Battle for China's Past : Mao and the Cultural Revolution
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00 Pluto Prelims:template candidate.qxd 07/01/2008 12:16 Page i THE BATTLE FOR CHINA’S PAST 00 Pluto Prelims:template candidate.qxd 07/01/2008 12:16 Page ii 00 Pluto Prelims:template candidate.qxd 07/01/2008 12:16 Page iii The Battle for China’s Past Mao and the Cultural Revolution Mobo Gao Pluto Press London • Ann Arbor, MI 00 Pluto Prelims:template candidate.qxd 07/01/2008 12:16 Page iv First published 2008 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA and 839 Greene Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48106 www.plutobooks.com Copyright © Mobo Gao 2008 The right of Mobo Gao to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 0 7453 2781 5 hardback ISBN 978 0 7453 2780 8 paperback Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data applied for This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufac- turing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Designed and produced for Pluto Press by Curran Publishing Services, Norwich Printed and bound in the European Union by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne 00 Pluto Prelims:template candidate.qxd 07/01/2008 12:16 Page v To my father Gao Renfa and mother Jiang Yuanrong, whose whole lives were devoted to the well-being of their children. To those who sacrificed their lives for the improvement of living conditions of the poor and the disadvantaged. 00 Pluto Prelims:template candidate.qxd 07/01/2008 12:16 Page vi 00 Pluto Prelims:template candidate.qxd 07/01/2008 12:16 Page vii Contents Acknowledgements xi Introduction 1 1. Debating the Cultural Revolution 13 Introduction: who is writing history and who are the Chinese? 13 The haojie discourse and the Cultural Revolution 15 Violence, brutality and causes 17 Constructive policies 19 Destruction of Chinese culture and tradition 20 Cultural Revolution and cultural creativity 28 What is the Enlightenment? 30 2. Constructing history: memories, values and identity 31 Introduction: speech act of identification 31 From the wounded to the mentalité: the re-rehearsal of May Fourth 32 Be American citizens in thinking 37 Sinological orientalism 38 Two whateverism 38 The politics of joining the civilized world 40 Media agenda and identification with the West 41 Memoirs, values and identification 42 The intellectual–business–political complex in contemporary China 45 Conclusion: memories, identity, knowledge and truth 45 3. Constructing history: memoirs, autobiographies and biographies in Chinese 48 Introduction: scope and rationale 48 Memoirs, autobiographies and biographies in Chinese: a literature survey 49 The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth 53 Some common themes on Mao and the Cultural Revolution 54 Memories as history 61 Conclusion: discourse, narratives and memories 63 [ vii ] 00 Pluto Prelims:template candidate.qxd 07/01/2008 12:16 Page viii CONTENTS 4. Mao, The Unknown Story: an intellectual scandal 65 Introduction hyper-promotion of a book 65 Scholarship, what scholarship? 66 Misleading claims and absurd explanations 71 Further evidence of ‘scholarship’ 73 Further evidence of flaws and misleading claims 74 Logical inconsistency within the text 75 Mao, China’s Hitler and Stalin 77 Fairy tale and how scholarship changes 78 Does it matter? 79 It does not matter so long as the politics is right 80 5. Mao: the known story and the logic of denial 81 Introduction: Mao the known story, a general outline 81 Evidence of the known story 82 So what was the problem? 84 The famine death toll 85 The economy in the Mao era 87 The yardstick of Hitler: a favourite European comparison 88 Mao’s personality: the known story 89 The logic of denial of the known story 90 Academic reception 91 Revolution: from farewell to burial 92 Furet and the French Revolution 93 Is revolution inevitable? 94 An alternative model of development 95 6. How a medical doctor doctors history: a case study of Li Zhisui 97 Introduction; expatriate Chinese memories - a literary phenomenon 97 Memories and the politics of knowledge production 98 The book 99 Knowledge gap 100 Knowledge production and the market 101 The logic of the differences in two versions 101 Who is to be fooled and why? 102 Protests from the insiders 103 Was Li Mao’s personal physician? 103 How much did the doctor know? 104 What did the medical doctor know about politics? 105 The politics of sex 106 [ viii ] 00 Pluto Prelims:template candidate.qxd 07/01/2008 12:16 Page ix CONTENTS History as doctored by the doctor and his US mentors: a critical analysis 107 Conclusion: history what history? 115 7. Challenging the hegemony: contrary narratives in the e-media (I) – Mao and the Cultural Revolution 117 Introduction: emerging contrary narratives 117 Media effect, public space and e-media 118 Ma Yinchu, population control and elite attitudes 120 The credibility of Li Rui 121 Challenging the late-Mao thesis 123 Challenging Jung Chang and Jon Halliday 125 Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping and the Great Leap Forward 126 Debates on issues related to the Cultural Revolution 128 Disagreement between Mao and Liu Shaoqi: the two-line struggle thesis 128 Other unofficial views of the Cultural Revolution 132 Sea change of attitudes 133 Wang Xizhe the dissident 134 Kong Qingdong and the cowshed 134 Memoirs of different narratives 135 Challenging Wang Youqin 135 Conclusion: the question of truth 136 8. Challenging the hegemony: contrary narratives in the e-media (II) – the Mao era 137 Introduction: history in socioeconomic context 137 The state of the economy in the Mao era and during the Cultural Revolution 137 Manufacturing truth 147 Signs of a re-evaluation of Jiang Qing 148 The issues of health care and education 151 A re-evaluation of Kang Sheng? 154 The Chinese themselves say so 155 Manufacturing truth and e-media counter-action 155 The legacy of Mao and the e-media 156 Conclusion: voices from the bottom for a battle that has just begun 157 9. The problem of the rural–urban divide in pursuit of modernity: values and attitudes 159 Introduction: the year 2003 159 The rise of China, but the risk of collapse 159 The urban–rural divide 160 [ ix ] 00 Pluto Prelims:template candidate.qxd 07/01/2008 12:16 Page x CONTENTS Three stories of rural pain 161 Rural Chinese: beasts of burden on whom modernity is built 163 The rural–urban divide: values and attitudes 165 Post-Mao reforms: myths versus reality 167 Conclusion: the state and the countryside 171 10. The battle of China’s history: seeing the past from the present 173 Introduction: a little incident 173 Three questions about the post-Mao reforms 174 Is China a capitalist country? And does it matter? 177 Capitalism with Chinese characteristics? 185 White cat, black cat: the argument of efficiency versus fairness 189 Seeing the past from the present: a hole in the discursive hegemony 190 Conclusion: truth and belief values of socialism and China’s future direction 191 Truth and belief values of a political discourse 191 Truth and belief value of exploiting the peasantry 192 Do the values of socialism matter? 192 Learning from past failures 193 The socialist truth and belief value of land ownership 194 The socialist truth and belief value of labour law 196 The socialist truth and belief values of healthcare and education 197 The battle of China’s history 198 China’s future direction 200 Notes 202 Glossary of Chinese terms and names 211 Bibliography 222 Index 266 [ x ] 00 Pluto Prelims:template candidate.qxd 07/01/2008 12:16 Page xi Acknowledgements This book has been in process for several years and has been the result of discussions with and feedback from many friends and colleagues. I take this opportunity to thank all of those who cannot be named here. I would also like to thank Martin Hart-Landsberg, who made detailed comments and extensive suggestions after reading the whole draft, and Greg Benton, who has also read the whole draft and gave valuable suggestions and advice. Their help has had an essential impact on the final product, though of course they are not responsible for the errors and mistakes. I would also like to thank Yan Hairong, who never fails to give her support, either scholarly, or personally, and Kaz Ross, who went through the draft at one go and made valuable comments and suggestions. I would also like to express my appreciation of the anonymous reviewers for their support of this book and for their suggestions for improvement. I of course must thank David Castle, the commissioning editor of Pluto Press. David is not only quick, decisive, and most profes- sional, but also extremely supportive, always ready to accept any author’s suggestions that may be beneficial in bringing the publica- tion to fruition. The team at Pluto Press has to be acknowledged to be thoroughly professional as well as highly sympathetic. [ xi ] 00 Pluto Prelims:template candidate.qxd 07/01/2008 12:16 Page xii Introduction In 2004 at a friend’s party I met a Mr Chen, an energetic recent migrant from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in his late fifties. Chen works for a profitable company in Australia and his main task is selling timber products to China; he mentioned to me that he was in the process of signing a large deal.