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Forgetting the Cultural Revolution

Forty years ago on May 16, China's then-president and vice chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Liu Shaoqi (劉少奇), presided over an historic meeting of the CCP's Extended Politburo, issuing a document entitled "Circular from the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party," also known as the "May 16 Circular."

The directive is widely viewed as the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. CCP chairman Mao Zedong (毛澤東) was behind the drafting of the document from start to finish, but was conspicuously absent at the party meeting where it was issued. Mao was holed up in Hangzhou, quietly observing his political enemies one by one stumbling into his trap.

Although Liu presided over the directive's passing, the political turmoil that followed eventually resulted in Liu's demise. In other words, Mao gradually induced Liu to dig his own grave -- a grim political irony marking the zenith of Mao's deviousness.

It is important to keep in mind, however, that the Cultural Revolution was not just about political struggles, and that the movement's origins are not rooted in May 1966. The Origins of the Cultural Revolution, an authoritative three-volume study authored by Roderick MacFarquhar, claims that the movement's origins lie in a critique that Mao made of Deng Zihui (鄧子恢), a top rural official, in 1955.

The incident launched a debate among high-placed party officials regarding the speed at which "socialist construction" should be implemented. Eventually, that led to the Great Leap Forward three years later, the dismal failure of which fueled Mao's distrust of the whole party apparatus led by Liu. That in turn formed the underpinnings of the Cultural Revolution.

MacFarquhar's Origins meticulously turns over every leaf and rock of the notorious movement, presenting to readers a vivid account of that very turbulent decade in China's modern history. However, analyzing the movement merely from the perspective of political struggles fails to do justice to the more human aspect of such a horrific period.

How was it that collective violence of such a cruel and bloody nature came to occur in China at that time? How was it that the "Great Helmsman" could toss hundreds of millions of people into such an extreme state at a whim? How was it that the workings and mechanics of an entire nation were at one man's fingertips? How was it that a nation boasting 5,000 years of history and culture could devolve into a cannibalistic society in the span of just a decade?

China during the Cultural Revolution, Nazi Germany, and Khmer Rouge Cambodia all occupy unique positions on the political spectrum, but all of these regimes managed to contribute to similar twentieth century accounts of extreme human suffering. Are such instances of collective violence, temporally scattered between the 1930s and 1970s, merely disconnected, occasional events on a timeline?

Nazism and the Khmer Rouge have long since dissipated, and the affected societies have done much soul-searching. Although the Cultural Revolution has been referred to as "chaos" and "disaster" by Chinese officials since 1980, it has been carefully explained away as merely errors in Mao's policies, or as the product of a limited few such as the Gang of Four or as a deviation in China's political evolution.

Such scripted explanations have proliferated thanks to CCP propaganda, not only in China but in Chinese-speaking societies worldwide. The CCP, with the help of a tireless and massive propaganda machine, has made their version of the Cultural Revolution the accepted version of history.

Ba Jin (巴金), the famous Chinese writer who passed away in October of last year, had hoped to establish a museum dedicated to the Cultural Revolution. Ba was a man of letters, and this hope that he had reflects the purity and naivete of his literature. The CCP, however, would rather that Mao's body remain displayed in Tiananmen Square; they would rather rip down Beijing's historic hutong alleys in preparation for the 2008 Olympics; they will certainly not allow a Cultural Revolution museum to go up.

The more we reflect on the Cultural Revolution, the more we must take our cues from MacFarquhar. In retrospect, a cold, hard look at the origins will reveal that they are not concentrated merely in Mao's insanity; they are not completely rooted in the power struggles of Zhongnanhai, the government compound and the seat of power in Beijing; nor is the Cultural Revolution totally the product of the Gang of Four.

No, the true source of the Cultural Revolution, if we go back far enough, is the establishment of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, and the many mass movements that immediately followed the founding of the PRC in the 1950s. Which of those movements were in essence dissimilar to the Cultural Revolution? A thorough reflection of the Cultural Revolution reveals fatal flaws in the very design and structure of the party-state system. However, this truth -- three decades later -- is still hidden.

Has the Cultural Revolution been forgotten? If it has, perhaps one day it will be properly remembered. Even more frightening than forgetting the Cultural Revolution, however, is the way it has been "consumed" and cheapened as no more than an opportunity to make a buck.

The fact that China is awash today with tourist mementos sporting a Cultural Revolution theme bespeaks the CCP's embrace of capitalism. Such commercialization of the Cultural Revolution is a shrewd ploy, covering up the movement's horror with a nicer, more palatable, and more profitable spin.

Li Fu-chung is a professor in the Graduate Institute of Taiwanese History at Chengchi University.

Translated by Max Hirsch
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