Growing up in the American South at the apogee of the Cold War, I was surrounded by knee-jerk anti-communist sentiment. Looking back, I still can't be sure how much of that anti-communism, anti-socialism was knee-jerk and how much of it was a considered position. But I do remember wondering why this accepted wisdom was so pervasive. Occasionally I heard stuff about writers being silenced in Soviet Russia or people queueing hours for bread, clutching their string bags in the deep cold of a Moscow winter. But when occasionally one heard about the great strides in literacy or the abolition of true hunger or a greater sense of equality and fairness - and it was difficult to make an accurate judgment about the right or wrongs of communism. Particularly when those rights and wrongs were being judged by a young and idealistic mind. Why not focus on the true goodness of human nature - perhaps the right system could help foster that rather than encouraging the competitive, ruthless and essentially artificially harsh nature of the spirit under a capitalist system?
I certainly hadn't met any card-carrying members of the Communist party. Even amongst the more radical kids I've met - most of them only espoused a sense of wanting some aspects of socialism introduced into the US to a greater or lesser extent.
Once in England, however, I did begin to meet Communists. Yes, card carrying members of the Communist Party. I met members of the Socialist Workers' Party. Many of these people are very sociable and very nice, with nice clean middle class looking homes. Some of these were people who I would gladly have lunch with and might even discuss politics with over sandwiches and cups of tea.
At one such lunch I had with one of these CP or SWP members, at a bijou joint serving vegetarian soups and overlooking the picturesque ruins of Kenilworth Castle, we started talking about China. I can't remember how we got started on that - but perhaps there had been a serialisation of Jung Chang's Wild Swans - or another book which covered the period of famine during the Great Leap Forward. I remember expressing horror at the needless human suffering on a truly monumental scale.
My communist luncheon companion said so cooly and dispassionately "Sometimes there must be sacrifices in order to make progress."
I was revulsed. I really didn't know what to say. I think I said something about not wanting to be one of those individuals sacrificed - but whatever it was it was completely inadequate. Yes, I'd heard the concept before, and on the face of it - it makes sense. After all, I must sacrifice expensive work day lunches if I want to go on a nice vacation. But that's not the kind of sacrifice we were talking about and she knew it. Along with Mao, she had consigned millions to the charnel house of history in her defense of hollow Communist ideals.
By this point, the Great Leap Forward had been so sufficiently identified as a failure that the any sacrifice hardly seemed worth it. I was then of the belief that Chairman Mao didn't know that millions were starving each year, but that because of the nature of the system his underlings in the know were too afraid or too callous to say so. I had never, ever heard anyone defend the deaths of millions of Chinese people. This was an important moment for me. To me this would have been like saying, - you know all those Jews and Gypsies that Hitler killed - well, sometimes sacrifices have to be made for the greater unification of Europe. Absolutely horrific.
It wasn't until a number of years later that I read Jung Chang's family history - Wild Swans which was her grandmother's, her mother's and her own stories as intertwined with 20th century Chinese history - arguably among the most tumultuous of our times. I could read about the effects of Maoism on one family and the complete failure of Maoism to deliver anything like improved literacy, ending hunger, etc.
Jung Chang and her husband, Jon Halliday, have since published Mao: The Unknown Story. This provides evidence from previously hidden sources about how much Mao knew about the effects of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. The book has been criticised for painting Mao as a cardboard cut-out version of evil, and I'd certainly agree that there were opportunities for painting a more nuanced picture of Mao. This was a man certainly not without talent for political machinations and for population control. One has to respect that kind of genius, much like holding awe for the destructive power of a hurricane. The authors don't seem to want to grant him any credit for a monumental (though monstrous) achievement - getting to and staying at the top of the world's most populous country.
I finished the book some time ago and have been meaning to post about it for quite some time (the original draft of this post is dated 25 March). But my thoughts on the matter are complex and convoluted and a little difficult to pull together. I've retrieved this post because last night I watched a documentary called Mao's Bloody Revolution: Revealed - it was about the cultural revolution. This was a slightly more balanced approach to Mao though acknowledging that the Cultural Revolution was violent, destructive and chaotic. But it bought into the radical line that destruction must be achieved before we can re-construct a better world - though we may need near-perpetual revolution before that's achieved. Actually, I'm not sure Mao had in mind a better world at all, I think he revelled in the unending meat-grinder. And that's basically the argument that Jung Chang and Jon Halliday put forward. Mao was a monster.
About the book
Mao: The Unknown Story is very long, very complex and though I know this sounds terribly ethnocentric there are so personages with difficult to remember Chinese names (I feel bad saying it, but it's kinda true). But it was gripping. I started to carry this brick of a book with me on my daily commute despite the fact that weight was beginning to tell in my developing pregnancy.
_______
Mao: The Unknown Story - reviews on other blogs
The scales fall from student's eyes.
An Israeli sees Chang and Halliday speak on a book tour.
Chiang Kai-Shek a revised hero and nice guy? (Not sure about that!)
4 comments:
I took a couple classes on Communism [capital C, as practiced in Russia and Eastern Europe] a number of years ago in college. I would argue that communism itself buries individual talents and opportunities for excellence, and that alone is insidious enough to require me to oppose it. However, as you learned from your acquaintances, Communism as it has been practiced in various countries in the 20th and 21st century tends to be incredibly authoritarian, sometimes violent, and repressive.
I can say that by the time I got to graduate school (in Economics), I no longer had any doubts about the ineffectiveness and inefficiency of communism or Soviet style socialism.
But I was still of the opinion that adherents of Marxism - even at the top - were wrong, but well intentioned. I simply do not believe that any more. I believe that there's something inherent in the system which promotes the bloodthirsty and the brutal.
But I still know a lot of people who are genuinely nice who are sympathetic to Marxism. I have to admit that there's still something a bit romantic about the idea of all of society pulling together for everyone's benefit - but humans have trouble working that way. So it's best to have a system which harnesses the good and the bad impulses of people.
I read Wild Swans a year or so ago and was so mortified. I had very little understanding of what actually went on in China - I knew conditions had been quite terrible, but not to this extent.
I grew up in the same manner as you - communism was a "bad" word, and as such, never received much real education about communism. Here in Greece, there are communists and socialists as well (hell, as far as I'm concerned, even the right wing parties here are socialist compared to American politics). As I learned more about communism, and all the failed "experiments" in communism over the world, I find it hard to understand that anyone thinks it can be a viable political structure. Maybe if people were perfect, and no one was corrupt, it *might* work, but as far as human beings go, I think it is impossible.
I'll definitely be on the lookout for the Mao book.
Chang and Halliday’s Mao, Unknown Story is good, but it is not good as The Private Life of Chairman Mao by Dr. Zhisui Li
Chang and Halliday’s Mao, Unknown Story provided a brand new version and perspective of Chairman Mao. It is the first time to portray Chairman Mao as a bloody mass-murderer. In their book, Chairman Mao was a large-scale murderer during a Chinese peace era. Nearly 80 million people were dead by his Utopian idealism: that was an unbelievable number. It is four times the number of deaths of the Soviets in the war between the Soviet Union and Germany. He used drastic violence to suppress people who he believed stood in his way for industrializing China. He ignored the death of 30 million people during the starvation period of the Great Famine, which was caused by his foolish “Great Leap Forward” for overtaking the British and catching up to the Americans. After the Great Famine, his lunatic behavior reached new heights. He launched the culture revolution, which was completely insane. He became a maniac. Under his direction, the violence was propelled to its bloodiest high tide. The horror broke historic records. Elementary school students unbelievably beat their teachers to death. The death toll was continuing to pile up until the day he died. From Mao, Unknown Story, the figure of Chairman Mao was drawn as a vicious monster and mass-murderer.
No wonder, horrible bloody killings described in Mao, Unknown Story truly happened in China from 1949, when Chairman Mao took over China, to 1976 when Chairman Mao died. Chairman Mao did everything so lunatic, and insane. From the catastrophe which he brought to China, he deserves to be considered a bloodthirsty monster and a bloody mass murderer. Overall, the book is good and correct.
Even though the book is good and correct, it cannot compare with Dr. Zhisui Li’s The Private Life of Chairman Mao in deeply and lively describing of Chairman Mao. No less than Dr. Andrew Nathan pointed out, all of biographic writers have a limitation in deeply and lively describing their objects. Because they have never served their objects, they have no chance to observe them closely. Also they have done a lot of research, but the inherent defect is that they don’t really know their objects’ personality and psychology. They don’t know their objects’ courtyard operations; their objects’ retainers, and the relationship between their objects, their objects’ retainers and the government officials.
Dr. Zhisui Li’s The Private Life of Chairman Mao did not portray Chairman Mao as a bloodthirsty monster and a bloody mass murderer; instead of that, it focused on details of Chairman Mao’s personality, psychology and his courtyard operation. Owing to Dr. Zhisui Li’s position, it made him as so called: inside man. He could know a lot of Chairman Mao’s important information that an outsider could not know. Even Chairman Mao’s former public health minister told Dr. Li to come see him anytime if Dr. Li wanted to tell him about any of Chairman Mao’s activities. In the same way, Chairman Mao’s former chief commanding officer of guards also was available to Dr. Li with no appointment.
The deepest impression for me about Dr. Li’s book is the Chairman Mao’s courtyard and his retainers. Chairman Mao’s medical doctor, chief commanding officer of guards and secretaries comprised his retainers. They were called “Group One”. Chairman Mao’s retainers formed a powerful and vicious retainer circle. Their power was even above party officials. The party officials were not servants of people. Instead they were servants of Chairman Mao. They cared for Chairman Mao’s retainers a lot of more than they cared for people. The gossip of those retainers could cause party officials a serious trouble. People were powerless and ignored. The party officials entertained Chairman Mao’s retainers with the best Chinese whiskey and the best Chinese cuisine while the Chinese commoners had a little of meat to eat. During the starvation period of the Great Famine, Chairman Mao even stopped eating meat. But his retainers flaunted the banner of celebrating Chairman Mao’s birthday, and required the local party officials to hold a grand dinner party for them. The dinner fulfilled the best Chinese cuisine, seafood, and the best Chinese whiskey, wine, beer. The party was in the name of celebrating Chairman Mao’s birthday, but Chairman Mao didn’t even attend. Dr. Li found it very hard to swallow that tasty food. However his colleague exhorted Dr. Li, saying that unless he wanted to leave “Group One”, he had better wallow in the mire with them. Some party officials even colluded with some of Mao’s retainers making a fraud deal in secret. The fraud deal deceived party treasurers by saying that Chairman Mao ate more than one thousand chickens in three, four days. Actually, the party officials took chickens for their own meals. Chairman Mao even had never known it until he was dead.
The factions in Chairman Mao’s retainers circle were stricken by each other fiercely. Opponents attempted to topple their counter part desperately. A vicious atmosphere permeated daily life. Nobody felt safe. Chairman Mao’s wife was frequently involved in the factions’ conflicts. In this vicious atmosphere, even Chairman Mao himself suspected somebody of crawling on his bedroom roof at midnight. He did not trust any of his retainers. He even suspected that the swimming pool in his palace was poisoned.
Dr. Li’s dream to be a great neural surgeon became a surviving nightmare. Although Dr. Li wanted to avoid touching this vicious politics, he could not stay out from it. For survival he was forced to stay with one faction. Later, the factions’ grappling escalated to a cross line battle between the retainer circle and party officials, and eventually led to a palace coup after Chairman Mao was dead. Chairman Mao’s wife and her three colleagues were arrested. However, Dr. Li survived successfully.
I feel that Dr. Li portrayed the figure of Chairman Mao and his courtyard operation more close to the true Chinese history, what was really happened in China from 1949 to 1976. Compared to Dr. Li’s book, Chang and Halliday’s Mao, Unknown Story seems pale.
Post a Comment