Experiences of the Cultural Revolution
Whereas Confucius was once China's preeminent cultural icon, Mao's cultural personality pushed the great sage aside. The Cultural Revolution was an just that––a revolution in culture. The Cultural Revolution was an attempt to redefine Chinese culture according to the life and thought of Mao Zedong, and those who spoke out against the changes were denounced and threatened. Many were killed for expressing any form of dissent.
Wenhong W. (b. 1961)
Wenhong W. was born in Communist China in 1961 on the heels of the Great Leap Forward. We sat down with Wenhong and asked he about her memory of that time. In this interview, she shares her experiences during the Cultural Revolution and how the Revolution impacted her once she became a Christian in 1978.
Interview Link:
https://soundcloud.com/grh39966/01-wenhong-w-interview-christianity-and-communistm-in-china2015
Interview Link:
https://soundcloud.com/grh39966/01-wenhong-w-interview-christianity-and-communistm-in-china2015
Zhang Hongping.
Zhang was 16 years old when he denounced his mother for speaking against Mao.
More pictures and details of Zhang's life can be found here.
The Cultural Revolution had a devastating cost to the people of China, especially to those who were considered a threat to Mao's communist revolution. The image in the banner shows the statue of a young revolutionary Mao Zedong overlooking the Xiangjiang River in Hunan province, China. ("Mount Maoshmore." Flickr.). Constructed in 2007, The statue stands over 32 meters(104 feet tall) on Orange Isle, Changsha, Hunan, China, larger than George Washington's head on Borglum's Mt. Rushmore.
The continued prominence of Maoist iconography today is a reminder of the suppressed history of Mao's China. This is the tragic legacy of Mao's cult of personality: memories of pain and suffering are drowned out beneath the flood of platitudes, patriotic songs, mottos, and propagandist histories.
The continued prominence of Maoist iconography today is a reminder of the suppressed history of Mao's China. This is the tragic legacy of Mao's cult of personality: memories of pain and suffering are drowned out beneath the flood of platitudes, patriotic songs, mottos, and propagandist histories.
Wang Zhiming (1908-1973)
Christian Pastor who was executed during the cultural revolution. His likeness is one of ten twentieth century martyr statues at Westminster Abbey.
http://www.bdcconline.net/en/stories/w/wang-zhiming.php
In God is Red, Liao Yiwu interviews Wang Zhiming's son, Wang Zisheng(b. 1940). In Wang's home village region, home to many of the Miao people, Christianity had become widely accepted after being first introduced in 1906. After a series of famines and plagues, the people had abandoned folk religions(that didn't seem to work), and accepted Christian teachings. Wang describes the chaos of the Land Reform Movement of the 1950s and the Cultural Revolution in the Miao villages of China:
Ours was a poor village. There were no landlords or rich peasants to persecute[...]We would import landlords from other villages to use as targets. People would raise their hands to condemn the landlords, tell bitter stories about how they had been exploited, and then parade the landlords around in the field. You know, there were a lot of beatings and tortures[...]My father took pity on those fallen landlords. He would often sigh in private and say, "I don't know what's happening! Those kindhearted people leased their lands to us. They didn't even charge us that much money"(God is Red 103).
In 1966 the Cultural Revolution started. The revolutionary masses swarmed into our courtyard, ransacked our house, and beat everyone. The tied us together and paraded us from village to village. My father was forced to wear a big dunce cap with the words 'Spy and lackey of the Imperialists.' At public condemnation meetings attended by over ten thousand people, we were the targets of angry fists. The spit was almost enough to drown us"(God is Red 105).
While his father was in prison, Wang recalls visiting his father on the day before his execution:
On December 28, 1973, the day before my father's execution, members of the local militia showed up at our door and informed us that we could visit him[...] we finally saw our father. His hair had turned gray; he was thin, like a skeleton. Each time he moved, the shackles around his ankles clanked loudly. As he hobbled toward us, we all cried.
My mother nodded at my father and said, "You are the one who used to do all the talking. We listen to you first." My father smiled. He understood what my mother meant. "I haven't been able to reform my thinking," my father said in his usual one of a Christian minister. "Since I cannot be changed, I am responsible for, and deserve, what I receive. But for all of you, don't follow me. Listen to what 'the above' tells you.[by this, Wang Zhiming made disguised reference to God]You should engage in physical labor, making sure to have food to eat and clothes to wear. You should pay attention to personal hygiene and stay healthy. Don't get sick."
Our father's words warmed our hearts. He used to tell us those were the words of his own father and the foreign missionaries(God is Red 108-109).
Wang Mingdao (1900-1991)
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During the Cultural Revolution(1966-1976), this cult of personality targeted dissidents with extreme revenge under the authority of the Red Guards, Mao's student leaders of the revolution. This revolutionary campaign targeted Chinese Christians with an intensity beyond any previous persecution. In spite of the oppression, land seizures, and executions, Christianity continued to grow at surprising speeds. Although the Chinese government still does not officially acknowledge the persecution of China's Christian population, violence against Christians was an essential element of the revolutionary campaign.
Li Wenguang (Li Jiwu) (1920-2001)
As a prominent Christian Pastor, Li was imprisoned during the late 1950s and again during the Cultural Revolution. He spent 11 years in jail as a political prisoner.
Wu Yonsheng(b. 1937)
Wu was a staff member at a foreign-run Christian hospital in the Dali region of China the PCP came to close the hospital and remove the missionaries in 1951. In an interview with Liao Yiwu, Wu remembers the pain of the Cultural Revolution:
"Before the Cultural Revolution ended, all open religious activities had been banned. Churches and church assets had been seized. Only in silence could people pray and read Scripture. It was a treat just to move our lips and shape the name of God. I couldn't bring myself to openly boycott the government policies. I didn't dare reveal my true faith in public. When I realized that I couldn't do it, I asked God for forgiveness.[...] The Red guards wanted to sweep away all sorts of 'snakes and demons.' My wife and i couldn't escape. Our home was ransacked; we were interrogated. They put dunce caps on us and paraded us through the streets. They burned our precious collection of biblical books"(God is Red 47).
Anchee Min: Author, Speaker, and Labor Camp Survivor.
Anchee Min, is a internationally recognized Chinese-American writer. She has written several historical fiction novels about China, including the Becoming Madame Mao, and The Last Empress. Born in 1957, Anchee Min attended elementary school during the Cultural Revolution. She recalls denouncing her favorite teacher at a public assembly. At age seventeen, Anchee Min also spent time in a labor camp before being recognized as a young acting talent for one of Madame Mao's political films.
Towards the end of the interview, she describes the surprising discovery that her mother had secretly been a Christian for all of her life. She believes that Christian faith sustained her mother during the Cultural Revolution. These and other stories from Anchee Min can be read in her memoir, Red Azalea. Interview with Krista Tippett(53:00): https://soundcloud.com/search/sets?q=anchee%20min |
Zhang Yingrong(1922-2007)
Zhang Yingrong was a venerated Christian elder in Zehei County, Yunnan Province. He describes the early rumblings of upheaval in the early 1950s:
When the Land Reform Movement sarted, I still lived at the seminary. Once my family was classified, I was dragged back to the village and locked up with several dozen other "landlord." [...]Local militiamen guarded me with big sticks, and each time I fell asleep, they would beat me(God is Red 120).
Later on, Zhang watched his brother executed at public denunciation meeting, and his nieces and nephews were sent to prison. Zhang was sent to a labor camp in 1958 during the Great Leap Forward campaign:
That was the summer of 1959, a year of widespread starvation. We had eaten everything––tree bark, grass and leaves, things animals didn't even touch. Many died of food poisoning. One day, three in my group dropped deap by the side of a road. Passerby stripped off their clothes. Their teeth and tongues stuck out, as if they were still hungry(God is Red 123). Al
Although the labor camp was disbanded and Zhang was sent home in 1959, there were new terrors during the Cultural Revolution:
I also learned how to survive. When they needed me for public denunciation meetings, I would be there on time. Before they forced me to bend, I did it myself. I survived the "Four Cleanup" and "Socialist education" campaigns. The most horrible campaign was the Cultural Revolution. I only have one tooth left. The Red Guards knocked out the rest(God is Red 124-125).