Chapter 18 14. The ups and downs of the crisis in 1976 and the end of the "Mao Zhou era"
Chinese politics confuses us as much as it confuses the Chinese themselves.The dismissal of Acting Premier Deng Xiaoping is an example.In the past, the emperor could dismiss important ministers today and reinstate them tomorrow just to show off his might.Imperial regimes are arbitrary and capricious.Officials always feel uneasy. The higher the official position, the greater the possibility of being suddenly dismissed.As the supreme leader at that time, Chairman Mao inherited this unpredictable imperial character.
Of course, Chinese politics are often mystified by our ignorance.We must be clear that written Chinese is more powerful than phonetic alphabetic writing.Once everything is put into writing, it will be much more serious than just oral expression, because the charm of words and knowledge adds strength to written Chinese.In the nineteenth century it was easy to start a campaign against an unpopular official or an outlaw missionary by posting notices calling people to meet at a designated time and place.Today's big-character posters and wall posters are the direct descendants of this ancient custom.
We must see the trauma of Mao Zedong's death from the Chinese point of view.Unfortunately, China's esoteric political language is confusing.First, China remains in the great shadow of its long history. When China's last emperor abdicated in 1912, Mao Zedong was already a young man. In July 1976, just two months before Mao's death, a strong earthquake occurred in Tangshan, China, which was such a coincidence with the death of an emperor.Mao complains about his personal fetish, but I doubt he shuns it.In such a land with a history of dictatorship for 2,000 years, he once again implemented such a long rule, which undoubtedly left a shadow on the country and society.China's 10-day mourning campaign reminds us of Roosevelt and Kennedy's mourning activities: during that bleak time, even commercial advertisements were stopped.Because there are no commercial advertisements in China, the interference to its TV and radio systems is much less in comparison.For a further comparison, look also at the grief we experienced at the loss of the leader of our nation's worship, Abraham Lincoln.Lincoln, the great liberator who saved the Union, was in power in the United States for only four years, while Mao Zedong, the great helmsman who unified China, was in power for 27 years.Other than him, few people at the top are remembered.
In addition, the Chinese rely more on moral character and interpersonal relationships rather than establishing leaders through certain procedures.Mr. Ford will never be president in Beijing.Everything he did in Washington proved that our Constitution is based on legal process, which Confucian believers and Mao followers dismissed as a hindrance to true morality.As a result, China appears to be more vulnerable and less secure than we are when it comes to changing leaders.The Son of Heaven abdicates only when he dies, and so does Premier Zhou and Chairman Mao.
But why was Deng Xiaoping attacked?Different classes have different answers.First, it is believed that he lost his protector, Zhou Enlai.Deng suffered humiliation during the "Cultural Revolution", and it was Zhou who rescued him from humiliation. The death of Zhou Enlai on January 8 was a great loss to China and us.Zhou was one of the government's top policymakers for the 25 years before his death.Zhou Enlai went to Japan when he was young, and then went to France to study, while Mao never left his "home".Zhou has visited many times on behalf of China abroad, covering many countries in Europe, Asia and Africa.More broadly, Zhou was also an outstanding mediator, not only calming down a series of quarrels, but also maintaining a middle ground under Mao.
For 40 years, the key to the relationship between Mao and Zhou was Zhou's loyalty to Mao.In the field of diplomacy, Zhou Enlai, in addition to founding the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and sending a large number of personnel abroad, always avoided the emergence of party factions. For 20 years, Liu Shaoqi's status has been second only to Mao, ranking second in the party.Liu was more experienced in urban proletarian organizations and labor movements, while Mao was good at peasant movements.After Liu was overthrown during the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s, his "second" position was replaced by then army leader Lin Biao, who died mysteriously in an alleged failed assassination attempt on Mao.At that time, Zhou had been sitting firmly in the third position, and there was never any sign of a power struggle.However, after Zhou contracted cancer in 1973, Deng Xiaoping soon succeeded him as acting premier.
It is not difficult to understand why Deng was attacked by radicals who were backed by Mao and made their fortunes during the Cultural Revolution.The "Cultural Revolution" led by Mao developed with moral renaissance and technological progress, as well as the conflict between "red" and "expert".This is the duality of Chinese political tradition.The creed of the ancient Confucius was: Man is rational, and man's behavior can be improved by teaching, persuading, and learning from past examples.As a result, the reformers of Confucianism came forward one after another to condemn the corruption of the bureaucracy, and even appealed to the emperor.They often quote scriptures, much like those who use the flag to scold the United States for its pro-communist or foreign leanings.They behaved with such integrity that the officials were terrified.
When the revolution comes, this kind of ideological integrity can achieve unexpected success in China.On the one hand, today's bureaucrats, the heirs of the world's oldest bureaucratic tradition, have formed parties and governments to fulfill modern duties and expand production, thus saving China from poverty and backwardness.But on the other hand, moral renewal is the essence of revolution, and Mao Zedong advocated continuous revolution to renew Chinese people's thoughts and values.At the same time, his second chapter Mao's China Insider led the entire movement.The Cultural Revolution was initiated by Mao, and Deng Xiaoping, the party general secretary, became the second target of the Cultural Revolution. In 1973, Deng returned to leadership, and Mao had mixed feelings about it.
On a deeper level, American observers must not forget that China is actually still an agricultural country, and farmers do not care about politics; let us also not forget that the ruling class is composed of people with culture and status to manage everything in China. It is one of the strongest traditions in China.In short, China established the imperial examination system in the Tang Dynasty, and Western Europe only had printed books and began to seek qualified officials hundreds of years later. This means that the core of Mao Zedong's revolutionary thought "serve the people" is to Build the countryside and serve the people who live there.Building a nation and developing industry is an entirely different, more conventional, and for us more understandable goal.But if industry is developed at any cost, it will kill the revolution.Therefore, Mao has always insisted on the left of the center and offered the radicals who controlled the news media the opportunity to attack the government dignitary Deng Xiaoping.
At that time, although Deng Xiaoping was squeezed out by another acting prime minister, he still retained his basic position in the party and the supreme leadership of the Central Military Commission.Against this background, how should we understand those slogans and newspapers attacking Deng Xiaoping?To find the answer to this question, we must see that in 1976, both the United States and China were in the throes of crisis.In this year, we had 30 presidential primary elections, followed by two party meetings, and finally a national election.China is different from us, because Mao Zedong is the father of the revolution, they are facing a more serious crisis.Zhou Enlai died before Mao, which undoubtedly weakened Mao's power.Would Nixon have been invited again (after Watergate) to visit Beijing if Zhou Enlai was still Premier?Nixon's second visit to China brought closer ties between Beijing and Washington (which Nixon had created) that the Chinese people had hoped for, and hinted at his successor's commitment to the february 1972 Slow to sign the U.S. obligations in the Shanghai Communiqué.
There is no doubt that the Chinese know all this.Chairman Mao seemed to support and condone the actions of the disgraced president who was forced to resign for violating the constitution.We can only think that Chairman Mao was particularly insensitive to these questions of principle.In short, Mr. Nixon offended America's belief in human rights and the legal process.In the eyes of Americans, he is an unworthy son, but Mao Zedong seems to pay little attention to human rights and legal procedures.Perhaps he has tried to justify his invitation on the basis that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," but that still does not make his image any higher in the eyes of Americans.
We should not be surprised that Chairman Mao Zedong would have taken a different course had Zhou Enlai not been in charge of China's foreign policy.Beijing's policies themselves reflect the distinction between industrial and social revolutions.Whether in industry or agriculture, the modern industrial revolution has increased production capacity due to the emergence of new technologies, new knowledge, public health, capital investment, and new types of organizations. This is also practical in China today.This is the domain of the "pragmatists" and "moderates" who seem to understand and agree with them (but in fact, they are firmly opposed to free enterprise and individualism).China's social revolution is unique and far beyond our experience. It is a revolution against the ruling class with the most historical tradition in China.This traditional teaching, including Confucian teachings on social order, is based on the naturally formed unequal status between young and old, men and women, masters and servants, and focuses on the theory of the rule of outstanding figures.A small ruling class created China's splendid literature and philosophy, protected art and commerce, and ruled local and imperial affairs while living off peasants. In 1927, Mao Zedong published a heretical report on the peasant problem, which was actually the forerunner of the revolution.From this time forward, it has been Mao's mission to attack China's antiquated social structures.During the 10 years from 1936 to 1946 in Yan'an, "liberation" made the peasants free, and they had the desire to learn culture and technology.Yan'an preliminarily trained a group of new party cadres, who mobilized the masses to devote themselves to production, war and politics. After 1949, large-scale popular organizations and national movements created bureaucrats and scholars, and gradually eliminated landowners and capitalists.However, Mao Zedong discovered to his dismay that eliminating the remnants of the old ruling class was far from enough, and that the ideological poison of the theory of the rule of outstanding figures still permeated the country.The newly liberated peasants in the revolution not only had the rudiments of European-style capitalists, but also had the desire to improve their social status and eventually become the new ruling class in their bones.Privileges re-emerged within the Communist Party and germinated in the soil of Chinese tradition.Mao managed to eradicate this privilege during the period of the "Cultural Revolution" from 1966 to 1969. The "May 7th Cadre School" shows the uniqueness of China, which is very strange to Americans.All urban white-collar workers, from librarians to government workers, worked like farmers in the May 7th Cadre School.Since then, "class struggle" has had a special meaning in Chinese social history, and "serving the people" means no longer having the privileges of the upper class.
Mao's supreme directive made simple the difficulties the country had been seeking to overcome.China's officialdom, which is now so large, has inherited what it claims to be a benevolent government for the masses.In perfecting the responsibility of the Chinese upper class to "bring order into the empire," Mao, as a sage and teacher, took a didactic approach to bringing the masses into political life and setting them on the path of self-development.Reformers like Liang Qichao at the turn of the century needed to educate and foster the self-government of the politically insensitive but often rebellious peasants.Sun Yat-sen made education the center of his policies, Mao used it elsewhere, but the egalitarian order he later advocated was still run by some party elites.Tourists to China are surprised by China's strong sense of hierarchy.The concept of hierarchy in China is still an indispensable part of the social order; they are also deeply shocked that party cadres have taken the unique slogan of "serving the people" as their bounden duty.
In short, the revolution Mao carried out for the people could not be led by the people from the very beginning, and democratic participation in politics could only be carried out in an organized manner.Mao was a great agitator, preaching to the people peasants' rights, women's emancipation, public welfare, science and technology, self-respect, and national pride.But propaganda also comes at a price. To fill up the valleys, the mountains must be flattened. To change the character of the entire nation, it is necessary to instill orthodoxy and the idea of great unity in the people, restrict knowledge, and suppress individuality.Intellectuals crave books and fear dogmatic organizers.Higher education was discontinued for 5 years and replaced by technical training.Some people in China argue that even cutting-edge technology can be imported when needed, and that "pure science" is useless, they only value "practical".Surprisingly, this phenomenon has been rarely studied.Those who advocate moral character (red) against material technology (zhuan) are reminiscent of nineteenth-century Confucian officials.In the Confucian empire, the literati downplayed the material civilization of the West and advocated that the people of high morality should be in power.Those fanatical conservatives who dressed themselves up in Confucian teachings delayed China's modernization by a generation.I'm not saying that Mao was directly related to those people in the 19th century (Jiang Qing was not the Empress Dowager Cixi either), they just had similarities in form.It has always been the habit of the Chinese and Mao to wantonly attack the other party with absolute moral standards.Behind the contradictions and conflicts within the Politburo, there are many things that American politicians cannot see.
Beijing's line struggle reflects Beijing's history, and at the same time, it also produces two difficult choices, namely, how far to carry out Mao's opposition to the theory of elite rule and the struggle for privilege, and how to pay attention to and train the necessary modern technology management experts . "Red and professional", political and moral standards and technical production capacity will still be a pair of contradictions.Of course, there are many other issues that the onlooker can only dimly feel through a veil of mystery.One of the problems is the mystery itself, the Central Committee is like a castle, its actions are kept secret; foreign journalists are treated as spies, and they are forced to learn obscure phrases and indirect historical allusions in order to understand Chinese policy like the Chinese .How long can this state last?Perhaps, it will take a long time to ask. In 1860, British and French guns enabled Western diplomatic palaces to be permanently stationed in Beijing, and it took 17 years for Chinese diplomats to be stationed in European capitals.We cannot evaluate China on our own, but we are working hard every day.How to evaluate Mao Zedong is a question with different opinions.He is no ordinary person.Let's see how he treats America.Americans helped the great Chinese revolution in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but then turned against it after its victory in 1949.There was no need for us to fight the Chinese in Korea; before MacArthur landed in Incheon and prepared to march on the Yalu River to conquer North Korea, Zhou Enlai warned us that China would not sit idly by and allow its friendly neighbor next to China's industrial base in Northeast China to be overrun by an open enemy.In North Korea we caused 1 million Chinese casualties.After that, we bombed North Vietnam indiscriminately and invaded Chinese airspace many times (this is an insult to all Chinese pilots).But Mao endured it all, and in the end, he invited our defeated leader to visit Beijing, because at this point we were less of a threat to China than the Soviet Union.Apparently, he would also drink tea with this foreign devil and discuss national affairs.
With the support and help of Zhou Enlai and thousands of people, Mao led the People's Republic through a period of history, which is now over.Mao and his generation are in the past, can we have a more comprehensive understanding of China's problems?The new generation of Chinese leaders are still immersed in domestic affairs as before. We can only break through the barriers of language and ideology and try to understand China by ourselves.Mao and Zhou are a pair of very good partners.If we want to recognize Beijing's sovereignty over Taiwan, but also ensure Taiwan's stability and autonomy so as to maintain normal relations with Beijing, we must learn from Mao and Zhou's foresight, patience and perseverance.
However, we missed our opportunity. Before 1949, we had a lot of contact with China, but we didn't seize the opportunity.Chinese revolutionary leaders had extensive exposure to Americans and American ways before coming to power.Zhou Enlai negotiated with General Marshall.Zhou's intelligence chief had attended a Shanghai missionary school, and his sister had worked with Mrs. Roosevelt.The first representative of China sent to the United Nations graduated from Tsinghua University, which was built by the United States with the Boxer indemnity of the Qing Dynasty.His successor at the United Nations had studied at Yenching University, a prestigious American church university.Edgar Snow wrote a biography of Mao.When the People's Republic was still brewing in Yenan, more Americans went there than the Soviets.Instances like this abound.
It is precisely because the United States had such a great influence on China before 1949 that the communist revolution felt that this influence must be eliminated. Therefore, Americans have a feeling of "losing China".But from the point of view of the dialectics of contradiction that epitomizes Mao Zedong Thought, although the United States has taken the wrong position in China's history, the Chinese understand the United States and feel that they can rebuild their relationship with the United States.Subsequent history bears this out.
Now, the generation of Chinese people who are familiar with us has passed away.Many Chinese professors and scientists educated in the United States have passed away, retired, or are about to retire. After the failure of General Marshall's mediation in 1946, there was a gap between China and the United States.Those Chinese who started the great revolution and knew that the US was an anti-Japanese ally are teaching a new generation that the US is a capitalist imperialist, defeated country that bombed Vietnam from their textbooks. The friendly relationship between China and the United States that existed before 1946 disappeared. In fact, we should have used this friendly relationship to establish more constructive engagement with Beijing, but we did not do so.The end of the Mao and Zhou eras did not smooth the road to peace and development of Sino-US relations.
Part of this article was published in the "Daily News" on March 26, 1976, and the rest was selected from "On the Death of Mao" in the "New York Review of Books" on October 14, 1976.
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