Author: Charlie Alekson (孙诚)

My Dear Readers,

 

First and foremost, I must express my terrible grief over the passing of our great leader Chairman Mao. I hope that we can come together as a people to keep ourselves strong in this time of national sadness.

Over the past four decades, I have attempted to inform you on all of the important events we have lived through as citizens of the great nation of China. I fear that I am growing too old to retain my post for much longer, and this will likely be the last report of my career. For this last report, I have been assigned to cover the difficult topic of the Cultural Revolution. I will do this by evaluating the success of the Cultural Revolution’s goals. The objectives of the Revolution were to bring the people of the countryside and those in urban areas closer together and to create a new generation of revolutionaries to succeed the generation of liberators. In order to evaluate these goals, I will refer to the manuscript of the Cultural Revolution memoir by Liang Heng, as he was someone who lived through each important phase of the Revolution.

If one of the major goals of the Cultural Revolution was to close the gap between the rural and urban populations, it both succeeded and failed. During the revolution, tens of millions of urbanites, re-educated cadres, and educated youth were “sent down” to the countryside to learn from the peasants and contribute to the revolution from the countryside. Liang Heng’s older sisters are both sent as educated youths before eventually he and his father are sent following his father’s re-education as a rightest intellectual (Liang, 161). In a theater production Liang Heng attended, he described the educated youth being portrayed as going down to the countryside and being welcomed with open arms by the peasants, signifying the union between the two different parts of the population (Liang, 162). While Liang Heng said that he was excited to go to the countryside, he acknowledged that he knew they were going to a poor area, and that they would have to work hard to make a living (Liang, 162). In describing the feelings he had when first departing, Liang Heng captures the point of the cultural revolution, with the excitement of the urbanites to join the peasants.

While the purpose was to bring the people together, it was difficult in practice as the urbanites that were relocated to the countryside had no experience, and were not easily able to contribute to the rural way of life. Liang Heng recalled that the peasants viewed them as more mouths to feed which would not help to lighten the workload (Liang, 170). This shows the great flaw in this goal of the Cultural Revolution. While it technically brought the people closer together by forcing members of the urban population to relocate to the countryside, it actually made things more difficult as they were not suited to help with rural work.

The other goal of the Revolution to create a new generation of revolutionary successors was more successful as the new generation was sent through a process of hardship similar to the generation of liberators before the civil war and the ensuing Communist Party victory. The Red Guards that carried out the revolution were devoted to Chairman Mao and wanted to improve the future of China under his guidance. Mao himself encouraged the Red Guards, telling them that a “Revolution is justified” (Dietrich, 184). The following violence was seen as justified by the Red Guards as they attacked the old ways, spurred on by the Chairman’s encouragement (Dietrich, 187). Through violence and persecution of targeted groups, the revolutionary forces staged their claim as the successors of the revolutionaries of the past. The violence of the Cultural Revolution created a conflict like the civil war had, creating more hardships for the new generation to weather and further mold them into the future of the Communist Party.

My friends, the Cultural Revolution was a time of great trouble for our nation. With people from the cities and countryside mixing and slowing down production, food scarcity made things even more difficult. The violence of the revolution only made people fear the government, and created more division, while also giving young revolutionaries a chance to make an impact on the future. After all that has transpired in the last decade and beyond, I hope for a quiet period for at least the near future, so I may enjoy my retirement without worry. Thank you for sticking with me for this long. I hope I have given you insight into all that our great nation has gone through.

 

As always, stay safe,

孙诚

My valued readers,

For the last three decades, I have done my best to provide you with the most accurate, and honest opinion as to what has happened in our great nation. This incredible journey has taken me all across the country, from my home, to my time in school, to Yenan to observe the early Communist Party, and more recently to the countryside to report on land reform and the hardships of the recent natural disasters. I have tried to stay true to my roots when reporting. I know that I come from a more privileged background when compared to many of my fellow citizens, and this fact has not been lost on me. However, I’m afraid that it has caused me to make several grave mistakes in my reporting. Chairman Mao once said, “It is man’s social being that determines his thinking” (Mao, 96). I have spent the last weeks tirelessly studying the works of the Chairman, working out my wrongdoings, and understanding how I need to think and act better.

When reporting on land reform almost a decade ago, I contradicted the Party’s policies by voicing an opinion that I didn’t think that fairly achieved wealth should be taken away.  This was a mistaken opinion, as I should have put my faith in the Chairman and the Party, as they are the ones who dared to create positive change. As the Chairman said, “A revolution is not a dinner party” (Mao, 14). While I was at first taken aback by the violence, through reflection, I have come to understand how it was necessary in order to create the socialist society of the future. I hope that you all can forgive me for my transgressions, and see how hard I have worked to correct my thought to continue to bring the best possible reporting.

孙诚

Dear Readers,

As you are most likely aware, we have been struck with a national tragedy. The past several years have been extremely trying for our great country. Natural disaster after natural disaster have rocked the people to the core. Chairman Mao’s genius plan to fix the backward economic system that has kept China from taking its rightful place as a great world power was bound to succeed without what seemed like divine intervention against our nation. When making this great leap of economic progress, Chairman Mao was smart enough to warn against boasting or exaggerating production levels in order to prevent unhealthy competition between different provinces [Dietrich, 121]. By the end of 1958, the future looked incredibly bright for our great nation. Both industrial and agricultural production had risen significantly [Zhou, 3], and the country was on the verge of an economic breakthrough. However, through no fault of the Party or Chairman Mao, these positive changes would not last. The efforts to transform the landscape of the country were valiant, but the unfortunate natural disasters have sadly lain waste to the Chairman’s great vision.

The initiative to build backyard furnaces was something that came from the right idea but was unfortunately derailed by the conditions of the country. The people were eager to jump to the Chairman’s call to join the industrial effort, but unfortunately, the people began to neglect the fieldwork that was necessary to maintain the agricultural economy. The timing of floods and droughts combined with the new iron smelting effort have had disastrous results on crops. An eyewitness I interviewed in one village told me that “Strong people have left to smelt iron, only children and old women reaped the crops [Dietrich, 130]. Economic reform originally made drastic improvements, but the natural disasters quickly prevented any lasting growth.

Famine has hit our great nation with a vengeance, as people are now starving, looking for any way to find food to eat. In my recent travels, I have seen several extreme cases of people eating food substitutes such as weeds, leaves, and mud in order to try to stay alive [Zhou, 8]. Famine has pushed the people to riot and cause unrest, greatly straining the countryside even more. Reports from Shanxi and Gansu Provinces indicate that both provinces have seen riots over food shortages in more than twenty counties in each province [Zhou, 12.] These shortages have brought out the worst in the people, with forced labor, torture, and even murder in some cases [Zhou, 21].

Our great nation is going through an incredibly trying period, and I must stress that this is not the fault of Chairman Mao and the Party. While the policies of the so-called “Great Leap Forward” were drastic and could be considered radical in some cases, they were only doomed by the natural disasters of flooding and droughts that have plagued the countryside and brought about this famine unlike anything ever seen before. We must stand strong together as a united people behind the Chairman, for only he can lead us out of this crisis.

Stay safe,

孙诚

Dear Readers,

It has been some time since I last wrote, and much has changed in our great nation. When I last wrote it was to discuss the success of the Chinese Communist Party’s movement in the Yenan region and why so many people were flocking to the area in order to support the movement. Since then, the revolution I discussed has come to pass! The Communist Party is now the leading group, with Chairman Mao Zedong as the head of the government, and things have already undergone drastic changes. I must mention that the war that was fought between the Communists and the defeated Nationalist forces must be acknowledged as an extremely brutal and bloody affair. I would be lying if I said that the Communists came to power unopposed and without lots of bloodshed, but they have cemented their rule in an attempt to improve China for the people.

One of the ways that the new government has attempted to improve lives for its citizens in the countryside is through a massive campaign of land reform. The Communist Party is a party of the people and at the outset of its rule over China, the vast majority of peasants in the countryside are extremely poor. Much of the countryside was controlled by landlords who had exploited the common people for centuries. Land reform is the first step in the redistribution of wealth that will help raise the standard of living for people in the countryside. Another important part of this campaign was how it involved people not just from the countryside. Work teams composed of volunteers were trained to go out into the countryside, organize middle and poor peasants, and oversee the process [Dietrich, 68]. This was only the beginning, as the landlords would suffer greatly at the hands of these organizations.

Once peasant organizations were formed, the work teams would help the peasants to find the landlords as the source of their hardships, loosely defined as “searching for bitterness” [DeMare, 63]. After whipping the peasants into a frenzy against the landlords, the “struggle” could begin as often theatrical displays of discontent were used to punish the landlords and strip them of their property.

While this policy made sense in theory, it led to an unbelievable amount of violence in the countryside. In many cases, work teams and local village cadres would attempt to squeeze every last drop of wealth out of the better-off citizens of a region, resulting in torture and murder if more wealth wasn’t produced [DeMare, 140]. The violence got so bad in some places that even some middle peasants committed suicide in order to avoid the possibility that they could become the target of a struggle [DeMare, 143].

An issue with parts of land reform that arose on many occasions was that of corruption. I spoke to a member of a work team returning from an assignment who mentioned that in one of the villages his team brought the campaign to, the peasant association was not dissatisfied with their treatment by the local landlords, but with the apparent corruption within the local village cadres and Party officials that supposedly were abusing their power [DeMare, 62.] This work team member also mentioned that in another village, cadres were using their influence to retain the most valuable items that were taken from the landlords for themselves [DeMare, 150].

The Party’s land reform campaign was an impressive movement that transformed the countryside. By allowing the people to carry out these small revolutions in each region, Chairman Mao reinforced his belief that leadership should “come from the masses and go to the masses” [Cheek, 120]. The land reform movement brought the revolution back to the countryside as it involved more citizens in the class war that the Communists wished to wage. The creation of anger against the landlord class allowed the peasants to obtain some kind of class consciousness [DeMare, 147], and therefore bound them more loyally to the party as it was seen as a liberator from the old ways. I am not unaware that I come from a better-off background when compared to many citizens. My parents have made their money through working hard their entire lives, and I am not entirely sure how I feel about this movement. While I am against exploitation, I do not think fairly achieved wealth should be able to be taken away. Because of this, I am thankful that my family lives in a city, because if we were to live in the countryside, I worry that we would have been labeled as enemies in this campaign.

Things are changing, but the danger still seems to be real.

 

Stay safe my friends,

孙诚

Dear Readers:

It has been some time since I last reported on the current conditions in our country, and I consider myself lucky in the fact that I have remained safe and in good health. However, it has come time for me to risk this safety as I have been given an assignment that is too important to pass up. In the past weeks, I have made the journey to the remote Chinese Communist Party base in Yenan in northern Shaanxi province. I have made this journey in order to discover and report on why so many people are flocking to the CCP during these hard times.

The Chinese Communist Party has grown larger than I could’ve ever imagined when I wrote my last post regarding the possibility of another revolution. It is now 1943, and party membership has grown to over a million people, and continues to grow rapidly [Dietrich, 29]. But what has caused this rapid rise in party membership, and why are people so willing to travel to such a remote area as Yenan to be a part of this movement? The simple answer is the pull of the movement. The CCP has endured so much over the last fifteen years, starting with the Nationalists’ “White Terror” of 1927. Since this massacre, the CCP has slowly bounced back, first with the Jiangxi Soviet, and now in Yenan. The so-called “Long March” of 1934 and 1935 became the backbone of the Communist movement. The party had endured hardship like never before and came out stronger and with a clear leader in Mao Zedong [Dietrich, 25]. The hardship of the Long March gave the movement a “romantic glamour” [Dietrich, 28]. Also playing a role is the location. It is desolate here in Yenan, yet the atmosphere is upbeat and hopeful. The leaders of the Party do not appear to hold themselves above us normal people. Even Chairman Mao is living in a cave like the rest of the ordinary citizens, and the Communists and Red Army soldiers are all honest and hardworking, always making sure to give back to the people [Dietrich, 28]. The welcoming policies of the CCP in Yenan also played a role in attracting support. One Communist officer I interviewed said that the Party was happy to ally themselves with the rich, and even landlords, as long as they were not Nationalist or Japanese collaborators and wanted to join the resistance [China: A Century of Revolution, China in Revolution, 1:12:10]. While in Yenan, the CCP toned down the traditional Communist calls for a violent class revolution in favor of carefully building rural, middle-class support [China: A Century of Revolution, China in Revolution, 1:11:52]. This shift allowed more people to join the movement, and also prevented the alienation of those who might not have bought into the idea of a violent class revolution.

The most remarkable part of the CCP’s success in Yenan has come from the rise of Mao Zedong. While I have not been able to meet the Chairman in person in order to conduct an interview, I have had access to a vast array of literature written by Chairman Mao, as well as transcribed speeches and interviews with others. Through these, I can confidently say that I believe he is the biggest reason the Party is having such success at the moment. In 1936, American journalist Edgar Snow traveled to Yenan to write about the Communist movement, and his publications have given me much insight into who Chairman Mao is. Snow described Mao as having greater influence throughout the Communist world of China compared to anybody else [Snow in Cheek, 185]. Snow also stressed the importance of personality in his leadership, something that I have witnessed during my travels here, as I have not heard anyone speak poorly of him. Snow’s account of the Chairman documents him attending events and sitting in the theater with the rest of the people, not holding himself higher than anyone and allowing himself to interact with those under him in ordinary situations [Snow in Cheek, 185]. Mao’s connection to the people was also evident in a recent speech on leadership methods where he stated that “All correct leadership must come from the masses and go to the masses” [Cheek, 120]. Mao’s populist viewpoints are immensely popular as he truly believes that the people should have a large influence on how they are governed.

From my travels to the Communist stronghold in Yenan, it has become clear that through moderately worded policies and reforms, the willingness to fight against the Japanese, and the connection of the leaders to the people have resulted in a strong and fast-growing movement that soon will be too powerful to be stopped. While in my last article, I was skeptical if revolution was necessary, I now fully believe in the Chinese Communist Party and its future as the leading group for our great nation.

 

Stay safe my friends,

孙诚

Dear Readers:

I have been given an assignment of utmost importance by my editor, and I will attempt to answer the question I have been given with as much accuracy and information from the people as I can. I have been tasked with answering if China is in need of another revolution, and why many citizens of our great country may or may not believe this to be true.

It has been two decades since the revolution of 1911 that saw the end of the Qing Dynasty as well as the collapse of the entire dynastic system. In the time since then, China has been anything but stable, and many of the problems that the revolutionaries set out to fix in 1911 are still ever present in our society. Confucian ideology is central to the debate that is tearing our country apart. While the dynastic system may be a thing of the past, we have now had to deal with the problem of the Warlords for far too long. These local militarists controlled their own territory and prevented initial efforts for unification as none of them would submit to a single ruler [Dietrich, 23]. The constant conflict between the warlords has proved a headache for the Nationalist Party in its efforts to unify the country under its control. General Chiang Kaishek’s Northern Expedition proved effective in dealing with the warlords and made great progress in uniting the country [China: A Century of Revolution, China in Revolution, 9:07]. The Nationalist Party’s United Front with the Chinese Communist Party seemed like the best option moving forward until the Nationalists brutally attacked the Communists in 1927, destroying their alliance and any real hope of cooperation in the future.

While our country is currently under the control of Chiang Kaishek and the Nationalist Party, it is not extremely difficult to imagine that another revolution may be coming in the near future. This revolution would be brought about by the Chinese Communist Party, and as time goes on, it appears more and more evident that this may be just over the horizon. Mao Zedong’s Jiangxi Soviet is a revolutionary group that is planning this very revolution [China: A Century of Revolution, China in Revolution, 26:18]. Nationalist forces have been attempting to wipe out the Communists for good, but have been constantly subjected to extremely effective guerrilla warfare tactics by the Communist Red Army [China: A Century of Revolution, China in Revolution, 32:04]. The Nationalists are so concerned about the Communist threat because of how popular they are becoming in the regions where they have been able to spread their influence. The reforms that have been suggested and imposed by the Communists in this territory have been immensely popular with the people who are sick of the old ways. Many women who do not want to suffer through an arranged marriage and be treated as property have begun to turn to the Communists in support of their proposed gender reforms. In a traditional Chinese marriage, the period immediately following the marriage has been described as “The most difficult and degrading phase of life for a woman” [Johnson, 10]. The Communists promise women that if they join the movement, they can be free of these traditions that are not desirable to women. One woman who was interviewed (name omitted for her safety,) fiercely exclaimed that she joined the Communists so she wouldn’t have to submit to an arranged marriage to a man twice her age [China: A Century of Revolution, China in Revolution, 28:55]. Among the younger and poorer peasants, not having to pay a bride price in order to literally buy your wife [Johnson, 11] is also enough of an incentive to break with the old ways.

China is on its way to something big. The Nationalist Party under the control of General Chiang Kaishek are desperately trying to keep its hold on the country as the Communist Party slowly expands its influence across the countryside. However, more and more people seem to be backing the Communists as they are tired of the way things are and are intrigued by the new ideas that they are being exposed to. A Communist revolution may be coming very soon, and I can only think that if the Communists are to make a legitimate play for control of China, we will see a bloody civil war that will determine the future of our country.

Stay safe out there my friends,

孙诚

一九三一年，九月十四日，

你们好！欢迎我的在线期刊！我叫孙诚。我十九岁和我住在广州上大学。我家人住在成都。我的爸爸妈妈都医生在成都的医院。我出生于一九一二年。我有一个弟弟叫孙寒。他出生于十九十五年。我弟弟是我的非常好的朋友所以我在大上学的时候我想念他和我的家人。…

 

September 14, 1931,

Hello everyone! Welcome to my blog! My name is 孙诚 (sūn chéng). I am 19 years old and am living in Guangzhou while going to university. My family is from Chengdu, where both of my parents are doctors at a local hospital. I was born in 1912, and I have a younger brother named 孙寒 (sūn hán) who was born in 1915. He is one of my best friends, and I miss him and my family very much when I am away from home at school. I am very lucky to have been born into a family that does not have to worry too much about money. Both of my parents have worked very hard for their entire lives in order to give my brother and I the opportunity to leave home and study. We value education so strongly because it is what allowed my parents to escape poverty and make a successful life for themselves and their children. While I miss my family very much, I take my studies very seriously as I do not want to let them down.

I am currently studying history and politics at university in Guangzhou. I have always been interested in the history of China as well as the world. Through my studies, I have noticed the changes that have taken place over the decades and centuries in both China and the rest of the world. Everything seems to be shifting away from what was a more traditional system of the past. Just in my time growing up, I have noticed a great many changes in the system here in China. I believe that our nation is on the brink of something big, and I took this job as an opportunity to report on these changes from the perspective of someone who has grown up through the initial changes, and will continue to live and experience the change that is almost inevitable to come in the near future.

I hope you enjoyed learning a little about me. I can’t wait to publish more soon!

孙诚