Shades of Mao: The Posthumous Cult of the Great Leader (14 page)

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Authors: Geremie Barme

Tags: #History, #Asia, #China, #Literary Criticism, #Asian, #Chinese, #Political Science, #Political Ideologies, #Communism; Post-Communism & Socialism, #World, #General, #test

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Page 52
surrounded by a beguiling aura, appearing in retrospect as a time of greater simplicity, purity, and idealism (see "A Star Reflects on the Sun").
At the other end of the political spectrum commentators such as the dissidents Wei Jingsheng and Liu Xiaobo argued that the Maoist political legacy remained both vital and malignant (see "Who's Responsible?" and "The Specter of Mao Zedong"). But such opinions, though perhaps widely held, have only found a forum in the overseas Chinese press. When surveying China's political and intellectual life over the past two decades, including the baleful outcome of the 1989 Protest Movement from which extremists in both camps profited, as well as the continued repression of dissident opinion in China, we are reminded of Ryszard Kapuscinski's observation on Iran: ''A dictatorship . . . leaves behind itself an empty, sour field on which the tree of thought won't grow quickly. It is not always the best people who emerge from hiding, from the corners and cracks of that farmed-out field, but often those who have proven themselves strongest. . . ."
262
It is to these figures in particular that the spirit of Mao has the greatest attraction.
In the vacuum created by officially enforced silence, a multiplicity of interpretations and uses of Mao have arisen, from the bizarre to the traditional. The entrepreneurial passion that possessed the nation led some people to interpret the abiding spirit of Mao Zedong and Mao Thought to be a talent for unprincipled manipulation and ruthless ambition. But the masses of dispossessed peasants and workers were also armed with Mao Thought in their own struggle against the new order. For them Mao represented hope. A popular saying held: "[The military strategist] Zhuge Liang was the embodiment of Chinese wisdom, the Monkey King Sun Wukong, the soul of courage, and Mao Zedong the spirit of rebellion."
263
The itinerant worker (
mangliu
) whose words end this volume expresses just such a view when he predicts that China's future leaders will come not from an urban or military elite, or a new middle class, but from the ranks of the dissatisfied and restive rural populace, as has been the case in the past (see "Musical Chairmen").
Contestation over the memory and legacy of Mao is sure to continue, and now, with the help of local compradors, the representatives of international capital also have been invited to the party.
In late 1993, the chichi Beijing eatery Maxim's organized a Mao birthday buffet for two hundred. The printed invitations bore the slogan "Long live Chairman Mao!" and patrons were requested to wear Mao suits. The restaurant was decked out with pictures of the Chairman and Cultural Revolution wall posters for the occasion. While the food was standard haute cuisine, an excerpt from
The White-Haired Girl,
one of the showcase productions of the Cultural Revolution, was staged as the evening's entertainment.
264

 

Page 53
Maxim's celebration of the event was very much in the spirit of the public, nonofficial use of Mao, of those who, to use the popular necrophagous expression, "eat Mao" (
chi Mao
). The event was also typical of the cynical collaboration between Dengist bureaucracy and Western investors who, when required to, readily slip into socialist drag.
While Mao was being "eaten" everywhere from Maxim's to the faddish Cultural Revolution revival restaurants around Beijing, more serious attempts to ingest his spirit were being made by young cultural conservatives. Among their number were the "new leftists" (
xin zuoyi
or
zuopai
)
265
such as Wu Qin, who was one of the organizers of a major symposium on socialism in the international scene in Beijing in mid 1994.
266
Educated in the United States, Wu was one of a younger group of thinkers armed with the ideological weapons of Western new leftism. It is younger scholars like these perhaps who were best suited to carry out an effective critique of the social, political, and economic chaos of Deng's China. Indeed, such intellectual activists may, in the long run, have something in common with lateCultural Revolution critics of Maoist socialism such as the Li Yizhe group in Guangzhou.
267
Although the figure of Mao is only one of their rallying points, many aspects of his Cult as revealed in the following pages are recognized as having a value in debates concerning China.
268
The shade of Mao Zedong continues to cast a long shadow over Chinese life. Although the MaoCraze of the early 1990s has faded, replaced, for example, by such things as a passing fashion for late-Qing heroes like Zeng Guofan,
269
some discussions of Mao and his legacy have continued in the public arena. Wang Shan's
China Through the Third Eye,
a controversial best-seller in China in the summer of 1994, took as its central theme a comparison between the Mao and the Deng eras, often expressing sympathy if not outright support for Maoist policies.
270
One of the constant refrains of the book was that the Chinese have failed to understand and appreciate Mao fully!
271
Meanwhile, outside China the publication of Li Zhisui's magisterial memoir in late 1994 elicited a new wave of debate about the Chairman, and his place in the nation's history, among overseas Chinese, especially within the dissident diaspora,
272
and the Chinese version of the book was much sought after on the Mainland. Committed intellectuals continue to debate the heritage of Mao,
273
and many are concerned that the Mao heritage, reformulated by an ideologically bankrupt Party in terms of a crude nationalism, may be a dangerous factor in China's future.
274
To paraphrase William Bouwsma, however, Mao, much like water and electricity, is now a public utility.
275
Long ago Mao's person achieved the status of national myth, and in his posthumous rebirth his history, as presented in the Chinese media, fits in neatly with what Bruce Chatwin called "the Hero Cycle" (a cycle that Elvis

 

Page 54
also fulfills). Mao weathered numerous setbacks, trials, and tribulations, including the agonies of the failure of his own policies, and in death he has come out victorious. As Chatwin wrote in
Songlines
:
Every mythology has its version of the "Hero on his Road to Trials," in which a young man, too, receives a "call." He travels to a distant country where some giant or monster threatens to destroy the population. In a superhuman battle, he overcomes the Power of Darkness, proves his manhood, and receives his reward: a wife, treasure, land, fame.
These he enjoys into late middle age when, once again, the clouds darken. Again, restlessness stirs him. Again he leaves: either like Beowulf to die in combat or, as the blind Tiresias prophesies for Odysseus, to set off for some mysterious destination, and vanish. . . .
Each section of the mythlike a link in a behavioural chainwill correspond to one of the classic Ages of Man. Each Age opens with some fresh barrier to be scaled or ordeal to be endured. The status of the Hero will rise in proportion as to how much of this assault course he completesor is seen to complete.
The Hero Cycle, Chatwin remarks, "is a story of `fitness' in the Darwinian sense: a blueprint for genetic `success'."
276
An appreciation of the Hero Cycle may also help us understand the reasons for the abiding charisma of Mao Zedong and the relevance of his persona and mythological status in China in the future.
Chinese cultural history, like that of many nations, is rich in examples of objects, symbols, and individuals who have been "lost and refound, overvalued, devalued, then revalued."
277
The battle for China's past, over Mao's reputation and the history of the Communist Party, will continue in both the public forum and among archivists and scholars in and outside China. One day Chinese readers will gain access to that unfolding past.
278
In the meantime, Chairman Mao has entered the stream of Chinese history as man, icon, and myth, and there is little doubt that the Cult of the early 1990s is only the first of the revivals he will experience in what promises to be a long and successful posthumous career
279
(see Figures 45a, 45b).
May-June 1995
Canberra-Sydney-Boston
Notes
1. See, for example, Mao's comments at the 1959 Plenum in Stuart R. Schram, ed.,
Mao Tse-tung Unrehearsed,
p. 139.
2. This story was related to me by Sang Ye, who read a report of it in the Chinese press. Unable to locate the original source, I record it here for the reader's information. In a similar vein, old workers retrenched in Shanghai in 1987 reportedly went to a restaurant, got drunk, and returned home, each cradling a portrait of Mao in their arms.

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