Memoirs of a Loser 80: The Spirit of the Cultural Revolution

In December 1979, Taiwan's Beautiful Island Incident, and the subsequent military law trial, two major newspapers in Taiwan scrambled to report the details of the trial. "Taiwan has the right to subvert the government legally." When these words were published in the newspapers, Taiwan was already on its way to democracy.

From its inception in 1970 to 1980, "1970s" has changed from reporting Bao Diao, breakthroughs in Sino-U.S. relations, publishing a large number of articles of Chinese-American scholars and celebrities visiting China in the United States and Europeans revisiting China, and using the method of "external to internal" Promoting the democratic process in Taiwan, these sensitive topics concerned by intellectuals in Hong Kong and overseas have established the magazine's position among overseas intellectuals, and its sales have also risen. Personally, I am valued by the CCP. In the past ten years, apart from the bad luck in Shenzhen at the beginning, my work and life have been smooth. The biggest change is that I have been separated from Liyi for 20 years. Came to Hong Kong with two daughters to live together as a family.

In the eyes of others, I am on the road to success. But in 1976 Mao died, the Gang of Four was arrested, and the Cultural Revolution ended, and the problems that were gradually exposed in China made me feel extremely ashamed of the magazine's performance in those years. We did not reveal the truth about the lives of Chinese people during the Cultural Revolution to overseas readers. On the contrary, our extensive publications on the perceptions of overseas scholars visiting China gave readers the wrong information. Our criticism of Taiwan's authoritarian system and the promotion of the democratic movement, if judged in isolation, is of course not a bad thing, but if it is linked to the praise articles of overseas scholars visiting China, it will undoubtedly cause some people to misunderstand that China's hope on the mainland side. In fact, it may be just the opposite.

The ten years of the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976 can be said to have brought the lives of mainland people into a desperate situation. Li Yi's life in the mainland has not been a big problem because of my help, but she has always been worried about her daughter's way out when she grows up. Shenzhen's consumer goods are becoming increasingly scarce, and the situation in rural areas is on the verge of being unable to survive.

In 1977, Wan Li served as the first secretary of Anhui Province. He inspected the countryside and found that not only did the farmers not have enough food and clothing, but also the houses they lived in were made of mud, even the tables and chairs were made of mud, and no wooden furniture could be found. .

The economy has been in negative growth for several years. There have been many reports that the economy was on the brink of collapse in the post-Cultural Revolution period. Here is just a simple figure: Hong Kong’s total import and export volume in 1977 was US$19.6 billion, while China’s total import and export volume this year was less than Hong Kong’s, only US$14.8 billion.

After Yang Zhenning's first visit to China in 1971, he said in his speech back to the United States that the changes he has seen in China are also "the most proud thing for the Chinese people: spirit."

China's up-and-coming composer and writer Liu Sola in the 1980s wrote an article in Southern Weekend about how she carried out "thought remolding" at the age of 11 at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. She said that in order to become a Red Guard, you must first learn to speak swear words (swear words). At first, you couldn't say anything, but if you didn't speak swear words, you would not be a revolutionary teenager, so she had to practice on the open field, starting with "fuck" and practicing So loud that they can say the dirtiest curse words that make them blush.

In her original moral concept, swearing and swearing were shameful. However, the revolution overthrew the old morality and established new morality, and scolding people became a qualification and honor.

Then the head of the Red Guards asked her if she dared to beat people, "defending the red regime with blood", of course, that was the blood of the bourgeoisie and capitalist roaders.

Those who love beauty are the bourgeoisie, and those who do not love beauty are the proletariat. The love of beauty is often associated with hygiene, and hygiene means keeping away from filth, while workers and peasants are not afraid of getting dirty, so they are included in the petty bourgeoisie's "arrogant" temperament, and they are severely beaten. At the same time, elegance and politeness are also discarded because they are not industrialized enough. Therefore, hygiene and graceful manners have become the hallmarks of the bourgeoisie/petty bourgeoisie, and sanitation and vulgarity and rudeness have become the glory of the proletariat.

Intellectuals suspect that farmers do not brush their teeth and do not practice hygiene. "But they worked hard to create the world, and they also fed hygienic intellectuals."

The article mentioned that during the Cultural Revolution, musician Ma Sicong was criticized in Beijing. His wife, who was at his sister’s house in Nanjing, was afraid that he would commit suicide, so she rushed back to Beijing with her daughter and was questioned by the Red Guards on the train. They eat pears without peeling or washing them, and their actions are vulgar, which makes the Red Guards believe that they are rural women who are laborers.”

Since swearing, swearing, beating people is revolution, and loving beauty, cleanliness, and hygiene are bourgeois, then spitting, not queuing, vulgarity, etc. are all proletarian spirit!

Li Yi, who was once sent to the countryside, said that it was a last resort for the poor peasants who could not pay attention to hygiene. Cursing and beating people was not the spirit of the proletariat, but the spirit of the hooligans of the proletariat.

The hooligan spirit is the spirit of supremacy that abandons all traditional moral values and aesthetics. What the Cultural Revolution left the Chinese nation most deeply is the spirit of the Cultural Revolution, which Yang Zhenning said "Chinese people are proud of."

The youth of that era dominated by this spirit is the generation that will be in power four or fifty years later.

In 1979 Guo Songfen said to me, "I don't watch "The Seventies". I believe he is not really not watching, but wants to stimulate me to reflect. However, he was right. It is better not to see than to see. After the Cultural Revolution, I introspected with overseas intellectuals and began a process of re-understanding China.

(Original post on October 27)

"Memoirs of a Loser" serial catalog (continuously updated)

1. Inscription
2. break through
3. Inside the circle outside the circle
4. murderous
5. torment
6. hurt
7. turbulent times
8. choice
9. that age
10. twisted history
11. prophet
12. Liberal final blow
13. my family
14. Occupied area life
15. Paradise under the Wang regime
16. Art and Literature in Occupied Areas
17. Father and Occupied Area Drama
18. Uncle Li's Tragedy
19. flee
20. The Fool's Experience, The Wise's History
21. After the war, from Shanghai to Peiping
22. ancient country style
23. when swallows come
24. under the left-wing ideology
25. 1948 Tree Falling Hozen scattered
26. Pig male dog male turtle male
27. The success and failure of "Apple"
28. How can you say goodbye to a spirit?
29. The final chapter of the age of freedom
30. Walking into the city early in the morning and seeing a dog biting a man
31. Establish left-leaning values
32. "The Faith of Troubled"
33. The cutest person is the funniest person
34. The green years of middle school
35. A day abandoned by ideals
36. talk about my father
37. The struggle of father's life
38. father's contusion
39. The political heritage of inbreeding
40. gift for life
41. cultural cradle
42. Love Letters - The earliest writing
43. Books I read in those years
44. resurrection
45. indispensable chapter
46. Indispensable chapter two
47. Indispensable chapter three
48. Indispensable chapter four
49. Indispensable chapter final chapter
50. There is no most tragic, only more tragic
51. where to go
52. Inspiration from Liu Binyan
53. Half an article by Xu Zhucheng
54. Hong Kong people in the 1950s and 1960s
55. popular culture memory
56. The Left's "Socialization" Period
57. mate's age
58. Peaceful days of those years
59. A turning point in Hong Kong's history
60. fortune and misfortune
61. Beginning of a glorious era in Hong Kong
62. Who are we? Where are we going?
63. The sorrow of double life
64. The background of the publication of "The Seventies"
65. stand out
66. Awakening, Misunderstanding, Connection
67. very useful idiot
68. Take what works, discard what doesn't (Very Useful Idiot No. 2)
69. The Central Department and Pan Jingan
70. non-stupid people do stupid things together
71. The excitement of near absolute power
72. boring far left intervention
73. From fishing to transportation
74. Taiwanese friends in those days
75. Is unity necessarily good?
76. Enlightenment of the Taiwan issue
77. Special role in promoting democracy in Taiwan
78. Taiwanese in the CCP system
79. undead wildflowers
80. Spirit of the Cultural Revolution

 ("Memoirs of a Loser" was previously serialized in "Apple Daily" and is now being continuously updated by Matters)