have been brave to make it through and survive. To do what was asked of us and listen to our leaders. Where did that get many of us? I interviewed two men living in a small village during the Cultural Revolution. The first was the son of a former landlord. He told me about how the Red Guards and his fellow peasants treated him. Li Maoxiu was “tied up, hung up, and beaten. One afternoon, [he] passed out four times. [He] stopped breathing” (China: A Century of Revolution- The Mao Years, 1:17:00). He was forced to cut ties with his father to distance himself from the landlord class. He was extremely saddened by this, but it was necessary for the survival of himself and his family. 

The second interview was with a former Red Guard. He described to me the acts of violence he participated in against counterrevolutionaries. “I put them on a truck and told them to kneel down. I whipped them with a leather belt. There were men and women. Most were women. We beat them hard. I had a kind of animal instinct. I used to enjoy beating people” (China: A Century of Revolution- The Mao Years, 1:20:00). People throughout China were beaten, paraded around, and killed. Estimates are showing that at least 400,000 people were killed (China: A Century of Revolution- The Mao Years, 1:18:30) in this violence instigated by the Gang of Four. 

This violence and fear forced us to struggle against our neighbors and created a sense of competition in which every man fought for himself. How is society supposed to return to how it used to be after relationships have been ruined? No matter what class each of us journalists comes from, we all were impacted by the Cultural Revolution. We all experienced immense periods of fear and hardship. We lost connections with those around us and lost pieces of ourselves. The quote from Liang Heng in Son of the Revolution can serve as a reminder of our humanity during a time when the Gang of Four sought to tear us apart. 

 

Thank you for reading,

 

Miao Kuo shuo

The amazing country we live in is a result of one man’s blood, sweat, and tears. Comrades, despite the fact he is no longer with us, we must keep in mind the revolutionary experiences he has benevolently gifted us through his reforms. We cannot let work accomplished in the past decades since the great victory of the Chinese Communist Party over the corrupt nationalists go to waste just because we no longer have our guiding light. 

The last act taken while Chairman Mao was alive was the Cultural Revolution. Two of the goals were to close the gap between the countryside and educate the new generation about the revolution and indate them with revolutionary experiences. Both of these were a great success, as expected of plans made by Chairman Mao. May he rest in peace. 

The next generation, despite not living through Yenan formed the Red Guard and enacted Mao’s vision, rooting out the capitalist pigs from the party. This made it easy for Chairman Mao to dispatch them to the countryside in order to learn from the peasants why Chairman Mao fought so hard. The educated youth had to suffer ostracism from the local peasants, hunger, and revolutionary living conditions that were a far cry from the stable conditions found in the cities they came from. All this was to forge their fighting spirit the only way Chairman Mao knew how. 

All of this was made possible by the peasant families who took in these young intellectuals for revolutionary training. As you all know, taking on another mouth is no small feat for a household, but as we are all filled with revolutionary spirit, the Peasants found a way. At times, this caused conflicts stemming from the mistrust between the revolutionary peasants and the intellectual students stemming from mistrust due to the Young intellectuals being branded as the children of banished cadre members or being the reason extra food went missing; however, it is just a byproduct of the situation we are facing as a nation. 

However, despite the education of the new generation, the gap between cities and the countryside did not shrink. The countryside has seen massive changes under the leadership of Chairman Mao, but the countryside also had the most to grow when compared to the cities. Cities had preexisting facilities, health care, and businesses that were folded well into new party policies. The countryside went through many plans, such as land reform all the way to the Great Leap Forward. The countryside was also hit with many natural disasters all while doing its best to support the needs of those in the cities. That being said, Chairman Mao introduced Barfoot doctors as a way to supplement the countryside’s lack of health care so peasants could get much-needed medical attention, as well as forged new instructors to create the necessary farming implements for peasants to use on a larger scale. Maos for planning has helped the quality of life in the countryside skyrocket and boosted the morale of the people but has not gotten rid of the gap between the standard of living in the cities and the standard of living in the countryside. However, I am sure that there is a plan in the works to address that issue more thoroughly.