Toe the Communist Party’s red line on Cultural Revolution, state paper warns
Reflections on the transformative decade must not seek to alter the official verdict, newspaper warns after former culture chief calls for soul-searching
Reflections on the Cultural Revolution must not go beyond the Communist Party’s official verdict, a state media editorial cautioned on Wednesday ahead of the 50th anniversary of the outbreak of the political movement.
“Reflections are normal ... but they should not add or change [the official] political verdict,” a Global Times editorial said. The newspaper is affiliated with the party’s top mouthpiece People’s Daily.
Yesterday’s editorial was the official tabloid’s second commentary on the sensitive issue this year and came just weeks after a former culture minister called for further soul-searching by intellectuals on the country’s 10 years of chaos.
May 16 will mark the 50th anniversary of the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution, a decade-long political campaign dominated by the personality cult of the people’s republic’s founding leader Mao Zedong and destructive anarchic political movements.
In an article earlier this month, former culture minister Wang Meng, 81, argued that the party and Chinese intellectuals had a responsibility to “further explain” the campaign.
Lessons from 1966: why we should never forget the disastrous consequences of the Cultural Revolution
But the editorial yesterday insisted that “the profoundness of the official verdict on the history could not be paralleled by sporadic ideas by individuals.”
“If China brings up a wave of reflections and discussions [on the Cultural Revolution] as wished by some, the established political consensus will be jeopardised and turbulence in ideas may occur.
“[These advocates] like to overuse the label of the Cultural Revolution, linking it to all problems today, and to make their case that the Cultural Revolution will return.”
The editorial was similar to one the Global Times ran in January. But yesterday’s piece also dismissed calls from ultra-leftists for a vindication of the Cultural Revolution, saying that such voices had only limited influence.
In an official admission in 1981, the party said the Cultural Revolution was a period of internal turbulence “wrongfully started by the leadership and used by counter-revolutionary clans”. It inflicted a “serious catastrophe” on the country and the people and “is not and could not possibly be a revolution or social progress in any sense”, the party said.
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According to official statistics, the campaign caused more than a million unnatural deaths and resulted in the jailing of more than four million people.
But critics said the statement did not go far enough in holding Mao responsible.
Many sinful acts were done by the Gang of Four and his handpicked successor Lin Biao “behind his [Mao’s] back”, it said. All the five subordinates of Mao were labelled counter-revolutionaries after Mao’s death in 1976, the year the Cultural Revolution ended.
Song Yongyi, a US-based historian and expert on the Cultural Revolution, said the 1981 statement was compromised by political considerations.
“The political situation was not stable then and the party wanted to focus on building the economy first,” Song said. “Now China is the world’s second-largest economy and it’s much readier for further discussions.”
