a period that revealed people's souls, therefore the most important exhibit would be just that.
|
The first hall would contain the upright spirits of those whose names will live on forever in history: Chen Yi, He Long, Peng Dehuai, Deng Tuo, Lao She, Fu Lei and Zhang Zhixin;
16
|
The second hall would contain souls adept at turning things to their advantage, including the leaders of the Lin Biao and Jiang Qing counterrevolutionary cliques, as well as people like Nie Yuanzi and Xu Jingxian;
17
|
The third hall would be for the survivors, those people who did not necessarily harm others, but nor did they oppose tyranny.
|
At the exit a large mirror for self-reflection would be set up with an exhibit of clubs, whips, letters of denunciation, handcuffs as well as the various caps like "capitalist roader" and "counterrevolutionary" used to denounce people. This mirror would reflect just what type of soul each individual had. . . .
|
Comrade Zheng supported Ye Yonglie's report and made some suggestions. . . .
|
The museum was to be a nonprofit organization and entry would be free. The International Museum Association wanted to send people to Beijing to carry out a feasibility study. The fact that they wanted to help finance the project was an indication of its importance.
|
But for various reasons, the project was buried under red tape and little further progress was made. . . .
18
|
In Chinese history there are cases . . . of large amounts of relics being lost and historical records remaining incomplete leaving scholars nothing to work on. Later generations are thereby faced with many [historical] blanks.
|
It is necessary to build a Cultural Revolution Museum to prevent such an historical tragedy.
|
On 4 March 1989 Ye Yonglie wrote to Rao Guixiang, a collector of Mao badges, and told him that his badges would be an indispensible exhibit in the museum. . . . On 11 January 1991 Jin Chunming, a professor at the Central Party School and a famous Cultural Revolution historian, wrote to me that: "Some years ago, Ba Jin proposed that a CultRev Museum be established. Mao badges would have an important place in such a museum. I still have a collection of a few hundred badges myself. Unfortunately, Ba Jin's proposal was not accepted by the relevant authorities, and we still don't have a centre for research on the Cultural Revolution. It is a great pity that we lag behind overseas scholars in this respect." On 29 May that year he wrote again saying: "I fully support the museum, but Ba Jin's proposal has not been accepted by the leadership and, as you know, without approval from
|
|
