YAN’AN AS A SITE OF MEMORY IN SOCIALIST AND POSTSOCIALIST CHINA

Kirk A. Denton

Yan’an and Multilayered Memory

Yan’an 延安 is a small town in the north of Shaanxi 陕西 Province, far removed from the political and economic centers of power in coastal China. It sits in the middle of the Loess Plateau, circumscribed by the huge northward bend of the Yellow River, and the nearest metropolis is Xi’an 西安, which lies several hundred kilometers to the south. If the Chinese Communist forces had not ended up there after the arduous and meandering and made it their headquarters from 1936 to 1948 (during all of the War of Resistance Against Japan and much of the subsequent civil war against the Nationalists), Yan’an would certainly not be remembered the way it has been (figure 8.1). But because of its key role in the Communist movement in China, “Yan’an” has come to have a central place in historical narratives and in Chinese cultural consciousness more generally—the most sacred of all revolutionary sites in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), at the top of a list that includes the likes of Jinggangshan 井冈山, Shaoshan 韶山, Ruijin 瑞金, Hongyan 红岩, Yuhuatai 雨花台, and Xibaipo 西柏坡. Like all lieux de mémoire, Yan’an is a historical site layered with multiple strata of memory—strata that have accumulated through the turbulent history of China from the 1940s to the present.1 The memory of Yan’an has been constantly reproduced and reshaped as dramatic changes unfolded in the political, economic, and social spheres. Even when the Communists were still based there, Yan’an was being mythologized for ideological purposes: it was already being called a “sacred land of democracy” (minzhu de shengdi 民主的圣地) and eulogized as a place of hope and promise set against the darkness and oppression of the areas of China under Japanese or Nationalist control. Yan’an and its

1 The term lieu de mémoire was coined by the French historian Pierre Nora. See Nora 1989, 1998. 234 kirk a. denton

Figure 8.1: Panoramic shot of Yan’an from the Precious Pagoda2 2 pantheon of great leaders, heroes, and martyrs were being memorial- ized even as the Communists engaged in military resistance against the Japanese and in an ambitious land reform program in some of the areas under its dominion.3 A 1938 song glorified Yan’an in this way: “Your solemn and grand city walls / form a solid front of resistance. / Your name will be remembered for eternity / resplendent in history”

2 Unless otherwise noted, all photos are copyrighted by the author. 3 Memorialization was already an important part of the cultural, social, and politi- cal life of Yan’an. Memorial meetings were held often to commemorate, for instance, anniversaries of the outbreak of the war and martyrs who died during and after the war (e.g., the April Eighth Martyrs, including Bo Gu and Wang Ruofei, who died in a plane crash returning from negotiations in Chongqing in 1946). Yan’an also held anniversaries to celebrate the memory of Lu Xun. Mao’s speech “,” which became one of the three great essays of the Cultural Revolution, is in essence a memorial to Side 张思德. In the essay, Mao says that all who die for the cause, whether they are cooks or soldiers, should be given a memorial service. See Mao 1975, vol. 3: 177–178.