Menu
close
Anonymous.
cgaoPlease download and read the attachments below.
Gao, Mobo. “Debating the Cultural Revolution” from Battle for China’s Past: Mao and the Cultural Revolution, London and Ann Arbor: Pluto Press, 2008.
This selection argues that the widespread condemnation of the cultural revolution as a haojie or holocaust/catastrophe misleads people and causes them to consider that, for some, the period was one of significant progress. The complete book is available at: http://www.strongwindpress.com/pdfs/ebook/The_Battle_for_Chinas_Past.pdf.
------------------------------
Zhou Enlai, “Mao Zedong Thought is the Sole Criterion of Truth,” from Michael Schoenhals, ed., China’s Cultural Revolution, 1966-1969: Not a Dinner Party, Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1996.
------------------------------
Sidney Rittenberg and Amanda Bennett, The Man Who Stayed Behind, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993.
Sidney Rittenberg, b. 1921, is known as Li Dunbai in China. Before the selection you’ve been given, Rittenberg studied Chinese at the behest of the U.S. Army and was sent to China. He had previously studied at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He arrived in China in 1944 and didn’t leave until 1980. At the end of World War II, he stayed in China and worked for the United Nations relief organization. In 1946, he joined the Chinese Communist Party in its struggle for control of China.
He was imprisoned by the CCP from 1949 to 1955, suspected by Moscow of being an American spy. He had married a Chinese woman who divorced him during this period. After his release, he worked for the Broadcast Administration and married Wang Yulin. The selection focuses on Rittenberg’s political activities, links with Mao Zedong, and then his downfall after running afoul of Mao’s wife Jiang Qing.
You may also be interested in a documentary about his life: The Revolutionary. http://revolutionarymovie.com/ (trailer on this page, dvds available); some university libraries have it available via Kanopy: https://www.kanopystreaming.com/wayf/product/revolutionary
We screened the video in 2012 and hosted a Q and A session with Sidney Rittenberg and Wang Yulin afterwards. To watch that session, go to: http://china.usc.edu/video-qa-session-following-screening-revolutionary
edited by cgao on 3/22/2017
AnonymousThe impact of the Culture Revolution has lasted for several decades. Since the youth who were sent the farms barely graduated from High schools. They were brainwashed by Mao's thought with the cost of their college education and youth lives in the farms. These generation suffered throughout their lives later on.
What's more, as the movie of " Returning Home" shows, even among family members, daughter drew a line with her father, and in some other cases, husband and wife were forced to divorce in order the clear himself or herself out. These result in the mistrust between each others in Chinese society even when the Culture Revolution was over.