＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳 | 団塊世代が雑学や面白い話を発信しています
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49）さん / X
The terms “Cultural Revolution,” “Red Guards,” and “Quotations from Mao Zedong” are hardly heard these days, but at the time they were reported almost daily.
More than 40 years have passed since the Cultural Revolution ended, but I would like to reflect on it here.
1. What is the Cultural Revolution?
The Cultural Revolution was a revolutionary movement led by Mao Zedong (1893-1976), which lasted from 1966 to 1976 and ended in 1977.
Its nominal purpose was to criticize feudal and capitalist culture and create a new socialist culture, as a political, social, ideological, and cultural reform movement.
Mao Zedong’s “Great Leap Forward” policy, a large-scale plan to increase agricultural and industrial production, which began in 1958, ended in disaster, the economy fell into chaos, and food shortages led to mass starvation deaths, estimated at 20 million. In 1959, Mao took responsibility and handed over the position of President to Liu Shaoqi (1898-1969).
Together with General Secretary Deng Xiaoping (1904-1997), Liu Shaoqi attempted to restore the economy, which had been devastated by the Great Leap Forward, by implementing economic policies that incorporated market economics.
Mao Zedong, who aimed to “restore his power” and “take back control of the government,” incited the student movement known as the “Red Guards” to attack his political opponents and began a power struggle within the Chinese Communist Party in order to bring him down. This was the reality of the “Cultural Revolution.”
He wrote the “Quotations from Mao Zedong,” in which he essentially deified himself, and promoted the agrarian “Mao Thought.”
Mao’s popularity in France may have been due to the fact that the “Cultural Revolution” was a reflection of Mao’s admiration and fantasy for his own country’s “French Revolution.”
2. The merits and demerits of the “Cultural Revolution”
Mao Zedong launched the “Cultural Revolution” by issuing the “516 Notice” on May 16, 1966.
This was a denunciation of the Chinese Communist Party, the military, and the government for allowing the infiltration of “representatives of the bourgeoisie” and “counter-revolutionary revisionists.”
The result was social unrest on an unprecedented scale, with 1.7 million people killed and 16 million people “sent down” to the countryside (a means of punishing and persecuting intellectuals and cadres hostile to Mao, or forcing them to do manual labor in order to ideologically reform them) or suffering psychological trauma.
Liu Shaoqi was thoroughly attacked by Mao Zedong as a “capitalist spy” (one who pursued the path of capitalism). In October 1968, he was accused of espionage, and was found to be an “enemy agent, traitor, and labor aristocrat hiding within the party.” He was “permanently expelled from the Chinese Communist Party and dismissed from all positions both within and outside the party,” which led to his downfall. He died in despair under house arrest in 1969.
Lin Biao (1907-1971) was Mao’s military strategist, who forced many military leaders to step down during the Cultural Revolution and was named Mao’s successor. However, when a “plan to assassinate Mao” was revealed, he died mysteriously when the plane he was riding in crashed over Mongolia on his way to the Soviet Union. The Mongolian government confirmed the “violation of airspace and the crash” and lodged a protest with China. The cause of the crash is unknown, but there are theories that the plane ran out of fuel, that it was fired on board, and that it was shot down by the Soviet Union with a surface-to-air missile.
During the “Criticizing the Lin and Criticizing the Confucius Movement” in the “Criticizing the Lin and Criticizing the Confucius Movement,” Mao Zedong composed a Chinese poem praising the First Emperor of Qin for “burning books and burying scholars.” The “Criticizing the Lin and Criticizing the Confucius Movement” criticized the rebel Lin Biao and the “reactionary and counter-revolutionary nature” of Confucian thought represented by Confucius, while at the same time highly praising the First Emperor of Qin for carrying out the “burning of books and burying scholars.”
The number of people who were grouped together into groups such as “counter-revolutionaries,” “landlords,” “capitalists,” and “right-wing elements,” and attacked to death is not known for certain, but it is said to be in the millions or even tens of millions.
The Red Guards also destroyed many cultural relics.
The Red Guards waged a fierce campaign to overthrow the ruling elite from 1966 to 1968, and are said to have been complicit in the massacres of some of the people killed or missing during the Cultural Revolution (essentially numbering in the millions or even tens of millions).
In addition, politicians and intellectuals who contributed to the establishment of the People’s Republic of China were also persecuted at that time. One of them, Peng Dehuai, was arrested and tortured, eventually dying as a result.
In this way, Mao Zedong was able to make good use of the brainwashed Red Guards to successfully purge his enemies and those who got in his way.
However, the Red Guards eventually became too much for Mao Zedong to control, and as they no longer had any value in his struggle for power, they were ultimately destined to disappear through “sent down to the countryside” and “oppression by the People’s Liberation Army of China.”
In this way, the true nature of the Cultural Revolution was a power struggle for Mao Zedong’s selfish attempt to regain power, and while its crimes, which involved many Chinese citizens and forced them to make great sacrifices, were enormous, it did not achieve any merits.
3. Xi Jinping’s attempt to emulate Mao Zedong
Xi Jinping has long been on the path to becoming a dictator, arresting and toppling his political opponents one after another under the pretext of an “anti-corruption campaign.”
Recently, there are rumors that Xi Jinping has begun considering resuming the “downward transfer” system that was implemented during the Cultural Revolution. He plans to send 10 million junior and senior high school students and university students to rural areas over the next three years (until 2022).
Furthermore, in March 2018, the NPC approved an amendment to the constitution to “record Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era in the constitution.” This is the first time since Mao Zedong that the “ideology” of a current leader has been included in the constitution.
In addition, the NPC also approved the “Constitutional Amendment to Abolish Term Limits for the President of the People’s Republic of China.” This will allow Xi Jinping to serve as President for life. This is why he is called the “modern Qin Shi Huang.”
I have also heard that starting in October 2019, the Chinese government will be conducting “tests” for journalists and editors at major media outlets (news agencies, newspapers, and television), and that those who do not score 80 points or above will not be given a “license.” Those who fail will be unable to continue working in the media industry.
The test is to measure the level of understanding of Xi Jinping Thought and Marxism. For example, it asks reporters to answer “yes” or “no” to the question “Does the Belt and Road Initiative benefit each country?” This seems like ideological control, and the intention is obvious to exclude journalists who have opinions opposed to the thinking of the Chinese government led by Xi Jinping.
China’s suppression of human rights, censorship, censorship of speech, restrictions on internet transmission and browsing, and restrictions on television broadcasting have long been problems, but if such measures are taken against the mass media, we cannot expect free and accurate reporting on China.
But to be honest, I don’t trust the news coming from China to begin with…
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