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Causes and effects of the revolution
Causes and effects of the revolution
Causes and effects of the revolution
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In The Cowshed, Ji Xianlin provides a recollection of the Cultural Revolution that is both similar and dissimilar to other memoirs. As a professor at Peking University, Ji Xianlin was one of many intellectuals and academics that were targeted by the Red Guards. His description of his experiences of struggle sessions or reform through labor in The Cowshed was not unlike those faced by his peers. Instead of presenting his experiences in anger, Ji Xianlin presents his experience of the Cultural Revolution from the perspective of someone who deserved punishment, not a victim. Moreover, despite everything he experienced, Ji Xianlin remained a loyal supporter of the Communist Party.
Ji Xianlin states that the goal of his memoir is to create an
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For example, he writes that he disagreed with Nie Yuanzi as he saw her actions as contradictory to the direction of the revolution, and against his understanding of Marxist-Leninist Communist leadership (The Cowshed, 33 - 34). He maintains that his peasant background and positions as university professor and union leader should have been evidence his support of Communism instead of a capitalist intellectual (The Cowshed, 61 - 62). From this, we see that Ji Xianlin’s critique of the the Cultural Revolution and Red Guards was as much rooted in its inhumane treatment of people, but instead in the fact that the actions of the Red Guards was not …show more content…
Despite the death of Mao in 1976 and the trial of the Gang of Four in 1980, the Cultural Revolution continues to hold significant influence over China’s political decisions. This is particularly evident in 1989, during the Tiananmen Incident. Despite the celebration of the May Fourth student movement as the catalyst in the formation of the Communist Party, Deng Xiaoping (a victim of the Cultural Revolution) and other hardline Party members were adamantly against the gathering of students in Tiananmen Square. The experience of the Cultural Revolution has led Chinese political leaders to be cautious about large scale political movements, and student activism in particular. The lingering resonance of the Cultural Revolution is also evident in the fact that the CCP saw the need to address Mao’s responsibility while trying to maintain his legitimacy and importance as the ideological leader of the Party. Furthermore, the Cultural Revolution remains one of the most censored and unclear topics in China, indicating that the movement was much more impactful on the CCP’s political strategy than perhaps they would hope to admit. Simultaneously, the Cultural Revolution may also be diminishing in resonance over time, as many young people are simply unaware of the movement occurring at all, or not fully aware of its implications in Chinese
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...
It can also be inferred that Ji-Li is being swayed into the words, although her family does not agree. This is understandable, though, because he is all she knows as a leader and it naturally makes sense for her to really consider what is going on and accept it. She seems to want to agree with him, but what exactly is holding the Chinese back? Has the Chairman given a valid reason for the revolution, bringing in the fact that many people died from this revolution that accomplished nothing. Correspondingly, as we see Ji-Li speak of about why the four olds should be rid of, we now see one of the early effects of it in the following passage. Days after Ji-Li has that conversation with her grandmother, all of the four olds signs were being taken down and all of the shops had been renamed. Her parents do not agree with what is happening either as we find out, their occupations do not align with what is wanted in China and what is needed to be taken out. “The newspapers and the radio said so. I knew the movement was vital to our country’s future, and I did not understand how Mom and Dad could not be interested in it. It was almost unbelievable. Within a couple of days almost all the four olds shop signs had been removed. The stores we had talked about had all been renamed.” The Cultural Revolution in China lasted from
Ah Cheng’s book, King of Tree, gives reader a firsthand experience at the Chinese Cultural Revolutions in the late 1960’s and 1970’s. The most interesting thing about the book is it gives the reader the point view of Cheng, but barely mention about the cultural revolutions directly in the book. This means he left reader to interpret his writing for themselves and draw any conclusion they want. Narrator was critical and as the same time forgiving for this period. Narrator is critical about his life style during Cultural Revolution and he is critical why he is teaching school when he is not qualified to be a teacher. On other hand he is forgiving for this period because he does not mention it by name.
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.
Ai Weiwei’s activist art is effective in disseminating his ideas and forcing people to examine their lives, however, its effect is reduced by the heavy censorship of the Chinese government. The positive effects of Ai Weiwei’s art can be seen by examining and analyzing both Remembering and Sunflower Seeds. However, their presence in Europe rather than China is rather discouraging. Censorship is more damaging than beneficial to activist artists like Ai Weiwei, however, it does not mean that activist art is useless. The reaction of authorities to Ai Weiwei’s art and his kind of “immunity” that comes from his fame shows that his art is effective. His ideas might take time to spread; they might only change one individuals mind at a time. However, over time like the sunflower seeds, individuals can join together and become a great force.
China’s Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution (GPCR) is a well-documented period in world history, but the most profound records are found vivified in the literature and films later into the 20th century, respectively. One of the most profound novels is “To Live”, authored by Yu Hua, which as a fictional narrative offers both a unique and realistic sense of the time period at the individual level. However, the provocative film adaptation directed by Zhang Yimou in 1994 was formidable enough that it was banned in Mainland China. Zhang paints a more realistic picture of how the GPCR influenced Chinese society but adds zest to Hua’s ambiguity but acceptable imperfection. Naturally, the film has many different characteristics yet still manages to overcome the challenges that implicate film adaptations.
Qin Shihuang imparted the policy that “‘if there is anybody who dares to mention [the books]… he should be executed. Those who, using the old, reject the new, will be wiped out together with their clans’” (33), which Mao Zedong adopted as his own. Anyone who dared to criticize were brutalized by governmental authorities. As a result, “...some part of [Old Mr Zhao’s] character remains completely hidden [and] many Chinese of his generation are like that, especially the ones who saw awful things”
Chinese Revolution is about making the entire country into Communists and killing each and one the people who hates Mao Tse-Tung. Mao Tse-Tung is the leader of China at this time who believes in equality and everyone should have the same rights. The Red Guards is a military group in which includes a group of children that eliminates the Chinese population due to hatred for Mao. If any of these events happen to our generation, most youth are smart enough to know that Mao is a bad leader and killing innocent people by the case of bitterness for Mao is wrong. The Chinese youth got swept up in the Cultural Revolution by Mao because the youth were easy to persuade into doing something. To expand this idea further, the Chinese youth weren’t old enough, not on this specific age, to realize whether Mao’s actions were virtuous or inaccurate. On the other hand, they thought that working for Mao and joining the Red Guards will help their country out, but they never knew the truth behind Mao’s plans. The truth about the Cultural Revolution was to kill anybody that gets in the way of Mao’s plans and destroying all the old buildings so that it would be replaced with new buildings or reconstruct the old buildings to become brand new again. In addition, the Chinese youth had no idea that joining the Red Guards will give a highly chance of getting killed. In other words, the adults were smarter than the youth because joining the Red Guards means the opposite of helping the country out. 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 in which manipulating their minds that they’re now cool, but they were still rude to them afterwards. To repeat this, t...
Fan Shen’s doubts surrounding the communist regime begin, as he writes, because of an incident that occurs when two factions of the Red Guard confront each other at a University in Beijing. His childhood best friend, Baby Dragon, had contacted his sister who headed one of the conflicting groups, and, as a result, Fan Shen finds himself battling against “Mao’s Vanguards”. After seeing Dragon Sister and her men ransack Li Ling’s house for being too anti-communist, Fan Shen reveres “The United Red Action Committee” and their members as being the most communist group of the Red Guard that he has ever seen, but after the skirmish in the University the group is arrested for being “scheming enemies of the Great Leader.” Despite the fact that this
In the very beginning, Ji Li is confidently dedicated to the revolution, but then slowly starts to discover the despicable truth. Ji-Li thinks, " We thanked heaven that Chairman Mao had started this Cultural Revolution… otherwise we would not have even known we were in trouble. What a frightening idea." (38). This quote depicts Ji-Li's thoughts on Chairman Mao as she started off in the beginning; an exemplary student and daughter of Chairman Mao. Her first carefree opinion is quickly countered when she is told she cannot participate in the audition. "'Ji-Li, the fact is that our family will not be able to pass the investigation'…For a long time I did not speak. ‘Why?' I whispered at last." (9). When she is told at this early point in the revolution she would not pass the audition, she is only getting an insidious whiff of what is to come, but has not experienced anything that would be wrong with her family, the revolution, or otherwise the world up until then. Although small, her first glimpse at the tormenting trials that are to come start to penetrate into her oblivious mind, and make her start to think...
It can also be argued that the political activities of Chairman Mao’s Communist China were more of a continuation of traditional Imperial China, based heavily in Confucian values, than a new type of Marxist-Leninist China, based on the Soviet Union as an archetype. While it is unquestionable that a Marxist-Leninist political structure was present in China during this time, Confucian values remained to be reinforced through rituals and were a fundamental part of the Chinese Communist ...
The rebellion Mao claims to have manifested might have distanced Mao physically from his family but, traditional Chinese values were deeply ingrained, shaping his political and personal persona. His father's harshness with dealing with opposition, his cunning, his demand for reverence from subordinates, and his ambition were to be seen in how Mao demanded harmony, order, and reverence as a ruthless dictator. Yet, Mao, was also the kindly father figure for the people of China, as manifested in characteristic qualities of Mao's mother: kindness, benevolence, and patriarchal indulgence.
Through the characters and their experiences in The King of Children, Ah Cheng shows the effects that the Cultural Revolution had on education and how that affected the people’s search for personal meaning in education. The Cultural Revolution and Down to the Countryside’s elimination of all practical and economic incentives for receiving an education caused characters to find moral and ethical incentives for education, such as to protect others and to be able to communicate effectively.
...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.
The revolution halted the progress China was making towards modernization and harmed the country’s economy significantly. The Cultural Revolution only did harm to China and stopped the prosperity it was gaining from earlier revolutions in 1900’s due to the fear of old culture, restoring capitalism, and counterrevolutionary ideas. The memoir by Rae Yang, Spider Eaters: A Memoir perfectly captures the true nature of the revolution. The destruction of China’s culture, people, and household is portrayed all throughout this memoir. One of the main aspects of the Cultural Revaluation was the formation