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Authors: Geremie Barme

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Shades of Mao: The Posthumous Cult of the Great Leader (39 page)

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Page 121
A Specter Prowls Our Land
Sun Jingxuan
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, during the nationwide reaction against Mao's rule and the Cultural Revolution, a number of powerful attacks were made on the Mao cult. These included the following poem by Sun Jingxuan.
Begun in 1979, Sun published this poem in early 1981. After the Party launched a purge of the arts, he was obliged to write a self-criticism in which he said: "In exposing and criticizing feudalism [a code word for Mao, the personality cult and autocracy in general], my viewpoint was totally incompatible with the ideology of the proletariat. Although I sought in this poem to oppose feudalism, I was in fact promulgating and advocating bourgeois liberalism and human rights. . . ."
Those who do not remember the past are condemned to relive it.
George Santayana
1
Oh my brothers! Have you seen
The specter prowling our land?
Brothers! Do not call
Our land fair, our skies bright,
While this specter,
like a gust of wind,
like a wisp of smoke,
Prowls unencumbered o'er our land:
Swaggers into peasant's hut,
Struts into herdsman's yurt;
Issues orders, revels in pride,
Like Great Caesar of Ancient Rome,
Grasps the destiny of us all;
And any thing we have is granted by its spectral whim.

 

Page 122
Brothers! Have you seen
The specter prowling our land?
In this century, this Nuclear Age,
To talk of specters seems absurd
But it's the truththe terrible and tragic truth!
This specter,
like a gust of wind,
like a wisp of smoke,
Prowls unencumbered o'er our land;
Trails like a shadow,
Clutches with invisible claws,
Silently sucks blood and marrow,
Dictates every action, controls every thought;
Tramples on dignity,
Destroys the quest for beauty, the yearning for love.
The slightest hint
And you are locked away for years
in some dark and gloomy prison-cell!
This specter decrees death,
posthumous humiliation,
Or tolerates a life of vexatious vegetation.
You are, then, spectral slave and spectral subject,
Without the right to cry out in protest.
Brothers! Have you seen
The specter prowling our land?
You may not recognize him,
though he stands before your eyes,
For like a conjurer,
master of never-ending transformation,
One moment in dragon-robe of gold brocade
He clasps the dragon-headed scepter,
The next in courtier's gown
He swaggers through the palace halls;
And nowbeholda fresh veneer!
The latest fashion! And yet
No mask, no costume, no disguise
Can hide the coiled dragon
branded on his naked rump.
BOOK: Shades of Mao: The Posthumous Cult of the Great Leader
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