MCLC: guilt over mother's death in CR

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: guilt over mother's death in CR
***********************************************************

Source: The Guardian (3/27/13):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/27/china-cultural-revolution-sons-
guilt-zhang-hongping

China's Cultural Revolution: son's guilt over the mother he sent to her
death
Zhang Hongbing was 16 when he denounced his mother for criticising
Chairman Mao. Now Zhang wants to make amends
By Tania Branigan

They beat her, bound her and led her from home. She knelt before the
crowds as they denounced her. Then they loaded her on to a truck, drove
her to the outskirts of town and shot her.

Fang Zhongmou's execution for political crimes during the Cultural
Revolution was commonplace in its brutality but more shocking to outsiders
in one regard: her accusers were her husband and their 16-year-old child.

More than four decades on, Fang's son is seeking to atone by telling her
story and calling for the preservation of her grave in their home town of
Guzhen, central Anhui province, as a cultural relic.

Fang's plot is already hemmed in by buildings and a wall is rising behind
it. Nearby streets are stacked with window frames, tiles and pallets of
wood. Without official recognition, fears Zhang Hongbing, his mother's
grave and story could soon be swept away – part of a wider, shadowed past
that is fast disappearing.

"My mother, father and I were all devoured by the Cultural Revolution,"
said Zhang, 60, who is now a lawyer. "[It] was a catastrophe suffered by
the Chinese nation. We must remember this painful historical lesson and
never let it happen again."

Zhang Hongbing holds a photo of his mother. Photograph: Dan Chung for the
GuardianThirty-six million people were hounded and perhaps a million died
in the turmoil unleashed by Mao Zedong in 1966. They were condemned by
their political views and social background or someone's whim, enmity or
attempt at self-preservation through incriminating others. Victims
included the father of China's new leader Xi Jinping, who fell from grace
and was sent to labour in the countryside.

The Communist party long ago deemed the period a disaster. Even so,
authorities are chary of its examination. "It's almost not dealt with at
all in official history," said Michael Schoenhals, of Lund University, who
co-authored Mao's Last Revolution.

Yet history departments now run courses on the period and there is growing
coverage online, he noted. In part, he said, the emerging discussion
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/feb/24/cultural-revolution-por
traits-xu-weixin> reflects the passing of time: "The people who were then
doing some of the worst things – because they were young and stupid and
enthusiastic and eager – are now pushing 70. They want to write before
they go, or sometimes their children want them to write it down."

In a chilly study piled high with books and papers, Zhang leafs through
family mementoes. One photo records his father being paraded in a dunce's
cap. Another shows crudely pencilled illustrations of their story, from an
exhibition that lauded Zhang's fervour. In the last sketch, blood spurts
from his mother's mouth as she is executed.

The family was once "harmonious, happy and warm", said the lawyer.

Fang, only 44 when she died, was bold, extrovert and honest in all
dealings, recalled her younger brother, Meikai. He struggled to speak
through his tears: "When I talk about her, I want to cry," he said. "From
the age of three I would follow her around; she was like another mother."

She met her husband when they joined the revolutionary cause, but their
life was scarred by politics from the first. Her father was executed as a
suspected Nationalist agent; Zhang blames a personal grudge. Later, as
they struggled to survive the Great Famine, Zhang's younger brother was
sent away to a relative who could feed him.

Then the Cultural Revolution burst into their lives. In the streets of
Guzhen, Red Guards smashed heirlooms and burned books: "I thought it was
great – an unprecedented moment in history," Zhang said.

In a blaze of enthusiasm, the children changed their names. Zhang,
previously called Tiefu, became Hongbing, or "red soldier". His elder
sister joined millions of Red Guards trekking to Beijing to see Mao. But
shortly after her return, she collapsed and died from meningitis, aged 16.
Months later, their father was attacked as a "capitalist roader" in at
least 18 "struggle sessions" of verbal and physical abuse.

"I wrote a big character poster about him; I just wanted to follow
Chairman Mao," said Zhang. "For a child to criticise their parents wasn't
just our household. The whole country was doing it."

In 1968, Fang fell under suspicion due to her father. Two years of
investigation, detention and uncertainty tormented her: "Why don't they
just make a decision on me?" she asked.

"Her father's death, her husband's persecution, her daughter's death –
everything that happened made her suspicious of the Cultural Revolution …
She was sick of [it]," said Zhang.

Eventually conditions improved and she was allowed to sleep at home. Then,
one evening, her zealous son accused her of tacitly criticising Mao. The
family row spiralled rapidly: Fang called for the return of purged leaders
and attacked Mao for his personality cult. "I warned her: 'If you go
against our dear Chairman Mao I will smash your dog head,'" Zhang said, at
times reading from his father's testimony. "I felt this wasn't my mother.
This wasn't a person. She suddenly became a monster … She had become a
class enemy and opened her bloody mouth."

Fang's brother begged her to take her words back, warning she would be
killed. "I'm not scared," Fang replied. She tore down and burned Mao's
picture.

When her husband and son ran to denounce her, "I understood it meant
death," Zhang said. In fact, he added, he called for her to be shot as a
counter-revolutionary. He last saw her as she knelt on stage in the hours
before her death.

Most children who turned on their parents were under political pressure,
said Yin Hongbiao, a Beijing-based historian.

"Those with 'bad parents' suffered a lot and they resented their parents
instead of resenting the system which brainwashed them daily," added
Michel Bonnin, of Tsinghua University.

"They were encouraged to denounce their parents, so as to 'draw a line'
between them and the enemy. It was the only way to save themselves. There
were many cases of children who tried to protect their parents against the
violence of Red Guards and were then beaten or even executed."

Zhang's case is much more unusual, but Schoenhals suggested timing was
critical: early 1970 saw a harsh campaign against counter-revolutionary
activities, known as one-strike and three-anti. "You could come across
anything if you had 700 million people embroiled in a conflict of this
seriousness and magnitude," he added.

Fang Meikai, though furious with his sister's family, was powerless to
help her. "I wanted to see her, but I wouldn't have been allowed. I was
afraid that if I went I would also be involved in the case," he said.
"That was the situation back then: they could kill whomever they wanted."

After Mao's death and the Gang of Four's fall, the political tide turned.
Cultural Revolution victims began to be rehabilitated. When Fang Meikai
appealed on behalf of his sister, Zhang and his father agreed to support
him.

Zhang, belatedly confronting his guilt, said he was a son "who could not
even be compared to animals".

Fang was cleared in 1980; two years later, they erected a headstone at her
grave, metres from where she was shot. At the execution ground, an
acquaintance later told them, her eyes swept the crowd as if looking for
faces she knew.

A lost decade

The Cultural Revolution was a lost decade of tragedy and waste. What
historians Roderick Macfarquhar and Michael Schoenhals call the "chaos,
killing and [ultimately] stagnation" claimed lives throughout the country
and at all levels.

Under pressure due to the Great Famine, and unnerved by the Soviet
repudiation of Stalin, Mao wielded mass support to see off rivals.
Frustrated that Communist ideology had not truly taken root, he also
sought to destroy old ideas and institutions.

Top leaders and revered intellectuals were humiliated, beaten and driven
to suicide. Youthful Red Guards abused or murdered teachers and bad class
elements. In Chongqing rival factions battled with guns and tanks; in
Guangxi, there are reports of cannibalism. Friends, neighbours, colleagues
and families turned upon each other. Cultural treasures were destroyed;
universities shuttered. Millions of "educated youth" were sent to labour
in the countryside. The economy was devastated.

Yet many believe that China's reform and development resulted from the
era: Deng Xiaoping and other leaders realised only drastic measures could
make up for lost time and win back popular support.

Additional research by Cecily Huang