From Mao to Now
 
“To Live”
  • What’s the significance of the title?
  • How were the Nationalists portrayed in the film? Do you think that Zhang Yimou (the director) regarded them as the “legitimate” government of China?
  • How are the Communists portrayed? Do you think the film is “pro” or “anti” CCP (Chinese Communist Party)?
  • What is the ultimate message of the film?
The Cult of Mao

 

Nie Yuanzi’s “Big Character” Poster
May 25, 1966
At present, the people of the whole nation, in a soaring revolutionary spirit that manifests their boundless love for the Party and Chairman Mao and their inveterate hatred for the sinister anti-Party, anti-socialist gang, are making a vigorous and great cultural revolution; they are struggling to thoroughly smash the attacks of the reactionary sinister gang, in defense of the Party’s Central Committee and Chairman Mao....All revolutionary intellectuals, now is the time to go into battle! Let us unite, holding high the great red banner of Mao Zedong Thought, unite around the Party’s Central Committee and Chairman Mao and break down all the various controls and plots of the revisionists; resolutely, thoroughly, totally, and completely wipe out all ghosts and monsters and all Khrushchevian counterrevolutionary revisionists, and carry the socialist revolution through to the end.
Defend the Party’s Central Committee!
Defend Mao Zedong Thought!
Defend the dictatorship of the proletariat! [Sources of Chinese Tradition (vol. 2), 477]
  • What is the significance of the “Cult of Mao”?

The list of accusations grew longer by the day: hooligans and bad eggs, filthy rich peasants and son-of-a-bitch landlords, bloodsucking capitalists and neo-bourgeoisie, historical counterrevolutionaries and active counterrevolutionaries, rightists and ultra-rightists, alien class elements and degenerate elements, reactionaries and opportunists, counterrevolutionary revisionists, imperialist running dogs, and spies. Students stood in the roles of prosecutor, judge, and police. No defense was allowed. Any teacher who protested was certainly a liar.
The indignities escalated as well. Some students shaved or cut teachers’ hair into curious patterns. The most popular style was the yin-yang cut, which featured a full head of hair on one side and a clean-shaven scalp on the other. Some said this style represented Chairman Mao’s theory of the “unity of opposites.” It made me think of the punishments of ancient China, which included shaving the head, tattooing the face, cutting off the nose or feet, castration, and dismemberment by five horse-drawn carts. [SOCT (vol. 2), 478-9]
  • Did Mao manipulate traditional culture to achieve his own ends—or was he in fact the “Great Helmsman” who saved China from the forces of Western imperialism?