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January 28, 2001
It is very pleasing to find another source of information about the Chinese Cultural Revolution.
I have read many of the titles suggested and have found many more on your site. As some of the titles
are out of print, does anyone know of a source of secondhand books may may well have copies in stock?
I live in Spain, but could easily purchase from other countries.
I cannot see the title mentioned, but I can strongly recommend the excellent biography of
Mao Ze Dong written by his personal physician, Dr. Li Zhi Sui, The Private Life of Chairman Mao, Random
House, N.Y., 1994.
Incidentally, for the interest of any Spanish speaking readers, some of the titles have been
translated and are available in Spain. These include:
- Life and Death in Shanghai, by Nien Cheng, translated as La Dama de Shanghai
- Wild Swans, Three Daughters of China, translated as Los Cisnes Salvages
- El Libro negro del comunismo, Ed. Planeta 1998, Espasa 1998. Translated from the French Le
livre noir du communisme, terreur, represion, by Stephane Courtois and others. Ed. Robert Laffont, Paris, 1997.
Kind regards,
-CARL R. HALL
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December 6, 2000
I'd like to recommend Red Azalea by Annchi Min, a great account from a young woman's point of view, especially
about film in China and being a sent down youth.
-KEVIN P. STOUT
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August 30, 2000
I wonder what the entire 10 year Cultural Revolution did to the psyche of the Chinese
people. The entire family unit was under attack. Children often could not be
trusted and they exhibited so much violence. I can understand why so few will talk about
their experience. What became of those who used thuggery and torture to prove their allegiance
to Mao Thought? It is a generation lost.
-PETER SULLIVAN
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July 22, 2000
Thank you for all the other suggestions I found on your site and for the photos.
I would also like to suggest a few biographies that may be of interest to anyone studying the Cultural Revolution
- Jan Wong: Red China Blues, Transworld Publishers, 1996
- Wu Ningkun: A Single Tear, Hodder and Stoughton, 1993
- Adeline Yen Mah: Falling Leaves, Penguin Books, 1997
- Ting-xing Ye: A Leaf in the Bitter Wind, Bantam Books, 1997
- Meihong Xu and Larry Engelmann: Daughter of China, Headline Book Publishing, 1999
-CARAGH WILK, If anyone would like to contact me, here is my email address
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April 26, 2000
I would like to recommend a personal memoir, Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution by Jiang Ji-li.
-KELLEY HUNT
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March 18, 2000
I would like to recommend Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China (Doubleday, 1991) written by Jung Chang.
This is a wonderful personal history of her family from the 1870's to the present. It includes the fall of the
imperial system, Mao's rise to power, and Deng Xiaoping's reforms all set to her family's point of view.
-MARY ANN UMSTOT
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February 16, 2000
I think that Mao Zedong indeed caused lots of suffering among the Chinese in China during the Cultural Revolution and after it as well.
Many people had a bad ending.
China is still under communist rule. I don't think this type of rule is suitable for China. China could prosper if it changed to democratic
rule. Under communist rule, the Chinese masses do not have as much freedom to participate in the economic progress. They call each other comrades, but what is the use of that? The people in China do not have as high
a standard of living as Singaporeans. The average monthly pay in China is the equivalent to 200 Singapore dollars. They can merely feed themselves
with such a meagre sum.
-OH CHEE YONG, SINGAPORE
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May 11, 1999
Have you thought about the personality cult built around Mao? Both of my parents were Red Guards at the time of the Cultural Revolution, and they tell me that he had been a god-like figure. He was the most beloved and respected
leader, everyone adored him. He was also charismatic. To reach his goals, he did not "effecuate change" through the use of arms, but through the force of persuasion.
The fear and terror he created was unimagineable. You wouldn't want to say anything against Mao or you would be accused of being counter-revolutionary, a captalist-roader, or conspiring with capitalists. I mean that kind of thinking
in our current society is just absurd. But the main thing is that Mao knew that the students would be easy to manipulate, they had grown up under Mao's guidance. Mao was their guardian, so when Mao intiated the campaign, everyone
queued up to joing the Red Guards. If you were rejected, if would've been devastated. Teenagers have the inclination to belong to a peer group. They were also
indoctrinated to think that obeying Mao was their purpose in life.
The Red Guards were prone to use violence, they were fearless, and had an instinct to fight for what they thought was a just cause. Well, I think this was a very, very tragic era in Chinese history. Being Chinese myself, I fell ashamed,
in some way, of this particular episode. My parents are bitter about. Not only were the cadres tortured, or victims of the CR in some way, but in fact, a whole generation was destroyed, lost - the students, the young.
My grandfather was denounced during the CR, but he never talked about it much, he passed away, so it's too late for me to learn his story directly from him. My father refuses to talk about it as does my mother. I think that period of their lives will
always haunt them, but I also think that I may never fully comprehend what they went through.
-KATHY LIU
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March 31, 1998
I would like to introduce a new memoir of the Cultural Revolution that I authored: Thirty Years in a Red House, A Memoir of Childhood and Youth in Communist China. Judith Shapiro and Ross Terrill have both commented favorably on my book. You can learn more about the book at: http://www.umass.edu/umpress/f97w98/zhu.html
-ZHU XIAO DI
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October 31, 1997
A very minor aspect of the Cultural Revolution, but one significant to
Westerners, is the degree to which Westerners (leftists, that is) excused
the personality cult, the destruction of culture, the persecution of
so-called class enemies, the disruption of education, and the crippling
of production for the sake of the advancement of "justice" and "progress"
and "the Revolution." William Hinton comes to mind as a leading culprit.
I think the phenomenon is really just another kind of Orientalism, in
which Asians are seen as not being suited for liberty, prosperity, and
efficiency (the sine qua non of prosperity). Western leftists didn't
mind if millions of Chinese suffered persecution and death as long as it
resulted in a credible threat to capitalism and liberal government and
bolstered the prestige of leftists everywhere. It is remarkable that
these leftists are still around, still unrepentant for the catastrophes
to which they have contributed.
I would add to the literature you recommend Zheng Yi's Scarlet Memorial:
Cannibalism in the Cultural Revolution. In his conclusions he sees two
Cultural Revolutions, one a coup unleashed by Mao Zedong against his
party rivals, the other a rebellion by the masses against the seventeen
years of misery under Communist rule from 1949 to 1966. But the most
illuminating book I have read is Jasper Becker's Hungry Ghosts, about the
famine that followed the so-called Great Leap Forward. It is not a
book about the Cultural Revolution, but the enormous suffering of tens of
millions for year after year seem to me to provide the psychic fuel that
ignited the conflagration. I have never found any analysis of the GPCR
that explained the depth of passions it engaged. The misery of the
famine provides that depth, even if it did not seem to be the cause of
their passions to the people at the time. Zheng Yi was approaching that
view with his idea that the GPCR was a revolt against the seventeen
years, and I would be interested in hearing his ideas about the role of
the famine as a cause of the GPCR.
Other recommendations: The Road To Serfdom, by Friedrich Hayek, which
has a good discussion of why the worst people rise to the top in a
socialist society; Socialism, by Ludwig von Mises, which explains why
socialism inevitably results in poverty.
-WGC@mdbe.com
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June 17, 1997
"You have a great site on the Cultural Revolution - I love seeing all the old artifacts, although I don't like the narrative, keep up the good work."
-"PINKO"
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June 4, 1997
"Your page entitled "Artifacts from the Cultural Revolution" is informative and well designed. However, I regret that your pronouncements on the Cultural Revolution are so unequivocally grim. In the interest of maintaining a modicum of intellectual balance, why not include the following in your 'analytic texts' section?"
A History of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Jean Daubier: 1974, Random House
"The book is of interest to anyone looking to grasp thoroughly the nature of the Cultural Revolution, and is as scholarly a work as any of those already listed on your site. Daubier's treatment is unique in that is addresses the Cultural Revolution as much as a struggle of ideology as of politics."
-RAMSI WOODCOCK
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