Read Shades of Mao: The Posthumous Cult of the Great Leader Online

Authors: Geremie Barme

Tags: #History, #Asia, #China, #Literary Criticism, #Asian, #Chinese, #Political Science, #Political Ideologies, #Communism; Post-Communism & Socialism, #World, #General, #test

Shades of Mao: The Posthumous Cult of the Great Leader (45 page)

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Page 140
The Mao Phenomenon:
A Survivor's Critique
Li Jie
Li Jie, a Shanghai-based cultural critic, wrote a lengthy study of Mao Zedong in early 1989 from which the following excerpts are taken. This idiosyncratic but thought-provoking article was published in
A Hundred Schools (Baijia),
a controversial Anhui journal banned following 4 June 1989. Li Jie's critique was daring even for the pre-4 June era of outspokenness.
Readers familiar with the work of the U.S.-based academic Lung-kee Sun, author of
The `Deep Structure' of Chinese Culture (Zhongguo wenhuade "shenceng jiegou")
which had such an impact in China in the early to mid 1980s, may see something of Sun's style here. Psychoanalytic and cultural anaylsis of Mao was a feature of important early Western studies by academics like Richard H. Solomon and Lucian W. Pye.
1
Perhaps the only comparable critique of Mao by a younger Mainland writer was published in Hong Kong by Liu Xiaobo, one of Li Jie's
bêtes noires,
in late 1988.
2
Both Li and Liu's writings on Mao are suffused with the venomous angernot to mention the overweening self-importanceof ill-tempered and unfilial sons resentful of a patriarch whose influence lives on beyond the grave. Or, as Li Jie puts it: "It is obvious that the Chinese father complex is not one that leads to patricide but merely to jealousy of the father figure."
This excerpt from Li Jie is followed by two denunciations published in the post-89 purge. It is also instructive to read Li Jie in juxtaposition to He Xin's pro-Mao palaver. Interestingly, Li Jie's highly negative evaluation of the contemporary Chinese character is essentially the same as that made by He Xin elsewhere.
3
Although the Mao Zedong phenomenon is a historical fact it is not merely a historical phenomenon, it is also a cultural phenomenon as well as being a phenomenon with psychological, linguistic, political, and even eco-

 

Page 141
nomic, military, literary, philosophical, as well as physiological and anthropological dimensions. Our understanding of it also depends on how far a study of the phenomenon goes. I merely want to make the point here that the Mao phenomenon is one with a very broad and rich ambit. Yet I feel that it is up to others to define and explicate its contents and ramifications more thoroughly. I can thereby save myself some effort and say that, for me, the study of the phenomenon of Mao Zedong is no more than an academic exercise that may or may not interest others.
For a nation like China, one that has already put so much work into creating
The Dream of the Red Chamber
studies and Lu Xun studies,
4
it would be woeful if we fail to develop "Mao studies." It is quite possible that the establishment of Mao studies will be of the greatest significance and value to the Chinese and to Chinese history. Naturally, this will not merely be limited to its scientific relevance.
In terms of both scale and time, the Chinese have already put a great deal into the study of Mao's
Selected Works.
But just how many people can really say they understand Mao Zedong? And that goes for people who knew Mao personally. Rather than blaming this ignorance on low IQs, I would say it has more to do with the linguistic fog that Mao shrouded himself in, both intentionally and unintentionally. His works, pronouncements, thought, and action created a veritable magnetic field that drew countless Chinese in; once inside this field of attraction, no one could really unravel the mysteries of it. No matter how learned or capable a person was, as soon as that person entered this force field, he or she was blinded as to its true significance. It was as though the individual had entered a mysterious cave. Mao has mesmerized many scholars who have attempted to study him. . . . To understand Mao, therefore, we have to break free of the force field, only then can we develop a scientific and rational attitude toward Mao; only then can we regain our awareness and innate sensitivity. There are many ways of breaking free of the Mao force field. In this study I employ two methods that are presently very popular although little applied to Mao: modern psychology and comparative cultural studies. These two methods will allow me to make Mao into a Chinese once more, albeit a very rare type of Chinese. He suffers many of the particular deficiences of the Chinese. These are things that no non-Chinese specialist could understand even after a lifetime of work. Only with the aid of a Chinese who has experienced Chinese reality can an outside observer adequately explain and analyze this "Chinese ugliness." I am just such a Chinese. . . .
There is a perfect symmetry between the structure of the Chinese family and the style of Chinese politics. The "emperor's art," as it is called, is divided into the Way of the Hegemon and the Way of the King, the two are

 

Page 142
mutually complementary. In the family, the father and mother serve a similar role, complementing each other: the father rules with an iron fist and the mother through kindness; the former is the unyielding
yang,
the latter the passive
yin.
The father is tough and resolute, the mother moderate and mild. The parallels between the family and the government are particularly obvious in post-1949 politics with Mao Zedong playing the father to Zhou Enlai's mother. It was as though this particular political marriage was made in heaven. . . .
Because of the symmetry between the family and political life, the Chinese obsession with rejecting the father and loving the mother has acquired a particular cultural significance. Despite the fact that it can at times pair off into a relationship like that between Mao and Zhou, in general, the father-mother relationship is like the two sides of a coin. In China, father-hating often expresses itself in terms of the peasant rebellion [against the father/emperor]. Such rebelliousness is completely irrational and seeks only its own gratification, the negation and overthrowing of everything. It relies on personal whim as its sole standard for the evaluation of good and evil. Superficially, such rebels appear to be individually rejecting, as they do, all authority and always ready to be iconoclastic. In reality, they are, without exception, worshippers of the very things they wish to oppose and overthrow. Following every rebellion, victorious rebels invariably re-create what they had set out to destroy. It's all like a rehearsal of Ah Q's revolution. The successful Ah Q simply replaces [his overlord] Master Zhao. The defeated Master Zhao then becomes another Ah Q. The revolution fails, therefore, to eliminate either Ah Q or Master Zhao.
5
It is obvious that the Chinese father complex is not one that leads to patricide but merely to jealousy of the father figure. This most often expresses itself in a desire to rebel and replace the father.
If we are to say that Mao Zedong was China's greatest rebel then we must also admit that he was the most typical of all Chinese father-haters, or a man jealous of his father. At about the same time as he was speaking with Edgar Snow [in the 1930s about his unhappy relationship with his father], Mao penned that famous poem:
But alas! Qin Shihuang and Han Wudi
Were lacking in literary grace,
And Tang Taizong and Song Taizu
Had little poetry in their souls;
And Genghis Khan,
Proud Son of Heaven for a day,
Knew only shooting eagles, bow outstretched.
All are past and gone!

 

Page 143
For truly great men
Look to this age alone.
6
The tone is self-confident and heroic, certainly, but it also reveals a deep admiration and jealousy. Here was the peasant boy listing all of the major father figures of Chinese history, leaving the last and most glorious position, however, for himself. There is a grand boldness of vision all right, but behind that vision lurks an ugly cultural pettiness. Grand or petty, it is a typical example of the Chinese obsession with the father. . . .
This obsession is, at its root, an expression of a mother-complex. The Chinese hate the father who takes the form of ruling emperor, but they cleave to the idea of the mother lode, an autocratic system and feudal culture, a nurturing womb for the emperor. . . . The Chinese yearn for the earth just as, in political-psychological terms, they yearn for the ruler. The Motherland is always depicted in the most ravishing, feminine terms. Similarly, for the Chinese, a good emperor is a caring, beneficent and warm figure, not a cold, serious, distant, and harsh ruler. Although the emperor is a father figure, the Chinese invariably idealize him so he becomes a mother-substitute. . . .
The secret of Mao's success lies in the fact that he created a belief system for the masses and launched a grand enterprise. The victorious Mao combined the elements of Sage-ruler (based on a belief system) with that of the political hero (realized through his autocracy). He reached a pinnacle of success unprecedented in the thousands of years of Chinese history. The power of belief cannot be underestimated. Qin Shihuang, Han Wudi, Tang Taizu, and Song Taizu all enjoyed periods of ultimate power,
7
but which of them became a popular god? Mao's success was, primarily, the success of the masses' belief in him. . . .
The greatest secret of Mao Zedong's success lies in the understanding of the Chinese that he shared with Lu Xun.
8
Whereas Lu Xun used his insight to criticize the Chinese, Mao utilized the weaknesses of the Chinese to further his own Mao-style revolution. . . .
The decade-long Cultural Revolution is often described as a period during which Chinese killed Chinese, or Communists fought Communists. It would be more precise, however, to say that it was a mêlée in which Mao Zedong became entangled with Mao Zedong. This is because, by 1966, the Chinese could only think Mao Zedong Thought; they had suffered a complete stupefaction of their own thought processes. Hundreds of millions of people were turned into clones of Mao himself. They all believed they belonged to Mao, regardless of whether they were rebelling against the authorities or protecting the powerholders, regardless of whether they de-
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