Revisiting the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution 1966-1976
Yangtze River (3,900 mi)
(The longest river in Eurasia, the third-longest in the world, and the longest in the world to flow entirely within one country)
Forbidden City (constructed from 1406 to 1420)
Mogao Caves
(first constructed in 366AD. 492 caves in total, spanning 1,000 years of Buddhist art)
Cloudy Mountain in the Style of Mi Fu (1052–1107)
Unidentified artist�Qing dynasty (1644–1911)
Wang Xizhi, Preface to the Orchid Pavilion (detail), 353 AD
Spring Festival
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution Lives to Ten Thousand Years
Invincible Marxism, Leninism, and Maoism live to ten thousand years
PRELUDE
1949 The Communist Red Army defeats the Nationalists
The People’s Republic of China is established
1950 Signing of Sino-Soviet Treaty
China enters Korean War
Anti-Christian Campaign
1952 Land reform: All land deeds destroyed, and land redistributed.
1953 Korean War armistice
1954-55 Collectivization of agriculture
Geneva Convention
First constitution of the PRC is promulgated
1956-57 Hundred Flowers Movement
Anti-rightist Campaign
1958-59 The Great Leap Forward
Defense Minister Peng Dehuai is ousted after his criticism of the GLF
1961-65 Economy depression and recover
Divided leadership
China detonates its first nuclear device (1964)
REVOLUTION
Revolution is no crime.
Rebellion is justified.
If you aren’t revolutionary, you are anti-revolutionary.
Anti-revolutionary is anti-people, anti-party, and anti-government.
You are the enemy of the country.
Anti-revolutionary is a crime and should be shamed and destroyed.
Aspiration: Revolution
Fear: Anti-revolution, the caught-in-action anti-revolutionist
Action: Call for violence
POLITICAL IDENTITY
The Five Groups: Worker, Farmer, Military, Intellectual, Businessman
The Red Five Groups:
Revolutionary Military, Revolutionary Leader, Revolutionary Martyr, Worker, Low-income Farmer
The Black Five Groups:
Landlord, High-income Farmer, the Anti-revolutionary, the Bad, the Rightest
The oppressed/exploited class versus the exploiting class Privileges versus permanent condemnation
Group Identity 🡪 New Social Classes
The Erasure of Individuality
Sense of entitlement in some while fear in others
THE GREAT CHAIRMAN MAO’S IDEOLOGY
The only correct way of thinking
万岁
The red book, the Mao emblem
Daily morning and evening studies
Quoting and reciting
Thought Control
THE SOCIALIST’S FIGHT AGAINT CAPITALISM
Ruthlessly fire against the Capitalist actions and a small group of people in power within the party who follow the capitalist path.
Definition of the enemy
An ideology war
Fear
DESTROYING THE FOUR OLDS
Old Culture, Old Ideology, Old Customs, Old Traditions
DESTROYING THE FOUR OLDS
Old Culture, Old Ideology, Old Customs, Old Traditions
The Red Guards and The Little Red Guards
Zhang Zhixin (Dec. 5, 1930 – Apr. 4, 1975)
THE LOYALTY DANCE
THE GREAT ADVISOR
THE GREAT GENERAL
THE GREAT LEADER
THE GREAT CAPITAIN
Fear
Loss of Financial Independence
Destruction of the Concept of Law
Identity Politics
Control of Speech 🡪 DEATH OF FREEDOM
Erasure of Independent Thinking
Loss of Individuality
Destruction of Family Value
Guanghua (Laurence) Liu
1918 - 2018
Studied architecture at National Central University, University of Pennsylvania, and Columbia University. Received M.S. in Architecture in 1946 and practiced in the US.
Returned to China in 1947 to start his own architecture practice.
Became a professor at his alma mater.
Started teaching at Ball State University at Ball State University in 1983.
Books:
Beijing: The Cornucopia of Chinese Architecture, Passeggiata Press, 1985.
Chinese Architecture, Rizzoli, 1st edition, 1989.
Memoir:
Life Under the Scorching Sun, 1989
Returning to Nanjing, I ran into the “thought reformation movement” started at the end of 1951. That was the first soul-torturing political movement that I had ever experienced. Mao said in Yan-an that cutting the heads off will not change everything; what needs to be changed is the brain. “Thought reformation” is in fact “brainwashing.”
Guangha Liu, Under the Scorching Sun
Parallel to “thought reformation” went the “Anti-three and Anti-five Movement”… Even if only one person accuses someone being guilty, the group can retain him in a room without any permission and force him to admit his “crime.” If he does not confess, the group will torture him until he does.
Guangha Liu, Under the Scorching Sun
The propaganda was “struggle as the means and unite as the ends.” But in fact, the thirty years were filled with constant struggle… Making independent thinkers to be condemned in public and expose their privacy is called “taking the pants off in public.”
Guangha Liu, Under the Scorching Sun
The “Anti-rightest movement” just finished, the “plugging red flag and unplugging white flag movement” started in the universities.
Guangha Liu, Under the Scorching Sun
Mother, please forgive your son! He couldn’t defend the photo you left behind, the one that you took in front of the rose garden in Philadelphia… You are so elegant and peaceful in that photo. No one can be more beautiful than you. I have been cherishing the photo until today, even though it has turned yellow. I have been holding onto it for a memory of your love. But today the evil people forced your son to burn it. The son you love the most doesn’t have the strength to fight back while his heart is weeping.
Guangha Liu, Under the Scorching Sun
When everyone else took a nap, Xiyu took out some matches and newspaper to burn the damaged Chairman Mao portrait. It probably only took half a minute to finish but felt like a long time. The flames shot so high in the courtyard and the ashes flew everywhere. I kept looking around worrying someone may be watching.
Guangha Liu, Under the Scorching Sun
A few days later, Bao had a conversation with my wife, Xiyu, demanding her to choose the correct side and fight me. He suggested that if she does what she is supposed to do she can join the communist party. Xiyu refused the glorious offer… That night, we held each other tightly. I had never felt so close to her.
Guangha Liu, Under the Scorching Sun
He sat down and said, “do you know how those big letter criticisms were written?” “I have no idea.” I replied. He continued,” this movement has been going on for more than three weeks, but no substantial big letter criticisms were made. The party leader became anxious. A couple of days ago in the evening, he called a meeting of all fourth-year students. He read to the students what he wrote and asked them to take notes. He then assigned each person a task to put the notes in their own words. The next day, the full wall of big letter criticisms appeared.”
Guangha Liu, Under the Scorching Sun
After the empty speech, a red guard ordered him to kneel down and forcefully kicked on his back. Sun fell on his face and slowly managed to knee. Another red guard started to pour ink on his head while ordering him to walk on campus barefooted. After that, he was dragged to walk on the streets outside campus to be shame in the public. I was worried about Sun. He was already in his sixties and had heart conditions. How could he endure such torture?
Guangha Liu, Under the Scorching Sun
A red guard shouted at me, “kneel down!” He then kicked down a stool and said,” knee on the legs.” It was painful to kneel on the thin and angled steel legs. But he was still not satisfied. He rocked the stool with one foot. It didn’t take too long before the steel legs carved into my flesh. I sweated from the excruciating pain and almost fainted. He smiled and left.
Guangha Liu, Under the Scorching Sun
I love my home country. I hate totalitarianism… In a new country [where we don’t have our roots], we have found the sense of returning to the light of hope. But in Muncie’s cold winter wind, my injured back still hurts, my knees still lose sensation. The flame in the fireplace reminds me of those pictures of my mothers’, those ancient paintings, those handwritten letters… I struggle to chase away these nightmares from my memory, but they still haunt my heart. The fear finally diminished, little by little, after these years. Time heals.
The dusk in Muncie is beautiful. The sun is setting in quietness. We sit in front of a window, watching the squirrels busy playing, the red robins coming from nowhere and leaving. The bell ringing at the church makes the surroundings even more quiet. In the golden sunset, Xiyu’s face reflects traces of the hard times. We are deeply thankful for God’s love to us, hoping the people in my home country will experience the same contentment one day.
Guangha Liu, Under the Scorching Sun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlZv6Vv7IsE
13:14 – 14:53
In correlation to the Cultural Revolution that took place in China, there is currently a cultural revolution taking place in this country whether we see it or not. It’s been pushed to us by the ruling class in the western world at large. We have yet to determine how much it will undermine our Judeo-Chirstian values, but the question for all of us will be whether we accept, ignore or participate, fight against it? Will we be guilty of doing nothing and allowing this to succeed and enforce us back into a neo-feudalism and totalitarian political structure that our forefathers left Europe to escape?
Dr. Brian McNeil
Untitled
Yue Minjun