What Motivated People Commit The Violence Seen During The Son Of The Revolution?

The eighteenth-century German philosopher Johann Wolfgang van Goethe is quoted as saying: “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free”. If Goethe, who died in the early 1800s, could have looked forward a hundred and twenty years to Mao Zedong’s Communist China, he would have doubtless seen his words ring painfully true. Mao’s dynastic rule survived on elimination of any thought deemed contrary to his own. Those who dared to speak out were dealt with swiftly and severely. Yet some people did not believe they were free, and were willing to do risk everything to subvert Mao’s manufactured culture. “The Mao Button”, “Black Walls”, and “Dogshit Food” are short stories that criticize the

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).

If this world was not justified then we would be nothing. Revolution is justified when the people become dissatisfied with the lack of leadership or even the leadership of one’s country. Violence can range anywhere from murder to suicide or even homicide. Violence is one of the leading causes of death but still even in war this is unacceptable. One way to look at all of this violence is to blame society.. People are logically violent and that's why we live in such a uncontrollable world. When you get angry or get violent

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.”

Even with her previous experiences at Beijing University and at Big Joy Farm, Wong still held some belief that the Chinese system wasn’t as bad as it was sometimes made out to be. This event proved to her that it was. “The enormity of the massacre hit home…Although it had been years since I was a Maoist, I still had harbored some small hope for China. Now even that was gone” (259). As a reporter Wong was able to view the progression of the protests in leading up to the massacre, and in viewing it understood that the Chinese people were much more independent than they had previously demonstrated over the past 50 years. She had continuously seen the Chinese people following what they were told between learning in school or with physical labor, yet this protest was one of the first large scale displays of the unacceptance of the regime by the people, and the government did not know what to do with it. But because of this, Wong was able to recognize that the people were not reliant on this way of life that they had previously been bound to, but truly could lead for themselves and take control. The massacre awakened Wong both to the reality that the government was not acting to benefit the people, and that the people were more than capable of acting for

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

In a time when the first shots of the American Revolution was starting in Lexington and Concord in 1775, and the Revolution of 1800 which ended the Federalist Party’s control of American politics. It is in this context, that the desire for change ignited with the use of violence in the new nation. Two significant changes in violent protest in America from 1763 to 1791 were the results that ensued from the wealthy elite fearing the common people, and the enemy that the common people attacked.

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.

Revolutions hundreds of years ago were bloody. The American Revolution, the French Revolution, and the Haitian Revolution are all examples of violent revolutions. These revolutions were initiated by disagreements between state and citizen. Due to the lack of fast communication between citizen and state at the time, the only way to inaugurate change was to fight.

In present day Haiti, a violent rebellion initially led by a voodoo leader gave way to the indiscriminate killing of whites in response to the physical and mental torment bonds people experienced at the hands of their masters. Haitian slaves reached a point where they felt physical violence was justified because of the harsh treatment they had endured. Even though they risked their lives, the alternative of living the rest of their lives as slaves was no longer a viable option. Ultimately, this revolt was successful, and the slaves were able to gain independence from the French. These events had a profound impact beyond Haiti and “their surprising victory sent shock waves throughout the plantations across the Americas.” Masters viewed themselves

Human civilization has come a long way from the Stone Age. Yet man continues to be violent in his conduct. In fact, violence has increased today. A man cannot walk on the street without looking over his shoulder because of fear of assault. Top leaders of the nation, as well as retired military generals, are assassinated in broad daylight. The roads are spilled with human blood. Firearms, bombs, swords, are frequently flourished and used.

reform naturally removed some of the assumptions for revolution and impeded its progress. This helped to sharpen the already intense conflicts that occurred between the reformists and the revolutionaries. In efforts to check this unfavorable tide, the Chinese student revolutionaries in Tokyo extended their war of words to physical combat. Unfortunately the revolutionaries victory over the reformists in Tokyo was not equal to (5=Zhaoxing, Li, “Seeking Common Ground,”

However, while reading, this question pops up: what exactly is a revolution? Based off of taking many history classes and from a personal stance, a revolution is an uprising of a group of people against what that group of people perceives as unfair and thus that group of people wants to see a change in the way that the specific system works. McPherson defines the word revolution as “the overthrow of the existing social and political order by internal violence” (16). His definition is accurate in the aspect that it is the “overthrow” of “social and political order” that existed in a government. McPherson’s definition, however, has not always been true if one was to look at other historical revolutions. Yes, many revolutions did indeed have “internal violence” in order