Time may heal many wounds. But not those from the “cultural revolution” that started half a century ago, as was evident in the fierce debate in the run-up to the 50th anniversary of the beginning of that havoc.
It started with a show earlier this month in the Great Hall of the People at the heart of Beijing. It was unusual enough to stage a show at the Hall, where the national legislature is headquartered. More conspicuous, however, was the fact that most of the performances were strongly politically charged, with many eulogizing the Mao Zedong era as well as Mao himself. As if Mao’s “cultural revolution”-era portrait at the center, clad in green military uniform, weren’t visually striking enough, there was the bold slogan “Down with the American aggressors and all their running dogs!” in the background. Foreigners in Beijing 50 years ago were all familiar with slogans like that. When US Air Force One bringing then President Richard Nixon to Beijing on his historic China visit touched down at the Beijing Capital Airport, there was this very slogan on the billboard.
The show stirred up immediate uproar. The first person to stand out against it was a retired female official who, in an open letter to the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, warned that the political motive behind the show was to reverse the party’s verdict on the “cultural revolution”. She and her supporters cautioned that eulogizing the “cultural revolution”, which had been completely negated in the form of a CPC resolution decades ago, inspires association with some people’s recent clamor that the “gang of four” has been wrongly prosecuted and the “injustice” needs to be redressed. Warning that such backpedaling may sink the nation again in a disaster like the “cultural revolution”, they appealed for reflections on the causes of the devastation in order to facilitate all-round reforms in the economy and politics.
Their statements, from criticism of the show to harsh comments on the “cultural revolution”, invited sweeping counterattacks from the leftists. The angry leftists displayed unreserved endorsement of the “cultural revolution”. They consider the Mao-initiated movement as great holidays for the broad masses of workers and peasants, a social campaign targeted against revisionism – the pioneer of capitalism, and the only path toward fairness and justice for the majority. Therefore, the “red songs” singing Mao’s praises are worth more, broader stages. Such leftists, or more accurately, Maoists, believe “cultural revolution” is the most effective way to deal with today’s groups of vested interests as well as to narrow and eliminate wealth gaps. Given their overall endorsement of the “cultural revolution”, their appreciation of the actions of cultural genocide as well as those who did it cannot but be ridiculous.
The CPC leadership with Xi Jinping at the core didn’t want to say much about the dispute, because they didn’t want to see more extensive controversies distract people from the opening year of the 13th Five-Year-Plan period. As a mouthpiece of the CPC, the People’s Daily only published Xi’s past remarks that defined the “cultural revolution” as “ten years of havoc”. That should at least make some less aggressive in singing the praises of those years.
However, no matter whether the Chinese authorities are intentionally skirting the so-called revolution that had hurt the nation so badly, the debate resulting from a show is a reminder that, although four decades have passed since the “cultural revolution” ended, and the CPC had completely negated it through a formal resolution at Deng Xiaoping’s behest, its ghost keeps haunting the country, and remains a banner against reform and opening up. This is not because of Mao’s personal charisma or the lasting impacts of his thoughts, but the outcome of the unprecedented throes the Chinese society has been undergoing since the start of reform and opening up. Downward pressures from social and economic development have reached unprecedented levels. It is no exaggeration to say the country is already on the brink of a “middle-income trap”. Frequent exposé of rampant corruption in public offices is exacerbating the disadvantaged’s dissatisfaction with the status quo. Disorder in the economy is posing a serious threat to food and drug safety, revealing incompetence in public administration —which fuels nostalgia for the “cultural revolution fantasy” permeating in the general public, especially society’s underdogs.
But at the end of the day, the underlying reason for such a mentality is the influence of the longstanding patriarchal system in Chinese history that was based on natural economy, which is the most fertile soil for the resistance against market economy, especially the kind of market economy and industrialization featuring primary accumulation. Nostalgia for idyllic ways of life and the fantasy of achieving the modernity of an advanced, industrialized society without going through the pains of industrialization have arisen in parallel. The “cultural revolution” reflected a rural society’s suspicions, fears, and opposition to the large-scale commercialized production in an industrialized society, and a traditional patriarchal society’s fierce rejection of contemporary civilization and the rule of law. Such populist tendencies exist broadly in all strata of present-day Chinese society, and are being disseminated in step with the accumulation of contradictions during the transitional period. Fortunately, some advisers to Chinese decision-makers have noticed that populism and narrow nationalism are seriously affecting and impeding the country’s economic transformation and the deepening of various reforms.
The “cultural revolution” was a historic setback that aspired to prevent society from embracing democracy, the rule of law, and modern civilization by radical means and slogans. Taking it as a cure for the troubles of today’s China is not only a populist fantasy, but also an insane act of backpedaling.