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Enemies of the People: The Ordeal of the Intellectuals in China's Great Cultural Revolution
Book by Thurston, Anne F.
346 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1988
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March 6, 2012
Foreign journalists interviewing Chinese people during the years just after the Cultural Revolution put their interviewees at risk of being brought in for questioning, and put themselves at risk of being called spies.
Liu Shaoqi: Once one of the top leaders of the Chinese communists, he was a victim of the Cultural Revolution. His prominence made him a threat to Mao. Being somewhat less fanatical than Mao, he was accused of being a capitalist roader. Liu and his wife, Wang Guangmei, were subjected to a struggle session, where their children were forced to watch them being beaten. After being beaten, Liu Shaoqi's health gradually deteriorated, and he suffered much before he finally died in November 1969. His remains were cremated in secret. His fate was hidden from his children and the Chinese people.
Red Guards: Only young people from poor families were allowed to become Red Guards. Their victims were the class enemies, that is, middle class people, including landlords, shopkeepers, businessmen, teachers and doctors. The Red Guards beat their victims, ransacked their houses, and looted their bank accounts.
The opportunists who supported the Cultural Revolution and whose careers advanced as a result of that support, were afterwards generally reluctant to talk about their role in it.
People who had contacts with foreigners, or who had spent time abroad were vulnerable to the charge that they were spies.
If one family member was accused of being counter-revolutionary, then all family members came under suspicion. If you did not want to get dragged down with the accused, you needed to draw a clear line of demarcation between yourself and the accused. This meant you had to publically reject them. The Confucian tradition of loyalty to family was replaced by loyalty to the government, to Communism, to Chairman Mao.
Post-traumatic stress disorder: Many survivors of the Cultuslral Revolution suffered for years from flashbacks, nightmares, anxiety, depression and insomnia.
One reason that people did bad things during the Cultural Revolution is that instead of thinking for themselves, they let Chairman Mao do their thinking for them. One reason people chose Communist ideology was that there were few alternatives. The Judeo-Christian moral code was not widely known and Confucianism was in decline.
Liu Shaoqi: Once one of the top leaders of the Chinese communists, he was a victim of the Cultural Revolution. His prominence made him a threat to Mao. Being somewhat less fanatical than Mao, he was accused of being a capitalist roader. Liu and his wife, Wang Guangmei, were subjected to a struggle session, where their children were forced to watch them being beaten. After being beaten, Liu Shaoqi's health gradually deteriorated, and he suffered much before he finally died in November 1969. His remains were cremated in secret. His fate was hidden from his children and the Chinese people.
Red Guards: Only young people from poor families were allowed to become Red Guards. Their victims were the class enemies, that is, middle class people, including landlords, shopkeepers, businessmen, teachers and doctors. The Red Guards beat their victims, ransacked their houses, and looted their bank accounts.
The opportunists who supported the Cultural Revolution and whose careers advanced as a result of that support, were afterwards generally reluctant to talk about their role in it.
People who had contacts with foreigners, or who had spent time abroad were vulnerable to the charge that they were spies.
If one family member was accused of being counter-revolutionary, then all family members came under suspicion. If you did not want to get dragged down with the accused, you needed to draw a clear line of demarcation between yourself and the accused. This meant you had to publically reject them. The Confucian tradition of loyalty to family was replaced by loyalty to the government, to Communism, to Chairman Mao.
Post-traumatic stress disorder: Many survivors of the Cultuslral Revolution suffered for years from flashbacks, nightmares, anxiety, depression and insomnia.
One reason that people did bad things during the Cultural Revolution is that instead of thinking for themselves, they let Chairman Mao do their thinking for them. One reason people chose Communist ideology was that there were few alternatives. The Judeo-Christian moral code was not widely known and Confucianism was in decline.
Displaying 1 of 1 review