Battle for China's Past : Mao and the Cultural Revolution

THE BATTLE FOR CHINA’ S PAST
personnel seconded from various party organs into schools and
universities in Beijing. The work teams then started to strike against
the broad sector of the masses of old categories of class enemies. As a
result hundreds and hundreds of students and teachers in Beijing
University alone were targeted as class enemies and counter-revolutionaries.
Some were put under house arrest and others were paraded
in struggle meetings. Mao was angry and again accused Liu of striking
against the broad sector in order to protect the small group of leading
officials, and of being the leader of a reactionary line; Liu thus became
one of the main targets of the Cultural Revolution.
According to Wang Li, Mao only wanted to get the CCP on the right
ideological line and did not want to get at Liu Shaoqi personally.
Initially, Mao still wanted to keep Liu within the CCP, but also wanted
him and other leaders to go through the process of an ideological
struggle so as to regenerate the party. When Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping
and Tao Zhu (and many others) had been officially deposed from
office, Mao said ‘down with (da dao) only for a year, at most two years’.
He also stressed that if there was a war (with the Soviet Union, Taiwan
or the United States in mind at that time) these people should be
restored to their former positions straightaway (Wang Li 2001: 681).
Towards the end of 1966, however, Mao realized that those who
resisted his ideological line were many and very strong. But he said
that he was determined to carry the Cultural Revolution through to the
end and said to Wang Li and his Cultural Revolution radical comrades
that ‘if they shoot you I will go with you’ (Wang Li 2001: 710). Wang Li
and others present at this conversation were shocked by Mao’s
remarks and Wang did not realize what Mao meant until many years
later.
Other unofficial views of the Cultural Revolution
Also circulated in the e-media (Shui 2006) is the report of a workshop
organized and participated in by some high-ranking retired party officials
on 13–15 May 2006, which evaluates the Cultural Revolution
positively and challenges the post-Mao version of events. This was
unprecedented in a number of ways: first because no such workshop
had ever been heard of in China before; and second, because it was
reported in the e-media for all to read. Important views expressed at
this workshop include:
• It is necessary to draw a distinction between Rebels and Red
Guards – the former were supported by Mao to target ‘capitalist
roaders’ inside the party while the latter were actually followed
the party bureaucrats in ideology and political line.
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