Shades of Mao: The Posthumous Cult of the Great Leader (56 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

BOOK: Shades of Mao: The Posthumous Cult of the Great Leader
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Page 184
Cultural Revolution] the true worth of the Chairman's genius is now ignored. There are readers who are hopeful of applying military strategy to their business practices. But if you only have an average education, especially if you have a limited knowledge of classical Chinese and history, why should you discard what is so close at hand [i.e., Mao Thought] and search for answers in the distant past?
Mao Zedong once made a brilliant exposition of the relationship between warfare and business:
It often happens that only by loss can loss be avoided; this is the principle of "Give in order to take." If what we lose is territory and what we gain is victory over the enemy, plus recovery and also expansion of our territory, then it is a paying proposition. In a business transaction, if a buyer does not "lose" some money, he cannot obtain goods; if a seller does not "lose" some goods, he cannot obtain money. The losses incurred in a revolutionary movement involve destruction, and what is gained is construction of a progressive character. Sleep and rest involve loss of time, but energy is gained for tomorrow's work. If any fool does not understand this and refuses to sleep, he will have no energy the next day, and that is a losing proposition.
3
History has shown the unparalleled astuteness of Mao Zedong's Military Philosophy. Despite being equipped by the Americans, Chiang Kai-shek's eight-million-strong army was to learn this lesson for it was defeated in a glorious victory for the homespun troops of Mao Zedong within the space of three short years. Apart from various objective reasons stemming from Chinese history and the progress of world history, it cannot be denied that Mao Zedong's Military Philosophy played a decisive role in that victory.
It is with regret, however, that we must note that in the 1960s and 1970s Mao quotes were generally vulgarized, and this led to a tendency for people "to throw the baby out with the bath water" in the 1980s. Quite a number of people, including some high-level cadres, came to believe that Mao Zedong Thought was no longer valid for the task of construction in China today. They felt Mao had no role to play in the economic tasks posed by the Open Door and Reform policies. Such attitudes were the result of ignorance and prejudice, while the proponents of Mao's works insisted that people study Mao in the same old dogmatic fashion.
Mao Zedong's military philosophy spans all ages and nations. It can be scientifically applied to military strategy as well as providing analogies for a range of areas, in particular ever changing social realities. The essence of Mao Zedong Thought is not to be superstitious about anything, nor dogmatic; all problems should be analyzed in concrete terms and a solution should be found in a practical and realistic manner. There are limitless possibilities for the application of Mao's Military Thought in the economic

 

Page 185
realm today as we enliven the local economy and open up to the outside world. The problem is simple: do we want to set out on this Long March of 25,000
li
and head north to fight a war of resistance?
4
Perhaps we will need a few more years before we can free ourselves entirely from the shadow of the Cultural Revolution. Then we will be able to perceive clearly the true value of Mao Thought. We look forward to the advent of business people who will apply Mao Thought to the realm of the economy, just as we hope that theoreticians versed in this area will appear.
It is in this spirit that we humbly offer this meager volume to those noble individuals engaged in the commodity economy. We cast forth this brick in the hope that it will elicit comments of jade.
9 September 1991
Notes
1. See Jean-Baptiste Regis, Joseph de Mailla & Pierre de Tartre, S.J., trans., "De Explicatione Textuum Libri
Y-King,
Caput Primum:
Kien
: Coelum," in
Y-King,
from John Minford & Joseph Lau, eds.,
Classical Chinese Literature, Vol. 1: From Antiquity to the T'ang.
2.
Sunzi bingfa
and
Sanguo yanyi.
Both works have been trawled by writers and publishers in Japan, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand and the U.S. to provide today's merchants with ancient strategies that can be applied to modern business.
3. This quotation is from Mao Zedong, "Zhongguo geming zhanzheng he zhanlüe wenti,"
Mao Zedong xuanji,
vol. 1, p. 195. For the English text, see
Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung,
vol. 1, p. 221. The curious use of this quotation is itself an example of how Mao's words can be so easily taken out of context.
4. These are two clichés that originate in the Communist Party's struggles with the Nationalists and the Japanese.

 

Page 186
Let the Red Sun Shine In
During the winter of 1991-92,
The Red Sun: Odes to Mao Zedong Sung to a New Beat,
a rearrangement and recording of Cultural Revolution songs, was released on cassette tape and immediately became a nationwide best-seller. Over one million copies of the tape were sold in the space of a few months and some 14 million copies were reportedly sold by 1993. Needless to say, CD, karaoke and laser disk versions of this collection and other similar compilations were soon marketed.
For those familiar with the near-ecstatic qualities of the original songs, dithyrambic outpourings for the quasi-religious figure of the Great Leader, the new versions are limp, mushy and kitsch. As Xu Jilin points out below, they reflect perfectly the tenor of the times.
In the following round-table discussion, a group of Shanghai academics and writers known as active cultural critics, reflect on the significance of what was called "The Red Sun Craze" and comment on what they think the modern classics should be ("The Magic Flute" with electronic synthesizers).
Time: Afternoon, 20 January 1992
Place: The Conference Room of
China Youth News,
Shanghai
Participants:
Xu Jilin: Researcher in the Cultural Institute of the Huadong Chemical Industries Institute
He Ping: Editor,
The Shanghai Cultural Almanac
Yan Bofei: Researcher in the Philosophy Institute of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences
Yang Jianguo: Reporter,
Shanghai Culture and Arts News
Yang Jianguo: The overwhelming popularity of
The Red Sun
dating from late last year [winter 1991] has taken music publishers, distributors, and the media by surprise. When the Shanghai Branch of the China Record Company produced this tape, they estimated that the market could absorb about seventy to eighty thousand copies but the overwhelming public response has been quite unexpected. The Shanghai Music Bookstore ordered a thousand copies but sold out within two days. By the time Mao Zedong's

 

Page 187
birthday came around on December 26, there was no stock left in the city. Over the New Year holiday, nine families living in the Cao-Yang New Village all played the tape at full volume, and the whole building became a massive loudspeaker.
Sales outside Shanghai have also been remarkable. The Wangfujing Bookstore in Beijing ordered two thousand tapes but because of a clerical error received only two hundred. There was a rush on them and they were sold out in little over an hour. They had to send an urgent telex for more. A private entrepreneur from Hunan came to Shanghai and ordered five thousand copies of the tape and paid for them on the spot in cash. Asked whether he could be sure they would sell, he retorted: "No worries, Hunan is the Red Province of China."
1
In early January [1992], the China Record Company "guesstimated" that they could sell 300,000 copies of the tape; soon they revised the figures up to 500,000, and then 700,000. Now they're looking at the possibility of breaking the one million mark. Originally it was thought that
The Red Sun
would be in heavy competition with
Goodbye,
the farewell tape of the "Little Tigers,"
2
but the Tigers have been routed. This is the first time in ages that a local [i.e., Mainland] recording has done so well.
The Red Sun
is no simple "phenomenon"; it has become a full-blown craze.
The reasons for this are complex. Although the "Little Tigers" are idols among teeny-boppers, people of all ages and from all walks of life have been buying
The Red Sun.
He Ping: The element of nostalgia in the success of
The Red Sun,
especially among people who lived through the Cultural Revolution, cannot be ignored. For us, the Cultural Revolution was the most exciting period of our lives; you could say we grew up singing the songs that are reproduced in
The Red Sun.
Hearing them now brings back our lost youth, along with memories of a simpler and unsullied past.
Yan Bofei: I recall a few years back there was a period when there was a revival of Model Opera tunes and arias that led to something of a public debate. The opponents of the Model Opera revival won out in the end.
3
But not many years later, here we have all these Cultural Revolution-era songs blaring at us in the streets and no one is suggesting that they bring back bitter memories of the past or traumatize people so much that they can't get to sleep. This reflects a new type of tolerance and is proof that ideology is losing its grip on society. The songs on
The Red Sun
tape have been put to pop music; they are a form of pop culture now. There's none of that Cultural Revolution-style religiosity about any of it. They're just like all the books about Mao's personal life that show that Mao himself has been secularized.

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