Ghosts of the Cultural Revolution return to haunt modern China with memories of Mao

The case of an elderly man on trial for a murder he committed during the tumultuous Cultural Revolution in the 1960s has reopened old wounds in China and sparked a debate about the veil of silence drawn over one of the most traumatic periods in modern Chinese history.

The man, who is in his 80s and surnamed Qiu, told a court in Ruian, Zhejiang province, that a civilian militia ordered him to kill a rival named Hong, whom they believed was a spy. Mr Qiu strangled Mr Hong with a rope and chopped off his legs before burying him.

Mr Qiu was arrested in July last year after being on the run for many years, the China News Service reported. There have been questions about why one man is on trial after so many years when few officials – the ringleaders – have been brought to account.

The incident happened in 1967 at the height of the Cultural Revolution, a 10-year period of ideological frenzy when Chairman Mao Zedong declared war on bourgeois culture, capitalist roaders and class enemies, but it was chiefly a bloody purge aimed at entrenching Mao’s hold on power and establishing a cult of personality around him.

It was the “single spark that started a prairie fire”, an inferno that scorched China for 10 years until Mao died in 1976.

Since then, the Communist Party has described the Cultural Revolution as a disaster for China and its people, and refers to it as the “10-year catastrophe”. But Mao’s portrait still gazes over Tiananmen Square and adorns every bank note.

Debate about what took place, or any effort to deal with the horrors of the era, is largely forbidden, but there are growing calls for some kind of assessment of what happened.

Outpouring of anger

The Zhejiang case prompted an outpouring of anger on Weibo, the Chinese version of the banned Twitter service.

“International courts are still chasing Nazis, even today. Surely the crimes committed during the Cultural Revolution need to be dealt with by the law,” wrote one commentator.

The official line is that the Cultural Revolution was the work of a conspiracy around Mao, led by Marshal Lin Biao and the Gang of Four, which included Mao’s wife Jiang Qing and three other hardliners.

During the Cultural Revolution, Red Guards set out to “energetically destroy the four olds” – the ideas, culture, customs and habits of the “exploiting classes”.

One commentator in Guangdong said it was Mao, not the Gang of Four, who bore responsibility. “So many years have passed, how do we make our account to history? It’s all Mao’s fault, he married so many women, and the last one destroyed China, while he turned himself into an idol.”

One Beijing commentator wrote: “Those Red Guards pushed all the blame on to Mao. They themselves come out of it looking clean.”

Another wrote: “There are probably millions of people like Qiu, happy, hiding away somewhere, their hands stained with blood.”

Donald Clarke, a law professor at George Washington University, wrote that the incident shows that the Cultural Revolution has not yet passed into the mists of history.

“People who were 20 in 1967 – certainly old enough to beat people to death – are now 66 and possibly still in good shape if they been doing their tai-chi. People who lost relatives are still alive, too. This case may awaken what was perhaps a long-dormant desire for vengeance.”

The sensitivity that surrounds the era was highlighted recently with the debate over Bend, Not Break, a memoir by the Chinese-born US businesswoman Ping Fu.

Disputed account

Her book contained details about the time that many dispute, and she has conceded that some events in the book, such as being forced to watch a teacher “quartered by four horsemen on the soccer field”, were untrue.

However, she stands by her accusations of widespread sexual abuse at the time, including her own gang rape aged 10, and female infanticide.

Ms Fu has conceded the book needs tightening up, but said the wave of online criticisms amounts to a sustained assault that has parallels with the denunciations and abuse she suffered as a child.