Shades of Mao: The Posthumous Cult of the Great Leader (63 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 206
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

 

Page 207
the leaders it would be very difficult to realize such a project. In the present circumstances I can only encourage you to work on by yourself and preserve the materials you have. . . ."
The spring [1992] edition of
New Culture
carried an article by Wang Zhuangling entitled "The Rising Tide of `CultRev Relics.'"
19
 . . . It was soon reprinted or excerpted in over 100 newspapers. . . . It wasn't long before everyone was familiar with the concept of "CultRev Relics" and, after having read it, many people hurriedly started going through their cupboards in search of relics that they could sell for a profit in the future. Some put their relics on display as works of art, others now treated them as antiques. . . .
The article "The Rising Tide of `CultRev Relics'". . . was so influential that I have chosen to reproduce it below in full:
So-called "CultRev relics" are unique objects that reflect a specific historical period.
"[Chairman Mao] Quotation songs" are one of the inventions of the Cultural Revolution. In those songs even conjunctions like "if," "therefore," and "so'' were put to music. They were unique. The shortest line in those songs was "we must combat selfishness and repudiate revisionism" (
yao dousi pixiu
). Although there are only five words [in Chinese] it took three minutes to sing. . . . Records of these songs have sold in Hong Kong for as much as H.K. $2,500 each. The longest song can't simply be measured in words. At one evening performance called "The Effulgence of Mao Zedong Thought Will Shine Through the Ages," the "Three Standard Articles"
20
were put to music and it took a whole night to sing them.
"The Precious Red Book"
21
has also become a commodified artifact that people both in China and overseas have started collecting. The book was produced in over 50 different languages and, during the Cultural Revolution, some 500 editions appeared with approximately 5 billion copies in circulation. If you add to that number the editions produced [informally] by various Red Guard groups and Revolutionary Commitees there would have been over 10 billion copies in print. But relatively few copies can be found in the cultural relics markets today and prices are constantly on the rise, especially for rare editions.
The Mao badge, however, is the most widespread Cultural Revolution product. In the five-year period from the summer of 1966 to the summer of 1971, over 10,000 different designs appeared throughout China with 2 billion badges in circulation. Overseas Mao badges now sell for anything from U.S.$0.5 to $400. Not long ago, an American-born Chinese bought a Mao badge in the shape of a sunflower for U.S.$500.
22
But Cultural Revolution period stamps have seen the greatest price increase. . . . Take, for example, the 1968 stamp "The Mountains and Rivers of the Nation Are All Red," which was printed incorrectly.
23
In 1988, one of these stamps could fetch 6,000
yuan
according to the median official price or 10,000
yuan
on the open market.

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