China Totalitarian Influence

The autobiography, Mao’s Last Dancer written by Li Cunxin, is effective in raising awareness of the injustice the Chinese people experienced during Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution and later communist policies in China. When Li’s parents got married in 1946, they were not living in poverty. However, when the Japanese invaded China during WWII and forced all the civilians into communes, Mao then kept these communes and the Li family lost their wealth—they faced injustice and marginalisation. The Chinese population were marginalised by Mao’s use of communist principles and propaganda. They were forced into believing Mao’s views—that the West (Capitalist countries) were filthy and bad, while China was good. Li’s visit to America was an eye-opener.

The setting is in Muji, China during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. The leader of the communist party at the time is Chairman Mao and ruled based on a Marxist model by the story mentioning the concrete statue of him in the center of the square. The author states that “the Cultural Revolution was over already, and recently the Party has been propagating the idea that all citizens were

People were so obsessed with proving their dedication to Mao that they lost sight of how irrationally they were acting. The author of The Mao Button uses extreme hyperbole to satirize this personality worship. The entire country of China lived with a deep-seated fear that their dedication to the Chairman would be called into question, and they would not be able to prove themselves - and thus would face ridicule, or the even punishment. Indeed, a mere lapel pin was enough by which to judge someone’s patriotism.

The cultural revolution is a strange period in Chinese history laced with intense struggle and anguish. The cultural revolution mobilized the all of society to compete for all opposing factions that they belonged to (Ong, 2016). Mao mobilized the young people of society during a background of political turmoil, which helped Mao to mobilize the students in order to enforce his political legitimacy and ideas (Ong, 2016). Mao’s charismatic authority created his personality cult and most defiantly leant a helping hand in mobilizing the red guard movement (Ong, 2016) (Weber, 1946) (Andreas, 2007). No matter which faction of the red guard they belonged to, they all mobilized against their common enemy; the better off, upper class. (Ong, 2016). Multiple ideologies within the youth led red guard movement explain why the movement gained momentum and became incredibly powerful (Walder, 2009).

Bob Fu conveys clearly the inexorable control that Communist leaders in China have over their people. For example, after Fu and his friends participated in the Tiananmen Square protests, Fu was coerced, day in day out, to write a confession of his purported misdeeds against China and her people as a “counterrevolutionary” (79-82, 85, 87).

“As one of the Red Guards in the middle school, I was given power through Mao to torture and humiliate our teachers, headmaster or anyone we didn’t like. I didn’t know it was wrong. I thought I was doing the right thing to continue the revolution, to fight and win the class struggle”- Zhao, Lin Qing. As a teenager Zhao was a Red Guard in Guangzhou during the Cultural Revolution. When asked what her impression was a member of the Red Guards, Zhao answered with two words: “naïve and senseless”. She refused answering anything more about her experience. She said, “The memories are still too painful to recall.”

When Jan Wong first arrived in China, she was filled with the complete belief that China’s totalitarianism way of government was the best way of governing, and that no other way would do. While natives smiled behind false expressions, she failed to realize the true extent of the miserable lives under the Maoist regime until she herself experienced the injustices faced by the Chinese citizens. In Red China Blues, author Jan Wong writes of her experiences during her life in China and after, and how her whole journey led to the realization of the harsh reality that Maoism really was. As Wong learned more and more about the truth behind the totalitarian government, her own experiences helped her to transform

This memoir of Ma Bo’s sent shock waves throughout China when it was published and was even first banned by the Communist Government. This passionate story paints a clear picture for what the Great Chinese Cultural Revolution was really like. Many Chinese living today can attest to similar if not identical ordeals as expressed in Ma Bo’s story. The toils of being a young Red Guard in inner China were experienced by many if not millions. The horrors and atrocities were wide spread throughout the country, not just in Inner Mongolia. The experiences illustrated in Blood Red Sunset uniquely belong to Ma Bo’s entire generation of mislead Chinese. As expressed in the books dedication the Cultural Revolution

In Jan Wong’s entrancing expose Red China Blues, she details her plight to take part in a system of “harmony and perfection” (12) that was Maoist China. Wong discloses her trials and tribulations over a course of three decades that sees her searching for her roots and her transformation of ideologies that span over two distinctive forms of Communist governments. This tale is so enticing in due part to the events the author encountered that radically changed her very existence and more importantly, her personal quest for self-discovery.

The Cultural Revolution in China was supposed to reform the country for the better, to make everything new and equal between the people. Unfortunately, in order to do this, many people—who had never done anything against their country—suffered ridicule and false accusations based off their ancestry and their social class status. Jiang Ji-li tells of her own experiences during the Cultural Revolution in her memoir, Red Scarf Girl. She was only twelve or thirteen years old when the revolution first started, and over the course a few years, everything went drastically downhill as the country reformed itself. The changes and revisions that Ji-li is experiencing are meant to be positive, but the effects that they have on her family and her life—in

Mao’s Cultural Revolution was an attempt to create a new culture for China. Through education reforms and readjustments, Mao hoped to create a new generation of Chinese people - a generation of mindless Communists. By eliminating intellectuals via the Down to the Countryside movement, Mao hoped to eliminate elements of traditional Chinese culture and create a new form Chinese culture. He knew that dumbing down the masses would give him more power so his regime would be more stable. This dramatic reform affected youth especially as they were targeted by Mao’s propaganda and influence. Drawing from his experiences as an Educated Youth who was sent down to the countryside Down to the Countryside movement, Ah Cheng wrote The King of

In the late 1900s, there was a New Authoritarianism in China, and it was a political trend of thought during the Cultural Revolution. China started to become an emerging nation and industrialized nation after the Cultural Revolution. Meanwhile, the social culture and the power of government were also changing. In this art installation, Wisdom of the Poor: Communal Courtyard, 2011-2013, a Chinese artist Song Dong shows us how China was threatened by the rapid economic development. Also, it is a mixed materials, and located in the Art Gallery of Ontario. Communal Courtyard makes the audiences to reflect on how the social authority changes the people’s daily life, and the impact on their ways of thinking. In this essay I will examine the relationship of this installation art between authority and the society, how Song Dong creates charismatic authority to make people to accept his artwork,

They even took control of hospitals and forbid professors who are reactionist. However, the textbook and the movie “ To Live” also have similarities including the Great Leap Forward in 1950s. People at that time were lived under the control of the communes. Peasants own nothing. That shared characteristic is essential because the Great Leap Forward was a poor planning which led to crop failure and ended in 1961. In the textbook and the movie, they both mention people have a big communal kitchen where all people eat together and eat the same food. In contrast, the two also share commonalities share common attributes, such as their praise to Mao is eternal. They praised Mao so highly that they treat him as their god. They even sing song to compliment Mao. They can relate Mao to everything, including their weddings. Walls and places were also full of Mao’s portrait. This similar attribute is important because it showed how people at that time really obsessed to Mao and his policies. People were taught to like Mao even though he is a communist government. Additionally, lots of people died under his

The transition from independent states and hierarchies to larger networks took time and lots of trial and error. Every empire and small state that joined needed to be in the right place to find an economic, political, and cultural balance that would allow such a network to be a positive influence. The emerging global commercial network had positive influences on China and Africa, but in the beginning the unwanted growth of this network had a more negative influence on these two regions.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) concentrated on increasing the peasants’ standard of living through raising the equity and equality in China. The CCP did this through implementing three specific laws; the Marriage Law, the Compulsory Education Law and the Land Reform Law. When Mao was seeking support from the people of China he mainly focused on treating the peasants equally and creating a better life for them. A large way that the Communists obtained this support was how the Red Army treated the peasants during the Long March compared to how the nationalists treated them.