Had a coworker ask me about the cultural revolution because I know things, particularly pertaining to China and Chinese history, but the cultural revolution is a blindspot for me, so I couldn't really answer.
I missed the opportunity to educate, and every moment since then has been agony. Please help me amend this.
Thanks in advance, comrades.
If you want something easy you could try watching "to live 1994" there is a scene where they are trying to find a midwife during the cultural revolution. This scene pretty much sumed up the feeling I got while in China.
There is also the doco "China a century of revolution" would have a decent amount of time allotted to it.
It is absolutely ok to shit on the cultural revolution while in China. Like Mao is 90 percent good and 10 percent bad, and the bad is the Cultural Revolution.
I saw a play (based on true story) at Tsinghua Uni by Xiamen Uni that was massively critical. Mainly covering the theme of those that had skills (but not fanatics) being seen as counter revolutionary by zealots.
Plenty of historic Buddhist stuff was smashed up. I was told that the best way to save stuff was to put a picture of Mao over the face of a statue to prevent damage.
I could say more, not all bad either, but it would all be off the cuff with no book suggestions....
If you do find some good reading let me know if you find anything regarding the potential of a PLA split. My professor suggested this in passing but I haven't been able to find anything and haven't gone back to discuss.
It's all pretty foggy in my mind now. Enjoy your research.
it's very difficult to wrap my head around the destruction of historic objects. because recast the scene in my home town i do want to break many things of 'historic significance'. destroying things from the Qing in 1966 was destroying things from a regime that was in living memory. theres something terribly cathartic feeling about ritual violence against monuments to past violence; we love our desecrations of modern statues to confederates & colonizers quite a bit.
on the other hand im a history student & yeah it is very romantic to imagine something smashed in revolution was a vital piece that'd transform our understanding of everything. probably wasn't though. and the Cultural Rev. did at times reach the realistic balance of what we'd call "best practices"---recording & photographing objects/places before they went sickomode on them. the French revolutionaries didn't bother at all & while we're aware of some gaps in out knowledge because of that its an overstatement to pretend we've lost anything that important (or that such things would necessarily be accessible now sans revolution)
The four olds. Get rid of them all!
Imagine the results of a successful campaign in America. Permanent cultural change. A revolution, if you will.
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Yeah, I probably should have said 1000s of year old statues. Important for some, stuff for others.
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