A review of the book 'Red Memory: Living, Remembering and Forgetting China's Cultural Revolution' written by Tania Branigan.
Nearly fifty years after its conclusion, the Cultural Revolution's scar runs through the heart of Chinese society, and through the souls of its citizens. Stationed in Beijing for the Guardian, Tania Branigan came to realise that this brutal and turbulent decade continues to propel and shape China to this day. Yet official suppression and personal trauma have conspired in national amnesia: it exists, for the most part, as an absence.
Red Memory explores the stories of those who are driven to confront the era, fearing or yearning its return.
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Coming up: A review of the book 'Red Memory: Living, Remembering and Forgetting China's Cultural Revolution' written by Tania Branigan.
Namaste Friends. My name is 'Shinil Subramanian Payamal' and you are listening to the Historylogy podcast.
Before I proceed, a full disclosure: This book was bought with my own money and not been provided to me by the author or publisher.
Little bit about the author:
Tania Branigan is the Guardian foreign leader writer; she spent seven years as the Guardian’s China correspondent. Her writing has also appeared in the Washington Post and the Australian. Red Memory is her first book.
Let me read what is written on the back cover of the book:
QUOTE
Nearly fifty years after its conclusion, the Cultural Revolution's scar runs through the heart of Chinese society, and through the souls of its citizens. Stationed in Beijing for the Guardian, Tania Branigan came to realise that this brutal and turbulent decade continues to propel and shape China to this day. Yet official suppression and personal trauma have conspired in national amnesia: it exists, for the most part, as an absence.
Red Memory explores the stories of those who are driven to confront the era, fearing or yearning its return. What happens to a society when you can no longer trust those closest to you? What happens to the present when the past is buried, exploited or redrawn? And how do you live with yourself when the worst is over?
UNQUOTE
Now, coming to the book review, the author has rightly stated: “It is impossible to understand China today without understanding the Cultural Revolution.”
The Cultural Revolution lasted a decade from the year 1966 to 1976: the decade of Maoist fanaticism which saw as many as 2 million killed for their supposed political sins, and another 36 million hounded. They were guilty of thoughtcrimes: criticism of Mao or the Party or its policies, or remarks that might be interpreted that way.
China is scarred by loss and violence on a staggering scale. The nineteenth-century Taiping Rebellion killed over 20 million people, roughly the global toll of the First World War. The brutal Japanese occupation of the 1930s would lead to 15 million deaths. The famine brought by 1958’s Great Leap Forward caused perhaps 40 million. The Cultural Revolution’s death toll is almost modest by these grotesque standards, yet it consumed the country in its entirety. No workplace remained untouched. No household remained innocent.
‘Complicity’ is too small a word ─ comrade turned on comrade, friend upon friend, husband upon wife and child upon parent. You could build a career on such betrayals, until the currents shifted once more and the victims turned upon you.
Students were urged to smash the Four Olds: the ideas, culture, customs and habits of the exploiting classes.
One must understand why Chairman Mao began the Cultural Revolution in schools. You kill teachers, you destroy schools ─ you can destroy much more: traditions, ideas, values. Destroy schools and you destroy civilisation.
As one character rightly said: How a nation faced its future was largely determined by how it faced its past. She hoped that all those who did wrong in the Cultural Revolution would ‘face up to themselves, reflect on the Cultural Revolution, seek forgiveness and achieve reconciliation … That reflection must start from myself.’
Another gave this excellent view on the difference between (American) democracy and China’s one party (Communist) rule.
I quote:
We can only be led by the Communist Party. We can’t have big democracy like the Americans. It can only bring turbulence and chaos. We had more than two thousand years of feudalism; America started with two parties and democracy. Foreigners can’t understand China; they can’t understand China’s past. Corruption is caused not by one-party rule but by who has checks on the leadership. We can’t get rid of the Party’s rule ─ impossible. We don’t need any turbulence and chaos.
Unquote
When one of China’s former top generals was arrested in Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption purge, twelve trucks were needed to carry away the loot stored at his mansion. It included over one tonne in cash, and a solid-gold statue of Mao.
The Cultural Revolution showed that one thing was more terrifying than a stranger: someone close to you. To know a person was no longer the kernel of trust but of suspicion. Those around you, those who knew you best, had the greatest power to harm.In the immediate years after the turmoil, ‘people might speak to strangers on trains about what they had seen ─ but never to their colleagues,’ said one doctor. When you could not trust those beside you, trust itself was destroyed.
‘Was surviving the revolution a stroke of good or ill fortune? Even now, I cannot say I know the answer to that question,’ one victim wrote, decades later.
Conclusion:
I must admit that I don’t have much idea about Chinese history, including its contemporary history and hence found this book really fascinating and an absolute eye-opener. Since the author is a journalist, the prose is extremely beautiful. This book really stands out because it is based on interviews with people who took part in the revolution when they were young, but in their mature years are somewhat mystified when they look back at their own behaviour. It's an accurate summary of what many older Chinese live with today.
The book is just over 250 pages and it is very easy to read. Red Memory is absolutely required reading for Sinologists and the interested public. I give it a rating of 4.75/5.
The book is available for around Rs. 450/- on Amazon India and for around Rs. 550/- on Flipkart. And it is available for about $16.50 USD on Amazon USA but, surprisingly, there is no Kindle edition available. I will provide all the respective buy links in the show notes. Please check them out for the latest prices.
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