RCTC 2004-2006 Common Book Gang of One: Memoirs of a Red Guard Study Guide by Lori Halverson-Wente and Mark Halverson-Wente Link to Study Questions Link to Sample Assignment Works Cited for this Guide

As a memoir of the author’s profound experience of living and struggling through China’s Cultural Revolution and its aftermath, Fan Shen’s Gang of One contains many terms, philosophical and literary concepts, and specific historical and cultural references that may be unfamiliar to the average reader.  Now, having some familiarity with such terms and concepts is indispensable to understanding the memoir—the progress and setbacks, the many twists, turns, surprises, perils, and pitfalls of Fan Shen’s remarkable journey.  Moreover, given that Gang of One is one man’s personal memoir, the terms and concepts are especially important and relevant to understanding Fan’s inner thoughts, emotions, aspirations, disappointments, and dilemmas chronicled in his book.  I hope that this guide will provide the reader with an easily accessible “ready reference” and overall “context” for the terms and the concepts that Fan alludes to in his book. 

This study guide, then, consists of four interrelated parts.  First, the guide will provide a glossary of important terms, concepts, and historical references found in Gang of One, beginning with the “dust-jacket,” and concluding with the book’s last page.  This section will also address questions a reader might have in a “Q/A” format for the more complex terms.  Second, there is a series of study questions and points to ponder for each section, and/or chapter, of the book respectively.  Third, it will display two historical timelines for the reader—one of the United States and one of China—so that the reader can more easily place and register the events and happenings in China during the period covered by Fan’s memoir into a broader and more familiar context.  Finally, the guide will give a variety of resources for further reading and study, e.g., books, articles, Internet addresses, and original historical and cultural resources.

Glossary of Terms, Concepts, and Study Words:

1.      “Gang of One:  Memoirs of a Red Guard” (Dust jacket): 

Fan Shen entitles his memoir, Gang of One, an ironical reference to the historical Chinese political “Gang of Four,” consisting of Mao’s wife (his fourth), Jiang Qing, and her allies, Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chungiao, and Yao Wenyuan, and a number of lesser associates.  They played a major role in the Cultural Revolution as censors of culture, i.e., policing Chinese culture for influences counter to revolutionary beliefs and principles.  During Chairman Mao’s last years, Jiang and her cohorts attempted to exert more control over the Chinese government and Party (Chinese Communist Party) with the hope of peacefully assuming power once Mao passed away.  Unfortunately for Jiang (Madame Mao) and her allies, Mao left China without a clear indication of who would succeed him, and the great turmoil and unrest of the Chinese Cultural Revolution had not yet played itself out.  Thus, the government arrested Jiang and her “gang” in October of 1976 for treason and counter-revolutionary activities. 

Over the course of the Cultural Revolution, Jiang, in her efforts to transform Chinese culture, had made many bitter enemies.  Most recently, there was the “Tiananmen incident” of April 1976 in which public protest over Jiang’s  (and Mao’s, too) decision not to allow public mourning in Tiananmen Square over the death of the beloved Zhou Enlai was brutally suppressed.  In particular, Jiang used her control over the Chinese mass media to resist and stifle public mourning—especially irksome to Zhou’s admirers. 

The injustice, irrationality, and monumental cruelty of the Cultural Revolution was evident to all, and someone had to be blamed—of course, that “someone” could not be Chairman Mao, who was still greatly revered, and, after his death on September 9, 1976, intensely mourned.  Thus, the “Gang of Four,” who had exerted considerable influence on Mao and the Chinese Communist Party during the past ten years, was blamed for the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, which was still viewed as noble in its purpose and ends.  As it turned out, the government (under Deng Xiaoping, Mao’s successor) “Gang of Four” was not actually tried until 1980, when they were given a public show trial—Jiang was convicted and sentenced to death, with her sentence changed to life imprisonment in 1983.  Reportedly, she committed suicide in prison in 1991. (See “Gang of Four” at http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Gang%20of%20Four%20%28China%29).

Notice again the title of Fan Shen’s memoir—Gang of One.  In addition to his play on words with “Gang of Four,” there is obviously an ironic contradiction between the word “gang,” denoting more than two people banded together for an agreed upon purpose, and “one,” meaning solitary or alone.  With his title, Fan Shen emphasizes the fact that his journey is very often a solitary and lonely one (notice, too, that on the dust jacket his family are holding red books while he is holding blue, further stressing his alienation).  Throughout his book, Fan makes clear his feelings of alienation and being different from others and his environment, as he begins to see firsthand the irrationality and brutality of the Revolution and its leaders.  He becomes a “gang of one” in his efforts to fight his environment, and he firmly resolves to eventually escape no matter what the consequences. 

2.      “Red Guard” (Dust Jacket):

The “Red Guards” were Mao’s express agents, or “shock troops,” for carrying out the Cultural Revolution.  The millions of youth that made up the Red Guards were at first mostly from family backgrounds of the “five red types.”  The five red types were:  workers; poor and lower middle class peasants; revolutionary cadres (or revolutionary leaders within the hierarchy who mediate between the party leadership and the people); revolutionary soldiers; and dependents of revolutionary martyrs (Lu Xiuyuan, 1994, p. 534).  The birth of the Red Guards is officially given as August 18, 1966 when Chairman Mao, in the People’s Daily (the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party), announced that he would order the masses, especially the young, to carry out the threefold aims of the Revolution.  These three aims were articulated in the “Sixteen Points” of the Central Committee of the Chinese Party and included:  (1) smash the 5,000 year old Chinese traditional culture and transform education, literature and art (the “superstructure”) to correspond to and fit with the all-important and now revitalized economic base; (2) criticize and topple the bourgeois (or “middle class”) ideology of the academic, economic, and political authorities who have taken the capitalist road; and (3) rid the country of all foreign influence (Baum, 1971).  According to Mao, the bourgeoisie, or middle class, was using the “four olds”—old thought, old culture, old customs, and old practices—to corrupt the minds of the masses (Ann Malaspina, 2004).  Mao attempted to institute these measures in order to build a wholly new, revolutionary Communist culture (For more information, see Gang of One pages 10-11).

Q:  Why did Mao initially turn to the youth rather than an established “army” to carry out his Revolution?

A:  Mao turned to the youth for a number of reasons.  First, and perhaps foremost, Mao lacked sufficient support among the established elite in the Party and in economic and academic circles.  After the failure of his “Great Leap Forward” program in the late 1950’s, many among the elite had lost considerable faith in Mao.  Mao, to incite the youth, called for a dramatic “right to rebel” against “revisionist leadership” that was leading China astray from the true principles of the revolution.  Indeed, the Red Guards proclaimed “four big rights”—the right to speak out freely, air views fully, hold great debates, and write “big character posters” (Malaspina, 2004, p. 91).  The young in China were ripe for undertaking such a task—the average age of the million called to Tiananmen Square on August 18, 1966 was 17—and they possessed the energy, fanaticism, and naiveté necessary for the task. 

Furthermore, the youth symbolized and represented Communism’s rebirth and rejuvenation within the whole of government and society.  There existed a wider symbolism to the Red Guard movement—the old order was corrupt to the core.  Mao saw an opportunity to refashion society as he saw fit; this process required struggle and, unavoidably, death and destruction.  Hence, as the Gang of One emphasizes, Mao encouraged the Red Guards to “harden their hearts;” after all, said the Great Leader, “Revolution is not a dinner party, not painting or embroidery, and cannot be gentle and polite” (Shen, 2004, p. 18).  Pity, or empathy for one’s victims, is not a revolutionary virtue.  Biographer Philip Short writes, “Mao had found his new guerilla army to assault the political heights.  A whole generation of young Chinese was ready to die, and to kill, for him, with unquestioning obedience.  And kill they did” (Short, 1999, p. 543). 

Q:  What was the Red Guards’ purpose?

A:  Fan Shen chronicles on a personal level the true nature, character, and purpose of the Red Guard.  It is no accident that Fan entitles his first chapter, “Burn the Old World!” and begins by describing his participation in an enormous public book burning at his school.  As Fan mentions, a popular slogan of the Cultural Revolution was, “The new society will be built upon the ashes of the old!”  It was the task of the Red Guards to render the old society to ashes—and Fan vividly outlines what this entails.  His description of the book burning, the three massive, thousand-man “struggle rallies” he attends with his friends, the raid of the “Red Action Committee” upon the family of Li Ling (who still dared to live a bourgeois lifestyle in opposition to the Revolution), and the cruelty of “Whiskers” all provide the reader with ample understanding of the nature and purpose of the Red Guards.

Q:  What accounts for the factionalism and discord among various factions of the Red Guards?

A:  The Red Guard Movement, as Fan Shen (2004) shows, turned very quickly to inner conflict, factionalism, and violence (p. 30-47).  Much of the violence and factionalism, ironically, resulted from the very mission of the Red Guards—to witch-hunt; it was part of their purpose to find hidden enemies who were not yet detected.  There was, it seemed, hidden enemies everywhere:  many who were apparently Mao supporters and waving flags, shouting slogans, and wearing red armbands were in reality secretly working against the Revolution.  However, the key question was how to distinguish between those who were false to the revolution from those who were true.  As Fan Shen’s experience shows, determining between those true and those false to the Revolution came to depend largely upon the claims and counterclaims of rival Red Guard leaders.  Thus, factions quickly formed and quarrels and conflicts began which soon intensified and often resulted in full-blown violence.  By the end of 1966 and into 1967, the Cultural Revolution was in danger of being subverted by factionalism and conflict within the Red Guards (Fitzgerald, 1977, p. 141-43).  Mao was alarmed by Red Guard factionalism and after a number of clashes between Red Guard factions and the People’s Liberation Army the Red Guards were disbanded in 1968 and millions of Red Guards were sent into the countryside to help with public works projects, agriculture, and learn the true revolutionary mindset from the peasants.

 3. “This is what life is made of:  Fire, Earth, Metal, Wood, and Water.”  —Lao Tzu (p. v):

Fan Shen prefaces his book with a quote from the Chinese mystic and philosopher, Lao Tzu, a name that means, literally, “old Master.”  Lao Tzu is regarded as the traditional founder of “Taoism” (the “Way” or the “universal principle”), which, along with Confucianism, has exerted a profound influence upon Chinese thought and culture through the ages.  Lao Tzu is reputedly the author of the classic work of Taoism, the Tao Te Ching (literally, “The Book of the Way and its Virtue”), though no historical evidence exists of his life (Blakney, p. 9).    

Q:  What is Taoism?

A:  Probably the central concept in the Tao Te Ching, and for Lao Tzu and Taoism in general, is the notion of the “Tao,” or the “Way.”  The Tao is the spiritual road or path of life that people travel (notice the parallel journey or path that Fan Shen travels in his memoir); it is the “way of nature and finally the Way of ultimate reality” (Blakney, p. 37).  As Blakney puts it, the Tao not only refers to the way the whole world of nature operates, but [signifies] the original undifferentiated Reality from which the universe evolved” (p. 37).

Taoism is not regarded, strictly speaking, as a religion (e.g., prescribing a particular of worship, possessing a religious hierarchy, praying to a Supreme Deity, or any special incarnation of God, or gods).   However, over the ages, Taoism has definitely developed a religious as well as a philosophical slant or component in that it establishes a way of life that is at once a mystical religion and a philosophical world view (e.g., see concepts like the “Way”).  One example is the role of paradox or contradiction at work in Taoism.  To begin with, the Tao Te Ching, and many Taoist sages write that the Tao cannot be spoken or written of:  yet this is precisely what they proceed to do.  Moreover, in the Tao Te Ching, paradox and contradictions are found on almost every page.  Yet, it is important to remember that paradox and contradiction somehow eventually come together in the Universal, the Way, the Tao.  Still, it is contrary to the Tao to treat it in a rational, discursive fashion—to do so is not to talk about Taoism—hence its very mystical nature.

Q:  How it Tao related to the Ying and Yang?

A:  Another important concept of Taoism is the “five elements or agents;” they are the agents of change for the yin and yang.  Richard Hooker defines it as follows:   

“…two forces, yin and yang, bring about change through the ‘Five Material Agents.’  The five material agents (fire, earth, metal, wood, water) each produce one another cyclically and overcome one another cyclically.  All change in the universe, whether it by physical, astronomical, historical, governmental, ethical, or whatever, can be explained by the orderly progression of yin and yang and the five material agents.  These cycles, when ordered across the whole of the universe, make up the Tao” (China Glossary:  Tao, http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~ dee/GLOSSARY/TAO.HTM).    

Q:  Why did Fan Shen preface his book with the reference to Lao Tzu and the five agents, or elements, of life (fire, earth, metal, water, and wood)? 

A:  First, notice that Fan divides his book into five parts, each corresponding to one of the five agents or elements, respectively, beginning with “fire.”  He leads one to wonder, then, about the relationship of each of the five elements or agents with a corresponding time in Fan Shen’s personal life journey.  How do each of the five elements and their corresponding section in Fan’s memoir come together to form one sensible whole?  The answer to this question can be found by reading the book further.

However, in order to begin to understand the relevance and importance of Fan Shen’s reference to Loa Tzu and the five agents, or elements, of Taoism, consider the first part or section of Gang of One – the section characterized with the Taoist agent of “Fire” (Shen, 2004, p. 1).  Here, one can readily see a correlation between “Fire” and this particular portion of Fan’s memoir.  Fan immediately sets the tone by engaging the reader first with the feel of Beijing’s sizzling and stifling August heat, and then by offering a vivid and dramatic picture of the fire and the flames jumping from a second story tall heap of burning books (sees Gang of One pages 3-4).  As mentioned above in this study guide’s section of the “Red Guards,” the title of the first chapter, reflecting the expressed mission of the Red Guards, is to “Burn the Old World!” The metaphor and symbolism of “Fire,” then, represents this portion of Fan Shen’s life and journey.  Too, it is interesting that each of the five elements or agents of the Tao are used to symbolize different things.  “Fire,” for example, represents or is associated with:  Direction – South; Season – Summer; Color – Red (Daoist Depot, www.edepot.com/taocosmology.html).  As a Red Guard complete with a red armband and wholly swept up in the eruption of the Cultural Revolution during the hot summer of 1966, it is evident how this stage of Fan Shen’s path or journey is symbolized by the element of “Fire”—“Even though I love books as a child, I loved the fire and the revolution even more” (Shen, p. 6).  Of course, the Tao is cyclical, and as Fan Shen’s path continues his life will reflect in some fashion the other elements.  Still, in Part I of his memoir, “Fire” is what Fan Shen’s life if made of.

As you read Fan Shen’s Gang of One, try to think of just how Fan’s journey, or “Way,” might reflect Lao Tzu’s five elements.

4.  “Chairman Mao” (p. ix)

Fan Shen first alludes to Chairman Mao (called “chairman” because of his chairmanship of the Chinese Communist party) in the context of his decision to write his book, or memoir, and divulge certain long-held secrets kept deep within his heart since the Cultural Revolution—secrets that he suspected would greatly upset his parents who had given their lives and fortunes to the Revolution.  Fan Shen is able to mention Mao in the context of his decision to reveal his anti-revolutionary secrets because Mao Zedong (or Mao Tse-Tung) had, by the time of Fan’s burgeoning awareness of political and cultural change and his growing participation in the Red Guard’s, become the very embodiment of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.  Mao personally represented China’s effort to transform itself into a great and united new land.  One effect of the Cultural Revolution was to solidify a “cult of personality” surrounding Mao that remained, though not perhaps with the same zeal and fervor, until his death in 1976. 

Who, then was this man whose image was placed everywhere in China (billboards, airports, walls, village squares, postage stamps, family rooms, etc.), whose very words and writings were kept by bedsides and in heart-pockets (Mao’s Little Red Book), whose blessing was asked for at weddings and births, and whose name and ideas were used to condemn and vilify those suspected of betraying the Revolution (and hence of betraying Mao himself)?

Mao Zedong was born on December 26, 1893 in the Hunan province of China, known its fertile farms and picturesque hills and villages.  As a middle class peasant of a landowning family, Mao was able to receive an education in the Chinese classics (Confucius and Chinese literature) as well as obtain a modern education.  As a youngster, Mao was made aware of, and witnessed, many injustices and oppressions (e.g., during an organized demonstration against the governor of the province – there was a severe famine going on – protesters were beheaded and their heads publicly displayed on posts) (Malaspina, 2004, p. 14-21).  Mao, spurred on by a desire to end such oppression, became one of the original members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1921.  During the 1920’s, Mao and the Communist Party worked closely with the Kuomintang sponsored peasant and worker movements (led partly by Sun-Yat-Sen) in order to topple the many warlords who reigned throughout the country.  The Kuomintang, after the death of Sun-Yat-Sen and the defeat of the warlords, would be led by Chiang Kai-shek and, thereafter known as the Nationalist “White Army,” would vehemently oppose Mao and the Communist “Red Army.”  As the split between the Communists and the Nationalists worsened, Mao, in the fall of 1927, led the unsuccessful “Autumn Harvest Uprising” against the Nationalists in Hunan.  After this disaster, Mao was expelled from the Central Committee of the Communist Party.  In the face of the Nationalists defeat of the warlords, crushing of the Communists, and reuniting of the country, the Communists were forced to flee into the countryside (ibid, p. 41). 

From 1928 until 1931, Mao, along with other Communist leaders, worked very hard among the peasants in the countryside in order to build rural soviets (or communes).  At this time, too, Mao helped to create the Red Army.  Mao, through his generosity and unique, newly formed tactics of guerrilla warfare won the confidence and loyalty of the rural peasants.  As a result, in 1931, Mao was elected chair of the first “All-China Soviet Government” (ibid, p. 46).  

After forming the Red Army, Mao fought off, or escaped, many different encirclement campaigns launched by Chiang Kai-Shek and his Nationalist “White Army.”  Finally, the Red Army attempted a lengthy retreat, called the famous “Long March,” in which they eluded the Kuomingtang and, at Mao’s urging, turned the “retreat” into a “crusade” by turning north to fight the Japanese, who had invaded northern China in the 1930’s.  “March north to fight Japan!” became the slogan of the “Long March” (ibid. p.50).  During and after this march, because of his leadership and inspiration along with the self-sacrifice and determination of the marchers, Mao’s reputation was enhanced and he became the primary Communist Leader.  The “Long March” would later inspire the Red Guards, when millions of them would make long pilgrimages to Beijing to see Mao.

In 1937, the Japanese launched a full-scale war against China that lasted through World War II (1939-1945).  The Kuomintang and the Communists decided to form an alliance or “United Front” against the Japanese threat.  Of course, the two never truly trusted one another and there was constant in fighting throughout their alliance—in fact, Mao’s brother was killed in an anti-communist purge in 1942 (ibid, 57).  In any case, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Chinese were killed during the war with Japan, and the country was in chaos and shambles.

With the Japanese defeat in August of 1945, China was no longer “united” against a common foe and the civil war quickly resumed full-force.  Because of Mao’s seemingly benevolent and generous attitude towards the peasants, who had suffered much during the war with Japan, they began to lose faith in the Kuomintang and favor the Communists.  As a result, by 1949, the Communists had finally defeated the Kuomintang, and Chiang Kai-Shek fled with some two million refugees to Taiwan, where he established the Republic of China, which became known as Nationalist China.

After the Communists took control of Mainland China, Mao became Chairman of the Central Government Council and announced the formation of the “People’s Republic of China” (PRC).  The new government of the PRC was led by three bodies:  the Communist Party; the State Council that runs the government; and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), formerly known as the Red Army.  By 1954, after the Korean War of which China was an ally of North Korea, sending over 2 million troops to fight, Mao was head of all three.  He was, “Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, Chief of State of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and Chairman of the Military” (Malspina, 2004, pp. 70-71).  Now that he was firmly in control, Mao began his many reforms to transform China into a Communist utopia of his own making. 

Between1954 and 1958, when he launched the ill-fated Great Leap Forward, Mao instituted a number of revolutionary reforms and changes that would deeply reshape Chinese society and whose effects would remain even to this day.  First of all, Mao began to reform and rebuild China’s economy which was left in complete shambles by the civil war – in fact, when Chiang Kai-shek retreated to Taiwan, he took with him almost all of China’s gold reserves and many business and economic leaders followed him (Malaspina, p. 69).  Mao, of course, nationalized the whole economy; railways, shipping, factories, and industry were owned by the government and the state became virtually the only employer. 

Mao also set about reforming the agricultural system.  Redistribution of land proceeded with land being taken away from the landlords, often along with great bloodshed, and given to the peasants to be managed in agricultural collectives. 

Further, Mao initiated reforms in public health, religion (the Communist Party regarded religion as a threat to state authority and, essentially, a waste of time and resources) and, most important, a reform of people’s liberties (personal liberty were absolutely denied) and extreme thought reform (e.g., strict control of political and the media, campaigns to modify and control people’s thought and behavior, etc.).  Above all, Mao wanted to change and mold society.  It was during the 1950’s that Mao launched the “Four Old Campaign” to “wipe out old ideas, habits, customs and culture” (Malaspina, p. 77).  Criticism and protest against the government or against Mao was not allowed.  The will of Mao and the Party was absolute.  As Malasprina puts it:

Under Mao, the lives of the Chinese people changed in many ways.  People were assigned where to live and what work to do.  They needed permission to marry and, later, to have children.  This system seemed to offer a great security net [what with free public education and public heath measures]. However, in exchange for the promise of security, the people of China lost many personal freedoms.  It did not take long for the optimism that swept through China in 1949 [and again after the Korean War in 1953-54] to be replaced by a more complicated reality (p. 78).

The “more complicated reality” came to the fore in 1957-58.  Despite having some success with the socialist system, Mao realized and admitted that many Chinese were still hungry and that hundreds and thousands had died during the revolution.  Given this, Mao reasoned that perhaps opening up the society and government by allowing some free speech and criticism might prove fruitful and beneficial for China.  Thus, for a brief period in 1957 (the “Hundred Flowers Campaign”), Mao decided to “let a hundred flowers bloom and let a hundred scholars of thought contend” by encouraging intellectuals and the people at large to speak freely about the government and the economy (Spence, 1999, p. 31).  Of course, both the intellectuals and the people were at first reluctant, but then released such an outpouring of criticism and complaints (mostly from intellectuals) that Mao was taken aback and quickly labeled those who complained as “rightists” and “enemies of the people.”  As a result of Mao’s backlash against those who took a chance by speaking openly, hundreds of thousands lost their jobs, were sent to prison, or were confined to hard labor camps (Malaspina, p. 80-81).  Thus, the “hundred flowers” wilted as suddenly as they had bloomed.

Next, concerned about the economy, the dissension of the “Hundred Flowers Movement,” and wanting to distinguish the economic path of China from that of the Soviet Union, Mao instituted the “Great Leap Forward.”  The “Great Leap Forward” placed even more peasants into centralized communes, instituted massive public works programs, and pushed many odd economic strategies, e.g., in an effort to bolster steel production, Mao ordered people in the countryside to build steel furnaces in their backyards.  All of this led to great disaster.  The Great Leap Forward, along with a couple of untimely droughts and devastating floods, resulted in millions of people starving—by 1962, up to 30 million people were dead from starvation (Malaspina, p.84; Meisner, 1999, p.236-37; FitzGerald, 1977, p.119).  Because of this monumental failure, Mao relinquished administration of the government.  In 1959, Mao was replaced by Liu Shaoqi, an opponent of the Great Leap Forward, as Chairman of the Government Council, though he retained his chairmanship of the Communist Party Politburo.  In any case, Mao retired somewhat from public life, but he was soon to make a bold reappearance in a new grab for power and effort to revitalize the Revolution (Cheek, 2002, p.25-26).

By the mid-1960’s, Mao was ready.  For Mao, the nature of revolution was a never-ending struggle and he saw a need for a reinvigoration of China’s revolutionary path.  In the summer of 1966, along with the help of the People’ Liberation Army (PLA) commanded by his friend and advocate, Lin Biao, and especially the newly formed Red Guards, Mao began the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) in an effort to destroy his enemies and set China back on the proper revolutionary path.  The people (especially the young of peasant, working class, army, and revolutionary cadre backgrounds) responded to Mao’s plea and over the next two years China was thrown into disturbing struggle and chaos.  Finally, Mao became alarmed by the upheaval and chaos between rival Red Guard factions—they became like a “headless dragon”, fighting among themselves with no direction or purpose—and called in the military (PLA) to restore order.  Mao felt that it had become necessary to “cool down” the revolution now that, in his view, it had attained its purpose of refashioning Chinese culture (Snow, 1973, p.65-72).  Thus, Mao disbanded the Red Guards and, in 1968-69 began sending some ten million Red Guards into the countryside to work as peasants in rural villages, participate in public works projects, provide medical resources to peasants, etc.

During the mass mobilization and refashioning of Chinese society during the Cultural Revolution, Mao reorganized the Communist Party, largely through the efforts of his wife, Jian Qing, which allowed him to further solidify his power.  However, in 1971 Lin Biao, the army commander, allegedly plotted an assassination of Mao in order to take over power.  Apparently, the plot was discovered, and Lin and his family were shot down as they were attempting to escape to Mongolia on an air force plane.  Mao, then, remained firmly in control of the Party and government.  However, even the “Great Helmsman” cannot control the ravages of aging, and Mao, whose health was deteriorating (complication of ALS or “Lou Gehrig’s” disease), died on September 9, 1976, leaving China leaderless and needing to find its way.

For further information on Chairman Mao, see:

http://www.geocities.com/franith/; http://www.newton.mec.edu/Angier/DimSum/Mao%20Zedong%20Bio.html;   http://www.cbv.ns.ca/dictator/Mao.html; http://www.chairmanmao.org/eng/others/02.htm.

5. “Qing Dynasty” (p. x):

China’s last dynasty, the Qing (or Manchu) Dynasty ruled from 1644 to 1912, when the emperor Pu Yi, gave up his title.  Pu Yi was just seven years old at the time of his abdication but was allowed to live in Bejing in the Imperial City.  In 1924, a warlord expelled him from the Imperial City and he fled to the Japanese, who set him up as Emperor of Manchuria (a Japanese controlled part of China) from 1935 until Japan’s defeat in World War II in 1945 (Malaspina, p.26).

To begin with, the rulers of the Qing Dynasty were not Chinese.  The ruling class was of the Nuchen Tribes, or “Manchu;” they were called in ostensibly to help suppress rebel peasants by a Ming general but then swept their way through the Great Wall into Beijing, and set up a new government that lasted about 268 years (www.chinatown-online.co.uk/pages/culture/history/manchu.html).

After their initial expansion of Chinese territory in order to set up a protective buffer during the first 100 years or so of Manchu rule, China became larger than ever before or since.  The Qing Dynasty was characterized in succession by periods of security, prosperity, laziness, stagnation, corruption and decay, foreign crises and challenges, and revolution.  The Manchus effectively isolated China from the rest of the world and China quickly fell behind the West in terms of modernization and industrialization.  China, then, quickly became an easy target for foreign exploitation when many Western nations (e.g. England, Germany, and France) began to show interest in Asia in the 19^th Century.  The Opium Trade Wars with Britain (1835-1858), the war with Japan in 1894, and the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, along with almost continuous internal uprisings, all led to an increasing destabilization and weakening of the Qing Dynasty until finally, after the revolution in 1911, the last Qing emperor abdicated in 1912 (ibid.).

6. “World War II” (p. x):

World War II is usually reckoned as beginning on September 1, 1939 with Germany’s invasion of Poland, and ending on August 14, 1945 (Germany had surrendered in May) with the surrender of Japan to Allied forces after suffering atomic bomb strikes at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was the most destructive and costly war in human history, with a death toll in the hundred of millions.

While World War I (the “War to End All Wars”) is often viewed as a war that could have been avoided, World War II, fought against the brutal dictatorships of Germany (under Adolf Hitler), Italy (under Benito Mussolini), and Japan (under Emperor Hirohito)—all of which formed an alliance called, the “Axis Powers”—is thought to have been almost unavoidable.  In many ways, the war was waged by the Allied nations (all those fighting against the Axis, e.g., Britain, France, Soviet Union, United States, Canada, Australia, etc.), as a struggle for freedom and a crusade against evil.

 In China, World War II was fought between the Japanese and an uneasy alliance between the Chinese Communists (the “Red Army,” of which Fan Shen’s parents were a part) under Chairman Mao and the Nationalists, or “Kuomintang,” led by Chaing Kai-shek.  The Japanese had been slowly creeping into Chinese territory since the 1920’s, and had begun fighting a full-scale war with China in 1937.  Millions died.  After the Japanese surrender in 1945, the civil war between the Communists and the Nationalists resumed full force, resulting in the eventual expulsion of the Nationalists to the island of Taiwan in 1949.

7. “Communism” (p. x):

Fan Shen refers to “communism” while pointing out his own uniqueness and eccentricity in the face of his revolutionary origin and background.  As a child of revolutionary parents, Fan was given a revolutionary name (“Fan,” meaning “ordinary,” or “one among millions”), brought up in a thoroughly revolutionary environment (the “Big Courtyard” in Beijing where the People’s Liberation Army is headquartered), and provided with a revolutionary education or indoctrination full of all the proper revolutionary thoughts that a normal Chinese youth should have.  In short, Fan was taught “love of the Great Leader, love of communism, [and] hatred of capitalism” (Fan Shen, p.x).  Yet, despite his revolutionary background and “ordinary” origins, Fan was far from ordinary—hence his remarkable journey.  Fan’s life journey centered on a thought, an “evil” idea that had been “condemned most rigorously over and over again.”  It was the “most dangerous thought a revolutionary could have…a thought that goes against everything a true revolutionary is supposed to stand for [e.g.] completely selfless, free of personal ambition, and should only obey the call of the Communist Party and the call of the Great Leader (Ibid.).  The “evil thing” that so characterized Fan Shen’s identity and journey was “personal ambition.”  Somehow, Fan’s “personal ambition” stood in stark contrast and contradiction to the formalistic, conformist communist society in which he lived.  Given this context, then, what is “communism”?

Communism is commonly held to refer to that sort of government, economy, and society advocated in theory by Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels (e.g. The Communist Manifesto of 1848) and later in the writings of Lenin, and given real-life practical expression most notably in The Soviet Union (until its break-up in the early 1990’s, while still existing today in only a few countries, namely, the People’s Republic of China, the People’s Republic of North Korea, and Cuba.  On its face, communism is thought to mean public or government ownership and control of the economy or “means of production,” the restriction and/or “equitable” redistribution of private wealth and property, and almost inevitably, the limitation of certain private rights and freedoms, all in the interest of the “people” or the “common good.”  At this point, one can see part of the essential conflict experienced by Fan Shen—his personal aspirations and ambitions seemed to run counter to the demands and expectations of the revolutionary society in which he lived.  This contradiction lies at the center of Fan Shen’s memoir or journey, and perhaps lies at the heart of communism itself.

The definition of “communism” is quite broad and far ranging, and difficult to formulate.  Communism may refer to, singularly or all at once, a political philosophy, an organizing principle of culture and society, a system of economics, or a form of government.  The notion or concept of communism stretches at least as far back as Plato’s Republic (4^th century B.C.) in which, while constructing a “city in speech,” the participants in the discussion speak of the nature of justice and its connection or relationship with private property (indeed, all things private).  Throughout all of human intellectual history there has existed an understanding that injustice, inequality, or exploitation has sprung (for whatever reason) from private property.  This understanding lies at the heart of communism.  Thus, communism in its many forms (including Maoism), has, always sought to provide a remedy or solution, or at least an alternative, to private property and the injustice arising therefrom.  This remedy involves, in some fashion, the holding of property in common among all the members of the community (hence, “communism”) rather than private, individual ownership. 

The basis, at least theoretically, for communism in its most mature form was laid principally by Karl Marx in his German Ideology (1846), the Communist Manifesto (1848), the Critique of Political Economy (1859) and Capital vol.I(1867).  Communism, of course, was amended and adapted by later thinkers, theorists, and activists—most notably Vladamir Lenin in Russia and Mao Zedong (who in many ways tried to produce a communism that fit Chinese culture and society). 

The basic nature of communism, for Marx and for Mao, is in many ways revolutionary (notice, incidentally, the number of times Fan Shen uses the word “revolution” or its variants in the paragraph and surrounding paragraphs where he first mentions “communism”).  It is no accident that Marx begins his Communist Manifesto with the famous words:  “A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of Communism;” or ends the Manifesto with the plain declaration that the goals of the workers “can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.  Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution.  [They] have nothing to lose but their chains.  They have a world to win…Working men of all countries unite!”  (Marx, p. 201,241).  In fact, Communism itself for Marx is that political and social movement whose purpose is to plan and conduct the revolution which will overthrow completely the present order of things—bourgeois capitalism—and give the working class or proletariat the means to eventually create a society free of the subjugation and oppression so characteristic of all previous societies.  At this point, all of the means of production, distribution and exchange—the whole economy (which is most important, for it gives rise to the state, society, and the culture)—are commonly owned, without the state or any other form of oppression which had served to keep capitalism dominant.  It is interesting that nowhere does Marx describe in any detail what a future communistic state and society would be like.  Marx limits his discussion of communism per se mostly to the revolutionary means and converging forces that bring about the final communistic stage of human history, where true justice and equality might be realized.  Communism, then, is the “real movement that abolishes the present state of things” (German Ideology, 1983, p. 179). 

Regarding the revolution to communism, Marx mentions that it occurs in two stages.  The first stage is transitional, and involves the raising of the “proletariat [or working and peasant class] to the position of ruling class.”  Once this is accomplished, the proletariat I then able to use its political power to “wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organized as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.”  Now, Marx openly admits that, in the beginning at least, this cannot be “effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, confiscation of the property of all “emigrants and rebels,” “centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State,” “extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State,” “equal obligation of all to work [and] establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture,” “free education for all children in public schools”, etc. (Communist Manifesto, 1983, p. 222-27).  These “despotic inroads” are made by what Marx terms elsewhere, the “dictatorship of the proletariat” (Letter to Joseph Weydemeyer, March 5, 1852, 1978, p. 220).  The “dictatorship of the proletariat, in this context, means simply that the proletariat is possessed of political power, the power of the state, the ruling power.

The second or final stage of communism is considerably less clear for Marx.  Marx reasons that, once class distinctions have disappeared and all the means of production are owned communally by the whole nation, public power will lose its political character, I.e., it will no longer be used by one class for oppressing another (presumably because classes no longer exist).  This allows the Marxian ideal of justice to be realized:  “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” (Critique of the Gotha Programme, 1978, p.531).  This phase of communist society is one where humans are truly liberated from the economic influences and circumstances of life.  It is a society which “regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, to fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming a hunter, fisherman, shepherd, or critic” (The German Ideology, 1978, p. 160).

What, then, is so “revolutionary” about communism, and ties into the revolutionary society and environment in which Fan Shen, as an individual, found himself?  To begin with, one must keep in mind that, for communism, the individual exists solely as an ensemble of social relations.  That is, the individual is a creation of society and not endowed with any fixed nature or recognized freedoms and rights arising from nature.  Thus, there is necessarily no tension between the needs and demands of society and that of the individual.  This is because the individual simply reflects the society, and, for Marx, it is the economic means of production that provides the basis for society.  However, such a tension does exist, a tension, as Heilbroner puts it, “between the individuation of character and behavior, and the unity and conformity necessary for social cohesion” (1980, p.162).  In Communist China, the tension between individual and society was resolved almost wholly on the side of social cohesion and unity (and because of other cultural factors, e.g., Confucianism, this resolution has been particularly fierce).  In China, Mao, through his refashioning of the economy, culture, and society was trying to produce a new type of human.  Again, Marx’s view, and the view of all Marxists since, is that the individual is the product of his or her society.  Thus, Heilbroner continues, one would therefore “expect that a socialist order would attempt to realize this conception in its values, precepts, and social indoctrination as pervasively and insistently [if not more considering Mao’s role as the “Great Leader”] as a capitalist society proclaims the central importance of the individual” (1980, p. 166). 

Of course, we get a very vivid sense of just how pervasively and insistently the revolutionary order attempted to realize its values and form and control individual character and actions from Fan’s memoir.  As Mao mentions in the first of his “Sixteen Points”:  the revolution now unfolding “is a great revolution that touches people to their very souls and constitutes a new stage in the development of the socialist revolution in our country [remember that Mao was always concerned as to how to implement Marxist-communist principles into the particular Chinese culture and mind-set], a stage which is both broader and deeper” (Daubier, p.297).

The tension between the individual and the society/environment is touched upon and explored throughout Fan Shen’s memoir.  He oftentimes felt powerless because he wanted to have a successful life in an environment that regarded personal ambition as evil.  Fan had a burning “personal ambition” that reached beyond the life dictated by Chinese society and the Communist regime—and that was what was truly revolutionary. 

8. “People’s Liberation Army” (p. x):

Fan Shen grew up in what is known as the “Big Courtyard,” the headquarters of the “People’s Liberation Army,” at the west end of Beijing.  The People’s Liberation Army, or PLA, refers to China’s military—the army, navy, and air force—is led by the Military Commission of the Communist Party and the Central Military Commission of the government.  Thus, the PLA not only serves the traditional role of national defense, but it also plays an important political role in that it “enforces the Communist Party’s policies and programs” (Malaspina, 2004, p.73).

The role of the PLA stemmed directly from its origins (i.e. with the “Red Army”), which precluded the development of a military in the usual sense (e.g. professional, apolitical, non-ideological).  Jack Gray and Patrick Cavendish point out that:

      During the years of struggle against the Kuomintang [or Nationalists] and the Japanese, it was an indoctrinated army engaged in revolutionary and guerilla operations, an army in which military and political duties were inseparable.  Its relationship with the state (as represented by the party) was peculiarly close.  It operated as the political and military backbone of an armed population.  Its forces were dispersed and not in close touch with the ‘central’ communist government at Jenan.  In both these relationships, upwards to the party center and downwards to the population, success depended upon the political awareness of its cadre; while, as far as the rank and file were concerned, recruitment depended upon the indoctrination in that radical ‘mass nationalism’ with its revolutionary implications…(1968, pp.43-4).

Given its political character from the outset, it is not surprising that the PLS went on to play an important role in the Cultural Revolution.  First, it can be argued that it was Lin Biao, the head of the PLA, who helped to lay the basis for what would develop over the course of the Cultural Revolution into the “cult of Mao.”  In 1961, as minister of defense, Lin intensified political training in the military, basing it squarely upon the thought of Mao—a curious fact considering that Chaiman Mao’s influence in every other aspect of Chinese life was then at low ebb.  Mao, at that time, was somewhat out of favor because of his disastrous “Great Leap Forward” program of the late 1950’s.  Mao, though losing power within the Communist Party, saw an opportunity to build a base of support away from the Party among the PLA.  Lin Biao was, for whatever reason, a staunch supporter of Mao and gave great support for Mao’s ideas.  It was Lin who took the initiative and condensed Mao’s thoughts and writings into the famous “Little Red Book” or “Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong,” which was first used as a training manual for the PLA and during the Cultural Revolution was elevated to the status of “sacred scripture” for all Chinese.

Second, the PLA helped lay the foundation of the Cultural Revolution through the “learn from the PLA” campaign through which political departments, industrial enterprises, schools, etc. were all to be modeled on the army (Stuart Schram, 1989, p.174).  Most important, the PLA was held up to the civilian population as a paragon of Communist virtue worthy of emulation in dress, behavior, thought, expression, etc.  It is no wonder that the Red Guards likened their many travels and migrations during the Cultural Revolution to “Long Marches,” thus evoking the image of Mao’s march in 1934-35 that solidified his position as head of the Red Army and served as a great inspiration for all fighting for the Chinese Communist cause.  In addition, later on in the Cultural Revolution, the PLA was again evoked as an example to be followed.  Mao, alarmed by factionalism and violent infighting, urged the Red Guards to “take on the spirit of the old Red Army.”  From now on, Mao continued, “China will become one big barrack and everyone will be a Red soldier” (Fan Shen, p.53).  To this end, then, many Red Guard groups were supervised and given training by the PLA.

Lastly, the PLA was personally called by Mao to take action once the charged situation of the Cultural Revolution got beyond Mao’s control.   Into 1967, with the Cultural Revolution in full swing, China itself had fallen into chaos, disrepair, and neglect.  The Red Guard had largely fulfilled its purpose of criticizing and exposing Party leaders and bureaucrats who had taken the “capitalist road” and had largely rendered inactive the Party apparatus.  However, the Red Guard had become a “headless dragon,” rife with factionalism (see Gang of One, ch. 4+5), and its vandalism and senseless violence led Mao and others in Beijing to conclude that its political usefulness was over.  Thus, in the increasingly chaotic situation where the Party, once the centralizing institution of society, had ceased to function as a national organization and the mass movement with the Red Guard as the vanguard was without control, Mao turned to the PLA for stability and as an arbiter of the struggles of the Cultural Revolution (Meisner, 1999, p.334). 

9. “Cultural Revolution” (p. xi):

The Cultural Revolution, or as Mao termed it, the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution,” was a pivotal event in the history of modern China.  The Cultural Revolution is generally reckoned as lasting from 1966 until Mao’s death in 1976—its “official” ending coming in April of 1969 at the meeting of the Ninth Party Congress in which it was declared a glorious triumph and a source of “unity and victory”—though exactly when it ended is still debated.  However, what cannot be debated is the fact that the period of the Cultural Revolution was one marked by tumult, violence, economic and political chaos, and cultural upheaval.  Both the personal and professional lives of the majority of Chinese were affected to an astonishing degree.  Fan Shen’s memoir provides a remarkable insight into the perils and pitfalls of the Cultural Revolution, allowing the reader to witness and draw lessons from a first hand account of its origins, progress, and pervasive effect.

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was a deep and complex event.  There are many unanswered questions and differing interpretations as to its origins, purposes, and lasting effects.  Interestingly, the term “cultural revolution” has a relatively long history in China.  As a term, “cultural revolution” has been current in China ever since the “May Fourth Movement of 1919,” when huge demonstrations by students and workers, held in Beijing and elsewhere, were sparked by the Chinese government’s acceptance of certain terms of the Treaty of Versailles (which ended World War I) giving the Japanese, instead of the Chinese, rights to former German holdings in Shantong.  This event aroused a strong nationalistic fervor among the Chinese protestors and, interestingly, provoked an understanding that traditional Chinese culture was an impediment to progress—hence, what was needed was a cultural revolution to transform Chinese culture to be more compatible with the goals of modernization.  This, too, would strengthen China.  According to Jack Gray and Patrick Cavendish, cultural revolution means:

…an accelerated and comprehensive change in all fields, from science, public health, education and academic research to personal mores entertainment and the arts.  It means, for example, the introduction and application of modern agricultural and medical sciences, the provision of universal education, the establishment of ‘popular’ literature and the substitution of late and free for early and arranged marriages.  In Maoist terms, all these aspects of life are part of the ‘superstructure’ of society [see glossary entry under ‘communism’]:  secondary social institutions which ultimately rest on the ‘economic base’, the prime factor determining social development (1968, pp. 69-70).

A cultural revolution is thus clearly a deep and wide-ranging event, and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (henceforth “GPCR”), was intended by Mao as its principal instigator and coordinator to be so—and it was.  For Mao, the GPCR was considered as not just some additional measure instituted to “save” the revolution, the fruits of which were Mao’s founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.  Rather, the GPCR was considered by Mao to be part and parcel of the revolutionary process itself.  According to Mao, the GPCR was a necessary stage in the process, the last stage, after first, the “political stage,” where the bourgeois state is overthrown and the Communist Party, the champion of the masses, comes into power and the “economic stage,” in which the capitalist economy and feudal land system is refashioned—in China, this culminated in the commune system and the nearly complete nationalization of industry and commerce.  Finally, the last stage of the Cultural Revolution emerges.  Though the government has been reformed and the economy transformed, the “Chinese themselves, their thoughts, their tastes, their outlook on life and their personal hopes and ambitions, remain largely unaltered.”  Therefore, the last stage of the Cultural Revolution produces new, genuine communists “to whom the way of life and thought of their ancestors would be as alien as those, for example, of the pagan world to the Christian era which followed it” (1977, pp.132-33).  Interestingly, however, once this last stage is reached, the process of revolution does not stop.  Mao envisioned the need for periodic cultural revolutions in order to keep society and the individual on the straight and narrow—a perpetual struggle.

Of course, the origins of the GPCR involved political intrigue and struggle and was, no doubt, motivated at least in part by Mao in order to eliminate rivals within the Chinese Communist Party (Liu Shaoqui, for example) and reestablish himself as its leading force.  The official declaration and launching of the GPCR occurred in August of 1966 with the release by the 11^th Plenum of the Central Committee in Beijing of a “communiqué” and the famous “A Declaration in Sixteen Points.”  At this point, Mao was somewhat frustrated, for a year earlier, in September of 1965, he issued a call to analyze and criticize “bourgeois reactionary thinking,” but found top Party leaders less than receptive to his urgings (New China News Agency in Baum, 1971, p.107).  The communiqué issued in 1966 was highly critical of the Communist Party and the current administrative system in place.  According to the communiqué, top Chinese leadership had become too bureaucratic and had mistakenly opted to favor the “black” or capitalist road in violation of the best interests of the communistic masses, or proletarian line.  Thus, the communiqué called for a “consolidation” of the “dictatorship of the proletariat” in order to prevent “revisionist” attempts to take over the course and destiny of the Party by rivals of Mao who preferred a more moderate, less ideological, more capitalistic road to modernization and economic progress. Remember, that in an effort to recover from the famine and economic chaos produced by Mao’s Great Leap Forward (see Chairman Mao in glossary), the Party did take a more “rightist” approach to the Chinese economy with limited private ownership and restricted free trade.  Mao, of course, could tolerate none of this.  Finally, the communiqué, perhaps to cover up its overtly political purpose of targeting capitalist-leaning Party leaders and bureaucrats and yet further strengthen Mao’s image and position, emphasized the creative contribution on the part of Mao and his political ideology to Marxist-Leninist thought (Chesneaux, 1977, p.143). 

Most important, however, was the Plenum’s adoption and issuance of “A Declaration of Sixteen Points,” a veritable charter for the Cultural Revolution, whose goals and methods it defined (ibid.).  The general aims of the GPCR, as given expression in the Sixteen Points, were basically threefold:  (1.) smash the 5,000 year-old traditional Chinese culture, destroying what Mao called the “Four Olds”—old thought, old culture, old customs, old practices—and transform education, literature and art (indeed, all of the “superstructure”) to correspond to the all important and now revitalized Communist base; (2.) intensely criticize and topple the bourgeois ideology of  the academic, economic, and political authorities, most particularly within the Chinese Communist Party, who have taken the “capitalist road” thus abandoning the “mass line,” or the peasants and proletarians; and (3.) rid the country, at least for the time being, of all foreign influence.  All of this, of course, is instituted in order to build a wholly new, revolutionary Communist culture and society (Gang of One, pp.10-11).

Now, as mentioned above, prior to the release of the Sixteen Points in 1966, Mao was frustrated with his waning influence and power.  The horrible failings of Mao’s Great Leap Forward had forced him to withdraw from public life for a time, and active rule had been left to men such as Liu Shaoqui, who took a more moderate view of economic matters.  This position greatly irked Mao.  In Mao’s opinion, leaders such a Liu Shaoqui failed to understand or refused to accept the true nature of the revolutionary process and thus were dangerous:

“…such leaders refused to accept the Leninist opinion that the transition from capitalism to communism requires a full historical period, during which the exploiting class inevitably cherishes hopes of restoration and makes attempts at restoration.  These leaders, Mao argued, disagreed with his concepts about the existence of class, class struggle, and the danger of a capitalist revival in socialist society.  He therefore concluded that they were not true Marxist revolutionaries but representative of the bourgeoisie who had ‘sneaked into the Party’ and who were in the process of transforming socialism into revisionism, as Krushchev had done in the Soviet Union.  It was thus a prime object of the Cultural Revolution to expose those enemies hidden within the party and eliminate them…” (Barbara Barnouin and Yu Changgen, 1993, p. 23).

To Mao, all of these leaders were too open to, and influenced by, a more pragmatic bourgeois and less ideological economic and cultural viewpoint.  The Chinese Communist Party, it seems, in an effort to facilitate economic recovery was teetering, if not outright traveling upon, the capitalist road and valuing technical expertise over revolutionary idealism.  Thus, it was the dominant Maoist view throughout the GPCR that what society needed first and foremost was revolutionary spirit and a “red heart,” not a “white” heart, not technical or intellectual wherewithal and capacity.  We see this sentiment, for example, when Fan Shen was made a “barefoot doctor” despite little conventional medical training (Gang of One, pp. 96-97).

In sum, Mao felt that the revolution—and himself as the founder of the revolution and the regime in 1949—was being forgotten and left behind by self-serving bureaucrats and technocrats within the Party.  These entrenched bureaucrats, especially in the Party, Mao believed, had become in effect another exploiting class serving none but their own interests.   Mao realized that it would be difficult to oust the entrenched “capitalist roaders” from the Party, government bureaucracy and other positions of power and influence.  Realizing this, Mao wanted social and political upheaval, at once appealing to the spirit and zeal of the past revolution (e.g. the “Long March”, announcing that everyone think of themselves as “one big barrack,” etc.), yet at the same time criticizing and condemning the “olds” and calling for a wholly new social and political order and regime. 

However, Mao, at this point was still a Party outsider—to attack and reform the Party and society he needed to turn to another source for help.  Mao did have the People’s Liberation Army to rely upon—its head, Li Biao, was a close friend and ardent admirer (remember that it was Li who indoctrinated the PLA in Maoist thought, e.g. he devised and introduced the Little Red Book which was to be so conspicuous throughout the Cultural Revolution).  Still, the army was itself a bureaucratic institution and using it as a means for social change was risky.  So, to realize his revolutionary order, Mao appealed to the youth (mostly students at first) to become his “Red Guards”, his shock troops, in order to challenge and criticize party officials and other governmental, societal, and cultural leaders and cadres for their supposed lack of revolutionary zeal and strict adherence to Mao’s thought.  The “Sixteen Points” were quite clear about this last aspect—Mao’s thought and persona were to be at the center of the Cultural Revolution.  Point Sixteen leaves no doubt, stating that “it is imperative to hold aloft the great red banner of Mao Tse-Tung’s thought, and put proletarian politics in command… [Thus] Party Committees at all levels must study and apply Chairman Mao’s works… [And] Party Committees at all levels must abide by the directions given by Chairman Mao over the years… (Baum, 1971, p. 106)

Upheaval and chaos characterized the next year.  The slogans with which Mao launched the GPCR and the Red Guard campaign was, “To Rebel is Right,” and “Bombard the headquarters!”  The Red Guard bands and masses took Mao’s slogans closely to heart, believing it to mean that they could do without any central authority, organization, or system:

“Daring to rebel…is the fundamental principle of the proletarian party spirit…Revolutionaries are Monkey Kings…We wield our golden rods, display our supernatural powers, and use our magic to turn the whole world upside down, smash it to pieces, pulverize and create chaos—the greater the confusion the better!  We are bent on creating a tremendous proletarian uproar and hewing out a proletarian new world” (from Peking Review in Schram, 1990, p. 172).

The huge mass of the Red Guards, thus called up and sent forth by Mao, embarked on an exciting whirlwind tour of destruction—people who were accused of being landlords, traitors against Mao or the people, “capitalist roaders” or bourgeois intellectuals, were roughed up, publicly humiliated, their house and/or property confiscated or destroyed, sent away to reeducation camps, or even worse.  Not only were those removed who were considered to be in the way of revolutionary progress, but so were much of the books, music, art, religious objects, and other Chinese cultural treasures.  The slate needed to be wiped clean.

 The excitement and the novelty of the Cultural Revolution at the beginning were very seductive for many Chinese.  Fan Shen, too, at first found himself caught up in the energy and zeal of the Revolution.  As someone young, he was conscious of his parents role as revolutionaries as a tradition passed on to him (the irony: as a Red Guard, Fan was an enemy of tradition), of his responsibility as part of the shock troops of the Revolution to follow the commands of the Great Leader (Mao) to clear away the old so that the true revolution might flower, and of his newly bestowed freedom as a revolutionary to act in ways he had never before dreamed he could act.  Fan vividly describes the scene and his feelings as he carried out the will of the Great Leader—throwing his books (Fan being a lover of books!) onto the huge, blazing two-story tall heap of books.  This act, and the feelings Fan expressed, were very typical of the early GPCR.  Fan and the other Red Guard revolutionaries were intoxicated with a “sense of power so invincible that [they] felt as if [they] could extend it without limit and conquer the world tomorrow, as the revolutionary slogans said” (Gang of One, p. 6).  Without doubt, Fan Shen’s experience reflects the sort of optimism and sense of power which fueled the beginnings of the GPCR—he was full of enthusiasm and hope, pouring his youthful energy into the cause.  Fan wanted to become a “true revolutionary;”  he desired to be the kind of people his parents were and the kind of people he had read about in books ,i.e., the kind of people who “do not hesitate to sacrifice anything for the cause of the state and the Party” (p.9). 

These were heady times for Fan and the Red Guards.  Mao shouted to them:  “Power to the Red Guards!”; “Expose and destroy the hidden enemies who have been sleeping in your ranks!” (Gang of One, p. 10).  From Fan’s perspective, all at once, the normally orderly and boring Big Courtyard where he grew up, and in fact all of Beijing, erupted into an enticing chaos. For Fan, a new freedom seemed to flow from the revolution—Fan’s school closed the day after the huge public book burning (no more school!), and he was then told to join the Red Guards with the responsibility of transforming society—suddenly Fan was provided with a life independent of his parents.  No longer did Fan have to take stifling afternoon naps, he could go out, walk the streets with his friends and read revolutionary posters instead.  At this point, Fan felt his heart and mind join with millions of other Red Guards; yet, as the Revolution progressed with lightning speed, and its true nature began to reveal itself, Fan found that his path was somehow different. 

Fan’s “honeymoon” period with the GPCR did not last long.  Almost from the very beginning problems began to emerge within the Revolution itself.  The factionalism and fighting, for instance, that ultimately brought down the Red Guards revealed itself early on.  For starters, there was a wide array of different Red Guard “teams”—Fan remarks that “for all I could make out, all the Red Guard teams [the source of the flood of revolutionary posters placed all over Beijing] claimed to be fighting for the Great Leader, but they could not agree on who were the hidden enemies that the Great Leader wanted them to expose” (Gang of One, p. 11).  What was at first a competition (who could best serve the Great Leader?) and war of words took on a more sinister turn and quickly escalated into open warfare (ch.4, pp. 30-41).  Mao and his followers were able to achieve the chaos necessary to bring down central Party and government structures.  Of course, as Fairbanks mentions, the Party “fought fire with fire” and created their own bands of Red Guards who, espousing the same Maoist slogans, fought violently back (1998, p. 393).  Fan found this animosity and hardness of heart between the various Red Guard factions to be utterly confusing and disheartening—how could one know who the “good guys” were?

Even worse, however, was the increasing injustice, terror, violence, and brutality shown by the Revolution and Red Guard factions.  Notice, too, how this injustice and violence crept closer and closer within Fan’s own personal sphere, striking his father and some of his fellow Red Guard friends.  Early on, Fan sensed the “terrible dark side of the revolution and began to experience a fear of its brutal force” (Gang of One, p.16).  There were, first of all, the fearsome “struggle rallies”, of which Fan describes three—that against General Luo; the mayor of Beijing, Peng Zhen; and the massive rally against General Hei, no less than the deputy commander of the army.  These “struggle rallies” were ample evidence not only of the brutality of the Revolution, but it showed as well that the Revolution was indeed aimed at traditional figures of power and traditional power structures.  Still more troubling for Fan on a more personal level were the sentiments and actions displayed by such revolutionaries as “Whiskers,” who committed acts of great cruelty for no other reason than to satisfy his own thirst for blood and lust for power—remember, the GPCR placed great power in the hands of the young, who were certainly inexperienced, but often rash and let the power go to their heads.  Says Fan:  “This kind of revolution made me sick.  The torture and killing of the doctor [by
Whiskers, who opened his stomach with a scalpel, poured soy sauce on his exposed guts, and then hot sauce on his face] seemed extremely cruel and senseless…[they] tortured and killed people not for any revolutionary purpose, but for the enjoyment of it” (p.28).  It is fitting that literally, in Chinese, “revolution” means “chop life.”

As the Revolution progressed and took a life of its own, it became ever more confusing and troublesome for Fan.  Again, Fan remarks that “revolution, ge ming, literally means ‘chop life’, which he had thought to mean chopping the life of “enemies like General Hei, not the life of comrades.”  It is said that a characteristic of revolution is that it eventually eats its own, and Fan began to experience this phenomenon—it has, he says, “a funny and strange way of turning comrades into enemies” (p.42).  The Cultural Revolution had begun to turn against many of its most ardent proponents.  Soon, many of Fan’s fellow Red Guard members were arrested on trumped up charges; former Red Guard heroes were now called “scheming enemies” by the Great Leader and arrested.  Finally, the confusion and chaos of the Revolution truly struck home when first Fan’s aunt and uncle were declared counterrevolutionary, and then his father was accused of harboring a fugitive (Fan’s aunt) and taken away.  It was senseless.  At this point, the “darkest days” of his life, Fan fully realized that there was no meaningful purpose to the GPCR—the Red Guards were “a law unto themselves” with no rhyme or reason.

Why this sudden reversal of fortune for many of the Red Guard?  By the summer of 1967, Mao had begun to realize that the GPCR was getting out of control and producing chaos—chaos beyond what was necessary for him to bring down traditional Party and government structures.  In fact, the Party as a national entity had ceased to function by this time.  In this sense, the Red Guards had already served their purpose and were now becoming a liability.  In addition, the factionalism and fights among Red Guard units was troubling to Mao.  Finally, because of the chaos and violence, many factories and industries were being suspended and the economy was suffering.  Peace needed to be restored.  At first, Mao urged, along with the backing of the PLA that the various factions of the Red Guard reconcile—from now on, the Great Leader proclaimed, “China will become one big barrack…” (p.53). Unfortunately, Mao’s admonitions proved fruitless and the factional violence and political purges continued.  Indeed, in June of 1968, Red Guard factions raided PLA arsenals and turned the weapons against other Red Guard factions.  There were pitched battles, open warfare, between various factions involving in upwards of 50,000 people—things were certainly out of hand.  Mao was utterly dismayed by the Red Guards lack of discipline and excessive violence, and finally, with PLA backing, in July of 1968 Mao disbanded the Red Guard, sending millions of former members from cities to the countryside to be “educated” by the peasants (e.g. help in communes, working in fields, building huge public works programs, providing medical care, etc.).  Mao’s orders came as if “words from God”:  “all the Red Guards should go and live among revolutionary peasants for the rest of your lives and to learn the spirit of the old Red Army through hard labor” (Gang of One, p. 65).

Fan Shen, as a member of one of Beijing’s Red Guard units, experienced first hand this entire process.  He was sent—fortunately along with two of his friends—out west to the village of Big Porcupine to be “reeducated” in the ways and revolutionary spirit of the peasants.  His education lasted four years.  Of course, it was mostly folly.  Apart from the political expediency of Mao’s dispersal of the millions of Red Guards, their goal, the goal of the Revolution, was nothing less than to “remodel the globe” through various agricultural and construction projects undertaken, says Fan, “more for political propaganda than for any agricultural purpose” (p.80).    The failure of the project on “Red Army Hill” is a good illustration.  Such projects—their poor design, their waste of valuable resources—more than not made things worse; witness the experience of drought, famine, and flood by those living in Big Porcupine and the surrounding provinces.  The Cultural Revolution was an undertaking to subdue and transform nature—both human and environmental.  Fan’s experience shows the irrationality and unfortunate outcomes of such an undertaking.

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution officially came to an end on April of 1969 with the meeting of the Ninth Party Congress, where Mao declared the Cultural Revolution to be over, i.e., a “success” (Fairbank, 1987, p.317, 333).  It appeared that that was the case.  The Red Guard was successfully dispersed, Mao had placed himself at the top of the Party leadership, a new constitution was passed which prominently stressed the importance of Mao’s thought and, in 1970, Mao was declared supreme commander of the nation and the army (Malapina, 2004, p. 102).  However, the radical policies along with the political in-fighting sparked by the GPCR continued right up until Mao’s death in 1976—hence, the popular understanding of the GPCR as lasting from 1966-1976.  Such confusion over the “ending” of the GPCR was evident in the Ninth Party Congress itself and in its resulting documents.  Lin Biao’s “Political Report,” for example, though lauding Mao and the accomplishments of the GPCR, advocated the need for its continuation for two reasons:  “(1.) the socialist revolution in the realm of the ‘superstructure’ has not yet been carried out ‘through to the end’ and class struggle has by ‘no means ceased in the ideological or political spheres’; and (2.) the revolution still had to accomplish ‘a thousand and one tasks’, such as ‘carrying out mass criticism and repudiation, purifying class ranks, consolidating the party organization, simplifying the administrative structure, changing irrational rules and regulations, and sending office workers to the workshops” (from Barnouin and Yu, 1993, pp. 175-76).

When did the GPCR end?  Unfortunately, as Lin Biao’s document suggests, the terrorism of the GPCR continued, though in a slightly different form, i.e., the “campaign to purify class ranks.”  Formerly, at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, purifying class ranks meant weeding out those who had a suspect class background, e.g., former landlords and their children, etc.  Now, it was the purpose of the GPCR to weed out those who were ideologically suspect—those without proper and pure revolutionary motives.  Barnouin and Yu write:

“After the establishment of revolutionary committees in the 29 provinces and municipalities in September of 1968 until the death of Lin Biao in Sept. 1971, the campaign to purify class ranks dominated the scene of the CR.  It was another type of “red terror.”  But unlike the relatively short period of ‘red terror’ initiated by the young and feverish red guards in the beginning of the CR, the new campaign, which was proudly referred to as the ‘red typhoon’, lasted much longer and involved millions of people.  The campaign, however, received much less attention in the outside world.  In fact, it was ignored by most writers dealing with this period, many of whom consider the CR as terminated after the Ninth Congress.  This can perhaps be explained by the fact that, this time, the witch hunt for class enemies took place behind closed doors, and no mass meetings or demonstrations, no big character posters could be observed in the streets” (1993, p.178).

The “red typhoon” eventually moved on.  There was a huge search within and without the Party for a fictitious “May 16^th Group,” a group of ultra-leftists who were supposedly responsible for all of the GPCR excesses and were trying to infiltrate themselves into positions of power in order to serve their own lust for power rather than the true, selfless ends of the Revolution.  Many important people were tortured, jailed, and forced to implicate others.  Thousands were executed. 

Also, the GPCR continued to wreak havoc on the countryside.  As Fairbanks points out, “peasants were required to abandon all sideline occupations such as raising pigs, chickens, and ducks in order to ‘cut off the tail of capitalism’ [for] many this meant starvation” (1987, p. 333).  Sadly, the purges and irrational programs of the GPCR did not end until Mao’s death in 1976; and, of course, its effects are still felt today.

What, then, can be learned from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution?  Given the GPCR’s scope, complexity, and pervasiveness such a question is impossible, for our purposes, to answer fully.  However, given the course of the GPCR and Fan Shen’s personal experience with the typhoon of the Cultural Revolution, at least one important lesson might be drawn.  The lesson is simply this: that it is a fruitless and destructive undertaking to attempt the wholesale refashioning of humanity or nature according to any preconceived “ideal.”  Human beings are not “blank pages of paper,” the character and actions of whom can be determined by an “author” with a sharp pen.  Throughout Fan’s journey we see time and again how his “personal ambition” (his own character, motives, dreams, desire to improve himself and his situation) runs counter to the designs of the Revolution.  At no point, despite the hardships, brutality, perils and constant “indoctrination” does the Revolution quash Fan’s essential human spirit.  With such a monumental undertaking as the refashioning of human society, human beings (creating the “new socialist men”), and nature itself (in Mao’s words, “you will conquer nature”), it is almost inevitable that the idealistic abstractions of the visionary will lose sight of, or ignore, the realities of flesh and blood and spirit.  For the visionary, all means are permitted to achieve a utopian revolutionary end.  The only result:  destruction, waste, and tragedy.  However, the human spirit, as Fan Shen shows, shines through.

 10. “Cicadas” (p. 3):

It is interesting that the ancient Chinese regarded cicadas as symbols of rebirth or immortality.  They are large insects and certainly draw attention with their songs and it is no wonder that they hold a high position in folklore and art (www.insects.org/ced3/cicada_chfolk.html).  The setting of Fan’s book is the Chinese Cultural Revolution—a massive attempt to refashion and give rebirth to Chinese society according to revolutionary principles.  And within that setting is Fan Shen’s journey, where he time and again, through perseverance and a constant faith in his inward spirit is able to recover and renew himself despite his opposition to the principles and practices of the wider society in which he finds himself.  Cicadas, in many ways, represent the theme of rebirth, which is prominent in Fan’s memoir.

11. “Red Army” (p. 3):

The “Red Army” refers to the army of the Communists who fought a long civil war against the “white” army, or the Kuomingtang (otherwise known as the “Nationalists”), from 1927 to 1937 (from 1937 to 1945 there was an interval of cooperation while fighting their mutual enemy, the Japanese), and from 1945 to 1949, ending with the Communist victory and the expulsion of the Nationalists to Taiwan.  The Red Army officially became known as the “People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in the spring of 1947.  The new name stressed the nature of the army itself: it was an army largely of the people, not professional, and highly ideological.  The term “Red Army” was also used, though not in Gang of One, to refer to the Soviet army of the USSR (United Soviet Socialist Republics), which disbanded in 1992-93.

The context of the mentioning of the Red Army is Fan Shen’s hearing the “Red Army March,” his father’s favorite song, as he was going out to participate in the Red Guard book burning.  No doubt the song was playing to inspire the participants with the old and revered Red Army fighting spirit and notion of self-sacrifice.

Incidentally, the color “red” has long served as the symbolic color for leftist movements.  This originated with the famous Paris Commune Uprising of 1871, whose red flag symbolized the blood of all those who were subjected to the slavery of class, and a unifying symbol for all—we all have the same red blood.  Marxists adopted the color early on and since then it has been claimed as a symbol by a wide variety of leftist groups and factions (see “Red Vocabulary” at http://reds.linefeed.org/vocab.html, 09/12/04).

12. “Feudal Relics” (p. 4):

Upon first arriving at the book burning, Fan spots several gigantic red banners bearing some of the slogans of the Cultural Revolution.  One slogan read, “BURN THE FEUDAL RELICS!” meaning burn the books which are nothing more than useless (and dangerous) relics of the past “feudal system” that the Revolution had successfully overthrown.

In general, feudalism refers to control (political, economic, cultural, etc.) by an entrenched minority that uses its power for its own benefit, e.g. a social, political, or economic oligarchy.  Specifically, the term “feudalism” is derived from the Latin word, “feudum”, a term commonly used in the Middle Ages meaning “fief” or land (http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Feudalism).  Historically, the term describes the relationship (social, political, economic) between three different elements: lords, the nobles who owned the land; vassals or peasants, who were given land to use for service, often military, to the lord; and fief, or the land.  Interestingly, Fairbank and Goldman point out that the Chinese term for feudal (“fengjian”) had referred in classic Chinese thinking simply to a “fragmentation of sovereignty,” a “decentralized administration, without reference to the land system or the status of the cultivators” (1998, pp. 321-22).  Absent from the Chinese conception was any notion of landowner exploitation of the peasant, or any notion of feudalism being a historical stage en route to the final stage of history, communism. 

Now, the understanding of feudalism within the context of the Chinese Cultural Revolution is colored by Marxist thought (see “communism” in glossary), which sees feudalism as a particular stage of history a society passes through (via class struggle, the “engine” of history) en route to the final stage, that of communism proper.  The feudal stage, then, was very rigid in structure and was a stage where the economic, the religious, the political, the private and the public, were not yet sharply differentiated—as they would become in the bourgeois capitalist stage of history, that stage succeeding the feudal according the Marxist schema.  That differentiation is not present because according to the feudal mode of production, the possessors of the means of production (landlords, nobles who owned the land and the means of production, e.g. the hand mill, farming equipment, horses, etc.) and those (peasants, vassals) who labored under those means were connected by a “personal relation of mutual responsibility”—for example, in the Chinese case, by the Confucian ethic of subservience and acceptance of one’s lot in life.  Remember that in Marxist thought, with a particular mode of production there exists a corresponding form of social organization.  Marx, in his The Poverty of Philosophy states:  “The handmill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam mill, society with the industrial capitalist” (quoted in Strauss and Cropsey, 1987, p. 803).

The Cultural Revolution, of course, aimed to rid society of all aspects of previous social organization—they wanted to begin wholly anew.  Hence, the burning of books, except those with “red covers.”

13. “Bourgeois Culture” (p. 4):

Fan Shen mentions that during the book burning one of the many banners flying bore the slogan of the Cultural Revolution: “BURN THE SENTIMENTAL BOURGEOIS CULTURE!”  According to general Marxist theory (derived from the works of Karl Marx, the “founding father” of communism), history is characterized by class struggle and in modern society (i.e. since the industrial revolution, circa early to mid-1800’s), that struggle has been between two classes directly facing one another:  the “proletariat” and the “bourgeoisie.”  The bourgeoisie is simply the ruling class under the capitalist system; they are the owners of capital, private property, and the means of production (factories, companies, etc.).  The “proletariat”, then, is that class of wage laborers whose labor is exploited by the bourgeoisie for their own benefit.

Notice, however, that the slogan refers not just to class itself but to “culture.”  The slogan rails against the bourgeois mindset—its values, beliefs, and practices.  By pointing out this slogan, Fan Shen is giving a sense of the comprehensiveness and totality of the Cultural Revolution.

What, then, is the “bourgeois culture” or mindset?  At its core, the bourgeois mindset views human beings as separate, autonomous individuals, possessed of rights, each concerned primarily with his or her own well-being, neither necessarily public-spirited nor dedicated to the larger community as a whole.  The public and the private sphere of life are, for the most part, strictly separated.  Each person is motivated by his or her ambition (though not, to be sure, without any consideration for others), usually focused or directed toward economic or material well-being and comfort.  From the perspective of the Cultural Revolution, such a mindset is extremely dangerous.  The good revolutionary must give him or herself completely to the cause and the country and cannot be concerned with personal ambitions, aspirations, or “rights.”  Indeed, in this sense, the Cultural Revolution considered bourgeois culture to be “sentimental” (note the slogan). Sentimental is a swear word, for in carrying out a revolution one cannot be sentimental and concerned with the phantom rights of the individual, whether it be one’s own rights or the rights of others.  Such talk is a diversion from achieving the true ends of the Revolution which, supposedly, benefit the whole community.

Fan Shen, in his book, describes many occasions when he was compelled to concede to the revolutionary hatred of bourgeois culture.  Time and again, Fan was forced to hide his own personal ambitions and aspirations and play at being the “perfect little revolutionary” while deceiving all those around him so that his individual spirit, his inner self, could live.

 14. “The Dream of the Red Chamber” (p. 5):

One of the books thrown into the pile of burning books—considered to be a “feudal relic” and hence dangerous and subversive of proper revolutionary thinking.  It is a classic of Chinese literature from the Qing Dynasty, and written by Cao Xueqin.  It is a love story, essentially about a teenage boy (Jia Baoyu) from a rich family who lives in an idyllic garden surrounded by beautiful female cousins and maids.  Jia falls in love with his cousin Lin Daiyu, but is tricked into marrying another cousin.  He then goes on a journey of enlightenment. 

The book expresses a fundamental sentiment in Chinese literature and gives great insight into Chinese culture (manners, protocol, allegiances, etc).  It is a kind of daoist (see Lao Tzu) view of being at the same time “this-worldly yet otherworldly, pessimistic and yet optimistic.”  For example, throughout the story there is a juxtaposition of the supernatural and natural (the stone, and Jia as its incarnation), and the story comes to a tragic conclusion in that Lin Daiyu, the heroine, dies of a broken heart yet the hero, Jia, “escapes the world of dust and turmoil….”  The novel concludes:  “This is a tale of sorrow/And yet of fantasy; /Life is but a dream; /Laugh not at man’s folly” (quoted in Ch’u Chai and Winberg Chai, 1962, p. 161).

The Cultural Revolution considered this book to be a relic of the feudal past.  The book has otherworldly ideas and concerns that are distracting to proper revolutionary thinking which is this-worldly, realistic, and devoted to the ends of the revolution and the thought of its Great Leader (Mao).

 15. “The Boxer Rebellion” (p. 7): 

In recounting his families’ tradition of revolution, Fan mentions the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, an important event in Chinese history.  In many ways, the Boxer Rebellion was a last ditch attempt by Chinese traditionalists to rid the country of foreign economic, political, and religious imperialism and cultural influence.  

The Boxer Rebellion began with the Empress Dowager Cixi, who truly possessed the power in the Qing dynasty at the time despite the Emperor Guangxu, whose sentiments were to try to work with foreign nations to modernize China and change the structure of government.  The Empress executed many reformers and supported a cabal of Manchu princes who were ignorant and suspicious of the outside foreign influences in China.  Many of these princes then became instigators, patrons, and supporters of secret peasant societies, particularly in northern China, dedicated to ridding China of all foreign influence (the “foreign devils”).  The largest of these peasant societies was called the “Righteous and Harmonious Fists”; the “Europeans called them the Boxers because of their martial arts skills” (Malaspina, 2004, p.19).

The uprising was almost inevitable; the foreigners had been provoking the Chinese ruling class and oppressing the peasants in a number of different ways since the 1830s.  Finally, in 1900, it all came to a head.  Guards of one of the foreign embassies went out shooting Boxers to intimidate them.  By June of 1900, supported by the Empress and the government, Boxers burned down churches and houses of foreigners, killing and looting all the while. They soon occupied the cities of Beijing and Tianqin.  The Westerners quickly fought back.  In August of 1900, a coalition of forces, numbering some 20,000, from Britain, France, Russia, the United States, Germany, and Japan forced their way into Beijing, defeated the Boxers, and forced the Empress and the Qing government to settle.  China was forced to pay huge indemnities and allow foreign troops and missionaries on their soil.  The Westerners were very hard on the Chinese—they were considered backward and inferior.  In this way, the Boxer Rebellion was widely painted in the West with the terror that an uprising of savages brings to the “civilized.’  Fairbank makes the interesting point that:  “the Boxer Rising, in the long, hot summer of 1900 was one of the best-known events of the nineteenth century because so many [Western] diplomats, missionaries, and journalists were besieged by almost incessant rifle fire for eight weeks (June 20-August 14) in the Peking legation quarter…(1986, p.138). 

All in all, the Boxer Rebellion had an energizing effect upon China.  It produced the dissatisfaction, anger, and unrest among intellectuals in particular that would help to produce the 1911 Revolution overturning the Qing Dynasty and foment the whole process of revolution and revolt that culminated in the rise of Mao.

16. “People’s Republic of China” (p. 8):

It is interesting to note that the name “China” was given to the Chinese by foreigners—it is a corruption of Qin (pronounced “Chen”), a Chinese dynasty that ruled in the 3^rd Century B.C.  The Chinese call their country “Zhonggus,” meaning “Central Country” or “Middle Kingdom,” reflecting their view that China is fixed in the middle or the center of the world (www.chinavoc.com/history/peoplerepublic.htm).

The “People’s Republic of China” is the formal name of China, and is that regime founded by Chairman Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party in 1949 after the conclusion of the Chinese Civil War, and endures to this day.  The official date for the founding of the People’s Republic of China (or PRC) is October 1, 1949, when Mao announced before thousands and thousands in Tiananmen Square in Beijing that the “Chinese people have stood up,” liberated themselves through the long war with Japan and the civil war against the Nationalists, and were now ready to transform the nation.  The new regime was to be, Mao said, a “People’s democratic dictatorship,” led by the Chinese Communist Party, the vanguard of the peasants and working class, and indeed, the history of the PRC has been largely one of strict one-party control (with all of its political intrigue and in-fighting) and/or dictatorship (under portions of Mao’s tenure in particular).  The constitution of the PRC states:  “The People’s Republic of China is a socialist state under the people’s democratic dictatorship led by the working class and based on the alliance of worker’s and peasants” (www.lectlaw.com/files/int11.htm).

The history of the PRC, though greatly simplified, might be divided up into stages.  The first stage runs roughly from the founding of the PRC in 1949 until 1957, and includes the Korean War, in which China came to the aid of North Korea in October of 1950 against South Korea (which North Korea had invaded), the United States, and a coalition of United Nations forces, during which the Chinese lost nearly one million lives (including Mao’s son).  The onset of the war allowed the government to speed up attempts—in effect, giving them a wartime sanction—at political centralization and control and reorganizing society.  The government, for example, launched a massive campaign against enemies of the state, actual and potential.  Party supported mass trials were held, mostly against foreigners, Christian missionaries, and those branded as foreign sympathizers.  Accompanying the political trials was major land reform that accelerated the redistribution of land and a class struggle against landlords and wealthy peasants was launched, accompanied too, by an ideological campaign against intellectuals, artists, and all those thought to be insufficiently supportive of the Party—everyone had to heed Mao’s dictum that culture and literature must reflect the class interest of the working people, led by the Chinese Communist Party (this would be a preview of the Cultural Revolution).  

After the war, the PRC continued to consolidate its authority and began massive social and economic reforms and reconstruction, which for a time followed the Soviet model.  Soviet economic advisors helped to guide the changing and developing Chinese economy, the implementation of land reform, transforming farms into collectives, and the nationalization of industry (Chesneaux, 1979, p.56).

In the second stage (1958-1965), however, the PRC and Mao announced a break with the Soviet Union, which Mao considered not sufficiently Marxist and not truly understanding of the unique Chinese situation.  In addition, Mao announced the beginning of the “Great Leap Forward,” (1958-1960) a plan which aimed to move the economy forward and rapidly raise industrial and agricultural production.  First, the effort to organize rural farmland into People’s communes (each made up of between 2,000-20,000 households) was greatly accelerated; in fact, private property itself was completely abolished.  Further, huge public works projects were begun, bringing irrigation to peasants, building dams and reservoirs, public transportation, etc.  Finally, Mao especially emphasized increasing steel, electricity, and coal production.  Mao ordered people in the countryside to erect backyard steel furnaces, and millions were built.  Unfortunately, the results of the Great Leap Forward were disastrous.  Because of inefficiency and bad planning, normal market mechanisms were disrupted (e.g. the nation’s coal went to the backyard furnaces leaving the trains without fuel, taxes were collected from the communes in grain, not money, and the grain for food was reduced, leaving people hungry).  As a result of the bad planning of the Great Leap Forward, along with bad weather in the form of horrible drought and typhoons, there was great famine.  Millions died (Malaspina, 2004, pp. 81-84).

Mao’s position within the Party suffered as a result of the Great Leap Forward’s failure.  Mao, because of his ideological blindness, simply could not see what was happening and the connection between his programs and the resulting economic failures.  The Party wanted to focus less upon the political ideology and purity of the Revolution, and focus more upon extricating China from the economic quagmire it now found itself in—building the economy and feeding the people must be paramount.  Thus, the Party began to institute more liberal economic reforms, e.g. abolishing communes and backyard furnaces, returning some property to the people, paying people for producing consumer goods, importing grain from the West, etc. (Malaspina, 2004, p. 87).  These reforms continued until Mao made a comeback bid for power by instituting the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) is the third stage of the PRC (for a recounting of the GPCR, see the glossary entry under “cultural revolution”).   For a brief recounting of PRC history subsequent to the GPCR, see www.cecc.gov/pages/virtualAcad/his/prc.php and www.china-embassy.org/eng/c2685.html

17. “The Forbidden City” (p. 11):

Built in the early 15^th century, the Forbidden City is located at the exact center of the ancient city of Beijing and served as the imperial palace under the Ming and Qing Dynasties.  With the abdication of Pu Yi, the last emperor of China, in 1912, the Forbidden City no longer served as the political center of China—although Pu Yi was allowed to live in the Imperial Palace until 1924.  Though the Forbidden City was no longer a political center, per se, Chairman Mao lived there during the Cultural Revolution much like a Chinese emperor.  Mao resided in the Forbidden City, no doubt, because it contributed to his prestige as a ruler and the “cult of personality” that grew up around him during the Cultural Revolution.  Note, though, the irony of the leader of a People’s democracy, the Great Helmsman, stressing self-sacrifice and egalitarianism, living in relative luxury in such “bourgeois” surroundings.

18. “Big-letter Posters” (p. 11):

Big-letter, or “big-character,” posters were instruments of propaganda and political and cultural ideology during the Cultural Revolution and were used for communicating the revolutionary message in a way that common people could understand.

Big-letter posters (“dazibao”) have a long tradition in China; in fact, they are a Chinese custom, a common-person’s newspaper, “through which everyone could make his opinions known to everyone else and candidly critique those in positions of authority” (Daubier, 1974, p. 174).  These posters, Daubier continues, “were often attractively presented: their titles and subtitles were emphasized by the unconventional way the characters were drawn….”  Moreover, often “authors tried to satirize graphically the names of persons under attack (quivering characters to suggest the creeping movement of someone considered especially base, horizontal to indicate an over pedantic [or academically pretentious] person, upside down to indicate the fate in store for entrenched bureaucrats), [and] Chinese calligraphy aided enormously in this venture” (ibid. pp. 49-50; 135-36).

The first, and most famous, of the big-letter posters was one posted at Beijing University on May 25, 1966, by seven people, including Nie Yuanji, a young female philosophy assistant.  The poster was critical of University officials for not doing their part in the Revolution, i.e., of obstructing the current movement criticizing party officials and government functionaries and confining it to academic settings.  They charged that the university officials were being too “quiet and desultory” and stifling and “suppressing mass revolution” (Yan and Gao, 1996, pp. 40-41).  This act sparked quick and widespread reactions, in part because Chairman Mao heard about the poster and had the message broadcast over the national radio and published in the People’s Daily, the country’s leading newspaper and voice of the Party.   Soon, similar posters and letters were hung up all over the walls and common areas of Beijing University (and soon all over China, though predominantly in the urban areas), arguing, among other things, for the university to become closer to the people, for more “red” ideological and less “expert” technocratic training, and that it was “necessary to put politics in command” (Chesneaux, 1979, p. 141).  In any case, students were motivated to debate, the furor was spreading, and the Cultural Revolution was underway.

Fan Shen refers to the “big-letter” posters a couple of times, mentioning that he liked to go out in the evenings to “stand among adults” and read revolutionary posters.  The posters were everywhere, spreading out on any space available.  Also, it is interesting that, although the big-letter posters at first dealt with more serious debates and policy issues among various Red Guard teams, the posters quickly became an exercise in “finding the enemy” not only in lazy and inefficient party and government bureaucrats and “capitalist roaders”, but in other Red Guard teams and factions as well.  The posters, though perhaps beginning with the potential to be a means of reasoned debate and democratic free speech, seemed after a time to invite and encourage a frenzy of accusations and fervent witch hunts that led, ultimately, to violence.  Furthermore, Fan writes that the more confusing the posters became—accusing others, and responding to accusations—the more he lost interest in debate and turned his attention instead to the “more entertaining posters,” now appearing more often, which were more sensational and consisted of amusing and degrading exposes of the “dirty pasts and corrupt lifestyles of the members of the opposing factions.”  Clearly the quality of the posters had degenerated.  Lastly, Fan remarks that as a young Red Guard member he “believed everything” in the posters; in other words, the posters were indeed effective propaganda and calls to action, whether it be against officials, capitalists, or other errant Red Guard factions.

One wonders to what extent the “big-letter” posters were a democratic expression of the people and/or to what extent they were simply instruments of propaganda, blindly favoring Mao’s bid for power and rekindling the spirit of the Revolution.  Was their criticism of certain Party and government officials and policies genuine, or did they only reflect Mao’s criticism, antipathy, and bid for increasing his power and position within the Party? 

19. Mao’s sending of a “case of mangos” (p. 16):

Interestingly, Mao sending a case of mangos, given to him from the tropical Hainan province, and interpreted by the people as symbolic objects of Mao’s love and trust in them, contrasts with a famous incident in August of 1968, when Mao gave a case of Mangos to propaganda teams who were desperately trying to rein in the excesses of the Red Guards—the mangos image had been placed onto a badge (millions were made) and they were worn to signal that the revolution was going too far (Scott McLernee, Chronicle 17, Jan. 2003).  (For an account of Mao badges, see http://museums.cnd.org/CR/old/maobadge/)

The symbolism of mangos is complex; for example, others, like Fan Shen describes, interpret Mao’s gift of mangos as a symbol of his “great concern, education, and encouragement for the workers, peasants, and soldiers of China in their determination to carry the revolution through to the end” (www.union.edu/PUBLIC/HSTDEPT/HST198/photos/crpicture.htm; http://www.iisg.nl/~landsberger/map.html, 8/22/04).

20. The “Red Terror” (p. 14):

Fan Shen mentions a slogan shouted through loudspeakers so loud that he could feel each syllable strike his face:  “Long Live the Red Terror!”  What is the “Red Terror”?  First, notice that Fan mentions the “Red Terror” in the context of his description of his participation in a brutal “struggle rally,” a context of fear and terror.  This terror was a useful tool or weapon with which to communicate the “Red” ideology and way of thinking, those witnessing or submitted to a struggle rally truly feel the fervor and fear—it is a form of mind control.

The Red Terror refers mainly to large scale mobilization of units and cadres of Red Guards, the shock troops of the Cultural Revolution and initiated to action to meet the political power needs of Mao and his sympathizers, both central and local.  Part of the Red Guards’ mission, originating from Mao’s notion of class struggle, was to smash the “bad classes”, especially in urban areas (see Fan’s description of the United Red Action Committee, Gang of One, p. 20).  The  “bad classes” were recognized as consisting of five “black categories”:  former landlords and rich peasants, alleged counterrevolutionaries, “bad elements”, meaning convicted criminals of all sorts (thieves, prostitutes, etc), those growing up in wealthy homes and former capitalists (small business owners), and those labeled as “Rightists” during the 1957 Anti-Rightist Campaign.  These five “black” categories were opposed to the five “red” categories, which favored for becoming the elite of the Red Guards.  They were:  workers, poor and lower-middle peasants, revolutionary cadres, revolutionary service-men, and revolutionary martyrs (Yang, 2002, pp. 210-215).

Overall, the Red Terror took three basic forms:  ransacking houses, temples, museums, archives, stores, etc,; physical violence and killing; and expulsion of the “bad classes” from the urban areas.  The Red Terror lasted about two years, from August of 1966 until the Red Guards were disbanded and dispersed (Gong Xiaoxia, www.asianresearch.org/articles/1703.html, 8/23/04).

21. “Chinese New Year” (p. 18):

Also known as the Spring Festival or Lunar New Year, the “Chinese New Year” is celebrated on the first month of the Chinese calendar, usually on the day after the winter solstice occurs (which varies from year to year).  It is celebrated internationally and is the most important holiday of the Chinese people (and much of East Asia as well).  

Traditionally, “red packets” (a gift of cash which comes from the red packet the gift comes in, and are often presented during special occasions, e.g. weddings, etc.; the red of the packet symbolizes good luck) are presented New Years Eve, and then New Years Eve is celebrated with firecrackers and dragon dances.  The New Year celebration is very much a family affair, with a large dinner of chicken; the New Years Day dinner is usually vegetarian.  In addition, a New Years cake is presented—it is believed that the higher the cake rises, the more prosperous and better the new year will be.

The whole celebration lasts fifteen days, the first three of which are considered the most important and most often celebrated with visits to friends, family, and punctuated with greetings of good luck (e.g., “gong xi fa cai”= “congratulations and be prosperous”).  Interestingly, the seventh day is traditionally considered to be everyone’s birthday (this is another reflection of the communal nature of Chinese thinking), the day when everyone together grows one year older.

Each new year corresponds to an animal from the Chinese Zodiac, related to the Chinese calendar, and may tell the fortune and give the character of the coming year depending upon what particular animal corresponds to the new year.  There are twelve zodiac animal signs, which are:  rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep or goat, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig.  Note that there is also a cycle of the “Five Elements”—fire, earth, metal, wood, water—that runs on top of the animal cycle (see the Five Elements in glossary under “Lao Tzu”).  Thus, a person’s year sign may be a wood dragon, a fire rooster, etc.  Now, the elements are then combined with the binary yin/yang cycle (see yin/yang entry in glossary), which enlarges the element cycle to a cycle of ten; even years are yang, odd years are yin.  Since the zodiac animal cycle of twelve is divisible by two, every zodiac can occur in either yin or yang—this whole process is very complicated and I recommend that you consult the following website or other sources for further clarification: (www.encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Chinese%20New%20year.com ).   

The years of the most active period of the Cultural Revolution were as follows (animal and element):  1966=fire, horse; 1967=fire, goat; 1968=earth, monkey; 1969=earth, rooster.  Keep in mind that the Chinese calendar years do not correspond exactly to the Western calendar; for example, the Chinese year 1966 is from Jan. 21, 1966 to Feb. 8, 1967 in the Western calendar.  Notice, though, that 1966 and 1967, the first two years of the Cultural Revolution were fire (whose direction is south and color is red—the elements, remember, are metaphors and symbols for describing how things interact and relate to one another.  And certainly, the first two years of the CR can be accurately characterized as fire and red.

22. “Year of the Snake”, “Year of the Dragon” (p. 19):

Fan Shen remarks that according to Chinese legend dragons are the best fighters, and his friend “Baby Dragon’s” given name was “Long,” which means “dragon.”  Thus, he considered himself to be a born fighter and warrior, despite the fact that he was born in the “Year of the Snake” and not the “Year of the Dragon.”

The Chinese zodiac is made of up twelve animal signs, which are, in order: rat, ox, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep or goat, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig.  It is thought that each animal in the zodiac possesses a certain personality and thus endows those born under that sign with those traits and characteristics (e.g. Bruce Lee was born in the year of the dragon).  The dragon, for example, is the greatest of the zodiac, and possesses the symbolic significance of representing the Chinese nation, and a person born under the dragon is “proud, self-confident, smart and often egoistic; [they are] intelligent and strive for perfection in everything—from an aesthetically pleasing home to their partners in love, but most of all in their work,,,[thus]many famous artists, clergymen, and politicians are dragons” (www.chinatoday.com.cn/English/e2004/e200402/p56.htm, 8/27/04).

The snake is considered a very strong sign because, according to legend, the mythical half-human and half-snake brother and sister Fu Xi and Nu Ws produced the human race.  People born in this year are supposed to be wise, intuitive, soft-spoken, and deep thinkers.  Because snakes shed their skin, people born in this year often make changes in their lives and jobs.  They are fascinated with the unknown and are eager to try and learn everything; thus, such people are often great teachers, philosophers, writers, and psychiatrists (ibid.). (See link1
Fwww%2Enew%2Dyear%2Eco%2Euk%2Fchinese%2Fcalendar%2Ehtm&adurl= and http://www.c-c-c.org/chineseculture/zodiac/zodiac.html).

23. “Red Guard Grandpas” (p. 25):

To Western ears, this phrase may seem strange.  In Chinese culture, there exists a strong sense of filial piety and duty; thus the term “grandpa” here, which the interrogated man calls Whiskers, is one communicating great respect, deference, and submission—especially considering that Whiskers is a very young man and much younger than the man interrogated.  Remember, too, that filial piety, according to Confucius, was not restricted merely to the family relation, but extended outward as the basis for the entire social and political relation and structure (Ch’u Chai and Winberg Chai, 1962, pp. 74-83).

24. “Tiananmen Square” (p. 29):

Tiananmen Square is a huge, paved, plaza located near the center of Beijing in front of the Forbidden City (see glossary entry) and facing south.  “Tian’ammen” itself means, “The Heavenly Gate of Peace”, and is the principle gate to the Imperial Palace grounds, i.e. the Forbidden City, which is north of the square.  Inside the square are the 100 foot high “Monument to the People’s Heroes” and Mao’s Mausoleum, where he lies preserved, like Lenin in Moscow’s Red Square in the Soviet Union.

Tiananmen Square has been the site of a number of important protest movements, e.g. the May Fourth Movement of 1919 for science and democracy (and against the Versailles Treaty ending World War I), the great Red Guard meetings of Mao in 1966, the protests of 1976 over the government restriction on the public mourning of Zhou En-lai’s death, and most famously, the Tiananmen Protests of 1989 (www.encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/tiananmen%20square, 09/12/04).

The Tiananmen Massacre, for which the square is most known in the West, occurred on June 4, 1989, after two months of student protests and sit-ins held in the square.  The students were highly critical of the Party, the government, and were urgently calling for greater political liberties and democracy.  Unfortunately, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) entered the square in full combat gear along with tanks, and began shooting.  The square was cleared of protesters; hundreds were killed outright, and thousands were arrested.

Chinese pro-democracy activists and Western observers quickly condemned the actions of the Chinese government as brutal, unjustified, and most regrettable.  With the new technologies of instant global communication, e.g. the famous CNN broadcast, the world knew right away what was happening—who can forget the image of the line of tanks about to run over a lone protester?  China’s reputation worldwide suffered greatly as a result.  The Beijing government, though, said the use of force was absolutely necessary to crush what they called a ‘counter-revolutionary riot’ by thugs who hated the socialist system and were looting and killing thus prompting the government’s response (Li Yong Yan, http://www.worldpress.org/Asia/1867.cfm). (See also www.tsquare.tv/links/ for a list of resources)  Deng Xiaoping, summing up the situation, said “the key point is that the [demonstrators] wanted to overthrow the state and the party.  Failing to understand this means failing to understand the nature of the matter….Their goal was to establish a bourgeois republic entirely dependent on the West” (Beijing Review, July 10-16, 1989, p. 18).

Fifteen years after the Tiananmen Square incident, China’s democracy movement remains relatively quiet.  Some have questioned whether the pro-democracy movement of the late 1980’s had any positive effects at all.  However, the more open economic reforms of the 1990’s are at least partly attributable to the democracy movement, and the Party, too, has loosened control of agricultural cooperatives in the countryside.  The question is whether the economic reforms (“one government, two systems”) will tend to liberalize government control.  Only time will tell.

25. “The Communist Party” (p. 30):

The Communist Party (Chinese Communist Party or CCP) has been the ruling body of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) since its founding in 1949.  The Party is authoritarian in structure and ideology, and has dominated Chinese politics and society throughout the history of the PRC (although there were times during Mao’s rule when Mao himself clearly dominated).  However, in “periods of relative calm and liberalization, the influence of the people and organizations outside the formal party structure has tended to increase, particularly in the economic realm.” (http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Communist%20Party%20of%20china. 08/27/04) This phenomenon is readily apparent today, especially in the economically vibrant coastal areas, e.g. “one party, two [economic] systems” (capitalist and communist).  In other words, the policy is that China remains a “people’s democratic dictatorship,” under control of the CCP, but would nevertheless allow for certain capitalist entrepreneurial efforts and allow those undertaking such projects some voice in the Party.

In his book, Fan Shen tells his fellow Red Guard friends at their new headquarters that before they can “officially” begin each person must be assigned a good title:  “like the political bureau of the Communist Party.  We won’t be a proper revolutionary team without titles…” (Gang of One, pp. 30-31).  Fan makes an interesting and somewhat ironic reference because at this time Mao and the Red Guards were actually very critical of the anti-revolutionary and excessively bureaucratic elements within the Party.  Part of the revolutionary criticism of the Party, and of government and society in general, was the excessive emphasis upon expertise (red vs. expert) along with superfluous things like titles, which bred elitism and tend to give the holder a feeling of false self-importance, to the exclusion of proper “red” ideology and sentiment.  Thus, by insisting upon titles, Fan is poking fun at Mao.

The whole “red’ vs. “expert” controversy was a major issue between Mao and the Party.  Mao thought that bureaucracy, by nature, is static and favors the status quo.  Moreover, Mao noticed that the bureaucracy was growing rapidly and believed that, because of its inertia and connections to vested interests, it would need revolutionary change.

26. “38^th Parallel” (p.36):

After World War II, the Korean peninsula was divided between the Soviet and American occupation forces at the 38^th parallel, which, in 1948, became the border between the newly independent countries of North and South Korea.  On June 25, 1950, the communist North Koreans invaded South Korea and thus began the Korean War, lasting until July 27, 1953.  The North was backed by the Soviet Union, which sent weapons, supplies, and advisors, and China, which entered after U.S forces had succeeded in repelling the North’s initial invasion and crossed the 38^th parallel into North Korea.  The Chinese, completely surprising the Americans, pushed them back into South Korea.  South Korea, of course, was backed by the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and a host of other United Nations members who sent token forces.  After three years of intense fighting, the original border between the two nations was agreed upon, and an armistice was signed ending the war.  No formal treaty or resolution of the war was ever signed.

Fan Shen mentions the “38^th parallel,” referring to the border between his Red Guard team and the opposing Vanguard team, as an ironic reference to the border between North and South Korea, the most heavily defended border in the world.  To this day, North Korean and South Korean (along with American) troops continue to stare down one another and stand ready to fight.  The border between Fan’s “Great Wall” team and the “Mao’s Vanguards” was situated similarly, and taken just as seriously.

27. “Revolution”—“ge ming” (p. 42):

 In English, “revolution” has essentially three basic levels of meaning:  revolving, i.e., the motion of a body around a fixed point (an orbit); a large, complete, and fundamental change in something, e.g. social, cultural, or economic “revolution”; or a radical and violent change in the political system of a country (e.g. the French Revolution). 

Traditional Marxism, in its understanding of revolution, interjects the concept of “class struggle”, i.e., one class overcoming and superceding another class, such as the proletariat overcoming the bourgeoisie class (see glossary entry under “communism”).  In the Marxist mind, the movement of history is such that there is a transition from feudalism to capitalism, a revolution in which there emerges wholly new forces of production (e.g. the factory, technology, etc.) and exchange (e.g. stock market) thus undermining the power of the aristocracy and allowing for the emergence of a new dominant social class, the bourgeoisie (Meisner, 1999, p. 7).  Of course, the course of Chinese history was much different from the Western experience.  Most significantly, in China there was no social class connected with the new capitalist forces of production—China was a backward nation in tow to imperialist nations and no developed, independent bourgeoisie class existed.  Thus, the Chinese Communist revolution was unique.  It was based upon the Chinese peasants, who had the potential for political action, but needed the guidance, motivation, and organization of certain intellectual elites (Mao, for example).  In a sense, China could be said to have “skipped” the bourgeoisie stage in the Marxist progression of history—the revolution went directly from the feudal stage to the communist (see glossary under “communism”).

What, though, does “revolution” mean?  Interestingly, in China, as Liu Xiabo points out, the concept of “revolution” has a distinct, “holy” sense, a connotation of “sacred righteousness” that it lacks in its English understanding (http://www.tsquare.tv/themes/LiuXiaobo.html,08/28/04).  In the West, revolution has often been associated with justice and the protection of “natural rights” (e.g. “We hold these truths to be self-evident…” of the American Revolution, and “liberty, equality, fraternity” of the French Revolution), but it lacks the sense of sacredness and exaggerated holiness that it possesses in Chinese culture.  In its original, ancient sense in China, “revolution” meant a “mandate from heaven that a sovereign borrowed or accepted in order to usher in a new dynasty, [hence] the word carries a sense of the sacredness and justification associated with carrying out the will of heaven.  Looking at the composition of the word (ge ming), “ge” (the verb), means “to change”, “eliminate”, “remove”, “strip”; “ming”, then, means “life”, “destiny”, “law”, “heavenly mandate.”  Now, note that when combined, the phrase “ge ming” can mean either “social transformation” or “taking a [person’s] life” (ibid.).  Thus, in Chinese, the word “revolution” has the connotation of both a sacred righteousness of change with heavenly sanction, and the sense of violent killing (“chop life”).  It is no wonder that Mao seized upon the word, combining its Chinese and Marxist meanings, as a weapon and valuable instrument to further his political and ideological agenda. 

Fan Shen writes that the word “revolution” or “ge ming” meant literally, “chop life.”  This literal definition conveys the wanton destructiveness and brutality of the Revolution, as many of the experiences Fan describes in his book attest.  Now, again, the violence and destructiveness associated with the word has also the element of sacredness attached to it—thus we may get some understanding of how such atrocities could be committed.  Revolution at the same time implies “devotion, sacrifice, daring, fearlessness, idealism” and the “justice and reasonableness of profound hatred.”  Says Liu:

‘Revolution’ implies unyielding, uncompromising, intolerant, uncooperative qualities—a radical justice that shows no forgiveness; the more radical, the more extreme, the more absolute, the more revolutionary.  It is not possible for one’s faith to be shaken in any way.  “Revolution’ implies that to rebel is just, that individual’s actions pale in the sight of heaven when compared to actions done in the name of revolution.  No matter how cruel the behavior, how blind and unconsidered the action, how absurd the movement—if it can be termed revolutionary it becomes reasonable and can be carried out unscrupulously (ibid. http://www.tsquare.tv/themes/LiuXiaobo.html,08/28/04).

Given this definition of revolution, one can begin to understand how, for example, whiskers could act the way that he did, and how the crowds could act with such cruelty and disdain during the struggle rallies.

In Gang of One, Fan communicates his confusion regarding the Revolution and its course; he had thought that the revolution meant, “chopping the life of enemies like General Hei, [but] not the life of comrades,” as some of his Red Guard friends were being accused of revolutionary improprieties and arrested.  In fact, almost from the beginning, Fan expresses his confusion as to who exactly were revolutionary or antirevolutionary; good guys or bad guys.  Fan gives expression to his confusion nicely:  “revolution has a funny and strange way of turning comrades into enemies,” and the “Cultural revolution has begun to chop the lives of revolutionary Red Guards as quickly as it had the earlier capitalists.”  This Fan found most confusing about revolutions:  how could his parents, who were exemplary revolutionaries who served Mao faithfully during the darkest days of the civil war and the war against Japan, be considered counterrevolutionary?  Perhaps the confusion that Fan gives voice to is inherent in all revolutions, especially the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution given its tremendous breadth and scope, and that it combined politics, economics, religion, the arts, the behavior and beliefs of individuals—indeed, it affected the whole of human existence.  Moreover, the aims and targets of the Revolution were too broad and/or vaguely defined thus allowing the search for counterrevolutionaries to continue beyond the point to where there were no more left—then the Revolution began to eat its own.

28. “Confucius” (p. 50):

Confucius (Latin name for the Chinese, “K’ung Fu-tzu) was a Chinese scholar and philosopher who lived from approximately 551 B.C. to 478 B.C. and is considered to have influenced Chinese thought and culture more than any other single thinker.  His major work was the Analects (Lu Yu) or “discussions”, primarily a collection of conversations the Confucius had with his disciples on various topics.  According to Confucius, the Analects was to be used as a rulebook for life, the tenets of which all should obey (Frost, Jr., 1943, pp. 91-92).

Confucius, also known as the Sage or Master, lived in a time of tremendous political and social upheaval and disintegration.  As a result, Confucius turned his life to social reform and hoped that he could educate society and return a sense of morality to the people and thus calm the social turmoil.  Confucius, however, as a reformer, was conservative and looked the ancestral past for guidance.  In fact, many of Confucius’ central themes existed before his time and were present in the customs and practices of ancestral worship (though Confucius was not so concerned with religious content):  social harmony, that everyone has his/her place in society, and the extreme importance of the family as a unit.  Hence, Confucius was not a reformer for the new—he wanted primarily to restore and preserve the order and values of a former age.

Confucius believed the by nature human beings were essentially good, and that the turmoil of his day was due to people “forgetting” how to be good and not “practicing” how to be good.  In this sense, Confucius’ philosophy can be summed up as duty to oneself (to learn what is right) and practicing charity towards one’s neighbor (the golden rule).  This central tenet, then, might be extended more widely:

For the community to learn, or to remember, how to act with virtue requires active participation on the part of every individual.  Emphasis was placed upon political, social, and familial order of human life.   Order comes from doing, or “practicing”, what is right.  This is essential for every classification within a culture, because political groups affect society, social groups affect families, and families affect individuals.  The reciprocal, yet complimentary process is that the individual will affect their family, a family will affect society, and society will affect government.  Therefore, the contentment of humanity is dependent upon every individual and group acting in accord with virtue and righteousness (Jo-Gau Keith Worfel, http://www.wckfc.com/article/Analect/analect.htm). 

There are several principles which are central to Confucius’ teaching, as contained in the Analects (Lu Yu) and later writings of his disciples.  Some of the most important are the “tao” (or “way”), the “li” (the way things should be done, rules of propriety, etc.), the “jen” (humanity, goodness, oneness, benevolence), “te” (power, political power), and “yi” (rightness, acting according to what is right and fitting), the “principle of reciprocity”, and his teaching on the family (“hsiao”).  All of these concepts or principles work together to form a comprehensive whole way of living for the individual and hence for the family, state, and society.  For Confucius, there was not the rigid distinction between the individual and society/state that exists in Western philosophy.

The “tao” (or the “path,” or “way”; see glossary entry under “Lao Tzu”), for Confucius, referred to the ideal way of life as well as the teachings about that way of life.  In Confucius’ mind, the ideal is not some fixed, eternal, transcendent principle standing outside and above life and events and determining them.  Rather, the “way” can be affected and directed by human thought and action—“It is man that can make the Way great,” says Confucius (Moore and Bruder, 1995, pp. 334-38).  In Gang of One, we witness Fan Shen embody this ideal throughout his book as he struggles to determine his “way” in a time of extreme turmoil and amidst a host of obstacles—Fan never gives up, or gives in to “fate” or “destiny” during his journey.

Confucius is well-known for the notion of “jen” (or “ren”), which is basically the all-encompassing ethical ideal meaning “humaneness”, “benevolence”, or “goodness.”  For Confucius, there are external virtues such as “li” (ritual, rules of propriety, etiquette, and politeness in everyday life towards others), but the motivation underneath to act is the “jen.”  This is summed up in Confucius’ classic saying, “Do not do unto others what you would not like them to do unto you.”  Notice that Confucius’ version of the Golden Rule is the negative form of the Christian, “Do unto others what you would have them do unto you”—which seems to be a more positive call to action.  In any case, “jen” possesses a political meaning as well, and lies at the basis of what can be called a Confucian political theory:  “it presupposes an aristocratic ruler, who is then exhorted to refrain from acting inhumanely towards his subjects” (“Confucianism” at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucianism).  Furthermore, if a ruler neglects his “jen”, his humanity, he risks losing his right to rule—his “mandate from heaven” (see glossary entry under “revolution”), and such a ruler need not be obeyed.  Confucius is certainly not proclaiming a right of revolution by any means, but his concept of the “jen” does mean that on the individual level one is to do what is right and one needs to possess an attitude of humanity towards others; when the ruler or state commands one to act contrary to rightness, one need not obey.  We see this sort of thinking in Fan Shen after he witnesses the cruelty and confusion created by the Cultural Revolution, and he wonders about Mao’s “mandate”—given Mao’s actions, is he truly the “Great Leader” and “Great Helmsman” deserving of respect and obedience?

The teachings of Confucius, though still popular, have had a difficult time of it in China over the past century at the hands of intellectuals and the government.  Beginning with the New Culture Movement (1915-1919), composed primarily of intellectuals calling for the total destruction of traditions and of the past in favor of modern science and democracy, to the establishment of the Communist regime in 1949 and through the Cultural Revolution, Confucian teachings have been condemned as a relic of the past.  During the Cultural Revolution, Confucius’ teachings were repudiated and condemned as one of the “four olds” (old culture, old habits, old customs, old thinking) and considered to be backward and a drag upon developing a new, revolutionary order of society.  Especially troublesome from the view of Mao and the communists was Confucius’ teachings regarding the family.  For Mao and the Communist regime, “family” was to mean “Party”, and loyalty must be first and foremost directed to the party, its policies, and the teachings of the Great Leader.  This policy, of course, was divisive and destructive of the family, witness the sense of fear, suspicion, and distrust visited upon Fan’s family by the Cultural Revolution (Gang of One, p. 46, 56, 66).

29. “Leo Tolstoy” (p. 50):

Count Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) was a Russian novelist, thinker, and social critic, whose greatest novels—War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877)—are world famous and considered to be among the greatest of all time.  War and Peace is especially highly regarded, as it paints a panorama of Russian society (over 5,000 characters!), at all levels, during the Napoleonic Wars, and treats historical, social, ethical, and religious issues on a scale never before attempted in literature.

30. “Anton Chekhov” (p. 50):

Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) was an acclaimed author of short stories and a master of the theatrical tragic-comedy—he is probably best known for his full-length play, The Seagull (1896).  He once said that “the business of fiction is telling the truth” (www.mockingbird,creighton.edu/NCW/chekleg.htm, 09/03/04).

31. “Journey to the West” (p. 52):

Fan Shen refers to this famous work of Classical Chinese literature several times in his book (p. 50, 61).  The novel was published anonymously in the 1590’s, though it has been ascribed to the scholar Wu Cheng’en.  Journey to the West tells the story of a spiritual quest to India by a Chinese Buddhist monk, Xuan Yang, to obtain certain spiritual scriptures not available in China.  He takes along with him three companions, the Pig-Monster, the River-Monster, and the Monkey-King—all of whom have agreed to help the monk along the way so that they may “atone for past sins”.

The novel is divided into two parts:  the first tells the early history of the Monkey-King, a mischievous spirit who, at his birth, sprang forth out of a rock.  He loathes obeying any authority and ends up defying the “Jade Emperor,” who rules heaven, earth, sea, and the underworld.  After conflict with the Jade Emperor’s Heavenly Army, the Monkey-King grows stronger and cleverer.  Not knowing what to do, the Jade Emperor asks the Buddhist monk for help, and he offers to make the Monkey-King a disciple and the Monkey-King, along with the Pig-Monster and the River-Monster, agree to help the monk on his travels.  Along their journey, they are confronted by eighty-one dangers that help to develop the hidden abilities and powers of the travelers (www.encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Journey%20to%20the%20West).

Originally part of folk-legend, the Monkey-King has emerged as one of the most popular figures in all of Chinese literature and is known for his irrepressible, irreverent, comical, and renegade personality—many commentators have compared him to the American “Bugs Bunny” (www.themysterybox.com/Features/monkey/).  Fan Shen remarks that, in his personal rebellion against the Great Leader, he often thought of himself as a “monkey battling the omniscient Jade Emperor.”  The fearless and mischievous free spirit of the monkey appealed to Fan, and some parallels might be drawn.  Throughout his journey, Fan is certainly tested, as was the party of four in the Journey to the West, and Fan uses the tale of the Monkey-King and the Jade Emperor as an inspiration to continue his struggle against the oppression of the Cultural Revolution.

It is interesting to note, however, that in the early stages of the Cultural Revolution, Mao (the “Jade Emperor”!) himsef appealed to the Chinese sentiment of rebellion given expression in the Monkey-King, in order to portray the “spirit of defiance” in the Red Guards:

Revolutionaries are Monkey Kings, their golden rods are powerful…and their magic omnipotent, for they possess Mao Tse-Tung’s invincible thought.  We wield our golden rods, display our supernatural powers, and use our magic to turn the old world upside down, smash it  to pieces, pulverize it, create chaos, and make a tremendous mess, the bigger the better!” (Milton and Milton, 1979, p. 401-02)

32. “Stendahl”, “The Red and the Black” (p. 52):

“Stendahl” was the pen name of Henri Beyle (1783-1842), the French author of the novel, The Red and the Black 1830 and The Charterhouse of Parma (1839).  He was known for his realistic style of novel, offering penetrating insight into the individual and the individual’s alienation from his/her environment. The main character of Stendahl’s novel, The Red and the Black, Julien Sorel, appeals to Fan Shen because of Julien’s passion and unwavering desire to pursue knowledge and drive for success so as to ascend from his place of birth and appointed fate (see Gang of One, p. 153).  Fan’s book chronicles his journey to escape his appointed fate during the Cultural Revolution and beyond in order to finally reach the United States, an environment where he may realize his personal ambition and aspirations.

33. “Jack London”, “Martin Eden” (p. 52):

Jack London (1876-1916) was an American novelist and short story writer best known for his realistic and vivid adventure stories set in the wilderness (e.g. The Call of the Wild, White Fang, etc.).  His novel, Martin Eden, is about a young writer who struggles very hard, without aid or encouragement, to get published (http://www.encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Martin%20Eden).   Martin Eden, along with The Red and the Black, were taped under Fan’s bed and served as inspirations for his personal struggle against fate and environment.

34. “The Red Army” (p. 53):

Fan writes that Mao, in an attempt to quiet the growing factionalism and fighting among the various Red Guard units, appeals to the “spirit of the old Red Army”, announcing that, “From now on…China will become one big barrack and everyone will be a Red soldier” (Gang of One, p.53).

The “Red Army” (not to be confused with the Red Army of the Soviet Union) was the original name of the present People’s Liberation Army (PLA), and was established on August 1, 1927, becoming the PLA after the end of the Civil War and the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Red_Army).  

The spirit and the sacrifices of the Red Army during the Civil War and the war against the Japanese are legendary.  Such spirit no doubt stemmed from the fact that the “great mass of the Red soldiery was made up of young peasants and workers who believed themselves to be fighting for their home, their land, and their country” (Snow, 1968, p. 258).  Mao, as the Cultural Revolution progressed, hoped to reinvigorate this sense of fighting for a common cause in his Red Guard movement, which had become too extreme in their violence and in-fighting.

35. “The Little Red Book” (pp. 57, 59):

At the huge meeting of Chairman Mao with a million Red Guards at Tiananmen Square that Fan describes, the crowd is waving their “Little Red Books” and joyously singing quotations from it as they patiently wait for their Great Leader to appear.  The Quotations from Chairman Mao, or The Little Red Book, was undoubtedly the “Bible” of the Chinese Cultural Revolution; indeed, as of the mid-1990s, in total sales it ranks second only to the Bible worldwide. 

The Little Red Book is a collection of Mao’s aphorisms and writings on a variety of topics, e.g. “the Communist Party”, “People’s War”, “Unity”, “Women”, “Study”, etc.  The book was actually compiled prior to the Cultural Revolution, around 1960, by Mao’s Minister of Defense, Lin Biao.  The book was part of Lin Biao’s (and Mao’s) campaign to turn the People’s Liberation Army into a “great school of Mao’s thought” that would then eventually “educate the entire nation” and in the process “deify” Mao and his thought (Meisner, 1999, pp.280-81).  The books slogans would be committed to memory by millions of Chinese, and helped to launch and solidify the “cult of Mao” which emerged during the Revolution.

36. “Jade Emperor” (p. 61):

Here, again, Fan Shen refers to the classic Chinese novel, The Journey West, and he assigns the character of the Jade Emperor to Chairman Mao as he foreshadows his coming struggles.  Fan often compares himself and his situation to that of the Monkey-King (see glossary entry of “The Journey West”), whom the Jade Emperor tries to subdue in a variety ways.

37.  “Does the road wind uphill all the way?

         Yes, to the very end.”

                     --“Christina Rossetti”                       

               “2. Earth” (p. 63):

Fan Shen begins his second section, “Earth”, with a line of the English poet, Christina Rossetti (1830-1894) from her poem, “Uphill”, which uses a simple wayfarer’s question to symbolize the struggle that all humans face on their life’s journey.  Fan’s struggle, too, especially in the “Earth” section, was uphill.

38. “Spring Festival” (p. 68):

The “Spring Festival” is another name for the Chinese New Year (see entry under “Chinese New Year”).  The Chinese New Year is commonly known as the Spring Festival simply because it starts from the beginning of spring according to the Chinese calendar—which is not so simple!

39. “Plato’s Philosopher-kings” (p. 69):

Fan Shen likens his friend, Smoking Devil, who has a philosophical nature, to one of Plato’s “philosopher-kings” in his Republic.  Plato was a Greek philosopher (427-347 B.C.), and a student of Socrates (470-399 B.C.), the founder of Western philosophy.  Most of Plato’s writings (Socrates left no writings), including the Republic, are in the dialogue form, i.e. conversations, in which Socrates is the main character in the given dialogue. 

Now, a central theme of the Republic has to do with the convergence of political power and philosophy; that is, Socrates (or Plato speaking through Socrates?—an intriguing question with the dialogue form is its relationship with the author; just what is the author’s view as opposed to each of the individual characters participating in the dialogue?) asserts that the city (or state) will not be cured of ills until the philosophers become rulers (Republic, 473b-e).  In other words, the nature of the matter is such that it requires philosophers, who alone have the wisdom necessary to see and understand ideals and concepts such as justice, right and wrong, good and bad, etc., to rule—to possess political power.   Only if philosophers rule will the standards of justice be put into practice and a truly good and just political order constructed (in the Republic the participants—or interlocutors—of the dialogue are constructing a just city in speech so that they may see more clearly what justice itself is).  One wonders to what extent Mao thought of himself as a philosopher-king—is it dangerous for a philosopher to hold political power?   

40. “Yin-Yin”; “Yang-Yang” (Yin and Yang) (p. 74):

Fan Shen refers to twin girls, who he dubs “Yin-Yin” and “Yang-Yang.”  Though as twins they shared the same face, they seemed to be totally opposite in temperament and disposition—Yin Yin, meaning “cloudy,” was always sullen and never smiled while Yang Yang, meaning “sunny,” “talked and laughed incessantly, as if she were trying to make up for her sister’s deficiencies” (Gang of One, p. 74). 

The following brief summary of the concept(s) of Yin and Yang, by M. Gunes of Ankara, Turkey, quoted in full, is the best I have yet come across:

YIN/YANG