Lu Xun

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

The Memoir Spider Eaters by Rae Yang is her personal account of her life during the Maoist revolution. In addition, she reminisces about her trials and tribulations during her active participation in the culture revolution and the great North Wilderness. Her family also had various misfortunes due to these changing ideological beliefs spread by the revolution. This memoir illustrates in great detail what Yang experienced under communist rule. Spider Eaters opened up a door to a young girl and her families struggle to be good Samaritans under communist rule and their final disillusionment of the revolution they whole heartedly believed in. Yang and her family struggled with the vast ideological changes during the Maoist Revolution, in turn,

The novel, “Mao’s Last Dancer”, was written by Li Cunxin. It tells his riveting tale of growing up in a poor family of six boys, living in a village in China under Mao’s reign. It goes on to share his eventual defection to the United States as an artistic dancer. His childhood was filled with both hardships and joys. But both helped him to grow as a resilient person to achieve once-thought impossible goals.

Understanding the relationship between Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong is critical in determining Zhou’s true motives for providing sanctuary to the victims of the Cultural Revolution. The mystery of Zhou and Mao’s relationship is not that of Mao’s sadism, which has been exposed by numerous writers, but Zhou’s submission. Their relationship, and Zhou’s role in Communist China, and therefore the Cultural Revolution is questioned by few historians other than Gao Wenqian, Andrew Nathan, and Jonathan Spence. Their revisionist perspectives on Zhou were controversial, labelling him as the “man who let it happen”, and even as a fully aware bystander when it came to the monster he helped create inside Mao, but contradicting most of what historians have

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

Originally, Liang’s “parents were deeply involved in all the excitement of working to transform China into a great Socialist country” (4). Over a serious of unfortunate events, though, he became the child of a “Rightist’s cap” mother and a “Reactionary Capitalist stinking intellectuals” father (9, 51). Impacted by the shattering of his family and horrific bloodshed created by fighting, Liang Heng began to question the Cultural Revolution. He claimed that his “family had scarified so much… but it had given [them] nothing in return” (148). Liang Heng presents his shift in ideology to demonstrate that most Chinese were no longer in support of a Communist nation. His “troubles were common enough and anyone could see there was a discrepancy between the glorious words of the newspapers and [their] painful reality (232). Even Liang Heng’s father, after many years of devotion, found that he could no longer defend the Party’s policies after he experienced the ill-treatment of the peasants in the country

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

The book is a written as conversational memoir between two women, Ye Weili and Ma Xiaodong about their experience during the first three decades of Mao’s era. The two women had gone through almost similar position and situations in their life, faced equivalent hardships, their approach or attitude towards those experiences in a completely different manner. This book is meticulous in its historical detail, making it a standout among similar memoirs of twentieth-century China. It also tries to add another dimension of the general perspective of historic events. The events are described in a chronological sequence and with the right amount of proper relevant information so the reader can understand the conversation.

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 majority of the book looks deep into Mao’s Cultural Revolution, the main focus was Mao’s campaign was created with the simple means to destroy China’s history of hopes of a free and pure culture that would separate itself from the old Chinese culture which existed before during 1949. We will mainly focus on Liang’s treacherous life, and the obstacles he endured in spite of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, we look at the different events in which led up to the Cultural Revolution and the purpose of Mao’s culture Revolution.

A third narrative thread is created by stringing together the stories of young Chinese students, both men and women. Their optimistic visions of the future contrast poignantly with the stories of Chen Mengjia and Polat, who expose more of the dark side of China especially the Cultural Revolution. Chen Mengjia committed suicide during the Cultural Revolution. Hessler (2006) interviews an old man about the issue of personal responsibility and political activism and reveals the deeply conflicted nature

The Book I chose to review titled “The Private Life of Chairman Mao” by Dr. Li Zhisui, is something special in itself. The important aspect of the perspective this account has been recorded in is truly amazing considering the author, Dr Li, was Chairman Mao’s personal physician. Dr.Li was a big fan of Mao and the information he has shared with his in his book is important to consider when studying the personal life of the Chairman that was oh so popular in his time. I argue that although Dr.Li had somewhat of an obvious infatuation with Mao, the information shared through his book gives us a certain level of knowledge on off the records events that happened during the course of his employment for Mao that we would never of possibly been able to know if it hadn’t been published. While joyfully reconstructing his accounts with Chairman Mao, Dr. Li Zhisui takes us through a literary time portal making the audience feel connected with the Chairman in an intimate and rare kind of way.

According to the vast majority of historians today, Mao Tse-tung was one of the most influential and remarkable men in the 20th century. Born into a simple farmer’s family in the small town of Shaoshan, Mao became the dictator of China for 27 years, and was “responsible for well over 70 million deaths in peacetime” . As well as being responsible for countless deaths, Mao was also considered one of the ‘great theorists of Marxist communism’, ‘sinofying’ Russian communism and creating an adaptation of it.

As the novel enters the phase of the Communist revolution, the protagonists of the Republican era are erased from the surface of history by the consequences of the land reform. Again is a final, spectacular fire to seal the tragic destiny of those coping with darkness. History at this stage lacks of utopian enthusiasm, the boundaries between past and present, dead and living, good and bad, are dropped, man is fooled and history, emptied of ideological content, becomes irrational. What is more striking is that there is no straightforward relationship between the actors their search for meanings, the outcome of the dialectic between signifier and signified is independent of each other. The legendary Commander Yu in the Red Sorghum betrayed by his compatriot keeps fighting alone the Japanese to defend a deserted land just to wound up in exile in a foreign country. The good giant Song Fanpings in Brothers writes the last love letter just before his body is mercilessly smashed, Dongliang’s father in The Boat to Redemption, will drown himself to death under the shame of a political

Zedong initiated a series of revolutions to change the way China ran, the final being the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution starting in 1966 and ending in 1976 (1). The goal of this investigation is to determine Mao Zedong’s motives as a leader to initiate such a movement that ended up with the loss of culture, struggle between social classes, force of government, and the loss of human life (2). This investigation will describe Mao as a person, China as a country, the Cultural Revolution as a movement, and the results following the movement for Mao Zedong and China, to tell whether or not the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was a good thing or bad thing, as well as if it was a success or failure.