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

THE BATTLE FOR CHINA’ S PAST
Chapter 3 is an analytical review of memoirs, autobiographies and
biographies on the Mao era published in Chinese language. The literature
is vast and this is the first study that seeks to treat it as a whole.
The chapter first draws a sketch of the literature. It then analyses
several themes in light of traditional Chinese historiography and
shows that the literature focuses on personal struggles and court
intrigues, while ignoring contentious political and socioeconomic
issues in society at that time. The resulting ‘history’ justifies those
writers’ present views and opinions but neglects many inconvenient
historical facts. In this history, remembered personalities are often
portrayed in a Peking opera style, analogous to pure good confronting
evil incarnate, and many legitimate memories which might have a
different voice and different views are silenced.
Chapter 4 focuses on a critique of Jung Chang and Jon Halliday’s
book Mao: The Unknown Story. It first summarizes how their book is
promoted by hype in the media. It then examines the book in detail
and reveals how it misinterprets evidence, ignores the existing literature,
and makes sensationalist claims without proper evidence. It is
argued that it is intellectually scandalous that the Chang and Halliday
book has received so many positive reviews given the fact that its
scholarship is obviously questionable.
By presenting arguments and discussion in the e-media that are
neither available in print and broadcast media nor accessible to those
who do not read Chinese, and by in-depth analysis of claims made in
the Chang and Halliday book, the chapter reveals how the co-authors
have constructed a deeply misleading version of history. The chapter
concludes with a discussion of why such intellectual scandal matters to
the academic community.
As a counter-narrative to Chang and Halliday’s ‘constructed story’,
Chapter 5 argues that there is a known and readily available story that
Chang and Halliday chose to ignore. This is the story that gives
primacy to the Chinese people and to their part in the revolution led
by the CCP under Mao’s leadership, a revolution in which Chang’s
parents participated, a revolution from which Chang herself benefited.
It is a story that that does not deny or forget that it was due to this revolution
that the average life expectancy of the majority Chinese
increased from 35 in 1949 to 63 by 1975, that it was a revolution that
brought unity and stability to a nation tortured for so long by disunity
and instability, and a revolution that laid the foundation for China to
become the equal of the world’s great powers. It is a story about a revolution
‘of the people’ that enabled land reform, that promoted
women’s status, that improved popular literacy and healthcare, and
that eventually transformed Chinese society beyond recognition from
its parlous state prior to the Revolution. In this connection the chapter
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