Chen Jihe’s StoryA journey through a decade of disarray

A Great Leap to the BeginningJuly 24th, 1959My children have been engulfed by hunger and starvation. Lately, things just haven’t been going their way. From what I hear, life is hard, and violence along with chaos has started to expose itself in the countryside. As for me, I am here in the city, living my everyday life as a professor. Food shortages have not yet been as extreme, and life has only just started to change in China. It was the five-year plan that originally triggered these series of events, which heavily impacted my family’s lives. Mao’s plans on quick economic growth sadly failed him, as results did not turn out as hoped. I believe this is why the communes were finally organized, to speed up the plans and help increase productivity. Many of my countryside friends had their families put into farms known as communes, in which they had to work together to help escalate the growth of the economy. It wasn’t long ago that I remember some trouble within the government. Mao’s action may have the country’s best intentions in mind, but some of the things he says and does are too extreme and may not help China in the way that he hopes. Only a short while ago did he order the Hundred Flowers campaign to let people speak freely about what they thought of the communism. Although it seemed like a great idea at the time, it turned out that it angered many of the government officials, and in the end it threw many people off.

Mao’s intentions are definitely on the right track, although I think feeding false information to people to work harder might have taken it too far. Farmers have been working much, much harder to try and satisfy Mao and to accomplish the five-year plan. As the farmers work harder and harder and grows more crops, my children told me that it turns out that the amount of grain they have grown hasn’t actually increased as much as the public think. They filled empty boxes with sand, and a layer of grain at the top to deceive Mao and make it seem like they grew lots and lots of crops. In reality, the government is just taking a much too big proportion of the crops, and starving many of the farmers, including my children.Although Mao might have China’s best intentions at mind, there may come a point where he takes things too far. But for now, all I can do is hope for the best, as his actions finally start to unravel and reveal who Mao really is.   

The communes with little food left

The Fusing of the Red Guards

June 29th, 1966I believe students have gone a bit too far for being loyal to Mao’s ideals and communism. There is nothing worse than seeing teenagers become so violent and attack so many people just because they slightly disagree with Mao. Chaos has begun to tear the city apart. I heard that a dazibao was written to criticize and attack some teacher at a university, and all of a sudden this started a train reaction of the same thing happening all over China. There was even one guy who got so beat up by this situation, that apparently he just couldn’t take it anymore and committed suicide.Just four days after the first dazibao was written, students have stared to form groups known as the Red Guards, who have the sole purpose to seek and disband people disagreeing with Mao. The increasing amount of violence greatly concerns me, for during this time these Red Guards treated many of the citizens and my friends poorly, punishing them and being tremendously rigorous. It’s sad to think that the idea of having Red Guards was actually accepted, as they were even distributed armbands to make it official that they were declared as Red Guards. With the acceptance of having Red Guards, they now have nothing stopping them from relentlessly hurting others for having different thoughts on Mao.I still remember when things weren’t as extreme, and the goal in mind was just to increase productivity for the country. With the Great Leap Forward plan putting China into a devastating three years of famine, sadly my son passed away due to the lack of food along with millions of others in all of China. I was lucky enough to be living in the city, and was willing to salvage anything to eat while down in the countryside, there wasn’t much to begin with.

After people started to recover from the famine, Mao started to take action and regain his rise to the top. Lin Biao organized little red books with Mao’s quotes and sayings, and these books were handed out to every single person in China. Without the Little Red Book to push students in Mao’s direction, and make him a prophet figure in the minds of Chinese people, the results probably wouldn’t have been as extreme. Everyone was required to memorize these sayings, especially the students who now had to do this at school. Even I was required to memorize my copy that was handed out to me. Now that I’m finally getting the sense of who Mao is as a person, I fear that there may still be spectacular upcoming events. There’s really no telling whether Mao’s actions will boost China in the upwards direction, or help China plummet down, deep into the earth. All we can do is hope for the best.

The Little Red Book that was handed out to me

The Red Guards

Off and Away to the Countryside

December 8th, 1970I know my scholars have suffered from all the manual labor. How foolish was Mao to send scholars down to the countryside and work while they have not even received their full education. There was absolutely no way that being taught by rural peasants would have been beneficial. The only effect that it had on the sent-down youth is they now have a huge gap in their education. How absurd! Up until the Down to the Countryside movement, things have already become hectic. All I could see while turning around corners were the Red Guards brutally punishing and humiliating those poor innocent townsfolk, keeping in mind the sole purpose to seek and destroy the four olds. These Red Guards even got to the point where they were ransacking and bombarding houses for any trace of the old ethics, demolishing them once and for all. As the violence skyrocketed, I let out a sigh of relief as the PLA finally dismantled the Red Guards. 

As for the government, Lin Biao and Jiang Qing have pasted pictures of Mao in every location. In every single direction there was a large portrait of Mao Zedong, staring off into the distance as if looking into the bright future of the country under his rule. Although these portraits look kind of awkward being hung up everywhere, to me it seems like they want to do this so that they can depict Mao in a godly-like manner. Mao’s actions once again make me question his authority. I’ve heard that the industry production has decreased 12% since Mao has taken the throne. It’s weird that there are times when I doubt his actions and other times when I believe he could make China prosper. As for now, I’m not so sure. Mao’s actions can be naïve, but there’s no point in judging until I see the results.

Marching people down to the countryside

Criticize, Critique, Condemn 

October 16th, 1974

Lin Biao is now one of the most hated people in China. Which seems weird to me because it was only a while ago when Lin Biao was helping China progress towards the ultimate goal. Posters have once again been pasted around China, but this time they say “Criticize Lin, Criticize Confucius - it's the most important matter for the whole party, the whole army and the people of the whole country”. Lin Biao has already passed away around three years ago, and now all of a sudden the government is starting to blame him for all the wrongs in the Cultural Revolution.

Things have just started to get better. Schools have finally started up again, and I was able to see a few of my old students. The educational system is now in a confusing state, and some things have just begun to fall apart, so I decided to teach the students some new things and help them with their gap of missing knowledge for going down to the countryside. Their education is now lacking and I can’t do much about it than try and help them catch up a bit. I was required to teach them about the Little Red Book, and help them interpret Mao’s sayings, and that’s what I did, but along with that I taught the students a bit more on the side, and to thank me for this they would keep me updated on the Cultural Revolution.

Which brings us back to three years ago when Lin Biao passed away, the same year that Lin Biao attempted to murder Mao Zedong after so many years of working together. Disbelief filled the eyes of many Chinese citizens, for they did not think that Lin Biao would even think of such a thing to assassinate Mao. It seems suspicious to me that Lin Biao would do such a thing after accomplishing so much through a big part of the Cultural Revolution. I heard this piece of news through the radio at that time, as did many other citizens in China. Questions were asked but none were answered. Refusing to compromise with the public also makes me somewhat distrustful of this event. Personally, I still think that Lin Biao and Confucius were great people, despite what others want me to think. Lin Biao helped China progress alongside Mao and Confucius’ ideals have helped us open our minds. These great people don’t deserve that kind of disrespect. Hopefully this campaign to criticize them will stop sometime soon. As for me, there’s nothing to do but wait in the sidelines and see how this pans out.   Poster used to

criticize Lin Biao and Confucius

Portrait of Lin Biao

The Final EndOctober 7th, 1976Deaths have occurred and China is just about to recover from the ten lost years. The great and mighty Mao Zedong has passed away after his many years of taking hold of China. Mao Zedong’s ill health and old age is what caused him to sadly go on to a better time. His actions might have been off but his ambitions were what really kept him going. He always had China’s best thoughts in mind. It’s only been a month since his death and many people have mourned over the death of such a great and enlightened figure. It was just yesterday that Hua Gofeng arrested the Gang of Four. Putting all four members, Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan, and Wang Hongwen behind bars. At such bad timing, they were blamed for the excess crimes of the Cultural Revolution, and left Mao’s reputation practically flawless. Leading up to Mao’s death, there was much that happened this same year. It was earlier in April where Zhou Enlai, one of the most respected senior Chinese leaders there was, passed away. I agree with the others that say his death is what caused the Tiananmen incident, an event that happened later in the year.

During the Tiananmen incident that took place on Qing Ming day (tomb sweeping day), many people were dismayed that the displays of mourning were removed and therefore they began to protest at Tiananmen Square. I was included in this group of people, for my son had passed during the three years of famine and I was determined to protest against the removal of displays of mourning. I created a poem and lay our wreaths at the monument along with hundreds of other people to show our affections for the ones who have passed. Rows of wreaths lay swaying in the wind with papers flapping about in the fall breeze. After a while everyone was ordered to be cleared out of the area by the Gang of Four. Much came of a shock to me as this event was immediately labeled counterrevolutionary, and Deng Xiaoping was arrested and accused of planning this uproar. The death of Mao Zedong marks the end of the Cultural Revolution. It is now time to recover form the ten years of turmoil, and restore all what China was worth. Reconstruction might be hard, but we must maximize what China can become, make it so that China is the greatest country of them all. I know that China will once again become a great country. Long lived Mao Zedong, and may he rest in peace.

Portrait of Mao Zedong, our leader

Arresting the Gang Of Four

Citations