51

cvcn Kuoniinrang did not-as shc brilliancc ol' hlito'h though[. lo Peking docs-put niost of the country eradicate theiii. BUI rchcarsal is not by ot't' limits to foreigncrs. If it had. thc necessary. Evcry Chincsc know enormous nuniber of critical articles and csactly what he can and cannot say, (Viking: 714 pp.; $10.00) books listing the t'aults of the Chiang cwn to neighbors. ("Don't talk." were Kai-shek regime-and. indeed. Edgar the first words spoken by his old father Snow's Rid Stirr Oiw Clrirrir-could to an illiterate Chinese cook froni Peggy Durdin not have been \vritten. California. who iiiistakenly thought hc Some b'cstcrners arc so naive or s(i wanted to end his days in thc land of his C/rirrcJ.wS/rtrcloii~.v. publishcd in French arroganl [hat they believe they can ar- anccsti)rs. "Jiisr dori'r rulk. "1 several years ago by the Belgian rive at fundamental judgments at'tcr Sinion Lcys wrote Clrirri~si~Slttri1oii.s sinologist Simon Leys. and just recently only a brief "junket" for which they before thc campaign against the "Gang translated into English. is the iiiosl il- haw done no honicwork. For example. of Four." A fascinating appendix to any luniinating book so I'ar written about the one of this country's top cducation offi- new edition would be, first. visitors' Chinese People's Republic. cials. the assistant secretary for educa- accountso'ver the last three. four, or fivc There are many reasons for its exccl- tion in HEW. returned from an eight- years of how fine the situation \vas in lence. Mr. Lcys has loved the country as day visit toChina with a flattering report China and how happy the Chincsc much as his own since he first saw it in on education in China-one with which people were and. second. thc picture of I9S5. just before. he believes, the for- not only American cxperts. but the that same period now paintcd by thc ward dynamism of Mao's regime was Chinese themselves in official statc- official Coniniunist press and radio. compromised and then brokcn. He mcnts. disagree. Many visitors. includ- According to Peking there were. for knows China's history and culture and is ing academicians. and journalists, re- instance: strikes. often accompanied by fluent in thc language. Unlikc many of frain from criticism of China because violcncc. shutdowns of very important today's "experts," he has long been a they do not wish to be barred from future factories and paralysis of sonic impor- confirnird reader of thc Chincse Com- visits by Peking; Simon Leys states hc tant railway junctions; widesprcad munist press, still one of the best wrote under a pseudonym for just this "bcaring. smashing and looting." in- sourccs on the country. He has made reason. Other experts. including profcs- cluding looting of cars and banks: vi- three trips into China. sors. have been constrained by the cious factional fighting. with no holds Leys is also a writer of style, deftly fear-wcll founded. as the experience barred. froni the highest Party and gov- combining personal experience and ob- of a few provcs-that honest public ernment level down to the "grass- servation with analysis. Most important appraisal of the China scene would roots." paralyzing many administrativc hc is a humanist and. in the tradition of bring condemnation and even ostracism bodies and decimating others; collec- Orwell (whom he often and aptly from their pcers. tion and falsification of "black" male- quotes). an enemy of Mao Tsc-tung accomplished, says rial (unfavorable intelligence itcms in wherever it may be found. Leys. thc almost incredible fcat of limit- the personnel file of every Chinese, At the onset Leys clearly states that he ing China for visitors to a "narrow. which accompanics him wherever hc docs not intend to deal with the consid- incredibly constricted area" in which goes) against a wide spectrum of pcr- erable achievcmcnts of thc regime. minutely and cleverly contrived "the- sons. including the lale Chou En-hi; the often described by "distinguished pro- ater" substitutes for and makes possible huniiliation and dismissal-even arrest fessionals" such as . Pe- direct. honest. and warm contact bc- and imprisonment-of many Coni- king's most brilliant apologist. Instead tween human bcings. Guides chosen munists associated with Mao and the he is "adding some shadows. without first for their political reliability fill a revolution for thrce or four decades. which even the most luminous portrait visitor's every waking hour with superb- "Struggle by violence" erupted over lacks depth." This is understatement. ly managed tours 10 carefully selectcd thc country. According to Peking thew What his "shadows" reveal is a totali- cities. communes. schools. factories. and other activities occurred before tarian reginic that tragically resembles ("We couldn't let our foreign friends go Mao's final illness. The leader who had Orwell's. not simply in ordering the to Hangchow la city built around a not hcsitatcd to purge some of the coun- daily life. but numbing the mind and lovcly expanse of quict water] because try's highest ol'licials and oldest destroying the spirit of some 850 mil- . of all the trouble there. So we just told "comrades-in-arms" could have de- lion people. The trains run on tinic. them we were working on the lake." a stroyed the "Gang of Four" in twenty- What pricc are the Chinese paying for Peking official reported jovially to a lour hours. He did not do so. it? visitor not long ago.) To Simon Leys it is extraordinary that How is it. Sinion Leys asks. that Sometimes props are added to the so many Westerners nianagc to disrc- American and European visitors to scene. Lcys notes a simple one: In a gard or charactcrizc as uniinportant the China. who denounce other dictator- coniniune held up as a model of political niass of evidence available in and out- ships around the world. become en- purity and cxtrcniely sparsc living there side China on thc character (if what is thusiastic converts to the Peking vari- were a proletarian howl of gruel and six certainly tine of the \vorld's niost all- ety? There arc inany reasons. .Sonie proletarian eggs on a proletarian tin embracing and cl'ficient dictatorships. It visitors are simply protagonists of the plate aniong the plethora of tasty dishes. is. after all. no sccret .that all regime; their accounts of China before Sonictinies thc actors are rchcarscd: A Chinese-unless they fit into the several and after entering it are identical. Many collegc professor rccitcs in a monotone categories of nonpersons-belong to of these travelers have forgotten that his bourgeois sins and his desire. undcr Party/govcrnnient-conlrolIcd organiza- [ions. It is no secret that cvcry aspect of appointed cultural czarina by Mao hini- greatest battle against "culture." and the peoples' lives is regulated by a tiny sclr in 1963 but who is now called a Peking has piled tragedy on tragedy by ?roup of' iiicn-soiiic ol' thcni "brilliant "white witch" renegade) for the entire making "the masses" describe it as a nd iv i t t y ' .--who I ran s ni i t ordc rs great heritage of Chinese opera. an art "glorious" to this very day. Books. (which cannot be qucstioncd) down- foriii lovcd equally by literate and illit- paintings. and plays that are "flowers" ward through a iiiassivc and intricate crate because it passed down through today art' "big dangerous weeds" to- hurcaucracy that has iiiorc gradations gcncrations Chinese history and values. morrow. "Strengthen the dictatorship than that ol'thc Kuoinintang. and. Lcys hlao and his collaborators. Siiiion of the proletariat" is quite simply adds. is hy nature of the system dull. Lcys believes. haw "deliberately crc- strengthening the dictatorial powers of' dogmatic. mediocre. arrogant. neurot- tinized.. one ofthc world's most intcIIi- the Party. "Following the capitalist ic. I'rozcn in cont'orniisiii. and IcrriI'icd gent pcoplc by "ancsthctizing thcir crit- road" is a deadly label useful to any ot' initiative. ical inielligcnce. purging their brain and group fighting another, as both the Cul- But what Lcys secs as the grtycst injecting the cenicnt of official ideology tural Revolution and the years after it tragedy l'or China is Peking's unceasing into the empty skull." Through every amply illustrate. attack on the Chinese niind and spirit. waking hour. pursuing cvery Chincsc to "Beat the dog that is drowning in the No ruler of our tiiiic has sccn as clearly frontier. field, or privy. Pcking speaks water." This instruction on how to deal as hlao the valuc to dictatorship of total in one repctitive voice, using what Or- with the bourgeoisie comes from Lu nianipulation of' the niind. or worked as wcll so rightly feared: a "mechanical Hsun. a revolutionary writer in the early cleverly and assiduously to achieve it. and prcfabricatcd jargon that is a suhsti- years of this century. He would cer- Lcys rightly points out that Mao set thc lute for thought ...indeed. inhibits the tainly have been executed or incarccr- coursc lor the castration of the intel- possibility of thinking."Thisjargon. as aied by hlao had he been alive in 1957.. I i gc n t si a- \v r i t e r s. a r t i st s . Ie ac h e rs . Orwell pointed out. substitutes the gen- He is sanctified by Peking because he is and so on-in Yenan in 1932. when he eral for the specific. so that any group in dead and can be safely edited. said in a speech. since then yearly power can twist and manipulate words Leys reminds us of Lu Hsun's retort acclaiiiicd. that their solc function was and slogans at will to serve any purpose. to Benrand Russell's remark that. when, to he propagandists for the regime. As Leys notes. in China the word in 1920. the Chinese "coolies" who What this thesis-containing the corol- * ' revol ut ion' ' or ' 'revol u t ionary ' ' bore him and other members of his party lary that intcllcctuals were a pernia- means simply and solely what has been in sedan chairs over the hills at ncntly suspect class requiring continu- approved by the regime in power. Indi- Hangchow paused for a rest. they o us a nd h u ni i I i at in g * * rem ou Id in g ' '- vidual human beings have been made "brought out their pipes and began to did not acconiplish in thc great "right- facclcss by calling them "the masses": laugh as though they had not a care in ist" purgc of 1957 was achieved in the the "niassesdemand" is simply another the world." Lu Hsun replied: "As for and the tragic years order from Peking. "Grasp revolution Russell, who praises the Chincse after following it. when Mao had turned over and promote production" is sometimes seeing smiling porters at the Western the entire field of culture to his wife and an ordcr to produce more and sonie- Lake. I do not know exactly what he is the three collaborators. now the "Gang times. as the last four or five years driving at. I do know one thing: if the of Four." Lcys quotes a remark of hlao illustrate. to produce less. The admoni- portcrs had been able IWI to smile at Tse-tung's during the Cultural Revolu- tion 11) be "Rcd and expert" has suf- those whom thcy had carried. China tion about Ch'in Shih Huang Ti. the lered the same changcs in interpreta- would have long since been out of its cnipcror the Chinese have praised tion. The Great Proletarian Cultural prcsent rut." through the centuries for unifying China Revolution was the Communists' and have villificd for ordering the burn- ing of a11 but a sniall category of books ad for persecuring scholars. "And what is so rcniarkable about Ch'in Shih Huang Ti?" h,lao reputedly asked. "He Transatlantic Patterns: Cultural Comparisons executed 460 scholars. We. we exc- cutcd 36.000 of thcni." of England With America Not contcnt with the "nearcxtinc~ion by Martin Green 01 Chinese intellectuals as such." Lcys points out. the Communists have dc- (Basic Books; 298 pp.: $I I .95) srroyed the culture of the past without putting anything of value in its placc. They have uglified. materially and Robert A. Greenberg spiritually. Peking (once. for this re- vicwcr. the world's most civilized city). Martin Green is aiiiong the most interest- first book. Mirrorfur Arrglo-S~itrrorrs.hav- Ancient artifacts arc exhibited over ing. and is probably the most consisfcntly ing appeared in the ycar of John Ken- China solely for the Marxist-Maoist productive. of the culrunl historians at- nedy's inauguration. That volume rippled labels accompanying them. For .a de- taining prominence during the present the transatlantic waters on its appearance. cade Peking substituted half a dozen decade. That one tends to think of him as a Reflecting the tensions of his status as a incredibly bad "master- Seventies presence is itself suggestive. rooted Englishman expatriate in America. pieces" by Chiang Ching (who was since his career has more distant roots. his it also managed to bring to the surface