Popular Cinema and Political Thought in Post-Mao China

44 Paul G. Pickowiczbut even before the trial ended a flood of letters to People's daily and otherpublications, repeating the concerns of films like The legend of TianyunMountain, pointed out that the jailing of the defendants was only a partialsolution to the political problems that plagued China. 20After much delay, the long-awaited official statement on the weighty issuesmentioned above-a 30,000-charactcr document entitled "Resolution on· Certain Questions in the History of Our Party Since the Founding of thePeople's Republic of China"-was issued on July 1, 1981. 21 Those whohoped this Central Committee document would be as forceful as NikitaKhrushchev's famous denunciation of Stalin and Stalinism in February 1956were undoubtedly disappointed. This unprecedented public statement receivedenormous attention in the domestic and foreign press, but, on balance, itamounted to a cautious and rather self-serving evaluation of the post-1949period. Indeed, the resolution was considerably less critical than the highlypopular films discussed here.The 1981 resolution, published after the release of The legend of TianyunMountain and before the completion of A comer forgotten by lm·e and Atmiddle age, made headlines by admitting publicly what informed Chinesealready knew: First, Mao Zedong "made mistakes in his later years" and,second, the Cultural Revolution was "initiated and led" by Mao. Thoughthe resolution was the first major public attempt by the ruling elite torepudiate the cult of Mao and to reject the myth of his infallibility, it hardlyconstituted a denunciation of Mao and Maoism or raised fundamentalquestions about party rule. On the contrary, the tone was remarkably upbeat.There was virtually no criticism of Mao's role in the long period from thefounding of the Communist party in 1921 to the establishment of thePeople's Republic in 1949, high marks were given to Mao and the partyfor their work in the 1949-1956 transitional period, and, even moreastonishingly, the tumultuous years from 1956 to 1965 were characterizedas a time when "the material and technical basis for modernizing our countrywas largely established." The resolution briefly acknowledged that there were"shortcomings" in the agricultural collectivization drive after 1955, that the"scope" of the 1957 anti-Rightist movement was "too broad," and that"left" errors had been committed during the Great Leap Forward, but nomention was made of the 20 million people who perished in the massivefamine that followed the Great Leap.The 1981 resolution treated in detail only the disastrous decade of theCultural Revolution and left the clear impression that the social, political,and economic problems of the present day were attributable, in the main,to the upheavals of the Cultural Revolution, the diabolical machinations ofLin Biao and the Gang of Four, and the mistakes made by Mao in his lateryears. The resolution confidently asserted that the corner had been turnedon the abuses and injustices associated with the Cultural Revolution whenthe Central Committee declared in December 1978 that socialist modernizationwas the main task of the party and people.Finally, in case anyone had misunderstood the significance of the firstassault on bourgeois liberalization waged in spring 1981, the July resolutionPopular Cinema and PoJstated in no uncertainand the Cultural Revccardinal principles": tdictatorship, the leadchegemony of Marxismresolution warned, sheweakening, breakingimperative," the Centvigilance and conductsocialism and trv to s·cultural fields." 'The basic social vie\safe to say, were signiJextraordinary benchmahighly acclaimed by m