Shades of Mao: The Posthumous Cult of the Great Leader (89 page)

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Authors: Geremie Barme

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

BOOK: Shades of Mao: The Posthumous Cult of the Great Leader
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Page 275
choosing such a title I thought I might be able to show how hard I have struggled to understand Mao.
Notes
1. Pu Dahua, a Red Guard leader at the same school, gave these details in his 1995 interview with Sang Ye. From Sang Ye, "Piandi yingxiong xia xiyan: Weidade 1966," unpublished interview transcript. The Qinghua Middle School students formally adopted the name "Red Guards" at what they called the "Yuanmingyuan Meeting" in the former Summer Palace near their school, on 29 May 1966. Mao expressed support for the students in a letter addressed to them in August that year.
2. See Zhang Chengzhi,
Huiminde huangtu gaoyuan: Zhang Chengzhi huizu xiaoshuo;
also Zhang Chengzhi, "Hanwula-haote," pp. 636-37, for further evidence of his devotion to Mao in the early 1970s.
3. See Yin Hongbiao, "Rendao zhongniande `Hongweibing' shidai," p. 39. The Five Great Leaders (
wuda lingxiu
) were: Nie Yuanzi, Kuai Dafu, Han Aijing, Wang Dabin and Tan Houlan (deceased).
4.
Mao zhuxi rang women zhangquan; Deng Xiaoping rang women zhengqian.
5. For another view by a famous ex-Red Guard writer in exile published about the same time as this essay, see Zheng Yi, "Miandui yidapian jingshen feixu," pp. 56-57.
6. This is a conflation of comments that Mao made to Central and Beijing municipal leaders in mid 1966.
7. See "Liezhuan di shijiu: Ruan Ji," in Fang Xuanlin, et. al,
Jin shu,
vol. 3,
juan
49, p. 1361.
8. See "Zuo Zhou Huang liezhuan di wushiyi: Huang Qiong," in Fan Ye,
Houhan shu,
vol. 3,
juan
61, p. 2031.
9. For the full Chinese text of this letter, see Mao Zedong, "Mao Zedong gei Jiang Qingde xin, 1966 nian 7 yue 8 ri," pp. 55-56.

 

Page 276
The Specter of Mao Zedong
Liu Xiaobo
A social and political critic of no fixed abode, Liu Xiaobo, one of China's most outspoken dissidents, was, like so many of his fellows, banned from publishing in China after 4 June 1989. Jailed after the Beijing Massacre, Liu was released from police custody in 1991 and started writing occasional articles for the Hong Kong and Taiwan press. At about the same time that Li Jie undertook his lengthy critique of Mao on the Mainland, Liu Xiaobo wrote a denunciation of Mao published in Hong Kong in November 1988. In it he said:
Seen solely within the context of Chinese history, Mao Zedong was undoubtedly the most successful individual of all. Nobody understood the Chinese better; no one was more skillful at factional politics within the autocratic structure; no one was more cruel and merciless; none more chameleon-like. Certainly, no one else would have portrayed himself as a brilliant and effulgent sun.
1
Liu wrote the following essay about Mao and China's post-Deng scenario in late 1994 when speculation about the post-Deng era was rife.
Liu's analysis of post-4 June politics is somewhat simplistic, as are his comments on figures like He Xin. Nonetheless, his view of the MaoCraze and its popular appeal is representative of some of the more thoughtful public critics of the Party in China.
The specter of Mao Zedong has continually haunted Deng Xiaoping and his Open Door and Reform policies. The specter of Mao doesn't simply inform the attitudes of the Maoists
2
among the Party leadership, it also has a mass following among the people. On this issue those at the top and those at the bottom [of society] are united: they deploy Mao Zedong to oppose Deng's Reforms. The spirit of Mao is the most powerful weapon in the arsenal of Maoists in the upper echelon [of the Party]. Mao is also the symbol that the

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