Tania Branigan has spoken to those who experienced China’s Cultural Revolution as victims, perpetrators or both. One man recounts how he reported his mother for insulting Mao—she was later executed
, persecuted those deemed too capitalist, traditional or reactionary. Frenzied young people led the initial charge, though the fighting between rival adult factions was more deadly. In all, as many as 2m people were killed in the upheaval; the lives of many millions more were ruined.
What makes the death of Fang stand out is that her husband and son had themselves been her accusers. Mr Zhang tells Tania Branigan, the author of “Red Memory”, that he saw his mother as a “monster” after she insulted Mao. Father and son then left to report her, probably knowing she would be killed. Today Mr Zhang is repentant. Yet his memory seems odd: “He existed in it not as a human who loved and feared and doubted, but as a Maoist algorithm: inputs, rules, outputs.
How people remember that horrible decade—or why they have forgotten it—is the underlying theme of this penetrating and perceptive book. Ms Branigan has spoken to those who experienced the revolution as victims, perpetrators or both. Mr Zhang is more open than most Chinese. Some have been silenced; some fear repercussions. “Others hush as if it were a curse, so powerful that its very mention darkens current peace and prosperity,” writes the author.
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