Chapter 17 13. Jiang Qing: An extreme individualist
Many journalists have found that in the Chinese masses there is much individuality but little individualism, but Roxie Witek found both qualities in Jiang Qing.As a recognized expert in Sinology (has done research at Binghamton, Stanford, Chicago and Berkeley universities), Whitaker came to Beijing in July 1972 to study the women's movement in China.Jiang Qing regarded her as the female Edgar Snow, and spent 6 hours describing his experiences to her.But Whitaker ran into trouble: Those transcripts only translated the beginning, and there was no more.Fortunately, she had a marathon conversation with Jiang Qing in Guangzhou for a week, and made a lot of records and took many photos.In the next year, I obtained some materials about Jiang Qing.Chinese officials warned Jiang Qing not to accept this interview, but she persisted and wanted someone to write a biography of her, recording her experience in the Shanghai stage and film industry in the 1930s, in Yan'an in the 1940s, and especially during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s.
While Edgar Snow was well on his way to writing Mao's saga in 1936, Whittaker's biography is lengthy and unclear. "Comrade Jiang Qing" is a long and elegantly disguised book. It contains precious photos and is a valuable chronicle, listing names, technical terms and research notes.Six months after the fall of Jiang Qing's 10-year reign, Time magazine published a brief introduction to the book.Disappointed or inspired, critics cannot deny the uniqueness of this book, but it will take time to determine its historical value.
First of all, the record about Jiang Qing's career is an incomplete political document, and the real elements only account for a small part of Jiang Qing's secret experience.Just imagine, the historical basis of the United States is only based on the Congressional Records and the one-sided memoirs of Harold Axe!Although Jiang Qing's biography has been reviewed by Zhou Enlai and others, what it records is obviously only a personal experience rather than a collective judgment on how to evaluate the past.The book does not mention the group of four (Zhou Yang, Tian Han, Xia Yan, and Yang Hansheng) who were eliminated by Jiang Qing, and they monopolized the cultural power before her.Jiang Qing did not speak directly or indirectly about the relationship between powerful figures, nor did she make any comment on her decision to sign or file a case.This book is not based on conversation recordings like "Khrushchev's Memoirs", but in 1972, Jiang Qing's oral narration and recollection were recorded by Roxien Witek through translation, and then Witek combined his own Compiled from research and understanding.There are two voices in the recording, but it is obviously inappropriate to put Jiang Qing's words in quotation marks.The author just presents Jiang Qing's words she recorded in front of readers and makes comments.Therefore, readers can only follow the author's thinking.
Jiang Qing has become an anti-Party traitor. People can imagine how Jiang Qing used secret means to criticize the former leaders of Beijing.Americans in a more open and pluralistic world trying to unravel the mysteries of Chinese politics will no doubt be grateful that Roxanne put a lot of effort into writing Jiang Qing's story, although its credibility is questionable.
In short, Jiang Qing spent her early life in poverty and hardship. She wanted to be a movie star and later joined the revolution. In 1933, she joined the Communist Party at the age of 19.She didn't know about the organization, but she worked in the dangerous Communist underground in Shanghai.At that time, she was just an actress named Li Yunhe, and later, she became a movie star Lan Ping.She said that she was imprisoned by the Kuomintang for 8 months in 1933 (this is now a piece of evidence of her crime), and was later released after negotiating with a foreigner with ties to the YMCA.
In August 1937, she brought this revolutionary history to Yan'an and named her Jiang Qing (big blue river).Mao Zedong was 44 years old at the time, and he quickly became interested in her, and they were married soon after.Jiang Qing's rich urban experience made up for Mao's lack of rural background.She was fully feminist at 23 and had enough energy to understand Mao's peasant way of life. During the civil war from 1947 to 1948, she lived with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai in a peasant hut, and often marched at night to contain the Kuomintang army.During this difficult period, her health suffered a lot (tuberculosis, cancer, hepatomegaly, etc.). In the 1950s, she was plagued by illness almost all the time, and had to go to the Soviet Union for treatment and recuperation four times.It was only at the end of the 1950s that she appeared as a leader on the stage of the Party Central Committee and previous movements.
Jiang Qing finally entered the stage of history as an advocate of the Cultural Revolution.She was involved in the land reform, returned to Shanghai in 1959, and began attacking feudalism and bourgeois remnants in the performing arts circle in 1962. "She convinced the chairman that the absolute leadership of the proletariat must be established in the literary and art circles in order to control ideology (for which she argued with Mao for several years)." the remnants of the past.
Jiang Qing's efforts to build a revolutionary cultural superstructure of education, art, and literature originated from the ideas and methods of Mao's ideological reform movement launched in Yan'an in the 1940s.But as Wittke pointed out: "The conflict between dictatorial political rule and independent creativity is always irreconcilable. Under Mao's rule, this irreconcilable contradiction was reduced to a 'struggle between two lines' : Mao’s correct line...and the wrong line opposed to him.” In short, Mao used political ideological remolding to explain that “the very fact of being at odds with him in understanding is disloyal to him personally ".This logic was also used by Jiang Qing. She was not appreciated by the party's cultural commissioners in the 1930s, and she has always been bitter about it.By the 1960s, she branded them all counter-revolutionaries and took their place (for 30 years they controlled the literary world).
When Mao launched the Cultural Revolution, Jiang Qing drafted key documents, began to reform Beijing opera, and soon made public appearances, even gave speeches, became a representative of the National People's Congress, a cultural adviser to the army, and finally, in 1966, the leader of the entire movement. Member of the Cultural Revolution Leading Group. In 1969, she reached the pinnacle of power—as a member of the Politburo, in charge of all cultural work.She herself has only 8 years of education, including 5 years of primary school.She closed the university for 5 years, stopped the publication and distribution of unofficial books and films, and presided over the creation of 8 revolutionary model plays.This kind of stereotyped model play in which the characters are black and white and the hero and heroine defeat the enemy dominates the national stage.Heroes always clenched their fists, determined, with piercing eyes and righteous spirit.This proletarian morality dominated the literary world until October 1976, a month after Mao's death, when his widow was arrested.
How to evaluate Jiang Qing's role in history depends on people's views on the Cultural Revolution.Foreign comments on the Cultural Revolution are mostly derogatory.We have seen photographs of fanatical youths waving little red books of quotations from Chairman Mao.Mao mobilized so many young Red Guards in order to clean up bureaucracy in the party.But after that, millions of Red Guards were evacuated to the countryside.What are the benefits of all this chaos in the end?
We Americans are mystified by Mao's second revolution, I think, due to our ignorance of the traditions of the ancient Chinese ruling class.In ancient times, all forms of organization served the ruling class.Unfortunately, the egalitarianism that Mao sought to bring the Chinese masses into modern life coincided with the encouragement of centrally controlled techniques of mass communication.The equality of social relations and living conditions pursued by the revolution did not diminish the people's need for supreme authority.Therefore, compared with Confucianism in the past, which used Confucian dogma to manage and restrain the people, the one-party dictatorship can actively manipulate politics and the masses.
The Communist Party believes that outstanding figures are born among the masses. Jiang Qing agrees with this point of view, and believes that it is the highest duty of a revolutionist to go among the masses, mingle with the masses, win the trust of the masses, and lead the masses.For example, Mao Yue Chengdui: "Only by being a student of the masses with an open mind can he be a teacher of the masses. If he thinks he is the master of the masses...the masses don't need him." Having said that, China still implements dictatorship, and this management8 The sprawling elite government of 100 million Chinese will not change in the near future.From this perspective, who among us can say that Jiang Qing's stereotyped model drama is not effective among the Chinese masses?We still lack enough materials to fully evaluate Jiang Qing's 10 years in power.
As far as the present is concerned, one conclusion is clear: it is impossible for an eminent man elected to rule the masses with egalitarianism and maintain the regime in power, to embrace the civil rights creed of the foreign bourgeoisie.Before we can sound the drum of human rights in our China policy, we need to find commonalities among cultural differences and seek common ground.For many Chinese, our freedom is probably closer to indulgence.We should admit that neither side can be a role model for the other.Let us work together to study the problem of human existence.
This review is "Comrade Jiang Qing" (Boston, Little Brown Press, 1977) by Roxie Witek, published in the New York Review of Books on May 12, 1977, entitled "Madam Mao and the Masses ".
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