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

3 Constructing history:
memoirs, autobiographies
and biographies in Chinese
Introduction: scope and rationale
Many memoirs, autobiographies and biographies have been written by
authors who have a PRC national background. One category that has
dominated the field comprises those written in Western languages,
mainly in English, and published in the West; another has included
those written in Chinese and published in mainland China, Hong
Kong or Taiwan. While memoirs, autobiographies and biographies
published elsewhere appear to be more ‘objectively’ critical of Mao
than those published in mainland China, both English and Chinese
language publications, ever since the 1980s, have tended to join the
chorus of total condemnation of the Cultural Revolution whenever the
subject is mentioned. These two categories of writings appear to have
increasing importance in formulating specific political discourses and
historical narratives and in influencing public perception and opinion
of Mao and the Cultural Revolution.
Since the late 1990s, however, voices that challenge the dominant
official or semi-official political discourse and historical narratives
have also started to appear. Because no challenge to the mainstream
discourse of total condemnation is officially allowed in mainland
China, particularly in the conventional media, dissenting voices are
mostly heard only from unofficial sources such as private conversations
as well as the increasingly flourishing but technologically
difficult to control e-media. This third category of ‘unofficial’ literature
consists of piecemeal memories and personal testimonials as well as
essays or even blogs about Mao and the Cultural Revolution. An evaluation
and comparison of these three categories of literature is not only
useful but also necessary.
Very little has done in this respect. Joshua A. Fogel (1997) is one of
the few who have written about memoirs by Chinese writers. Fogel’s
work, however, is only a short study of what has been written about
the Chinese communist ‘philosopher’ Ai Siqi. Zarrow (1999) and Kong
(1999) have made some very thoughtful and insightful comments, but
only on memoirs and biographies in English. Teiwes (1997) also
touches on the subject but only talks about the benefits and pitfalls of
interviewing CCP party historians and historical participants.
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