In Liang Heng’s, Son of the Revolution, he notes the horrors of growing up in Maoist China. Liang grew up in a period known as “The Cultural Revolution,” a time of political and social turmoil in which purges were common and mob justice ran rampant. The goal of the cultural revolution was to purge any remnants of capitalism and establish communism throughout all aspects of Chinese society. These purges reached to the highest echelons of the Communist hierarchy without regard for their influence, such as in the case of Liu Shaoqi. Liang Heng no doubt felt the effects of the Cultural Revolution when he was forced to work in the countryside, a very typical punishment for families that needed re-education. However, Liang Heng experience was also …show more content…
Mao wanted to regain control over the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and enlisted the youth to help him. In doing so, he ignited a mini-Civil War between the youth of the nation as to which faction was the most “red” in order to qualify for the most revolutionary experiences. Most of these “Red Guards” threw away all traditional Chinese values, such as respect for elders and teachers, and went on a feverous rampage, accusing and beating those they deemed “rightist,” The people were criticizing an old monk, and I was very curious because I had never seen a monk before… “I have tricked the people, I should be punished,” and “Buddhism is a lie, only Marxism-Leninism-Chairman Mao thought is the truth.” ” However, Liang Heng was always a bystander in these altercations. He was not the traditional Chinese teenager during the Cultural Revolution due to his father’s circumstances. He was rejected by the revolutionary youth and felt no need to criticize those that went against the party. During his time in the countryside, Liang Heng saw first hand the punishment inflicted by the hooligans; however, he never seemed to join in on the cruelty of the Red Guards. Later on in his times as a city dweller, Liang Heng was recognized …show more content…
Mao launched the Cultural Revolution in an attempt to purge all aspects of capitalism that still remained in Chinese society. To do this, Mao enlisted the aid of the youth of China and encouraged them to abandon school and embark on revolutionary journeys across the nation. Liang Heng was no exception to this expectation – he was forced to go on a two day journey to the countryside in which he engaged in hard labor. However, the countryside was not prepared for an overwhelming mass of hooligans and the CCP was forced to evacuate them. During the Cultural Revolution, purging capitalism meant forcing the accused “rightists” and their families to engage in hard labor in order to re-educate themselves. Liang Heng was part of one of the millions of families that were sentenced to re-education in the countryside. The sheer amount of people that were forced to the countryside put an unnecessary burden on the already emaciated farmers of rural China. It was extremely common for a child to suffer due to their family’s mistakes and Liang Heng was very typical in this
Jonathan Spence tells his readers of how Mao Zedong was a remarkable man to say the very least. He grew up a poor farm boy from a small rural town in Shaoshan, China. Mao was originally fated to be a farmer just as his father was. It was by chance that his young wife passed away and he was permitted to continue his education which he valued so greatly. Mao matured in a China that was undergoing a threat from foreign businesses and an unruly class of young people who wanted modernization. Throughout his school years and beyond Mao watched as the nation he lived in continued to change with the immense number of youth who began to westernize. Yet in classes he learned classical Chinese literature, poems, and history. Mao also attained a thorough knowledge of the modern and Western world. This great struggle between modern and classical Chinese is what can be attributed to most of the unrest in China during this time period. His education, determination and infectious personalit...
Shi Huangdi now able to unite the warring states, explored ways to establish a stable, and long lasting dynasty. The improvements he made to a now unified China, changed they way the world looked upon the country.
Teenager, an age of rebellions is offered the perfect opportunity: to falsely testify against their parents, and became the educable children of Chairman Mao. But for many, the choice is not easy. Specially for the kid from "black" family, similar to main character Jiang; they have to choose between siding with their family, consider a disgrace, going against Chairman Mao's idea, or to be an honorable red guard,and side with the communist party."' Why don't you stay home with him? In case...' 'I've thought about that.' She looked away from my face to the litter on the table. 'But we can't allow personal matters to interfere with revolutionary duties. Especially for an important political assignment like the exhibition.'"(205). That's the idea chairman Mao encouraged, and it clearly separate family from politics. From this other girl point of view, she valued her policies and belief overtook her love for her brother. The action of this girl makes a strong contract to Ji-Li, bother third action define who they are.
Ever since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, the legitimacy of the revolution of which it was built upon has perennially been in question. For example, in a 1999 issue of the International Herald Tribune, a prestigious scholar claimed that all of China’s tragedies are ‘sustained by a mistaken belief in the correctness of the 1949 revolution’ and that the future progress of China depends on the recognition that the revolution was a failure. However, the CCP government was certainly not perfect and its most significant failures were its political failures such as the Anti-rightist movement and the Cultural Revolution and also economic failures such as the great leap forward. Millions of peoples were falsely accused and persecuted during the political movements of the Mao period as the CCP focused on class struggle instead of economic development during the period and tens of Millions of peoples died due to starvation as there were widespread food shortages during the great leap forward movement.
Qian begins the account of Li Si by describing his rise from the minor position of clerk to his eventual high rank. Qian makes note of the strengths that Li displays to put himself in such a position. Qian even quotes Li as saying that a man's status "simply depends on where one locates oneself." (Qian 25) Li Si's initial step up in society took place on his interest in others' welfare as opposed to his own. This is a virtue which Confucius summed up by saying, "he who acts out of self interest arouses much resentment." (Confucius 16) When serving under the King of Qin, Li Si looked to the betterment of China as a whole. He saw that a unified China would be a stronger China and therefore chose to support the King of Qin, who he felt had "one opportunity in 10,000 generations." (Qian 26) Through his support of who he thought was the best man to lead China, Li portrayed another Confucian virtue; "'What should I do to win the hearts of the people?
There is no better way to learn about China's communist revolution than to live it through the eyes of an innocent child whose experiences were based on the author's first-hand experience. Readers learn how every aspect of an individual's life was changed, mostly for the worst during this time. You will also learn why and how Chairman Mao launched the revolution initially, to maintain the communist system he worked hard to create in the 1950's. As the story of Ling unfolded, I realized how it boiled down to people's struggle for existence and survival during Mao's reign, and how lucky we are to have freedom and justice in the United States; values no one should ever take for
While providing vivid background information, the narrator explains that he “had not enjoyed the privilege of studying at an institution for advanced education. When we were sent off to the mountains as young intellectuals we had only the statutory three years of lower middle school (7)”. During the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the Communist Party and People’s Republic of China created “re-educated camps”, which were ‘prisons’ where civilians with jobs (mostly teachers, doctors, and writers) were forced into other labor—their views were seen as “counter-revolutionary” and denounced by members of the Red Guard, a group supporting the People’s Republic of China (“China’s Re-Education Camps”). The camps decreased China’s literacy rate substantially, as people lost access to education and freedom of speech and thought. In addition, the narrator encounters his friend’s mother and describes his discovery of Western books.
Mao just made them think that joining will help their country, even though it was the other way around, like someone apologizing to their neighbor and manipulating their minds that they’re now cool, but they were still rude to them afterwards. To repeat this, the Chinese youth got swept up in the Cultural Revolution by Mao because the Chinese adolescents were vulnerable to influence their minds into joining the Red Guards army and doing all of the dirty jobs that Mao should’ve been doing in the first place; developing their minds into believing that they are helping their country and being involved in violence.... ... middle of paper ... ...
The Red Guard strove to remove and destroy the Four Olds, foreign influence, enemies of the Party and the current societal structure by persecuting those who supposedly perpetuated them. All vestiges of outdated customs, habits, culture and ideas were to be destroyed, since the movement represented “a triumph of youth over age, of ‘the new’ over ‘the old.’” To do so, the Red Guard wrecked thousands of art collections and the contents of libraries, and changed “reactionary” street signs. They persecuted members of the public who attempted to stop them or refused to give up the Four Olds. Those who had foreign ties, like businessmen, missionaries, or who had western education were also persecuted to prevent backwards or rightist ideologies from spreading into the new Chinese society. Chinese intellectuals were also hounded for the same reason: to prevent free thought. The messages of the movement were “negative—against the established authority, against the Party, against the military” and the outdated structures of the older generation. To destroy the established order, the Red Guards attacked educational and political institutions that were enemies of Mao and the party, and created general havoc within China. The Red Guard targeted teachers, education policies, and universities to change the core of education and the qualities that it had extolled. Members of the general public and even party officials themselves were attacked, to remove the “capitalist roaders” with bourgeois tendencies from society. Mao hoped that in this chaos a new communist China would emerge.
While in school, the young kids would rehearse the Young Pioneer anthem that went, in part, as follows, “We are Young Pioneers, successors to Communism. Our red scarves flutter on our chests” (Jiang, 3). Mao began his reign teaching those that were of the working class that they were not being treated fairly and that he would work with them to better incorporate Communism into the country. Those that had owned property or had been wealthy were looked at in a negative light, namely that of the bourgeoisie. In order for Moa to accomplish his goal of doing away with the bourgeoisie, he and his team would work to destroy the Four Olds, “Old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits” (Jiang, 277). By making this decision, Mao simply reversed the roles of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat so that those who were of the higher class would become the proletariat and those of the lower class would become the
Rae Yang’s Memoir “Spider Eaters” is a poignant personal story of a girl growing up amidst the political upheaval during the establishment of People’s Republic of China under Mao Zedong’s Communist leadership. Yang describes the fascinating journey of her life from her early years as the daughter of Chinese diplomats in Switzerland to a student in an elite middle school then a fanatic Red-guard and eventually a laborer in a pig farm. Her experiences through the revolution serve as an eye-opener and lead to her eventual disillusionment of the Communist revolution in China. There are many factors that contributed to her growing discontent with communism such as the anti-rightist movement which was an effort to rule out any criticism against the government, corruption and violence of the party leaders who abused their power and continued to exploit the peasants, the false claim of proletariat dictatorship used merely to eradicate bourgeoisie and further the interests of party members.
The Jiang family are not the only people affected by the Cultural Revolution, Ji Li’s best friend An Yi suffered some serious consequences. An Yi had been living with her
It is difficult to fathom that a poor Chinese boy growing up in a farming family achieved one of the most influential roles in China even memorable today. Mao Tse Tung or Mao Zedong did precisely that, by leading the Chinese Republic with the Communist party principles referred as Maoism (Townsend 1066). Maoism, a form of anarchy, was in opposition to the Western principles attributed the President of the United Province Sun-Yat-sen with the Republican state government (Rapp Ch. 6). By this, Tung rejected capitalism, class differences, and individual freedom of the Chinese people. Thus, Tung maintains villain principles as his participation in the Great Lead Forward, and the cultural revolution dominated the weaker Chinese class while advancing his power.
...ng the time of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, mayhem was a part of everyday life. Mao Zedong encouraged rebellious actions from the Red Guards, and rewarded those who shone as leaders. He also targeted his political rivals by provoking the Red Guards to follow his ideas, and annihilate all remnants of china?s old culture. After the revolution ended, the Red guards received the disciplinary actions they deserved, and the tortured victims finally inadvertently received the vengeance they deserved.
When Mao was young, his relationship with his father was rough, observers think this relationship had to do with Mao’s life “as a rebel and iconoclast” (Klein 272). In addition, Mao was also seen as a “natural rebel” since young. As he grew older, he became a soldier in the Chinese Revolution in 1911. After Mao graduated from school and went to college, he became a teacher and this stage