Shanghai, China, February 2019. Communist Mao Zedong case study begins.
Distinctive and yet disparate; the two symbols of the swastika and the hammer and sickle. Each symbol stands across the 20th century like a colossus and each symbol evokes incredibly contrasting nuances. Interestingly I’m writing this piece in a rooftop bar of a hostel in Shanghai, China, where sat at the opposite table is a young girl. Her accent betrays her as English; probably a backpacker from southern England, one of the Home Counties perhaps, and likely not too far from my own hometown near London. She wears a cap on her head which is jet black, new looking, possibly a recent purchase in a market or shop here in Shanghai. Proudly displayed above the peak of the cap is the emblem of the hammer and sickle. I’m curious if she grasps the reality of what she’s wearing. Visualize if you will that same girl who is pretty with hazel eyes, long mousy brown hair, slender with an inviting smile which reveals perfect white teeth. She’s laughing with friends and daintily swigging small sips of beer from a bottle of Tsing Tao. Visualize her wearing the same cap with a small amendment, a swastika instead of a hammer and sickle motif.
It’s never futile reiterating the tumultuous and troubled associations with the swastika; it’s always worth reminding ourselves of the brutality and barbarism of this symbol. The history books feature images of piles of Jews tossed unceremoniously into gas chambers, depictions of the thousands of starving humans in Belsen and other death camps where their bones are visible through their loose skin and of course of the human experiments conducted by Josef Mengele and other physicians on men, women and children at Auschwitz death camp, all under the pennant of the swastika.
Would you Wear a Swastika? So Why a Hammer & Sickle?
Would the girl sitting in front of me be so courageous as to wear a swastika sewn into the fabric of her cap? Undoubtedly not. So why a hammer and sickle motif? Let us evaluate the differences. Our education establishments forewarn us to the dangers of Nazism which dominates the scholastic debate into Twentieth Century tyrants. We read reports in newspapers, see broadcasts on television, listen to radio shows, watch YouTube videos, hear podcasts and immerse ourselves in social media, history books and internet material to gather data and information about Nazism. We can visit the death camps in Germany and Poland and physically explore the horrors first-hand. Each medium alerts us to the dangers of flirting with Nazi ideology but seldom Communist ideology.
Consequently, Nazism ascends to the apex of dialogue and inquiry. Although each experiment of both Nazi ideology and Communist doctrine has always failed and has been stigmatized with enormous losses of life, Nazism trumps Communism as the precursor of evil. Often during rowdy political discourse it’s not uncommon to hear an opponent labelled as a fascist or a racist or a Nazi. Such phrases have become a pivotal method in which to discredit your opponent and consign his argument as ineffective, dangerous and puerile. Shouting Communist at your opponent doesn’t deliver the same gravity and magnitude.
So why does the emblem of the swastika provoke more reaction compared with its 20th century nemesis the hammer and sickle?
Awareness undoubtedly is the key. We are comprehensively reminded about the ultimate crime of Nazism, the holocaust, but we are simultaneously less informed about the atrocities committed by men such as Mao or Stalin or Pol Pot. Although educated at school, the dogma of Nazism ascends to the apex of the ‘evil’ list and our minds become tempered and misty on the wickedness bequeathed by Communism. Anybody who has experienced higher education in universities will understand how the vociferous influence of Communism has spread and proliferated through our university institutions. Educational institutions are dominated by the hard left and thus any teaching on the potential evil of Communism is normally neglected; and I speak about Western higher education authorities in general and not exclusively on UK based ones.
It is legitimate and correct to learn and understand the systematic and methodical approach the Nazi regime adopted to eradicate Jewish people; the precision and standardized method of gathering millions of people based on their religious convictions and indiscriminately exterminating them should not be forgotten.
This unpleasant tactic has unfortunately eclipsed the malevolent approach to economy that caused the suffering and premature deaths of millions in Communist countries. Holocaust has become the precursor of maliciousness and cannot be easily compared or exceeded by any other evil. Any Communist sympathizer will always direct his audience to the positive rhetoric contained within Communist literature but neglects examination of its cold-blooded approach which led to systematic torture and death. Any negativity associated with Communist doctrine is neglected even when a universal and prevailing aftermath is chronicled; famine in the Soviet Union, China and North Korea for example; a topic that will be revisited later.
Communism Should Equal Nazi: Communist Mao Zedong & Chinese Holocaust
Nazism was a dogma that relied on racial prejudice to forward its manifesto while the doctrine of Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto based its teachings on the creed of freedom and emancipation. For instance this famous passage:
“Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win … Workingmen of all countries unite!” (1)
Thus, the intentions of Communism are pure, unclouded and genuine, unlike Nazi ideology which clearly basis itself on racial supremacy. Indeed, Intellectuals (who are often the educated middle classes in our universities) connect gravity to the corollary of the positive message central to the doctrine of Communism. Unfortunately, and as established, the reality is often neglected, sometimes deliberately and sometimes accidentally. When the acknowledgment of the negative effect of Communism is recognised an excuse is conveniently positioned to absolve Communism from any responsibility and obligation. As an example, and famous in academic quarters, is that capitalism dedicated itself unnecessarily to devaluing and destroying the success of Communism. So, for Communism to succeed as the antidote to capitalism it must depose capitalism. The customary argument is that authentic Communist dogma hasn’t been properly implemented or attempted yet. When it is, it is argued, Communism will benefit the working classes by finally implementing the doctrine crafted by Marx. But the reality is that this vision of utopia has indeed been tried in different countries which are comprised of varying cultures. On each attempt it has unleashed evil comparable to Nazism; the entire system has then imploded before finally being displaced by its nemesis, capitalism.
Atonement is another key feature to our understanding of these regimes. Germans have acknowledged Nazism, perpetually apologized for its catastrophic consequences and have accepted international condemnation for it. Nonetheless, in the national consciousness the credentials of its unrestrained barbarism still fester. The German establishment believes it is imperative for Germans to learn and digest the horrors that Nazism unleashed. Each educational facility therefore aptly relays the details in the hope that it will not be repeated. Most Communist or former Communist countries have not acknowledged their own cruel past. Cambodia is a notable exception. It has museums dedicated to the atrocities inflicted by the Khmer Rouge during the 1970s. The country now grants access to the infamous killing fields where bone fragments and clothing are still being churned to the surface during the rainy season. Museums are open to locals and foreigners alike who can absorb the ghastly images and descriptions of its millions of victims. Even the notorious and heinous S21 prison has reopened its doors; this time to the public who can inspect its grisly cells which remain unchanged from the 1970s albeit without the brutalized and tortured bodies of its victims. Photographs of the dead are aptly placed on the wall to remind us of the suffering of the casualties and a commemorative stupa features bones and skulls of hundreds of victims in the complex in Phnom Penn.
That the theme of Communism is extracted from a document composed by two authors further agitates any possibility of its success. It’s difficult for the proponent of Communism to gravitate from its main author, Marx, and from its central text the Communist Manifesto. The doctrine of Communism has encountered similar problems to religious texts which have struggled to accomplish a successful linear prosperity as cultures and humans evolve intellectually and culturally. Can a text that never changes always command importance and esteem as society advances?
Clearly this opens further debate but in the context of Communism how can an evolution of a theory happen when its primary principles are grounded, limited and unchangeable? While other political doctrines have been capable of adapting to socio-economic circumstances Communism never has! There has never been a successful Communist endeavour that hasn’t eventually succumbed to pressure and eventual change. Where I’m currently situated in China is no exception. From my vantage point on the 5th floor bar of my hostel I can see the consequences of capitalism; huge skyscrapers, neon lights, shopping malls and commercial indulgence, innovation and entrepreneurship, private vehicle ownership and clothes bearing easily recognizable international brands.
Impact of Communist Mao Zedong
Speaking of recognizable brands I would like to ask the girl with the Hammer and Sickle cap some questions about Communism. I would like to inquire about her knowledge of Communist Mao Zedong, the former Chairman of the Communist Party of China and former president of the country. I’m curious if she possesses any knowledge about the former dictator. Surprisingly to me, one incredibly striking feature of Communist Mao is that he’s a uniting figure. Here in China Mao Zedong is worshipped by many; his portrait in Tienanmen Square in the capital Beijing watches over hordes of local people and tourists benignly; an image of a powerful but caring leader, a God-like omniscient presence over China’s capital city and the world’s largest public space.
Similarly, Chengdu boasts the largest statue of Chairman Mao in the country. The statue again commands a central position in the city square where thousands of tourists – both domestic and foreign – can wallow in his ‘greatness’. These two examples are not exclusive. Mao features everywhere in daily life for Chinese people who are drip-fed a diet of pro Mao propaganda.
Unlike Cambodia, China has not faced the calamitous and unpleasant past that lingers in its recent history. Sitting here in China’s busiest (and indeed one of the world’s busiest) cities I will focus on the deeds of Mao and his responsibility to the tens of millions of victims that perished and suffered due to his vision.
Surprisingly, the Chinese people won’t or can’t discern much negativity with Mao. His cult of personality remains robust. Even foreigners are subjected to Mao’s cult of personality in the form of souvenirs like fridge magnets, bottle openers and mugs to name a few. According to the New York Times students in China are subjected to material that deters them from exploring democracy and instead encourages them to accept the philosophy of Chairman Mao. Questions such as: “Democracy. Is it effective or flawed? Would it work in China?” are posed to students during the ‘Mao Zedong Thought course’. Initially, this question seems to present a legitimate inquiry into the possible merits of democracy. However, Mao’s philosophy is thrust onto the students and liberalism is rejected without thoughtful and careful dialogue. In fact it’s automatically rejected out-rightly and Mao’s autocratic and dictatorial stance is instead embraced. This position legitimizes Communist Mao Zedong and simultaneously strengthens his cult of personality status even after his death. As emphasis, here are a couple of quotations from students:
“We’ve learned democracy just can’t last long here,” said Zhang Qinghai, a 19-year-old architecture major, describing the upheaval of the Cultural Revolution under Mao.
“It can easily turn into populism,” said Mao Quanwu, 20, a mechanical engineering student, “like what’s happening in Taiwan. (2)
Interestingly the NY Times cites: “While the emphasis on Mao evokes turbulent periods of Chinese history, many in China still see Mao as a hero. Elements of his philosophy, like suspicion of foreign ideas and calls for centralized power, help lend legitimacy to Mr. Xi’s agenda.” (ibid)
This position is crucial in understanding how the Chinese people interpret Mao. Education authorities only ever teach the benefits of the Mao regime and always omit any negativity associated with him. Again to quote the NY Times:
“Students must now complete up to five courses to graduate — including a class on Marxism, one on morality, a modern Chinese history course, and “situation and policy education,” an exploration of modern-day issues like the territorial dispute in the South China Sea and policies concerning ethnic minorities.” (ibid)
In a different article published in the NY Times, Mao’s negative and controversial legacy is paraphrased: “…people died of famine because of catastrophic decisions made in the 1950s, during the Great Leap Forward…” (5)
This statement would never be considered for discussion in Chinese educational establishments and explains why young generations of Chinese still venerate and cherish the memory of the Communist Mao Zedong. The Economist have named the turbulent period in Chinese history when Mao embarked on a series of economic reforms a “spiritual holocaust” (6) and although opposition to Mao does exist in China it’s often underground and clandestine due to fear of reprisals from government agencies. For instance, the Chinese author, Yang Jisheng who exposed millions of deaths as a result of Mao’s famine said before a recent anniversary celebration for the dictator: “It is not convenient to be interviewed, using an expression common in China when someone has been pressured by authorities not to speak out. “I’m sorry” he said. (7)
Disastrous Communist Reforms
During the infamous reforms of the 1950s mass starvation enveloped millions of people. Historians are uncertain of exact numbers although it’s considered to run into the millions. Frank Dikötter extrapolates that the Communist Mao Zedong’s so called ‘Great Leap Forward’ when the Communist Party was attempting to catch up with the economy of the West led to the termination of approximately 45 million people. In his words the event was, “one of the worst catastrophes the world has ever known”. (8)
Communist Mao Zedong who was the founder of the Communist Party in China is admonished by many historians who argue about the gravity of his crimes. Dikötter compares the brutality between 1958 and 1962 to the Second World War: “At least 45 million people were worked, starved or beaten to death in China over these four years; the worldwide death toll of the Second World War was 55 million.” (ibid)
An astonishing figure like this is remarkable because it cements Communist Mao Zedong as a butcher of such magnitude that even combining the death toll of Hitler and Stalin, Mao has the grim reputation of succeeding in the death toll stakes. Writer Jung Chang has estimated that the death toll was even more staggering at approximately 70 million, claiming that Mao’s butchery exceeded “more than any other twentieth-century leader. (10)
Because “Communists murdered mostly their own people” according to a video from the Prager network they avoided mass criticism. (11) This conception is another crucial factor in understanding why condemnation isn’t as widespread compared to Nazism. As Prager says, the murder of outsiders invokes more disapproval than the murder of one’s own group. The genocide in Rwanda reflects this sentiment. (12) This theory explores the notion that a domestic regime is more likely to succeed at massacring its own citizens with impunity and avoid international reprisals, whereas an attempt to conduct similar activity outside of its borders is often met with fierce opposition. Again to draw a comparison with Nazism, Hitler’s decision to invade foreign countries became the catalyst for military intervention whereas in the above example of Rwanda or indeed Pol Pot’s aggression against other Cambodians foreign authorities refused to intervene. This isn’t always the case and shouldn’t be read accordingly. Examples exist where international intervention has occurred during domestic conflict, but, it is a valid notion that is worth exploring. For instance this citation from the Guardian newspaper on America’s intervention in Syria: “The US president hinted that American forces could withdraw from the conflict, saying that tackling the militant group was the “only reason” for being in Syria.” (13)
To continue this hypothesis Prager extrapolates that the Second World War was the last ‘good intentioned’ war according to some academics. A battle against Nazism was worthy and laudable, whereas any move to halt or displace Communist advancement is regarded by academics as deplorable and grievous, for instance the Vietnam conflict. Even so, why are so many (normally hard left leaning academics) so complacent about the volumes of victims decimated by Communist implementation? As an illustration let’s bring Stalin into the debate. Stalin’s attempt to industrialize the Soviet economy was nothing short of disastrous because, quite simply, the goals it set were fundamentally unrealistic. For instance Stalin’s forecast was for a 250 percent increase in overall industrial development and a more unrealistic 330 percent expansion in heavy industry. History reveals that these reforms were unsuccessful. According to one source:
“About one million kulak households (some five million people) were deported and never heard from again. Forced collectivization of the remaining peasants, which was often fiercely resisted, resulted in a disastrous disruption of agricultural productivity and a catastrophic famine in 1932–33. Although the First Five-Year Plan called for the collectivization of only twenty percent of peasant households, by 1940 approximately ninety-seven percent of all peasant households had been collectivized and private ownership of property almost entirely eliminated. Forced collectivization helped achieve Stalin’s goal of rapid industrialization, but the human costs were incalculable.” (14)
It is believed that Communist Mao Zedong was aware of the butchery that Stalin’s barbaric campaign to industrialise the Soviet Union caused. After Stalin’s death the new leader of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khruschev aggravated Mao by openly criticising Stalin whom Mao admired. “If even Stalin could be purged, Mao could be challenged, too”. (15) Impatience accompanied by a feeling of being overshadowed by the Soviet Union pressured Mao into a similar reckless decision to endlessly pursue economic reform even though the consequences were evident from Stalin’s own decadent reforms. Subsequently Communist Mao Zedong led China into the worst famine in history.
On the 1st of January 1958 the Communist newspaper, People’s Daily, published details of Mao’s vision for economic reform. An article asking for “going all out” and “aiming higher” was published which demanded action and rapid economic growth. Additionally, in 1958 Mao was to cement his presidency of the Communist Party and dominance over China. Until then moderate voices within the party had been successful in quashing any extremist dogma, but
“…in several extraordinary outbursts, he accused any leader who opposed “rash advance” of being counter-revolutionary. As became the pattern of his reign, no one successfully stood up to him.” (ibid)
The history books inform us that Mao’s attempt to reorganise the Chinese economy were, like Stalin’s, disastrous and at a cost of millions of lives. Many believe that Mao embarked unceremoniously on these reforms in full knowledge that they could potentially replicate the heinous famine that enveloped the Soviet Union. The outcome of successful reform was crucial to Mao, the death toll immaterial.
Famine, Cannibalism & Purges: Communist Mao Zedong Responsible for Hunger
A senior Party official in Sichuan recounts an unfortunately common situation in Jung Chang’s Wild Swans:
“One day a peasant burst into his room and threw himself on the floor, screaming that he had committed a terrible crime and begging to be punished. Eventually it came out that he had killed his own baby and eaten it. Hunger had been like an uncontrollable force driving him to take up the knife. With tears rolling down his cheeks, the official ordered the peasant to be arrested. Later he was shot as a warning to baby killers.” (17)
In Jasper Becker’s Hungry Ghosts the author concludes that cannibalism was commonplace. Official Party documents illustrate the phenomenon. “In one county in southern Henan, Gushi, the authorities recorded 200 cases of cannibalism in a population of 900,000 at the start of the famine. In Anhui’s Fengyang county, with 335,000 people in 1958, the Party noted 63 cases of cannibalism in one commune alone.” (18)
Becker continues:
“There are enough reports from different parts of the country to make it clear that the practice of cannibalism was not restricted to any one region, class or nationality. Peasants not only ate the flesh of the dead, they also sold it, and they killed and ate children, both their own and those of others. Given the dimensions of the famine, it is quite conceivable that cannibalism was practised on a scale unprecedented in the history of the twentieth century. Moreover, it took place with the knowledge of a government which is still in power and which wields considerable power in world affairs.” (19, ibid)
This startling and cruel episode in China’s history is all the more shocking because its occurrence is broadly unknown by many citizens in both China and the wider world, and perhaps more deplorable still is the fact discussed earlier in this piece that intellectuals who do have access to data and evidence on this significant topic withhold disclosure due to political persuasions. Our educational establishments are undermined by a leftist doctrine that deliberately supresses important information.
In a remarkable series of interviews with Chinese peasants Becker recorded a conversation with a Mrs Liu. She explained: “…that at night some of her neighbours went into the fields to cut flesh from the corpses and eat it. She pointed to a neighbouring village, another collection of huts across the fields, where a woman had killed her own baby. She and her husband had eaten it. Afterwards she went mad and the secret came out.” (20, ibid)
The Communist Party was aware of the scale of the famine and was equally aware that collectivisation was responsible for the mass starvation. Mao was the architect of the disaster after replicating Stalin’s calamitous efforts to revive the Soviet economy. The blueprint for catastrophe was thus already laid bare by the Soviet Communist regime. Millions had perished and Mao had neglected the disaster. Instead he embraced a vision similar to Stalin’s with consequences that were not comparable but exceed that of the Soviet dictator. A colleague of Lenin, Nikolay Bukharin believed:
“…collectivisation should be a gradual process of persuasion. Stalin’s collectivization campaign, which began in 1929, was violent, brutal and sudden. Overnight, small peasant holdings were merged into collectives – giant farms covering as much as 247,000 acres.” (21 ibid)
Mao was uncompromising and rigid in his application of collectivisation. His vision was immovable and inflexible, and as Han Suyin maintains in his 1978 recollection of the famine Mao was attacked by senior members of the Communist Party who surmised that Mao’s plans to set up huge collectives as; “false, dangerous, and Utopian agrarian socialism.” (22)
The Soviet Union attempted to guide Mao away from such rapid ‘progress’. Again to refer to Becker:
“The Russians counselled him to avoid repeating Stalin’s mistakes, pointing out that China was much poorer than Russia had been in 1928. In China, per capita grain output was still half that of the Russians in the 1920s and so the margin for error was much smaller. Khrushchev even told Mao that those who set up the collectives in the 1920s had ‘a poor understanding of what Communism is and how it is to be built.’” (23)
Sadly Mao neglected this advice and proceeded with collectivisation against the wisdom of the Russians. Shrouded in his personality cult Mao assumed himself to be a man given to the Chinese by God; a man with such arrogance he would, or could not, heed to the advice of others. Gradual change was not necessary because as the philosopher Hegel (who influenced Marx) said, progress, like evolution comes in sudden leaps and bounds, hence Mao’s insistence on naming his vision ‘The Great Leap Forward’. To cement this theory further, at a Communist Party meeting in Beijing in January 1962, attended by 7,000 cadres, Liu Shaoqi declared that the famine was 70 percent the result of human error and 30 percent due to natural causes! (24)
Similar dissents started to spread throughout the ranks of the Communist Party and were stamped out swiftly and mercilessly. Liu himself eventually met a gruesome and uncompromising death. Again to draw on Becker:
“He was arrested, interrogated, tortured and then left to die half-naked and forgotten in a cellar in Kaifeng, Henan”. But the purges extended further. “Peng Dehuai was treated no better. Lin Biao had him taken to a stadium in Beijing where he was made to kneel before an audience of 40,000 soldiers. Then he was put in a cell where he was not permitted to sit down or go to the toilet and was subjected to incessant interrogations. He finally died in prison in 1973.” (25)
Torture, famine, cannibalism, disease, misery and depravity were what Mao had instigated with his Great Leap Forward. He had ignored Khrushchev’s advice on economic reform, neglected the piles of bodies that were victims of famine and that now littered the countryside, and deposed any opposition to his vision with ruthless torture tactics and murder. In fact a Communist Party report published in 1961 described events in rural China as not only mass murder but as “a holocaust”. (26) Each county devised its own torture tactics and punishments. Guangshan county officials invented 30 torture tactics while Huang Chuan county developed more than 70 methods. Party documents in 1961 provide details:
“Many involved tying up and beating to death the victims, whose numbers in each locality ran into the hundreds. One Public Security Chief, Chen Rubin personally beat over 200 people in the Yidian production brigade of Dingyuan commune, Luoshan county. Han Defu , the Second Secretary of the Segang commune, thrashed over 300 people. Guo Shouli, head of the militia of Nayuan brigade in Liji commune, Gushi county beat 110 militiamen, 11 of whom were left permanently disabled and 6 of whom died. The same official arrested a commune member, Wei Shaoqiao, who had left one of the dam construction sites and returned home without permission. He was beaten to death, and when his wife came to look for him, she too was tied up and beaten until she died. She was three months pregnant. Guo Shouli then wanted to cut off the ‘roots’ of the family and killed the couple’s 4-year-old child.” (27)
In Guangshan county 13 orphans were kept outside in water until they died. A commonplace form of torture was dragging people along the floor by their hair. A peasant woman in Huang Chuan county was dragged for 60 feet until she died. Cadres would often burn hair on heads, chins or genitals which prompted peasants to shave the entirety of their bodies. Officials would instead cut off the ears of their victims. Elsewhere female victims were humiliated by having sticks inserted into their genitals. As a deterrent to dissent the corpses of the victims would be boiled and turned into a form of fertiliser. Other victims would have their noses pierced and then made to plough in the fields like an ox. The following is a unique but horrific method of torture invented by officials:
“Others were stripped naked and beaten, and an ox hide still covered in fresh blood was tied around them. When the hide dried, it was torn off, ripping the victim’s skin with it. An 18-year-old student, Wang Guoxi, was similarly treated when he was accused of stealing a sheep belonging to the Party Secretary of the Zhaoluo production brigade in Fan Hu commune, Xixian county. Strung up in the sheepskin, he was dragged from village to village for three days without food. When it was pulled off, the sheepskin, which by then had shrunk, took off much of his own skin as well and he subsequently died.” (28, ibid)
Following the famine and Great Leap Forward, China for the next 20 years stagnated. Infrastructure such as airports, roads, electricity amenities and telephone communications were promised by Mao in 1958 but never delivered. In the two decades that followed the famine only a single railway line was constructed and for years the living standards of Chinese people in the countryside never regained the status prior to the 1950s.
Importantly for Mao senior Party members decided that the famine was to be kept secret. This baffling decision cemented Mao as the leader of the Communist Party in China until his death in 1976 and consequently led to the implementation of the Cultural Revolution. Had the Party taken a hard line against the dictator it’s possible he could have been deposed, the famine confronted and the Cultural Revolution avoided. Instead Mao was effectively authorised to pursue whatever ambitions and objectives he felt were appropriate for China. Inevitably these motivations bolstered his position and reinforced his cult of personality status.
Millions more Chinese were to suffer and perish as a result. In fact it wasn’t until after his death in 1976 that per capita grain production yielded a harvest seen before 1958. From the Second-Five-Year-Plan period (1958-1962) until 1976 there was virtually no rise in living standards in China. According to Judith Banister: “…consumption of vegetable oils, eggs, and aquatic products, did not return to the 1957 level.” (29) It wasn’t until land reform was applied that food production started to increase. Zhao Ziyang an appointed official in Sichuan took the measure of leading a group of, “commune bosses on a tour of Western Europe to introduce them to the marvels of commercial farming.” (30)
Communist Mao Zedong’s Legacy
So what is Mao’s legacy and do the Chinese people care about the past? This is the fundamental question that has been irritating me for nearly two months of travelling around China. Unfortunately outside of Shanghai and Beijing few Chinese people speak English and thus opening a dialogue with a local person can sometimes be challenging even though the Chinese are receptive to conversation. Approaching the subject of Mao can be impenetrable even when English is no barrier!
The famine remains a part of China’s collective conscience but is seldom discussed or referred to because censorship still plagues Chinese society. Often the famine is merely reduced to a reference of a natural disaster and not attributed by the wider Chinese public as both a political and economic catastrophe. Yang Jiang’s, A Cadre School Life: Six Chapters, recounts the famine in great detail, describing how peasants would consume their neighbours or even eat their own children, and yet no direct connection has been made to the architect of the famine, Mao, while Fang Lizhi in the New York Review of Books writes:
“Much of the history of Chinese Communism is unknown to the world or has been forgotten. If, inside China, the whole society has been coerced into forgetfulness by the authorities, in the West the act of forgetting can be observed in the work of a number of influential writers…” (31)
Lizhi continues to cite an example of how western writers such as Edgar Snow have denied any Communist wrongdoing. This hypothesis neatly connects with my own judgement that writers, academia and educational authorities are complicit in the denial of the world’s most catastrophic holocaust and the architect of it, Mao Zedong! British politician Diane Abbott (who at the time of writing is shadow Home Secretary) said of Mao in a live television interview: “I suppose some people will judge that on balance Mao did more good than harm. You can’t say that about the Nazis”. (32) Without an honest and serious assessment of Mao and his legacy in both China and the west a full and unequivocal debate will always be supressed. Sadly Mao is revered by a large proportion of the Chinese public. According to Dissident Voice in a 2013 poll:
“The influential Chinese newspaper Global Times published a new opinion poll on the late leader’s birthday that revealed that more than 85% of respondents see the merits of Mao Zedong as greatly outweighing his mistakes, with more than 90% of respondents showing reverence or respect to Mao. The former “Great Helmsman” himself judged his own record as 70% positive, 30% negative.” (33)
It is profusely obvious that a famine of such magnitude could not have been successful if it had not been kept a secret. Mao’s political decisions and economic reforms were ultimately responsible for the famine. His cult of personality status and his dedication to censorship are causative factors for not only the famine but also the wider Chinese failure to embrace the reality of the tyrant. Carl Jung cultivated the phrase, “psychic epidemic” to describe what happens when reality and rational behaviour are abandoned. Many of the infamous dictators of the 20th Century suffered from such an epidemic and Mao was no exception. His extraordinary status is cemented because the secrecy of the Communist Party in the 1950s and 1960s, but also because it’s prolonged secrecy into this new Millennium. Until the Communist Party of China relinquishes its power, willingly, reluctantly or forcefully the truth of the famine will remain an open secret in China, and Mao will remain a revered and celebrated despot. Although the Chinese populace and the wider global community are not utterly united in either their admonition or veneration of Mao, it’s the later attitude that has won the hearts and minds of the majority. This is most evident among the various interviews conducted by Jasper Becker. Here are two such comments:
“…their faith in Mao was not necessarily shaken by the famine. One former Red Guard who lived in a poor village in Anhui said that ‘The villagers didn’t blame Mao. They said: Buddha’s doctrine is right but the monks read the scriptures with a wicked mouth.’” (34)
I will finally return to Mrs Liu for her astonishing and first-hand assessment to the end of the famine and Mao’s contribution to it. She:
“…recalled the end when the soldiers came in trucks and began throwing sacks of wheat on to the road. She managed to walk the six miles to the road and ate the grain raw. Out of the 300 people that had been in her village at the start of the famine, only 80 survived. Mrs Liu still believes it was Chairman Mao who saved them by sending troops to rescue them and that otherwise all would have perished.”
Visiting the Dead
Recently on a bitterly cold Beijing morning I securely locked my valuables in my hotel room and embarked on the short walk to Tiananmen Square.
Cold breathe is visible in the sub-zero but sunshiny conditions as you dispel each breathe from your lungs. The cold breathe of history is also palpable as the 8:00am queue ambles slowly to the magnificent mausoleum. Thousands of Chinese pilgrims make the journey each year to their capital city to glance at the embalmed body of Chairman Mao. A lively, energetic and animated crowd saunter and snake towards the entrance. Fluctuations of behaviour solidify inside the memorial building; the crowd’s liveliness evaporates into a sober glumness and earnest sincerity. Children chastised for playing, women weeping inaudibly, an almost silence bequeaths the great hall; only the shuffling of the assembled hoards is perceptible as they meander past the coffin.
Inside the crystal casket is Mao Zedong; at peace. His body is cloaked in the flag of the Communist Party of China. Again the hammer and sickle confronts me, not from the cap of a young female backpacker, but this time from a flag draped across the dead corpse of a tyrant. Mao looks rigid, strict and austere. He is unsmiling and reticent, ascetic and severe; dictatorial and harsh. But, nonetheless, peaceful, bloodless, tranquil; at rest and serene.
I silently ponder and consider the millions of victims of the famine. Are the mutilated mothers, the brutalised fathers, the tortured teenagers, the cannibalised babies and the anguished grandparents sleeping as peacefully as Mao?
Shanghai February 2019.
Notes & Bibliography:
1. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the Communist Manifesto, Penguin Classics, P. 120 – 121
2. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/28/world/asia/chinese-classrooms-education-communists.html
3. (ibid)
4. (ibid)
5. https://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/06/world/asia/chinas-textbooks-twist-and-omit-history.html
6. https://www.economist.com/china/2016/05/14/it-was-the-worst-of-times
9. (ibid)
10. https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/02/05/who-killed-more-hitler-stalin-or-mao/
11. https://www.prageru.com/ and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUGkKKAogDs
12. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/09/bystanders-to-genocide/304571/
14. https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/coll.html
15. https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/02/05/who-killed-more-hitler-stalin-or-mao/Mao’s
16. (ibid)
17. Jung Chang, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China, William Collins, 2016, p.233
18. Jasper Becker, Hungry Ghosts: China’s Secret Famine, John Murray, 1996, p. 212 – 213
19. ibid
20. ibid p. 4
21. ibid p. 39
22. Han Suyin, Wind in the Tower: Mao Tse-Tung and the Chinese Revolution, 1949-75, Triad Books, 1978
23. Jasper Becker, Hungry Ghosts: China’s Secret Famine, John Murray, 1996, p. 55, quoting Khrushchev Remembers
24. ibid p. 243
25. ibid p. 253
26. Instructions given by the Central Party Committee following the Xinyang Prefectural Party Committee report on ‘The Movement of Work Style Rectification, Commune Reconstruction and the Organisation of Production and Disaster Relief.’
27. Jasper Becker, Hungry Ghosts: China’s Secret Famine, John Murray, 1996, p. 116
28. ibid, p. 117
29. Judith Banister, China’s Changing Population, quotation from Liu Guoguang and Wang Xianming, ‘An Exploration into the Problems of the Rate and Balance of China’s National Economic Development’, Social Sciences, No. 4, 1980.
30. Jasper Becker, Hungry Ghosts: China’s Secret Famine, John Murray, 1996, p. 261
31. New York Review of Books, 27 September, 1990
32. https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/11/27/diane-abbott-said-on-balance-mao-did-more-good-than-harm (currently circulating on internet video websites is the full comment in the live interview by Andrew Neil)
33. https://dissidentvoice.org/2013/12/mao-remains-popular-in-china/
34. Jasper Becker, Hungry Ghosts: China’s Secret Famine, John Murray, 1996, p.279
35. ibid p. 5