Another historical writing of the "Cultural Revolution" - Introduction to "The History of the Cultural Revolution" (Part 2)

8. The Cultural Revolution Chapter 3: Mao Zedong's Retreat

In the view of the rebels, the Shanghai People's Commune was the practice of the Sixteen Points. However, dozens of days later, Mao Zedong rejected the "Shanghai People's Commune". Mao Zedong put forward some reasons, perhaps the most crucial one: "When the commune is established, do we still need a party? I think it should be, and there must always be a core. . . . In short, there must be a party. "

It seems that Mao is still hesitant to face the big issue of changing the national system. He seems to prefer Heilongjiang's approach: the "three-in-one" revolutionary committee. The so-called "three combinations" means "revolutionary cadres", revolutionary mass organizations, and the army "three branches and two armies".

The original intention of the "three combinations" is to reconcile the interests of all strata of the current situation and fire and water. However, there are good reasons for all parties to refuse to compromise. For the rebels, the "three-in-one" was equivalent to helping the bureaucratic class they had overthrown, and it did not realize their revolutionary ideal of the "Paris Commune"; for the bureaucrats, their power was greatly affected. They also cannot stand the power of mass organizations. In the final analysis, the Revolutionary Committee was not the result of the spontaneous compromise of all social strata, but always had the color of being "united" from the upper classes , so its collapse was almost inevitable.

At the same time, although the rebels are powerful on the surface, they have flaws that are always insurmountable and lack the fighting ability needed to realize their political ideals. First of all, the organizational ability is not qualified. Second, and more importantly, the rebels, as a hodgepodge of huge masses united, have different interests and demands . Many of the rebel Red Guards may have ideals and enthusiasm to realize the great ideal of the "Paris Commune". But for many people, they may just be expressing the humiliation suffered during the 50-day dictatorship and Red August. The lack of effective organization and class awareness education, coupled with hasty "seizing power", paved the way for later factionalism.

In addition, the ideas of the rebels continued to be radicalized. The most typical example is to criticize the "three labors" (outsourced workers, contract workers, temporary workers) system. "Three workers" were the workers with the lowest status and treatment at that time. For those workers with higher wages in the eight-grade wage system, such criticism is obviously unpleasant. As a result, the radicalization of revolutionary ideas has caused the rebels to split into moderates , and even conservatives took the opportunity to restore. As the Cultural Revolution heretics said later:

"The division of the revolutionary ranks, the abandonment of the laggards, and the break with the opportunist faction, which are inevitable in any revolution, have become more frequent and obvious in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution."

9. The Cultural Revolution Chapter 4: The People's Liberation Army in the Cultural Revolution

As a very unstable institution, the reason why the Revolutionary Committee was widely accepted in early 1967 was naturally the support of the army.

In 1966, the military's greatest role was "no role." By 1967, the military began to move from behind the scenes to the front.

For the army, Mao Zedong initially wanted to launch the Cultural Revolution to overthrow the party and government bureaucrats, and the army still supported it. One of the most supportive is Lin Biao, who supported Gao Gang back then, and can be said to represent the more radical faction of the "Red Zone Party". The support of at least mainstream factions in the military was a prerequisite for Mao Zedong to launch the Cultural Revolution .

But the army is in the end different from the masses of workers and peasants. After all, they also belong to the "system", and their various privileges and "bourgeois legal rights" are also criticized by the rebels. Therefore, when the party and government officials are overthrown and the rebels continue to radicalize, they are more inclined to seize power and prevent further institutional reforms . This is their fundamental interest.

In the early days of the movement, the army was ordered to never allow the suppression of the student movement, and "not allowed to fight back" if it was beaten.

By 1967, however, the army was able to share power by entering the Revolutionary Committee, and they were satisfied. On the one hand, it retains the original bureaucratic structure, and at the same time, because the power of the party, government and civilians is limited, the military has a very convenient platform for expanding its power. We have seen that the party and government officials only began to expand their powers after the "three branches and two armies" ended in 1972.

By the end of 1966, some armies had begun to privately intervene in the Cultural Revolution. At the same time, the split among the rebel factions, the advantages brought by the ruling party's grasp of the state apparatus, and the possibility of paralysis of industry and agriculture due to social chaos, also made Mao Zedong's determination to order the army to intervene. In January, with the issuance of "three branches and two armies" (ie, support for the left, support for industry, support for agriculture, military management, and military training) and the "Eight Rules of the Military Commission", the PLA began to intervene in the Cultural Revolution. This had disastrous consequences for the Cultural Revolution.

First of all, although the central government initially only required the military to exercise military control over certain "vital" parts, as the situation became more and more chaotic, the military took the opportunity to intervene in more and more fields.

Second, an important issue for the military is the distinction between "leftists" and "rightists". However, due to the position of the military itself, they often intervene in the position of conservatives , and even deliberately adopt the method of "pulling one faction and fighting one faction" to create internal divisions for the rebel faction, and then suppress the more radical faction.

As a result, conflicts between the army and the rebels began to surface in February. Only the garrisoned troops in five provinces and cities in Shanghai, Shanxi, Shandong, Heilongjiang, and Guizhou support the rebels. The manifestation of this contradiction at the high level is the "February countercurrent" . Tan Zhenlin even put forward the "three should not be in life", saying that he should not join the Communist Party, and should not go to Jinggangshan with Mao Zedong. Later, Mao Zedong scolded Tan Zhenlin on the phone, and severely criticized the veteran cadres. The Political Bureau of the Central Committee held seven consecutive political life meetings to criticize. After that, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee ceased its activities, and the Central Cultural Revolution Group took its place.

The "February Countercurrent" was actually a threat to military conservatives to break with Mao Zedong. This also explains why Mao Zedong has always had an ambiguous attitude towards this matter. After Lin Biao's fall, he put all the blame on the dead and rehabilitated the old coaches. Correspondingly, at the grassroots level, the friction between the army and the rebels can only be "solved by themselves". One of the most cruel is the "February 23" incident in Qinghai. (PS This matter is seen in "Yanhuang Chunqiu", it is not that "Mao Zuo" reverses black and white. See http://www.yhcqw.com/33/6320.html, which will not be repeated here)

From the end of March, the central government began to deal with the issue of the military's position. For example, the "Five Articles of Anhui", which was later distributed to the whole country, stated that "declaring mass organizations as counter-revolutionaries must be approved by the central government", "not to label the masses as counter-revolutionaries, and not to arbitrarily arrest people" , etc. Wait. Later, the Central Military Commission issued a more stringent " CMC Ten Points", which managed to control the situation.

Originally, the stability of the army has always been the bottom line insisted on by the top leaders of the central government. For a long time, high-level officials actually deliberately supported the suppression of rebels in the military. But this situation changed with the "July 20 Incident". This incident originated from the split of the rebel factions in Wuhan. Chen Zaidao, the commander of the Wuhan Military Region, vigorously suppressed the rebel factions. The powerful conservative group "Million Lions" also cooperated with the military's actions. As the situation gradually became chaotic, Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai even went to Wuhan in person. Mao Zedong once said during this period: "This time is a bit like the Revolution of 1911, mobilizing the masses, but the masses have not yet benefited, and the army will grab it." After the initial instructions were issued, the matter seemed to be over, and Zhou Enlai returned to Beijing. However, some people soon began to spread rumors and incite the officers, and the army also began to "rebellion". Someone said: "No matter how old Zhou XX is, or how high his position is, he should be brought down." There are even rumors that "catch the person who came to swim" (only the military region knows about Mao's "swimming" in Wuhan). The guard at the Zhizuo Office of the Military Region said to others: "In the past, it was enough to be convincing, but now it will not work. Our PLA's guns are not easy to use." This revealed the essence of the incident. Later, Mao Zedong evacuated Wuhan first.

On August 1, the "Red Flag" magazine published an editorial proposing "a handful of people in the military" . On August 7, Xie Fuzhi also proposed "smashing the Public Prosecution Law" (the "Second Red Generation" ratio in the Public Prosecution Law is relatively high, and it has a negative repressive function, which is more conservative than the general bureaucracy). On August 9, Lin Biao also came out to accuse the army of suppressing the people, saying that "the current revolution is to revolutionize the life we have revolutionized before" and "to build a new state machine."

Before that, on July 22, Jiang Qing put forward the slogan of "Civil attack and military defense" . On August 4, at the executive enlarged meeting chaired by Lin Biao, Jiang Qing took out a letter from Mao Zedong and circulated it. Because Lin Biao had written a letter saying that the most serious problem at present is the issue of guns, and he drafted a directive prohibiting the seizure of guns, but Mao Zedong wrote back and said, " More than 75% of the army cadres support the rightists. Therefore, one of the current Cultural Revolution is one of the The main problem is to arm the leftists. The issue of grabbing guns is not serious. ” Then, on August 9, when Lin Biao met the new leaders of the Wuhan Military Region, he said that he would “arm the leftists” and “issue guns to the leftist masses.”

The result of "grabbing a small group of people in the army" has caused many people to be criticized. Zhu De, who had basically withdrawn from the political arena, was criticized for a time, but it was only stopped after Mao Zedong expressed his willingness to fight with Zhu De. As a result, the fallen "dead tiger" Peng Dehuai became the target of venting and was brutally criticized. Liu Shaoqi has also become an outlet for the rebels' dissatisfaction with the real system (the author mentioned that this kind of anger is understandable in connection with the remarks on the Internet that they want to "whip the corpse" of someone).

At the same time, the result of the firing was brutal fighting across the country. Although the PLA has begun to allow rebels to "collect" old weapons, that hasn't stopped some PLAs from sending newer weapons to conservatives. Rebels and conservatives fought fiercely, and the infighting in Chongqing even went so far as to use tanks and gunboats.

During this period, the most sensational rebel activity of the rebels was in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs controlled by Chen Yi. After the "ultimatum" of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs asking the British Hong Kong government to acquit the journalists expired, the rebels were furious and set fire to the British agency. This was followed by a series of incidents that impacted foreign institutions in China. Later Zhou Enlai characterized this series of events as "anarchism" in his speech, saying that "what I am worried about is a chain reaction. Now, one is that the leadership of the central government cannot be shaken, and the other is that the prestige of the PLA cannot be shaken." Mao Zedong later expressed his support.

On September 5, Jiang Qing officially denied the "capitalist roaders in the army" and imposed restrictions on "literary attack and military defense". Later, Wang Li, Guan Feng, and Qi Benyu, the "three sharp knives" of the Cultural Revolution involved in the Foreign Ministry incident, fell from power.

Things have gotten to this point, and the radicalization demands of the Cultural Revolution have become increasingly unpopular. The great division of the masses illustrates this. It can be said that its political demands have exceeded the range that the productive forces can accommodate, and are more and more inclined to the bottom of the society. "Where is China Going" can be said to be a representative of the demands of the radicalization of the Cultural Revolution, and it can also be said to be the peak of its theory. It proposed the theory of "red capitalists" and demanded to launch a peasant revolutionary war and establish a "Chinese people's commune" . However, Mao Zedong and most of the masses were tired of the Cultural Revolution.

On October 4, the central government asked schools to resume classes. On the 6th, the "People's Daily" began to recall the cultural revolution in the ideological field in 1966. On the 7th, Mao Zedong began to talk about "doing a good job in the relationship between cadres and the masses." In fact, he had given up the goal of system reform and returned to the level of "rectification". Finally, with Mao Zedong's instructions, a large number of rebel factions were absorbed into the party. Of course, it is impossible to fundamentally change the system by absorbing the revolutionary factors outside the system into the system.

Soon, as the military began to restore order, China entered a period of military rule.

It was during this period that the army, while suppressing a large number of civilian pamphlets, carried out a personal cult of Mao Zedong. The spontaneous worship movement of the people became compulsory.

(PS, by the way, there is a famous dialogue that happened after many years of reunion between the head of a "million lions" and a rebel leader. The head of the "million lions" finally said: "Many old The workers are all laid off and unemployed. If I knew this earlier, I would never have participated in the "Million Lions". Now it seems that you were right in supporting Chairman Mao's revolutionary line. If there is another Cultural Revolution, I will definitely follow you as a rebel." )

10. The Cultural Revolution Chapter 5: Picking up the mess

After the campaign, it was customary for a large-scale purge. The army has taken a high position, and if Mao Zedong does nothing about it, the result is the perpetuation of military power. In this context, the contradiction between Mao Zedong and Lin Biao began to emerge.

Some American scholars said that Lin Biao was an opportunist, and he supported any policy that benefited his power. This is probably true in general.

In fact, Lin Biao's status during the Cultural Revolution has always been very delicate. The fact that there are many hilltops in the army also makes him unable to achieve a higher status. The aborted coup d'état in 1971 (which may have to be thrown on Lin Biao's good son) made Lin Biao have no choice but to flee in a hurry. After this, the party organization was quickly rebuilt in the "criticism of Lin Piao Confucius", and the army was driven back to the barracks. Naturally, the rebels were forced to retreat by the old fritters, and could only do some dying struggles in the cultural field that Jiang Qing still controlled. In fact, the status and political life of the Cultural Revolution faction at this time were fundamentally dependent on the increasingly weak Mao Zedong.

For Mao Zedong at this time, there was no hope for the Cultural Revolution faction. With Deng Xiaoping's series of actions to suppress the remaining rebels, establish strict labor discipline with an iron fist, and release detained cadres, only a fool would believe the swear of "never overturned" before his comeback. Mao Zedong's last hope was not to completely deny the Cultural Revolution. Of course, Deng Xiaoping could not accept this, because he had long realized that his actions had won the support of the bureaucracy and even the majority of the society. What he needs most is to win the unanimous support of the party and government bureaucrats by overthrowing the Cultural Revolution , and Mao Zedong, who has learned this, is determined to launch a "fighting right-wing verdict" - which has only received a deserted response in society.

Mao finally chose Hua Guofeng as his successor. Although Hua Guofeng is also not interested in the Cultural Revolution, he still agrees with the bottom line of not denying the Cultural Revolution. Of course, Hua Guofeng is not a leader's material, and his support for Mao Zedong has also become a political burden. Deng Xiaoping achieved a decisive victory in the Third Plenary Session of the Thirteenth Central Committee, thus determining China's future.

The Mao Zedong era is over.

11. The future (excerpt)

(Note: I'm not going to do a lot of work here, let the author summarize it himself.)

Before summarizing the experience and lessons of the Cultural Revolution, let us first ask a question: How many years did the Cultural Revolution take?

I believe most people blurt out "10 years". The "Cultural Revolution" I mentioned earlier also refers to the ten-year Cultural Revolution for the convenience of understanding. The issue of historical staging of the Cultural Revolution is a very important point in solving the Cultural Revolution, and it is also the most ambiguity in evaluating the Cultural Revolution. This is also the debate between the "Ten Years of the Cultural Revolution" and the "Three Years of the Cultural Revolution" .

From the analysis of the situation, the spontaneous mass movement in the summer of 1968 was already suppressed. By 1969, the large-scale movement had ended, and the society had basically returned to order. If the Cultural Revolution was to be regarded as a political movement, it was terminated by 1969 at the most. Therefore, Western scholars at that time generally believed that the Cultural Revolution had ended by 1969. In "Biography of Mao Zedong", Ross Trier described the surprise of Westerners when China announced that the Cultural Revolution would last for 10 years: Westerners could not immediately accept the "Ten Years of Cultural Revolution theory" (many people still do not accept it), they would rather It is seen as a strategy of Deng Xiaoping.

If the "Ten Years of Cultural Revolution theory" is a strategy of Hua Guofeng or Deng Xiaoping, then this strategy will undoubtedly lead to serious deviations in the interpretation and understanding of the Cultural Revolution. However, "the ten years of the Cultural Revolution" is not entirely without its own reasons. One of the reasons is that Lin Biao and the "counter-revolutionary clique" of the Gang of Four have not collapsed. Of course, the implied meaning is that Mao Zedong has not died. But do political movements all end with the fall of their manipulators? It also has some explanations. For example, it believes that after the Ninth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Mao Zedong continued to implement some concepts that emerged during the Cultural Revolution, or policies that had been implemented during the Great Leap Forward (such as part-time work-study, economic decentralization and rural areas). factory). Most of the policies were completely repealed after Mao Zedong's death in 1976 and the fall of the Cultural Revolution faction.

The most important basis for the "Three Years of the Cultural Revolution" is the unprecedented political operation method during this period. This is the so-called "proletarian democracy" marked by the "Big Four ". In contrast, its follow-up movements and events have ranged from cleaning up the ranks of the class, fighting against three evils, checking "5.16", criticizing Chen rectification, criticizing Lin's rectification, criticizing Lin's criticism of Confucianism, criticizing the law and criticizing Confucianism, criticizing the Water Margin, The economic rectification, education rectification, until the criticism of Deng and the counter-attack against the rightist style of overturning the verdict, whether it was initiated by the Cultural Revolution faction or the party and government bureaucrats, all returned to the top-down, "left" and "right", "moving the masses" to varying degrees. However, the new formulation of "anti-trend" called by Mao Zedong as "rebellion is justified" failed to promote the formation of spontaneous mass rebellions similar to those in the Cultural Revolution.

The "Ten Years of Cultural Revolution theory" has actually brought about such a problem, that is, it is unclear what exactly the Cultural Revolution was . Because it said that the Cultural Revolution was a "civil strife", but "civil strife" is an evaluation, not a definition. To say that the Cultural Revolution was a political movement would certainly make no sense, because the political movements that took place after 1969 were largely independent of the movement that ended in 1969. Moreover, apart from the literary criticism movement, no movement has been able to connect the entire 10 years. However, it is too one-sided to connect these 10 years only by a literary criticism movement. Therefore, in the context of "the ten years of the Cultural Revolution", the Cultural Revolution is definitely not a political movement.

So how do we understand it? In "The Decade of the Cultural Revolution", we can understand it this way: it regards the Cultural Revolution as a period , that is, a fixed social model. The “Cultural Revolution” in the so-called “Cultural Revolution period” undoubtedly refers to those 10 years. This can be explained. In essence, the "Cultural Revolution Ten Years Theory" regards the Cultural Revolution as a system completely different from the existing society, a "ridiculous" and irrational phenomenon, a fixed and rigid model . It is consistently rehearsed for contemporary audiences in increasingly typical, conceptual, hollow, and stereotyped comic scenes. The Cultural Revolution was reduced to some vivid and vivid symbolic images, such as the Red Book, the Loyalty Character Dance, the Sweepstakes, the "Jet", etc. These were deliberately processed by the characters and cultural producers, and repeatedly strengthened by the official and mainstream media. It has become a miniature "Cultural Revolution history" in the amusement park. This is reinforced by the fact that some history books describe the history of the Cultural Revolution in the form of special topics rather than in chronological order. This is true of Gao Gao and Yan Jiaqi's "Ten Years of History of the Cultural Revolution", Yang Kelin's "Cultural Revolution Museum", and Xin Ziling's "A Thousand Years of Merit and Crime of Mao Zedong". One can extract anything from this model, because it is itself stitched together by a myriad of "phenomena". Of course any small piece of this 'phenomenon' can be extracted to explain it, to find any negative teaching for what they want to assert. That is to say, "The Cultural Revolution was a garbage basket, and anything could be put in it."

We can say that "the Cultural Revolution is the history of the Cultural Revolution." Whether the Cultural Revolution lasted three years or ten years, it was a constantly changing society and a history of extreme shocks. Mao Zedong's ideas about the Cultural Revolution may be a set of models or systems, but the Cultural Revolution itself is definitely not a fixed system or model. Precisely because it is always in flux, there is a special connection between each event. The "Cultural Revolution Ten Years Theory" regards the Cultural Revolution as a period, a fixed system and model, which actually breaks the connection between events.

The "Ten Years of the Cultural Revolution" led to calling the end of the Cultural Revolution an "end" rather than a "failure," viewing the Cultural Revolution as a rigid model rather than a history of shocks and struggles. This makes it even less likely that one can truly sum up the lessons of the Cultural Revolution. As far as lessons are concerned, because the rebels continued to radicalize, rashly advance, and rashly seized power when class strength was insufficient, this kind of nationwide mobilization revolution deviates from the two most crucial goals of building class organization and instilling class consciousness . As a result, loose organization and a lack of class consciousness prevented the rebels from accomplishing radical revolutionary goals. Due to the fact that close class organizations have never been established, mass organizations have fallen into continuous division and direct democracy; and the goal of being too radical and not seeking unity has also caused the alliance and strong resistance of conservative forces. These two reasons led to the Cultural Revolution. a protracted war or even a "full-scale civil war". This has brought great damage to economic construction and the production and life of most people, beyond the breadth and intensity that this society can bear, and ultimately failed. And after its failure, it left the people extremely disappointed with public life, with far-reaching negative consequences. (PS The above problems were also reflected in June 4th, which shows that people have not learned any lessons after being "crazy" for many years.)

These rebel factions later reflected on the fact that the organizational strength of the rebel factions was at best the level of the CCP before the Zunyi Conference: the goal was unclear, they did not talk about tactics, and they fought their own way. This is undoubtedly a hard lesson. Of course, in addition to the rebels themselves, Mao Zedong, the conservatives, and especially the military all have inescapable responsibilities.

However, mass organizations during the Cultural Revolution did have their own independence, and at least most people had limited but unprecedented freedoms of speech, publication, association, assembly, and demonstration . It is nerdy to think that you can get "complete" democratic freedom once and for all in one fell swoop. If the biggest limitation of the Cultural Revolution is that it is a revolution led by the supreme ruler, then its greatest significance lies in the fact that under this order, "revolution" was originally impossible . The Cultural Revolution created a breakthrough, but it failed to make good use of it due to various limitations. For this lesson, later generations chose to "completely deny" everything, and eliminated the possibility of absorbing the positive factors in its political heritage. Today, we must first clarify the point of "failure" and the consequences of the "break" caused by "failure".

The so-called "true democracy", that is, from the perspective of books, is a theoretical democracy, and there is a long process to realize it, and any country is no exception. If you compare the Cultural Revolution, which opened a breakthrough, with the definitions and concepts in books, the Cultural Revolution is of course undemocratic. As I said earlier, the idea of a complete democracy once and for all is ludicrous in the first place. History never happens in a sterile box, and democracy never has a standard model. The enlightenment of Catherine in Russia was enlightenment with the premise of autocracy; the reform of Napoleon in France was the reform with the premise of autocracy. People did not turn a blind eye to their enlightenment or reformation. Democracy and slavery in ancient Greece were two-in-one, with bad records, but later generations did not say that it was not democracy. Some people fantasize about a perfect "true democracy" all day long, completely ignoring the role of social practice and the progressive nature of democracy. When those who once fiercely criticized utopianism, if only the perfect democratic model in the book can be called "true democracy", that is, they regard democracy and enlightenment as a fixed and rigid utopia, and then it has become a reality invisibly. An established guardian.

The Cultural Revolution did not express what people really thought? Many of the big-character posters I quoted earlier should answer this. Of course, there are limitations to the expression of this real idea, but its significance cannot be denied.

Another point is the question of the so-called "current counter-revolution". In fact, the Cultural Revolution has been in the midst of fierce struggles between different strata for three years, especially when the struggle gradually got out of control ( because all strata are involved, and naturally no one will "control" it, which is a huge lessons ), some people will do anything to win the struggle. This is true of "bloodline theory," "red terror," "on the line", the abuse of the "current counter-revolutionary" crime in the "Six Points of Public Security", and so on. That is to say, it was the fierce struggle of interests between different strata that preceded the so-called "current counter-revolutionary" who wrote wrong words and shouted the wrong slogan and was suppressed, not the "current counter-revolution" before the struggle . For example, when the army suppressed or split the rebels during the February counter-current, in order to appear "reasonable and well-founded", they produced a lot of "black materials" of the "current counter-revolutionary" of the rebels, but later countered the February counter-current, and the rebels regained the advantage. At that time, these "black materials" are nothing. The biggest lesson we have to learn is not to arbitrarily expand the intensity of the struggle, reduce the social cost of the struggle, and not to be reckless by any means. But first, we must understand the objective existence of struggle. It is the responsibility of the mainstream cultural revolution historical view to understand the Cultural Revolution as a history of one faction's frantic suppression and persecution of another faction, rather than a history of fierce struggle between the two factions.

Since the "Ten Years of the Cultural Revolution" treats the Cultural Revolution as a rigid model, then there will be another point of view: that is, as long as you say good things about the Cultural Revolution (such as this book), you must "return to the era of the Cultural Revolution." However, what is the inevitable connection between acknowledging the positive significance of the Cultural Revolution or the Mao Zedong era and wanting to "return to that era"? According to this logic, those who worship the ancient Chinese emperors will burst into tears, because what awaits them is a big hat who "want to return to the feudal autocratic society". I don't want to go back to ancient times, but that doesn't stop me from praising the achievements of ancient China. But in reality, why are only Mao Zedong's supporters detained and considered to be "going back to the past"?

As long as we talk about some of the positive meanings of the Cultural Revolution, it is a combination of everything in that era. This simplistic narrative has produced words like "doing the Cultural Revolution." However, as an extremely complex historical event, the Cultural Revolution has never been limited to "one set". The discourse of "doing the Cultural Revolution one set" itself regards the Cultural Revolution as a rigid model that allows only one interpretation paradigm. The name of "revealing the truth" covers up a real and complex historical process. Some people laugh at the "Remembering the bitter and thinking about the sweet" activities in the Mao Zedong era, but now some people's "remembering the bitter and thinking about the sweet" is not something that is taught every year, every month, every day? The principle remains the same.

The result of the simplistic narrative of the Cultural Revolution is that when many people talk about the Cultural Revolution, they can only shake their heads and stare in amazement as "irrational," "absurd," and "crazy." This justifies the failure of today's mainstream Cultural Revolution narrative. What is Rationale? Reasoning is knowing. The reason why we need the humanities and social sciences is precisely because the humanities and social sciences can reveal all kinds of unreasonable humanities and social phenomena into a reasonable one. Li Yu, take this understanding of black holes as a medal for his great success. And any questioning about this "black hole" is precisely the response of "Cultural Revolution-style" factions, slapped hats at will, extremely simplistic views, and then "disdainfully" refuted. Whether that dead model is "hell" or "heaven," it will make people preconceived and dismiss each other lightly, and ultimately no one can learn the lesson. The "Cultural Revolution" is the 10-year existence of the 1 billion living people. It is by no means a pile of absurd medical records of a lunatic asylum and a bizarre myth of court struggle. As long as prejudice is not imposed and memory is not distorted, the catastrophic and catastrophic process of a poor and large country's modernization process will be no more difficult to understand than any events around us - fundamentally, the "Cultural Revolution" is involving real people. and push, and finally be brought to an end.

Today, more than 30 years after the "Cultural Revolution" ended, it has retreated to a distance where people can clearly observe it. We need more authors with different perspectives and standpoints to expand and enrich the narrative of the "Cultural Revolution" and give the Cultural Revolution an easy-to-understand appearance. Doing so may increase the difficulty of criticizing the Cultural Revolution, but it will only make the criticism more accurate and powerful, making it a real criticism. It is in this sense that if the Cultural Revolution has been in a state of "unreasonable" for a long time, it will become a thick insulator , unable to connect the past and the future. This insulator will definitely prevent people from understanding the Chinese revolution before the Cultural Revolution, from which the Cultural Revolution gradually grew. It will also prevent people from understanding the reform and opening up nearly 30 years after the Cultural Revolution. The Cultural Revolution is its irreplaceable mother.

The Cultural Revolution is the history of the Cultural Revolution, it is a process, it is a history, it is not a "period", it is not a rigid model and a set of fixed systems. The biggest problem today is that while we are critiquing reality, we are also imagining a more just society. But we cannot build a bridge between the two systems . In the end, it becomes a kind of hypothetical historiography, an imaginary such as "Assuming there is democracy and the rule of law, any mistakes can be avoided." However, the problem is that we have to face the reality and see the practice. All of these must be realized by the forces between different interest classes in society to change this, at least by the mutual checks and balances of groups with different interests. It is no different from the utopian socialists of more than 100 years ago just to hope that vested interests will show kindness to promote reform. The most important thing is that the 30 years of reform and opening up have relied too much on the promotion within the system. When the vested interest groups gradually become stronger and the impetus for reform becomes smaller and smaller, it is inevitable to seek and organize forces outside the system to promote the reform . The reform within the system and the pressure outside the system must interact, and the reform of "walking on one leg" with a single driving force must be changed to the reform of "walking on two legs". If we view historical events such as the Cultural Revolution as a process, then this may provide inspiration for us to build the bridge of "reform". However, the painful lessons of the Cultural Revolution since the 1980s have been simplistically summarized, that is, any direct participation and supervision of the masses or forces outside the system may lead to "turmoil" or "populism". The only legal supervision can only be carried out by party and government bureaucrats who appear through the media and the law. This conclusion does not answer the questions raised by the Cultural Revolution, but brings us back to the problems Mao Zedong faced when he launched the Cultural Revolution.

We look forward to a more in-depth and theoretical study of the special history of Mao Zedong's later years, and to provide a better reference for our cognition and grasp of today's reality today. At least, we don't want it to be just like a graffiti wall to be arbitrarily painted to spread the truth and fabricate and distort it. To study the history of the Cultural Revolution today, I only offer 3 suggestions:

First of all, it is the bottom line of the study of the Cultural Revolution to recognize that the Cultural Revolution was the general outbreak of social contradictions in China at that time . Second, the Cultural Revolution exposed a large number of deep-seated contradictions within China, most of which remain unresolved, and some have even intensified. This is the practical significance of studying the Cultural Revolution. Third, studying the forces outside the system to promote social change is of considerable significance to today's social development, and at the same time helps to avoid limitations and mistakes in the Cultural Revolution.

An American scholar said, "If Mao Zedong did not find a way to realize the two major commitments of democracy and socialism, then Deng Xiaoping simply gave up these two major commitments." Of course, this is not so absolute. It should be recognized that Deng Xiaoping's efforts have achieved this for China. Two commitments create the foundational conditions . But it is only a condition. As for how to achieve this, perhaps, we will still get some inspiration from Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution, at least from "a certain set" of the Cultural Revolution.

No one will deny the huge problems and mistakes that occurred during the Cultural Revolution. However, what we reject is forced forgetting, but we should reflect on it and achieve transcendence. To quote Maurice Meissner: "No matter how catastrophic the failure of the Cultural Revolution was, he did instill in the masses' consciousness that rebellion against the authorities was the right of the masses. The Chinese people may once again practice what the proletarian Cultural Revolution had to do. The only way to advocate can only be "the masses themselves liberate themselves, and cannot take any alternative method." The model of the Cultural Revolution may not be repeatable, and the behavior of the Cultural Revolution may be discussed, but the principles and spirit of the Cultural Revolution are not. It must not be wiped out.

Lu Xun once said, "Hope doesn't matter what it is or doesn't matter. It's just like the road on the ground: in fact, there is no road on the ground, and the more people walk, the road becomes." When the generation of wind and rain has similar confusion and doubts, this sentence will linger in the hearts of everyone who has thought about "where is China going?" .

(End of this article)

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Author's postscript

I remember when I first entered the university, because I really wanted to experience the club activities of Peking University, but I really didn’t have a favorite club, so I signed up for the Marxist Society. Originally I wanted to hang out there, but it became an indispensable part of my college life.

It was my first time to attend the event, and I am still very impressed. The title of the first activity at that time was National History (1949-1978). It goes without saying how controversial and sensitive this content is. At that time, we were all shocked by the content that the speaker said deviates considerably from traditional views, especially the part about the history of the Cultural Revolution. And I happened to be quite interested in this history, and had a pretty heated argument with the speaker. At that time, I was a little confused, and felt that my thoughts had been confused under the continuous impact. I remember someone saying at that time that the truth of the history of the Cultural Revolution is not in the ivory tower, nor in any "confidential" archives, but in the people. This sentence made a deep impression on me.

Later, I started to come into contact with some books about the Cultural Revolution. I think the books of domestic scholars are too heavily influenced by ideology and can only be used as a reference. However, Xi Xuan and Jin Chunming's "A Decade of History of the Cultural Revolution", Wang Nianyi's "The Age of Great Unrest", Gao Gao and Yan Jiaqi's "A Brief History of the Cultural Revolution" still have some thoughts, and the materials are still very rich. very rigorous. Later, I borrowed a series of "Foreign Scholars Comments on Mao Zedong" from the library. Later I read "Cambridge History of the People's Republic of China". The views of foreign scholars are of course very novel, but they also confuse my thinking. Then I started going to leftist websites. I am very disgusted with the views of most leftists on the Internet (especially the idealization of Mao Zedong and the Mao Zedong era, and even the Cultural Revolution), but I have to admit that they have indeed put a lot of effort into data collection and research. Those who debate the history of the first 30 years online and in the expert media on a daily basis do gather a lot of material. One of the most useful is Long Live Mao Zedong Thought. "Long Live Mao Zedong Thought" is an anthology of Mao compiled by the Red Guards from 1966 to 1968. It collected a large number of official unpublished speeches and manuscripts. Some comrades in Wuhan scanned it into an electronic version and posted it online. After downloading it, I have a basic understanding of Mao Zedong's thought in his later years. After another semester of sorting and research as a hobby, I have achieved preliminary results. However, I feel that the most rewarding thing is the fulfillment of the phrase "the truth of the Cultural Revolution lies in the people".

In the first semester of my sophomore year, I finally returned to school. The first time I studied was to talk about the history of the Cultural Revolution, and I invited an old party member. As a result, the problem was narrowed down to the construction of party style. I said at the time that if the specific process and facts of the Cultural Revolution were not explained clearly, it would be an empty foundation. Does it make sense to talk about the Cultural Revolution? Later, I "voluntarily volunteered" to tell a history of the Cultural Revolution in the society. It seems very dramatic when I remember that the first time I heard the same topic in the school, I was shocked at the time, and now it is me who "shocks" the other students. Even more dramatic is during the lecture. I am very fortunate that I let everyone speak about the Cultural Revolution before I speak. Most of the people who came to participate in the discussion were new members, and even people outside the school, so they had a variety of views, such as "feudal restoration theory", "conspiracy theory", "revolution theory", "cultural determinism", "human nature theory", "Utopia theory" , "Theory of Political Struggle", etc. I am very grateful to the two girls who are very emotional and talk a lot about the theory of "feudal restoration". Because in the process of speaking, I basically used the richness of the expressions of the two girls as the scale.

Entering this semester, although only half of the semester has passed, but the achievements are not small. On the one hand, I went to the "little black room" in the library and browsed through the "People's Daily" from 1966 to 1968. At the same time, I found a copy of "Long Live the Victory of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" in the library, which included all official instructions, speeches, and editorials from 1966 to 1969. I think this is my most important source of information during this period besides Long Live Mao Zedong Thought. After having gained a lot, I began to prepare for the editing of loose-leaf anthologies. My task is the history of the first thirty years of the Republic, commonly known as the Mao Zedong era. Although I think the time is not yet ripe to evaluate the Mao Zedong era, especially the Cultural Revolution, I still feel it is necessary for me to express my opinion on the basis of the data I have collected. So I've accelerated my data-gathering activities and am constantly revising my views. Later, I found the "Cultural Revolution Materials Collection" and "A Brief Commentary on the Proletarian Cultural Revolution" on the Internet. The former is about 750,000 words, because it is the most refined database I have quoted; the latter is 16 million words long, collecting a large number of written materials, memoirs and historical discourses during the Cultural Revolution, especially the details and struggles of the "full-scale civil war" in various provinces during the Cultural Revolution Situation analysis is invaluable. In the past I was relatively familiar with the history of the 1966 struggle. But now my analysis of the struggles in the provinces has gradually made my mind clear. Later, I also downloaded the 30-million-word "Chinese Cultural Revolution Library" of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. As the most authoritative cultural revolution database at present, it can be said to be the most complete collection of official documents. Many rare documents can be found. Unfortunately, due to its stance, it has not paid enough attention to the folk Cultural Revolution, and the data is also relatively small, and there is no situation analysis. "Brief" and "Benku" seem to be more effective when used together.

In the writing process, the most difficult thing is to use the main thread to run the whole book together. Later, I thought of the arranged substitutionism proposed by the Belgian Trotskyist thinker Mandel in "Power and Money", as well as "the masses liberate themselves and cannot adopt any method of arranged substitution" in the "Sixteen Points" of the Cultural Revolution. Basically, the whole work is run through the replacement. At the same time, I also got inspiration from the "Shock-Reaction Model" proposed by Professor Fairbank in his study of modern Chinese history, and came up with a "Resistance-Repression" model to discuss the political movement represented by the Cultural Revolution in the Mao Zedong era. general rule.

After two months of hard work, I finally finished this book. However, the level is limited. In fact, in addition to my views, there are a lot of excerpts from other people's papers and works, especially Professor Maurice Meissner's "Mao Zedong's China and Post-Mao China - A History of the People's Republic". Others are listed at the end of each volume because there are too many to list them all.

There are many people who have made me realize and gain something in this journey, and I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to all of you!