scholarly journals REMEMBERING XIAO SHAN IN BA JIN ESSAYS THE WOUNDS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

Bambuti ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-68
Author(s):  
Nadira Alkaff ◽  
Hin Goan Gunawan
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Dark Period ◽  
Mao Zedong ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Analysis Model ◽  
Living World ◽  
The People ◽  
Ba Jin ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

The Cultural Revolution era was a dark period in Chinese history. The resistance to the power of Chairman Mao by literati people has resulted in deep wounds, as a result of intimidation, bad stigma, exclusion, and even imprisonment which often ends in death. Ba Jin's essay Remembering Xiao Shan can be seen as a mirror reflecting the deep wounds experienced by the author who is accused of being part of a counterrevolutionary group. Not only himself, but his beloved wife also had to bear the wounds of the Cultural Revolution. This study uses a hermeneutical analysis model to explore the author's "living world" in the text Reminiscing Xiao Shan about the sorrow experienced by himself, his fellow authors who were labeled as part of right-wing resistance, and the people he loved during repressive times under the control of Mao Zedong. The Cultural Revolution was long gone, but the wounds it caused were not easy to heal, and so Ba Jin documented it in the text in the form of an essay. In the end, time has proved that the idea of ​​resistance carried out by people like Ba Jin is irresistible, as has been proven by the current capitalistic economic style in China. The close people, even Ba Jin's wife were indeed neglected by the Red Guards, but their thoughts are still alive today.

A Decade of Upheaval

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew G. Walder ◽  
Dong Guoqiang
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Mao Zedong ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
Rural Regions ◽  
Political Conflicts ◽  
Modern Chinese History ◽  
Political Groups ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

This book chronicles the surprising and dramatic political conflicts of a rural Chinese county over the course of the Cultural Revolution. The book uncovers a previously unimagined level of strife in the countryside that began with the Red Guard Movement in 1966 and continued unabated until the death of Mao Zedong in 1976. Showing how the upheavals of the Cultural Revolution were not limited to urban areas, but reached far into isolated rural regions, the book reveals that the intervention of military forces in 1967 encouraged factional divisions in Feng County because different branches of China's armed forces took various sides in local disputes. The book also lays bare how the fortunes of local political groups were closely tethered to unpredictable shifts in the decisions of government authorities in Beijing. Eventually, a backlash against suppression and victimization grew in the early 1970s and resulted in active protests, which presaged the settling of scores against radical Maoism. A meticulous look at how one overlooked region experienced the Cultural Revolution, the book illuminates the all-encompassing nature of one of the most unstable periods in modern Chinese history.

Witch-hunting, Cultural Revolution and the bright side of kinship

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Feng Deng
Keyword(s):  
Social Structure ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Chinese Culture ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Dark Side ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Bright Side ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

Purpose Many studies on witch killings in Africa suggest that “witchcraft is the dark side of kinship.” But in Chinese history, where patriarchal clan system has been emphasized as the foundation of the society, there have been few occurrences of witch-hunting except a large-scale one in the Cultural Revolution in 1966. The purpose of this paper is to explain the above two paradoxes. Design/methodology/approach Theoretical analysis based on preference falsification problem with regard to the effect of social structure on witch-hunting is carried out. Findings There is a “bright side of kinship” due to two factors: first, it would be more difficult to pick out a person as qualitatively different in Chinese culture; second, the hierarchical trust structure embedded in the Chinese culture can help mitigate the preference falsification problem, which acts as the leverage for witch-hunting. In this sense, an important factor for the Cultural Revolution is the decline of traditional social institutions and social values after 1949. Originality/value This paper is the first to advance the two paradoxes and offer an explanation from the perspective of social structure.

scholarly journals don't tell me women aren't the stuff of heroes // 漫云女子不英雄

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 34-45
Author(s):  
Mia Sanders
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Forced Migration ◽  
Direct Result ◽  
Intergenerational Effects ◽  
The People ◽  
Household Environment ◽  
Sense Of Home ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

This zine explores the intergenerational effects of my family’s forced migration—from Changsha to Taipei during the Cultural Revolution, and from Taipei to Toronto after my mother was born. I grew up in a difficult household environment, in large part because of my mother’s PTSD: a direct result of the trauma she has experienced throughout her lifetime in the diaspora. I now live with PTSD, as well. ”Don’t tell me women aren’t the stuff of heroes” is a meditation on displacement from home—across generations and borders—and the experience of finding a sense of home in the people who have hurt you the most.

Chinese Art of the Cultural Revolution

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
William H. Ma
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Mao Zedong ◽  
Chinese Art ◽  
Political Propaganda ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Cultural Sites ◽  
The Masses ◽  
Visual Materials ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

The art of the Cultural Revolution in China, created during the ten-year period from 1967 to 1977, includes a large variety of visual materials in different media. Generally characterized by unambiguous and heroic images that appealed to the masses, these artworks became powerful tools of political propaganda. Most scholars attribute the beginning of the Cultural Revolution to the 1965 play HaiRui Dismissed from Office. Written by Wu Han, a local Communist official, the play was a thinly veiled critique of Mao Zedong. Though semi-retired in the early 1960s, Mao was determined to hold on to power by launching a new revolution to reawaken young Chinese people and root out the counterrevolutionary and anti-proletarian elements in society. Under Mao’s directive, people, places, and things representing the Four Olds (Old Customs, Old Culture, Old Habits, and Old Ideas) were targeted and violently attacked by young people wearing red armbands and carrying the Little Red Book, a collection of quotes by Mao. Party officials, teachers, professors, authors, and artists had their homes raided and were publically dragged out by the Red Guards for public humiliation. In addition, historical and cultural sites were desecrated and vandalized. While the real violence only lasted the first few years, it set the tone of militarism and revolutionary fervor for the next decade, which permeated through all the arts.

The Performance of Industry During the Cultural Revolution: Second Thoughts

1986 ◽  
Vol 108 ◽  
pp. 625-642 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Michael Field
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Mao Zedong ◽  
Social Upheaval ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

Mao Zedong, dissatisfied with the growing ossification of the Party and government bureaucracies, in the spring of 1966 launched the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. He believed that China's youth required a “revolutionary experience” to renew their faith in a revolution that had taken place before most of them had been born or were old enough to remember. The Cultural Revolution (1966–76) quickly became a period of widespread, often violent, social upheaval that affected the performance of industry.

The Controversy Over Modernism, 1979–84

1985 ◽  
Vol 104 ◽  
pp. 641-656
Author(s):  
D. E. Pollard
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The People ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

The leadership in literature and the arts that replaced the appointees of the “gang of four” in the late 1970s was formed of the old guard. Their policies were restorationist. They reversed the judgments of the Cultural Revolution, giving approval to all the theories then tarred black, notably “the broad road for realism” (which allowed for artistic diversity), “the deepening of realism” (which meant that not everything needed to be depicted as fine and dandy), and “middle characters” (intended to break the monopoly of proletarian heroes). They interpreted the principle that literature should serve socialism and serve the people relatively liberally. Serving the people meant “the whole people” (a formulation for which Zhou Yang had been condemned); and when the formula of “workers, peasants and soldiers” was repeated, it was pointed out that “workers” included brain workers. The enjoyment principle was also invoked.

scholarly journals Red Guard Movement in the First Years of “Cultural Revolution” in China (1966—1967): View of Domestic and Foreign Researchers

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (8) ◽  
pp. 346-366
Author(s):  
V. V. Bondareva
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Mass Movement ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Mao Zedong ◽  
Personal Attitude ◽  
Documentary Sources ◽  
State Apparatus ◽  
Personal Qualities ◽  
Red Guards ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

The article analyzes the first years of “the cultural revolution” in China (1966—1967), characterized by high revolutionary activity of students and school youth, organized into groups of “red guards”, who were distinguished in their actions by extreme cruelty and fanaticism. From this point of view, the destructive actions of the red guards, which were of a terrorist and mass nature, highlight the main direction of their revolutionary strike, which was inflicted on the party and state apparatus of China. Mao Zedong is presented as the initiator of a mass movement of red guards who used monstrous terrorist methods to fight his opposition and all, from their point of view, not enough politically conscious elements. The hongweibing movement, considered as an instrument of Mao Zedong’s struggle with the opposition, allows to reveal in the course of research the personal qualities of a leader who, in the name of establishing his own cult, was not afraid to deliberately plunge the entire country into mass and deeply disorderly turmoil. The detailed description of Mao Zedong’s personal attitude to what is happening, based on documentary sources, reveals the deeply dictatorial and anti-democratic nature of his power, which was asserted in the first years of “the cultural revolution” with the help of the red guards movement.

scholarly journals Zhao Jiping and the sound of resistance in Red Sorghum

2015 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 355-366
Author(s):  
Brian C. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Rural China ◽  
Nobel Laureate ◽  
Mao Zedong ◽  
Musical Language ◽  
Mo Yan ◽  
Cultural Expression ◽  
Concert Music ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

Since seizing power in 1949, China’s Communist Party has exerted firm control over all aspects of cultural expression. This policy took its most radical turn in the mid-1960s when Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), aiming to rid the country of bourgeois elements. The composer Zhao Jiping was a student at the Xi’an Conservatory during this period. He graduated in 1970, but was able to continue his studies only when the Central Conservatory reopened in 1978. On completing his studies, he established himself as a composer of folk-inspired music for film and the concert stage. This paper focuses on Zhao’s score for director Zhang Yimou’s Red Sorghum (Hong gao liang, 1987), a film based on the 1986 novel by 2012 Nobel laureate Mo Yan. While the composer enjoyed only limited recognition beyond China, he went on to score other successful films, among them Raise the Red Lantern (1991) and Farewell, My Concubine (1993), and achieve success as a composer of concert music. The paper connects Zhao’s musical language to the impact of the Cultural Revolution by examining how in Red Sorghum his music was employed to evoke a virile image of rural China.

scholarly journals Whodunnit? Memory and Politics before the 50th Anniversary of the Cultural Revolution

2016 ◽  
Vol 227 ◽  
pp. 734-751 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanne Weigelin-Schwiedrzik ◽  
Cui Jinke
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
50Th Anniversary ◽  
Memory Studies ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
Positive View ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
Normal University ◽  
Official Evaluation ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

AbstractSong Binbin, the daughter of prominent CCP politician Song Renqiong, has long been accused of having played a role in the death of Bian Zhongyun which took place at the Girls' Middle School in Beijing Normal University on 5 August 1966. In January 2014, she publicly apologized for the violence that occurred at her school during the summer of 1966. However, instead of applauding her act of contrition, rebel participants of the Cultural Revolution used the opportunity to criticize the sons and daughters of high-ranking cadres and to try to overturn the 1981 official evaluation of the Cultural Revolution by promoting a positive view of that period in Chinese history. This paper analyses the background, consequences and implications of Song Binbin's apology from a political science cum memory studies perspective. It argues, against the background of a changing political landscape in the People's Republic of China, that the memory of the Cultural Revolution remains a battlefield of divergent memory groups and multiple narratives. In the memory of today, the struggles of the Cultural Revolution have still not come to an end.

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