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The Chinese Cultural Revolution

"The men who are the most honored are the greatest killers.  They

believe that they are serving their fellowmen...."

Henry Miller

In the mid-60's, Mao Zedong tore the fabric of Chinese society

apart.  In doing so, he unleashed emotions of the most primitive kind,

the true demons of the human mind.  These primordial motivators

ripped across the face of China, bringing death, destruction and pain.

But the frenzy Mao had freed was not some freak child of Mao's

philosophies.  It was the simple product of passions that squirm every

day inside you and me.

In 1958, Mao decided to throw China violently into the future.  His

catapult was The Great Leap Forward, an economic plan designed to

harness China's manpower in a massive modernization program.

Billboards carried pictures of a Chinese worker astride a rocket.  The

slogan read, "Surpass England in Fifteen Years!"  Students, senior

citizens, intellectuals and farmers labored ceaselessly to build steel

furnaces.  They collected iron pots and tore brass fittings off the ancient

doors of their houses to provide the scrap metal the construction of those

furnaces would require.  Peasants left their homes in mass mobilizations,

slogged to communal dining halls, and threw themselves into their work

with tremendous enthusiasm.   After all, says Gao Yuan, one Chinese

schoolboy who lived through it, "People were saying that true

communism was just around the corner."9

Unfortunately, somewhere along the line the 'Great Leap Forward'

stumbled and fell on its face.  The communal dining halls closed.

Householders who had taken their pots to the furnaces were forced to

find new ones.  Ration coupons appeared for grain, oil, cloth and even

matches.  The little boys who had thrown themselves so enthusiastically

17

17

The Chinese Cultural Revolution

"The men who are the most honored are the greatest killers.  They

believe that they are serving their fellowmen...."

Henry Miller

In the mid-60's, Mao Zedong tore the fabric of Chinese society

apart.  In doing so, he unleashed emotions of the most primitive kind,

the true demons of the human mind.  These primordial motivators

ripped across the face of China, bringing death, destruction and pain.

But the frenzy Mao had freed was not some freak child of Mao's

philosophies.  It was the simple product of passions that squirm every

day inside you and me.

In 1958, Mao decided to throw China violently into the future.  His

catapult was The Great Leap Forward, an economic plan designed to

harness China's manpower in a massive modernization program.

Billboards carried pictures of a Chinese worker astride a rocket.  The

slogan read, "Surpass England in Fifteen Years!"  Students, senior

citizens, intellectuals and farmers labored ceaselessly to build steel

furnaces.  They collected iron pots and tore brass fittings off the ancient

doors of their houses to provide the scrap metal the construction of those

furnaces would require.  Peasants left their homes in mass mobilizations,

slogged to communal dining halls, and threw themselves into their work

with tremendous enthusiasm.   After all, says Gao Yuan, one Chinese

schoolboy who lived through it, "People were saying that true

communism was just around the corner."9

Unfortunately, somewhere along the line the 'Great Leap Forward'

stumbled and fell on its face.  The communal dining halls closed.

Householders who had taken their pots to the furnaces were forced to

find new ones.  Ration coupons appeared for grain, oil, cloth and even

matches.  The little boys who had thrown themselves so enthusiastically