I want to mention, people whose family were dragged through the culture revolution, etc., CAN have legitimate concerns and trauma. They aren’t just wrong, things WERE scary.
My grandparents on both sides had ran away from their farmer families in their teens to join the Long March, eventually all made contributions to the Party (e.g. once, my grandma served as a spy behind Japanese lines in a village, then when she had to escape back to safer grounds, traveling outside hiding in sheds in winter, wearing just a shirt, she’d lost her baby to miscarriage). They all attained fairly high ranks, were known to have done exemplary work. During the culture revolution, they were accused of being far Right for various quite often arbitrary reasons. My grandfather’s family had been farmers who owned a few small pieces of land (5 mu), and even though he had ran away at 19 and never went back, he was deemed bourgeoisie no matter what he’d accomplished. They locked him in a dark cow shed for 2 years, with handcuffs so tight the scars went to his wristbone, and his kids were allowed to visit once per month. My other grandparents had similar stories. Some years later, all of them were released, reinstated. Some received formal apologies from the Party.
My parents grew up during the Culture revolution. They witnessed their parents in various stages of lock up, but were still full of fervor, voluntarily went to the rural villages among the first wave of educated youth following Mao’s call, and neither were granted party affiliation due to “tainted family background.” Years later, this continued to pop in random ways, subverting their career trajectory. This was through to the end of the 80s to early 90s.
My grandparents remained loyal to the Party until they died. They forgave the bad stuff. But if they didn’t, if other members of my family had differing thoughts and feelings as result, those are a legitimate response to what had happened. They’re part of the complex history of new China. There are people who are alive now who still have memories. Sometimes, when the repression gets higher, even for seemingly legitimate reasons, some people have ptsd.
The CPC isn’t an angel, and it made mistakes and people got hurt. The difference is, if we want to discuss material conditions, we should probably focus on: has the CPC changed since that time? Has it improved the lot of the Chinese people? Does it clearly demonstrate that it intends to continue to serve the interests of the people, promote equality and common prosperity and all the good things? So long as these remain true, the CPC is worthy to be supported, and held to high account. And not by pretending terrible things didn’t happen either, or that 60 years is all that long ago and everyone should all be fine now.
Thank you for sharing your family story. I didn’t mean to suggest that we should dismiss the stories of Chinese people as wrong just because they don’t conform to an idealist history. I don’t think that you think I said this—I just wanted to reiterate that and support your caveat for anyone else reading.
The broader problem is with techniques that are used to shut down westerners from praising China just because a Chinese person has a different story (you didn’t do this). The person trying to shut down a pro-China narrative may dishonestly rely on (1) the relative rarity of westerners having visited China and (2) the pro-China westerner’s anti-racism. The west is usually only open to ‘China experts’ if they’re negative about China. The same people who accept that kind of narrative are often the same people who tell the pro-China westerners that they can’t be right because a Chinese person said XYZ.
Thanks again for your family story. I can’t imagine forgiving my government for doing anything close to that! Can I ask (feel free to say no): do these kinds of stories make it into Chinese fiction/drama, etc? Or do people dislike talking about it, either because it’s traumatic, taboo, etc?
Haha, exactly, I agree with your message and how it was worded :) I was just adding some nuance.
As a non-CPC-hating Chinese American living in the West, I’m fairly aware of how these tactic are used, alas. The thing is, there is a kernel of truth there–even when distorted and used for dishonest purposes to smear the CPC–such that to dismiss it altogether, would make one’s counterargument ring false as well. This kernel of truth lies behind anti-CPC sentiments within China itself, along with Chinese liberals yearning to live in capitalistic freedom, with naive people imagining the West is a utopia, etc etc. I think it’s good to acknowledge it where possible, in its historic context.
As for how these stories are depicted in China, things were fairly repressed up til the 90s, then increasingly discussed, the history taught, scholarly articles written, etc. I can’t speak for much beyond that, as I do not live in China, though I get a window into it due to being bilingual via Chinese media and social media. To go by all the recent pop culture dramas and movies, it’s not a time that most people want to dwell upon. Both far away in the past, and yet not quite far away enough for completely open dissection.
The conversations around these subjects get simplified to a fault, even among communists. The GPCR was a huge complex movement composed of several events and initiatives, with a billion people participating, and several factions vying for dominance in both violent and non-violent ways. The full scope will only continue to be recognized in hindsight.
I’ve read quite a few aspects of the Culture revolution are seen as a shameful piece of history by modern Chinese. Would you say this is generally true? I’ve never seen a western country confront their past in a similar way.
I’ve seen nuance in person with this, for example, a friends parents moved out of China to the US, yet they’ll still defend the party and feel insulted about the constant anti-Chinese sentiment in the US. It sounds familiar to how you described people being the victim but also not giving up on the party.
I did some subjects on Chinese history and politics (taught in English) in China at a Chinese university. Yes, they were frank in their criticism about the excesses of the great people’s cultural revolution and the failures of the GLF. Shame, regret, is a good way of describing it, and is a strong motivator to prevent it happening again. What’s more important, as others in this thread have highlighted, is that we discussed and analysed these failures.
When talking to everyday Chinese people about those times, they expressed similar sentiments to what Blinky_katt said. Though probably at a more surface level i.e. “We have deep respect for Chairman Mao, however xx yy zz”. This is what they’re willing to discuss with a Westerner, so it’s not as if they’re coy in raising these topics when in known company.
I live in Australia and our execrable domestic policies around the same time, such as those of the Stolen Generation, are addressed very briefly but never analysed. If anything they’re whitewashed as ‘we meant well but we’re smarter now, let’s move on’. There’s nothing approaching a national level of introspection.
I want to mention, people whose family were dragged through the culture revolution, etc., CAN have legitimate concerns and trauma. They aren’t just wrong, things WERE scary.
My grandparents on both sides had ran away from their farmer families in their teens to join the Long March, eventually all made contributions to the Party (e.g. once, my grandma served as a spy behind Japanese lines in a village, then when she had to escape back to safer grounds, traveling outside hiding in sheds in winter, wearing just a shirt, she’d lost her baby to miscarriage). They all attained fairly high ranks, were known to have done exemplary work. During the culture revolution, they were accused of being far Right for various quite often arbitrary reasons. My grandfather’s family had been farmers who owned a few small pieces of land (5 mu), and even though he had ran away at 19 and never went back, he was deemed bourgeoisie no matter what he’d accomplished. They locked him in a dark cow shed for 2 years, with handcuffs so tight the scars went to his wristbone, and his kids were allowed to visit once per month. My other grandparents had similar stories. Some years later, all of them were released, reinstated. Some received formal apologies from the Party.
My parents grew up during the Culture revolution. They witnessed their parents in various stages of lock up, but were still full of fervor, voluntarily went to the rural villages among the first wave of educated youth following Mao’s call, and neither were granted party affiliation due to “tainted family background.” Years later, this continued to pop in random ways, subverting their career trajectory. This was through to the end of the 80s to early 90s.
My grandparents remained loyal to the Party until they died. They forgave the bad stuff. But if they didn’t, if other members of my family had differing thoughts and feelings as result, those are a legitimate response to what had happened. They’re part of the complex history of new China. There are people who are alive now who still have memories. Sometimes, when the repression gets higher, even for seemingly legitimate reasons, some people have ptsd.
The CPC isn’t an angel, and it made mistakes and people got hurt. The difference is, if we want to discuss material conditions, we should probably focus on: has the CPC changed since that time? Has it improved the lot of the Chinese people? Does it clearly demonstrate that it intends to continue to serve the interests of the people, promote equality and common prosperity and all the good things? So long as these remain true, the CPC is worthy to be supported, and held to high account. And not by pretending terrible things didn’t happen either, or that 60 years is all that long ago and everyone should all be fine now.
Thank you for sharing your family story. I didn’t mean to suggest that we should dismiss the stories of Chinese people as wrong just because they don’t conform to an idealist history. I don’t think that you think I said this—I just wanted to reiterate that and support your caveat for anyone else reading.
The broader problem is with techniques that are used to shut down westerners from praising China just because a Chinese person has a different story (you didn’t do this). The person trying to shut down a pro-China narrative may dishonestly rely on (1) the relative rarity of westerners having visited China and (2) the pro-China westerner’s anti-racism. The west is usually only open to ‘China experts’ if they’re negative about China. The same people who accept that kind of narrative are often the same people who tell the pro-China westerners that they can’t be right because a Chinese person said XYZ.
Thanks again for your family story. I can’t imagine forgiving my government for doing anything close to that! Can I ask (feel free to say no): do these kinds of stories make it into Chinese fiction/drama, etc? Or do people dislike talking about it, either because it’s traumatic, taboo, etc?
Haha, exactly, I agree with your message and how it was worded :) I was just adding some nuance.
As a non-CPC-hating Chinese American living in the West, I’m fairly aware of how these tactic are used, alas. The thing is, there is a kernel of truth there–even when distorted and used for dishonest purposes to smear the CPC–such that to dismiss it altogether, would make one’s counterargument ring false as well. This kernel of truth lies behind anti-CPC sentiments within China itself, along with Chinese liberals yearning to live in capitalistic freedom, with naive people imagining the West is a utopia, etc etc. I think it’s good to acknowledge it where possible, in its historic context.
As for how these stories are depicted in China, things were fairly repressed up til the 90s, then increasingly discussed, the history taught, scholarly articles written, etc. I can’t speak for much beyond that, as I do not live in China, though I get a window into it due to being bilingual via Chinese media and social media. To go by all the recent pop culture dramas and movies, it’s not a time that most people want to dwell upon. Both far away in the past, and yet not quite far away enough for completely open dissection.
Exactly.
The conversations around these subjects get simplified to a fault, even among communists. The GPCR was a huge complex movement composed of several events and initiatives, with a billion people participating, and several factions vying for dominance in both violent and non-violent ways. The full scope will only continue to be recognized in hindsight.
Thank you for typing this out.
I’ve read quite a few aspects of the Culture revolution are seen as a shameful piece of history by modern Chinese. Would you say this is generally true? I’ve never seen a western country confront their past in a similar way.
I’ve seen nuance in person with this, for example, a friends parents moved out of China to the US, yet they’ll still defend the party and feel insulted about the constant anti-Chinese sentiment in the US. It sounds familiar to how you described people being the victim but also not giving up on the party.
I did some subjects on Chinese history and politics (taught in English) in China at a Chinese university. Yes, they were frank in their criticism about the excesses of the great people’s cultural revolution and the failures of the GLF. Shame, regret, is a good way of describing it, and is a strong motivator to prevent it happening again. What’s more important, as others in this thread have highlighted, is that we discussed and analysed these failures.
When talking to everyday Chinese people about those times, they expressed similar sentiments to what Blinky_katt said. Though probably at a more surface level i.e. “We have deep respect for Chairman Mao, however xx yy zz”. This is what they’re willing to discuss with a Westerner, so it’s not as if they’re coy in raising these topics when in known company.
I live in Australia and our execrable domestic policies around the same time, such as those of the Stolen Generation, are addressed very briefly but never analysed. If anything they’re whitewashed as ‘we meant well but we’re smarter now, let’s move on’. There’s nothing approaching a national level of introspection.