Sign in with Facebook
Peter Tillman's Reviews > Red Memory: The Afterlives of China's Cultural Revolution
Red Memory: The Afterlives of China's Cultural Revolution
by
by
Nature's short review, 4/28/23:
"Up to two million people died during the Chinese Cultural Revolution of 1966�76, in which Mao Zedong sought to bolster communism. Among them were many teachers killed by students as part of an anti-intellectual movement. Education could mean “ruin�, writes Tania Branigan, a journalist in China in 2008�15, in her riveting portrait of the revolution, based on interviews with survivors. Officials today remain almost silent about persecutors and victims � who included Chinese President Xi Jinping, then a teenager, whose father was purged."
Mao Zeodong, it should be recalled, is the leader Xi Jinping seeks to emulate! Many readers here remark that this book makes for difficult reading. Yet we must understand such horrors, lest they happen again . . .
Per Wikipedia, "Death toll estimates from different sources vary greatly, ranging from hundreds of thousands to 20 million."
There doesn't seem to be a consensus. Given the CCP's notorious secrecy about unpleasant facts during their watch (most recently, their ongoing COVID coverups), we are unlikely to ever know the total death toll. The damage to the national psyche seems unlikely to fade while victims are still living.
The WSJ's review is here:
(Paywalled. As always, I'm happy to email a copy to non-subscribers)
Excerpt:
"The reporting in this book was gathered between 2008 and 2015, when Ms. Branigan was a Guardian correspondent in China. Poignantly, she observes that she could not have conducted such interviews today. In the past several years, even greater pressure has come down on those who wish to remember a past the Party wants to forget. People who spoke freely with her 10 years ago might not risk doing so today."
Grim stuff. Maybe??
"Up to two million people died during the Chinese Cultural Revolution of 1966�76, in which Mao Zedong sought to bolster communism. Among them were many teachers killed by students as part of an anti-intellectual movement. Education could mean “ruin�, writes Tania Branigan, a journalist in China in 2008�15, in her riveting portrait of the revolution, based on interviews with survivors. Officials today remain almost silent about persecutors and victims � who included Chinese President Xi Jinping, then a teenager, whose father was purged."
Mao Zeodong, it should be recalled, is the leader Xi Jinping seeks to emulate! Many readers here remark that this book makes for difficult reading. Yet we must understand such horrors, lest they happen again . . .
Per Wikipedia, "Death toll estimates from different sources vary greatly, ranging from hundreds of thousands to 20 million."
There doesn't seem to be a consensus. Given the CCP's notorious secrecy about unpleasant facts during their watch (most recently, their ongoing COVID coverups), we are unlikely to ever know the total death toll. The damage to the national psyche seems unlikely to fade while victims are still living.
The WSJ's review is here:
(Paywalled. As always, I'm happy to email a copy to non-subscribers)
Excerpt:
"The reporting in this book was gathered between 2008 and 2015, when Ms. Branigan was a Guardian correspondent in China. Poignantly, she observes that she could not have conducted such interviews today. In the past several years, even greater pressure has come down on those who wish to remember a past the Party wants to forget. People who spoke freely with her 10 years ago might not risk doing so today."
Grim stuff. Maybe??
Sign into ŷ to see if any of your friends have read
Red Memory.
Sign In »
Reading Progress
April 28, 2023
– Shelved
April 28, 2023
– Shelved as:
to-read
April 28, 2023
– Shelved as:
history
May 13, 2023
– Shelved as:
to-read-maybe
November 10, 2023
– Shelved as:
award-win-nom
Comments Showing 1-4 of 4 (4 new)
date
newest »
newest »
message 1:
by
Peter
(last edited Apr 28, 2023 10:46AM)
(new)
-
added it
Apr 28, 2023 10:42AM
Wikipedia article is a good place to start to learn about this national tragedy. A major black mark on the legacy of Mao Zeodong. The other being the failed and absurd "Great Leap Forward". The famines that followed killed from 15 million to 55 million people, per Wikipedia. Making Mao Zedong the worst Mass Murderer of the 20th Century by a large margin, if the higher estimates are close to the truth. Which, again, is certainly not in the CCP's interest for that to be known!
reply
|
flag
Quite a role model for China's current dictator to follow! Let us devoutly hope he doesn't go higher into the Mass Murderer ranks. His behavior on the COVID tragedy and the Uighur mass-imprisonments and deaths are not encouraging.
There were earlier sources claiming 30 million deaths to famine alone during Mao’s reign. Jung Chang in her books, ‘Wild Swans, Three Daughters of China, as well as ‘Mao�, her second book, wrote about that.
He was a monster. No question about that. But he won the Civil War for the Chinese Communists, more's the pity. Chiang Kai Shek had failings too. But by far his biggest: losing the war with Mao! What if . . . The US and our Allies were sick of fighting by then. But what if Truman had given more aid to the Nationalists? Truman's War Dept was selling war materiel for pennies on the dollar then. So much that, when the Korean War came, the US & Allies were caught short! Likely Truman's biggest blunder, that and not giving more aid to the Nationalists. Really, which would you rather lose: China or Korea?
