The Cultural Revolution by Frank Dikötter

In the 1940s, Yenan (Yan’an) was the epicenter of the Chinese Communist Revolution. The loss of tens of millions of lives was not unintended nor unpredictable. There was never a honeymoon period Mao was never a good guy whose revolution went tragically wrong. Similarly, today businesses selling anything… feel the need to bend the metaphorical knee to the protesters.”īefore going down this Maoist path any further, we should review where it all began. Li observed a further ominous parallel: “In China, no book, be it about astronomy or sewing patterns, could fail to contain an introduction with fulsome praise for Chairman Mao, complete with quotations from his collected works. Today, Li observed, the West’s “revolutionary vanguard is also made up of young, well-educated people, a disproportionate number hailing from elite educational institutions and working within elite professions” who hunt for “secret racists.” He observed, “The Red Guards of 1968 often came from privileged backgrounds.” These Red Guards, encouraged by Mao, “went out, seeking to root out imaginary class enemies from within.” Li’s father was tormented by bullies “for being descended from counter-revolutionaries” his work assignment was reduced to picking up cow dung. Sleep is not yet monitored in today's America, yet some think “thought crimes” should be.Ī Chinese-American academic, writing under the pseudonym of Xiao Li, pointed to similarities between Mao’s Cultural Revolution and today’s America. Even the words of a student talking in his sleep were recorded and considered for political significance.”ĭespite the stark lessons of history, Chinese youth are again gravitating towards Mao's totalitarian gospel, seeing Mao “as a hero who speaks to their despair.” One 23-year-old tech editor explained Mao’s writing “offers spiritual relief to small town youth like me.” An earlier poll found 85 percent believed “Mao's merits outweigh his faults.” Historian Frank Dikötter described in his book The Tragedy of Liberation, “These Communists took notes on the day and night behaviour of every student.

Party or Youth League members were present at every meal and in every dorm room. Not long after Chairman Mao came to power in China, idealistic college students learned that political fidelity to Mao and the Communist Party was the most important virtue they needed to demonstrate.

When the recently deceased Canadian folk singer Gordon Lightfoot sang, “I heard you talking in your sleep… from your lips there came that secret I was not supposed to know,” he was talking about marital infidelity.

The Cultural Revolution by Frank Dikötter