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

MAO, THE UNKNOWN STORY
(McDonald 2005). Davin points out in the Times Literary Supplement a
number of historical errors and speculative assumptions. One concerns
the death of Wang Shiwei. The Unknown Story asserts that Wang’s execution
was used by Mao to terrify the young intellectuals at Yan’an during
the ‘rectification’ campaign of 1942. However the execution of Wang did
not actually take place until 1947 (Williems 2005); it was done without
Mao’s knowledge and Mao was reportedly furious about it.
‘There are numerous such accusations in the book. Unfortunately it is
not always so evident to expose them as mere fantasy’ (Williems 2005).
‘Let me make it clear that I fully share the authors’ view that Mao was a
monster, as were Hitler and Stalin,’ McLynn (2005) declares, but the book
has ‘too much hate too little understanding’. Even Nathan, whose
published political stand is clearly in line with that of Chang, has to
admit ‘that many of Chang and Halliday’s claims are based on distorted,
misleading or far-fetched use of evidence’ (Nathan 2005).
Another good example of how Chang and Halliday distort and
misquote to make misleading statements is provided by Ball (2007).
When discussing the Great Leap Forward, Chang and Halliday claim
that Mao did not care that people were dying from starvation. Chang
and Halliday quote Mao’s words at the Wuchang Conference that
‘working like this, with all these projects, half of China may well have
to die’ as evidence to support their charge that Mao ‘was ready to
dispense with’ half of China’s population for the sake of Mao’s industrialization
plan. But as Ball points out, the quote is taken out of the
context of the whole speech. If one cares to examine the context what
Mao actually meant to say was exactly the opposite of the Chang and
Halliday claim: to warn his audience of the dangers of overwork and
over enthusiasm in the Great Leap Forward.
When questioned about the sensational claim that the Chinese
Nationalist leader, Chiang Kai-shek, intentionally let the Red Army
escape on the historic Long March of 1934–1935, the authors, in their
defence, point to their seemingly impressive references, the 26 sources
for the claim about the Long March. Nathan was compelled to ask ‘Of
these 26 items, which one, two or three unequivocally support the
improbable claim that Chiang let the Reds escape intentionally?’
(Fenby 2005) The answer, my friend, is none.
Logical inconsistency within the text
Jin, not a scholar of any known standing in the field, demonstrates that
one does not have to bring in any documentary evidence to repudiate
17 of Chang and Halliday’s major claims. All one has to do is find
logical contradictions in the book itself. Here rephrased are a couple of
examples pointed out by Jin.
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