Interesting. I found Red Memory more like Atlanticist feature journalism than either good history or scar literature. What do you think of the film, Farewell My Concubine?
Dec 16, 2023·edited Dec 16, 2023Liked by Jeff Rich
Red Memory is an account of the trauma of the Chinese Cultural Revolution and how it is remembered by people and state in China today?
Far from it!
90% of actual participants in the CR were delighted by it. Millions still gather to celebrate it annually because, 16 years after the Communists took power, nothing had changed in peasants' lives.
Mao, dismayed by urbanite Party officials already living privileged lives, initiated the CR to emancipate 400,000,000 voiceless peasants whose social status was unchanged in 3,000 years.
He drove inequality to the lowest level ever recorded and grew the economy 6% pa,twice America’s rate, and mechanized agriculture.
By the CR's end, rural literacy was taken for granted and rural people (no longer ‘peasants’) were as intolerant of oppression and corruption, as vocal about their priorities, as enthusiastic about voting, and as eager to voice complaints as their urban cousins.
For the first time in history they were full citizens who could point to the infrastructure they built, the agricultural advances they had made, and the problems they had solved.
SCAR LITERATURE
Red Memory is an example of 'scar literature' ('Wild Swans' is another) written by people who lost status – but nothing more. They felt that, by disrupting their hierarchy, Mao had destroyed the culture itself–a charge that resonated with foreign elites. They were wrong.
While officials and intellectuals, especially those responsible for running the country, struggled to maintain their sanity in the midst of an administrative nightmare. Many more were subjected to public humiliation or spent years in prison.
A handful, like Xi's adored big sister, crushed by criticisms they found incomprehensible, committed suicide.
Some fled abroad and published semi-fictional books about their sufferings.
Few forgave Mao.
A small price to pay for the emancipation of 400,000,000 people who, during the CR, put a satellite in space, founded the ocean-going ship building industry, miniaturized a nuclear reactor for their sub, miniaturized the fusion bomb for the solid fuel ICBM, launched the successful search for a malaria cure, and integrated many technologies long before the incompetent, bungling Deng began his reforms in 1978.
Interesting. I found Red Memory more like Atlanticist feature journalism than either good history or scar literature. What do you think of the film, Farewell My Concubine?
Red Memory is an account of the trauma of the Chinese Cultural Revolution and how it is remembered by people and state in China today?
Far from it!
90% of actual participants in the CR were delighted by it. Millions still gather to celebrate it annually because, 16 years after the Communists took power, nothing had changed in peasants' lives.
Mao, dismayed by urbanite Party officials already living privileged lives, initiated the CR to emancipate 400,000,000 voiceless peasants whose social status was unchanged in 3,000 years.
He drove inequality to the lowest level ever recorded and grew the economy 6% pa,twice America’s rate, and mechanized agriculture.
By the CR's end, rural literacy was taken for granted and rural people (no longer ‘peasants’) were as intolerant of oppression and corruption, as vocal about their priorities, as enthusiastic about voting, and as eager to voice complaints as their urban cousins.
For the first time in history they were full citizens who could point to the infrastructure they built, the agricultural advances they had made, and the problems they had solved.
SCAR LITERATURE
Red Memory is an example of 'scar literature' ('Wild Swans' is another) written by people who lost status – but nothing more. They felt that, by disrupting their hierarchy, Mao had destroyed the culture itself–a charge that resonated with foreign elites. They were wrong.
While officials and intellectuals, especially those responsible for running the country, struggled to maintain their sanity in the midst of an administrative nightmare. Many more were subjected to public humiliation or spent years in prison.
A handful, like Xi's adored big sister, crushed by criticisms they found incomprehensible, committed suicide.
Some fled abroad and published semi-fictional books about their sufferings.
Few forgave Mao.
A small price to pay for the emancipation of 400,000,000 people who, during the CR, put a satellite in space, founded the ocean-going ship building industry, miniaturized a nuclear reactor for their sub, miniaturized the fusion bomb for the solid fuel ICBM, launched the successful search for a malaria cure, and integrated many technologies long before the incompetent, bungling Deng began his reforms in 1978.
https://open.substack.com/pub/herecomeschina/p/the-cultural-revolutions-success?r=16k&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcome=true