Month: November 2023

Dear Readers,

As I approach my retirement, I find it crucial to explore one last story, the story of the Cultural Revolution. China has been faced with an enormous set of challenges over the past few decades, from successfully reworking class within the countryside, to rooting out intellectual Rightists, China has overcome many hardships. During the final years of Chairman Mao’s rule, he unleashed his last and most important campaign: the Cultural Revolution.

The Chairman has passed away, and with party support to discuss the Cultural Revolution’s effects freely, I feel for the first time I can share my thoughts on the Cultural Revolution’s shortcomings. The gap between the countryside and urban centers persists, the youth have been disenfranchised by Party antics, and now we must evaluate the success of the Chairman’s goal to create a communist nation and inspire the youth to carry on China’s revolutionary processes.

The importance of peasants and rural life as the beating heart of China’s revolution dates to Mao’s experience during the Shanghai massacre in 1927. Once taking power, the Chairman has consistently advocated for the peasants, from Land Reform, to sending intellectuals down to the countryside during anti-Rightist campaign, through his latest attempt at empowering China’s youth in the Cultural Revolution. I have had the privilege of receiving an advanced copy of Liang Heng’s manuscript Son of the Revolution, which has provided an invaluable insight into the life of someone growing up during this turbulent period. Liang was the son of intellectuals, his father was a reporter for the Hunan Daily, and his mother was a local bureaucrat. During the Cultural Revolution, his family was swept up in the high tide of violent revolutionary activity from the Red Guards, eventually being sent to the countryside in Mao’s attempt to curb the violence. Liang felt the Cultural Revolution was turned inside out disenfranchising many young intellectuals, they signed up for work in the countryside because “they were exhausted, they had unhappy lives at home, and they had nothing to do at school.” It is evident through Liang’s account, the motivation to engage in rural work was not because of feeling inspired by Chairman Mao, but because they had no other choice, as they looked for a more stable life within the countryside. This mindset turned out to be misguided, Liang was struck by the poverty so many peasants faced, the lack of abundant food reserves and the means to purchase fertilizers for everyday life. Upon arrival the peasants remarked that “We’ve got to give you food, find you a place to work. What kind of help is that?” Peasants felt burdened by the untrained workers that were sent down to the countryside, they were already struggling to get by, and the requisitioning campaigns added to the burdens so many peasants faced. Consequently, this reveals the gap between urban centers and the rural countryside remained prevalent socially and economically. Peasants had no extra food to give, nor did they have the time to adequately train the unskilled intellectuals.

Youth became disenfranchised by the Cultural Revolution as they were given a central role by our great Chairman, but he pulled the rug out from underneath their feet once the revolution started to become excessively violent. At first, youth enthusiastically responded to the Chairman’s policies of rooting out intellectuals as they were following what Mao’s directives over radio broadcasts. China’s youth during this period were the first generation to grow up after the revolution, by giving them the opportunity to participate in revolution, Mao unleashed a charged and extremely enthusiastic group of people that ended with disastrous consequences. Factional violence and civil war among different youth groups with different interpretations of the Chairman’s policies brutally ripped China apart. Schools closed, people were struggled against, and many died. One Red Guard even enjoyed beating people of interest, revealing the gap between the empowered youth and their target groups. Liang Heng remembers feeling immense “disappointment,” when Chairman Mao called for a stop to the fighting and for the Red Guards “to go up to the mountains and down to the countryside.” His sisters and family felt incredible despair and anguish at the thought of spending the remainder of their lives in the countryside. Many peasants disliked the Party’s program to send the Red Guards to the countryside, because they had to Liang’s father, a stout supporter of the Party, had trouble defending Communist Party directives to confiscate livestock and grain upon understanding the scale of poverty within the countryside when compared to the relative prosperity found within urban centers. With Chairman Mao’s passing, the question becomes how the new regime will bridge the gap between urban centers and the countryside and empower the youth to become enthusiastic and productive members of society.

Greetings Tongzhimen,

As this tumultuous period finally comes to a close I now have the opportunity to reflect on the Cultural Revolution and the extent to which it achieved its two ambitious, main goals of closing the gap between the cities and the countryside and creating revolutionary successors from the urban, educated youth. Looking back, the two goals of the Cultural Revolution were only partially achieved and resulted in many negative consequences. 

Mao attempted to bridge the long-standing socioeconomic gap between the rural and the urban communities through the “Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside Movement”. Educated urban youth like students, teachers, and professionals were sent to the countryside to help solve the labor shortage rural communities were facing, while at the same time establishing an appreciation of rural life among the educated urban youth. Connecting urban and rural communities is a noble goal however the movement had a lot of unintended consequences. The educated urban youth were ill-prepared for the harsh conditions of the countryside. The propaganda the party published gave the educated urban youth a false image of prosperous and advanced rural communities, the reality of poor village life hit them very hard as they had to live with no electricity or running water. The first round of the campaign was voluntary and when reports on the reality of the villages returned nobody wanted to go, but by then the campaign was no longer voluntary. The educated urban youth also were not physically strong and did not know the required farming techniques and skills but still required sustenance from the rural families, proving to be counterproductive. The mass migration to the countryside disrupted the education of an entire generation of urban youth, and the consequences of this will not be fully realized until years later when the generation ages. The generation was also isolated from their families and old urban social networks, leading to isolation and for some individuals serious psychological issues like depression and disillusionment. 

One successful initiative under this broader movement was Barefoot Doctors, the mobilization of doctors and medical professionals into rural communities. Historically, rural populations had poor or non-existent healthcare, and by providing medical care and teaching medical knowledge to locals in these rural communities the quality of healthcare improved.    

The physical embodiment of urban, educated revolutionary successors was the Red Guards. These groups were mostly comprised of high school and university students who all unwaveringly followed Mao Zedong thought. They were the army that helped advance the Cultural Revolution. The Red Guards would engage in mass mobilization, confront perceived class enemies, and propagate Maoist thought. The intense ideological indoctrination and cult of personality surrounding Mao created a generation of individuals deeply loyal to Mao. They saw him as the supreme leader whose guidance was unquestionable. However, power struggles and extreme violence among revolutionary groups emerged, with each group claiming they loved Chairman Mao more. Innocent civilians were afraid to go out during the day for fear of being caught in the crossfire. Under the slogan “Attack with Words, Defend with Guns” the groups justified the fighting as members would acquire a range of weapons including grenades, bayonets, machine guns, cannons, tanks, and anti-aircraft missiles. Violence intensified until these groups were abolished by Mao. The cost of ideological conformity in the short term is the underdevelopment of the youth in the long term as political activism was prioritized over education. Mao radicalized the urban youth and destroyed independent thought, making it arduous to take a pragmatic approach after the Cultural Revolution.    

The Cultural Revolution pursued the admirable goals of closing the gap between urban and rural China and creating a new generation of revolutionary successors. Despite the consequences, it made minimal progress toward narrowing the divide between the rural and urban was effective in producing educated, urban youths who would become revolutionaries.

Dear Tongzhimen, 

It has been many years since I started reporting to you as a young student, and I have come to give my final report on our Cultural Revolution, the Gang of Four, and the effect of their horrid crimes in the past few years. Although our great Chairman Mao intended for the urban youth, who were in desperate need of revolutionary education, to become one with the peasantry and end our cultural divide, it did not come to fruition. This is by no fault of his own, of course. Instead, deep-seated cultural divides and fervent chaos launched by Jiang Qing and others are to blame. 

Years ago, during one of my family’s daily Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong readings, I recall being struck by this quote: “How should we judge whether a youth is a revolutionary? How can we tell? There can only be one criterion, namely, whether or not he is willing to integrate himself with the broad masses of workers and peasants and does so in practice. If he is willing to do so and actually does so, he is a revolutionary; otherwise he is a non-revolutionary or a counter-revolutionary.” Back then, I was eager to support Mao’s decision in 1968 to send our youth to the countryside to do what I did all those years ago and integrate themselves into our revolutionary mindset. Since then, I have had the fortune to speak to those who experienced this journey, such as fellow journalist Liang Heng, who has illustrated the reality of the Cultural Revolution that I did not experience in his memoir, soon to be released. 

As an old woman in the city of Beijing, I was lucky to be relatively unaffected by the campaign. Sure, my neighbors, sister-in-law, and nephew were accused of being counter-revolutionary and sent to the countryside, but I was left unscathed. Meeting with Liang Heng was a huge wake-up call into the shortcomings of the campaign. He was initially untrusting of me due to my lack of struggle during the last decade, but he soon told me about his experiences and let me read his memoir pre-release anyway. During the revolution, Liang Heng and his father were split up from their family, struggled against, and were sent to live and learn from the peasants due to their counter-revolutionary ideals. Right off the bat, Liang described to me the obvious divide between the peasantry and the unwelcomed outsiders. As a child, he was spit on, called a “stinking intellectual’s son,” and his new peers were told “to avoid becoming friends with us at all costs, lest we contaminate them with our “bad thought.” Growing up, this same divide was constantly present in Liang’s life. He couldn’t play basketball for the country, court the girl he liked, or support his family because of their counter-revolutionary intellectual background and their time spent in the countryside. 

It is sad to see this anti-intellectualism is still around decades after I experienced it in Yenan. I believe this deep-rooted anti-intellectual mindset that has been cultivated in China is one of the main catalysts to the failure of the Cultural Revolution, specifically its goal to bridge the gap between peasant and urban populations. It seems as if Liang Heng is one of millions of comrades who have been negatively affected by the destructive overly-political culture of the sixties. Luckily, times are changing, and hopefully for the better this time. Farewell to my loyal readers. 

Your Devoted Comrade,

Cui Shuli

Tongzhimen, 

 

I guess you could say the dust has settled. It has been a few months since the great Chairman Mao passed away. Every morning and every evening I grieve the loss of the Chairman. There will never be anyone quite like him. I know that for the greater good of our country, we must move on to continue to achieve the things that the Chairman would have wanted for us. 

 

I recently met with my long-time friend Liang Heng, whom I have known for decades. He shared with me that he was in the final stages of publishing a memoir of his and his family’s experiences during the Cultural Revolution. Liang Heng was kind enough to allow me to read a copy before he published it. I brought the manuscript back home and spent the following week reading it. I decided to schedule another meeting with Liang Heng as he said some things that fascinatingly criticized the Cultural Revolution. 

 

There was one quote Liang Heng wrote that struck me in a way few remarks on the Cultural Revolution had. On page 207 of his manuscript, he writes “Why should two good people like my parents be forced to divorce each other? Why should Liang Fang raise a machine gun against her fellow teenagers? Why did the peasants fear the cadres so terribly if they were representatives of our great Communist Party? Why were people so determined to make me and Peng Ming look like counterrevolutionaries when we wanted only to contribute to our country? Why had the Revolution given us all so little when we had sacrificed everything for it?” [Heng 207] What I loved about this quote was that it posed so many questions about the Cultural Revolution, including implying that perhaps there were corrupt Cadres within the party. Never implying that the great late Chairman Mao was responsible for such problems was right. 

 

One of Liang Heng’s greatest frustrations of the Cultural Revolution was the arbitrary arrests and smear campaigns against Liang Heng, his family, and millions of other individuals. [Heng 83] The Cultural Revolution created a sort of cutthroat environment that promoted and praised those who reported anyone whom they suspected of being counterrevolutionary. It was also clear that so much of Liang Heng’s frustration came from this feeling that though they gave so much to the party, they were never rewarded. 

 

Liang Heng’s quote, “Why should two good people like my parents be forced to divorce each other?” was very telling of what happened to families like his during the Cultural Revolution. Liang Heng explained to me what his sister Liang Feng had told him. “Then Liang Fang explained all in a breath that she and Liang Wei-ping were going to the countryside, and Father suddenly seemed wearier than I had ever seen him. “This family will be scattered all over the place,” he sighed. “But ‘The home of a Revolutionary is the four seas.” [Heng 145]  Liang Heng himself was one of the millions of young people sent down to the countryside to learn from the peasants. “Reform” meant learning from Dazhai, the model agricultural commune in the North, where work points depended on good political performances, and “class struggle” was life’s main theme.” [Heng 182]  It was this very initiative in the Cultural Revolution that many felt was detrimental to not just family life, but also a significant burden on the peasants. The vast majority of young people like Liang Heng were simply not experienced at all in terms of farmwork and this made life even more difficult for many peasants now expected to provide food and shelter for people who could not contribute.

Through all of his frustrations, it became clear to me that Liang Heng felt that the cultural revolution did little to close the gap between peasants and the urban, educated youth. The cultural revolution and its initiatives simply highlighted the vast differences between the two groups and in many cases, may have increased tensions as sides grew increasingly frustrated with each other over the years. Additionally, the Cultural Revolution did not inspire quite the type of revolutionary spirit that many had hoped. Instead, the Revolution, after the passing of the great Chairman Mao, left many feeling exhausted and defeated. 

 

Tongzhimen, it has been the honor of my life to serve you, the people, over the last few decades. My reporting was not always perfect, I made my mistakes. But it was you, the readers who stood with me at every step. Thank you. 

 

One final time,

Gao An Zhi

Dear Tongzhimen,

It is now past my time and I am saddened to say that my time as a journalist is coming to a close and it is time for the younger generations to take over. In my old age, I’ve lived through many campaigns promoting Mao into Chinese society. China is in a completely different position today than it was during my childhood because of the work of Mao and the Communist Party. My last duty as a reporter is to bring to you the information of how the latest campaign, the Cultural Revolution, has affected China. Comrade Liang Heng has been kind enough to give me an advanced copy of his memoir. This manuscript gives a closer look into how his family was affected throughout the Mao years and serves as a general example of typical experience. 

The Cultural Revolution aimed to reduce the gap between life in the countryside and in urban areas as well as creating revolutionary successors from the urban youth. However, it was ambiguous whether the goal of this Cultural Revolution was achieved. There are a few points to keep in mind from Liang Hengs experience to completely understand the process of the Cultural Revolution. A situation that he faced was getting accused of being a May Sixteenth conspirator. To preface, the school had stopped classes for a special announcement about this counterrevolutionary movement. The school even put lock boxes around so that students could report people who they thought were conspirators. Liang Heng was reported as a counterrevolutionary and so they locked him in a room until he would confess. This lasted for days as he would be hit and discriminated against by the whole school for his ‘bad thought.’ The following quote is what Liangs’ thoughts were after he was told that he had one more time to confess before he would be sent to jail; “I realized that I could die. I could unscrew that lightbulb and put my hand there where the current flowed and I would be dead. I should never again be tormented by memories of Mother’s humiliated and accepting face as Father cursed her for betraying the Party’s faith in her.” (Liang, 206)  The thing that hurt him the most was that even his friends betrayed him because of the way the society thought about the Cultural Revolution. This situation created a distant relationship between people who were once close together. 

Liang had already lost his sisters to the countryside and both of his parents due to the political tension. The party terminated the family structure and the old Chinese traditions were slowly but surely becoming a thing of the past. The family and individual was virtually broken down completely and people turned to work as their identity. With this being said, it brought young workers together but in other circumstances it forced out the older population. Liang Hengs father was an example of this as he says “if I can’t work, I’m a useless man.” (Liang, 229) His father, who was rejected by the party earlier in his life, was forced to live in his past as he saw that he couldn’t make any contributions. As a result of his sickness, he had to retire from his work and the party forced him to move into a tiny room distant from the revolution. He would have to live the rest of his life full of emptiness and could not contribute to the revolution even though he wanted to.

The Cultural Revolution could be embodied in two slogans that Liang had stated in his memoir.  “The Farther from Home, the Nearer to Chairman Mao” and “The Poor and Lower-Middle Peasants Are Closer Relatives than Mother and Father” (Liang, 146). The mobilization of the educated urban people to the countryside was a huge part in contributing to the revolution as well as picking out the ‘counterrevolutionary’ ideas that people were demonstrating in everyday life. Pointing out other people’s mistakes was a big part in getting rid of the four olds and attempting to bring in the new traditions and culture to China.