Shades of Mao: The Posthumous Cult of the Great Leader (64 page)

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Authors: Geremie Barme

Tags: #History, #Asia, #China, #Literary Criticism, #Asian, #Chinese, #Political Science, #Political Ideologies, #Communism; Post-Communism & Socialism, #World, #General, #test

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Page 208
All manner of Cultural Revolution relicslecturns for the works of Chairman Mao, Mao statues, portraits, and various publicationshave become the object of collectors' interest.
One can predict with considerable optimism that with the passage of time Mao badges will be appearing among the Chinese antiques sold at the best international auctions. Similarly, sooner or later Mao badges will find a well-deserved place in the British Museum, the Tokyo Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan, the Met in New York and the Musée Guimet in Paris. . . .
Notes
1. In 1982, I wrote an essay in Chinese for the Hong Kong
Ta Kung Pao
on the bright future of what I dubbed
Wenge wenwu
or "CultRev Relics." See Bai Jieming,
Zixingche wenji,
pp. 76-77.
2. Even Party leaders collected badges during the Cultural Revolution. Prominent among them was Zhou Enlai. See Zhou Jihou,
Mao Zedong xiangzhang zhi mi,
pp. 82-84.
3. There was Wang Anting from Sichuan, Rao Guixiang in Guangdong, who featured in numerous reports by overseas correspondents when the collectors first went public, as well as Huang Miaoxin from Shanghai and Xu Ren in Xi'an, originally a designer of Mao badges. See Hou Dangsheng,
Mao Zedong xiangzhang fengyunlu,
pp. 125-26; and, Zhou Jihou,
Mao Zedong xiangzhang zhi mi,
pp. 244-72. Xinhua News Agency reported that the largest collection of 101,688 badges of more that 4,000 different types belonged to an employee of the Zhuhai Department of Civil Affairs in Guangdong. See Schell,
Mandate of Heaven,
p. 281.
4. See Zhang Changlin, "Mao Zedong xiangzhang shoucangjiaZhou Jihou."
5. The Japanese rohdea badge was inspired by the arrangement of flowers that Jiang Qing had placed at the foot of Mao's bier when his corpse was put on display in September 1976. For details, see the Xinhua News Agency report of 16 September 1976; and Qing Ye and Fang Lei,
Deng Xiaoping zai 1976: Huairentang shibian,
vol. 2, p. 119. The Japanese rohdea and the shiny-leaved yellowhorn flower (
wenguanguo
or
Xanthoceras sorbifolia
) which were central to the floral arrangement were supposedly Mao's favorite flowers. The badge, a small silver pin, appeared in the streets of Beijing for a short time before and even after Jiang Qing's demise in October 1976. Her detractors claimed that the name of the flower,
wannianqing,
literally "evergreen," was a counterrevolutionary code homophonous with the sentence "may [Jiang] Qing [rule for] ten thousand years." Similarly, the
wenguanguo
was taken to mean "civil officials [like Jiang and her followers as opposed to military men] can rule the nation." In 1977 a badge was minted to commemorate the building of the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall in Tiananmen. The legend on the badge was in Chairman Hua Guofeng's hand and it was decorated with a portrait of Mao, the Hall and a row of Japanese rohdea flowers.
6. "Guanyu xuanchuan Mao zhuxi xingxiang yinggai zhuyide jige wenti," Zhonggong zhongyang, 19 June 1969, in Beijing geming weiyuanhui chuban faxing gongzuo lingdao xiaozu, ed.,
Zhonggong zhongyang wuchanjieji wenhua dageming wenxian xuanbian,
vol. 5, p. 17. This document also condemned hoarding badges and

 

Page 209
instructed individuals with large collections to hand them over to the local authorities for redistribution to needy people in the borderlands.
7. See
The Laws of the People's Republic of China, 1979-1982,
compiled by the Legislative Affairs Commission of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China, pp. 313-14.
8. See note 6 above. Zhou gives the date for the document as 12 June. This was the day that Mao gave his approval for the document to be distributed, which was on 19 June.
9. Both "the personality cult" (
geren chongbai
) and "contemporary superstition" (
xiandai mixin
) are euphemistic shorthands for the Cultural Revolution period Mao cult and its continued post-1976 influence.
10. In regard to these holy places (
shengdi
), see Barmé, "Archeo-tainment: Fantasy at the Other End of History."
11. A May 4th period writer who, in a series of essays published first in Hong Kong and later on the Mainland, commented on the need for individuals to admit their complicity in the horrors of the CultRev period.
12. See Ba Jin "`Wenge' bowuguan," in Ba Jin,
Suixianglu,
"Diwuji: wutiji," pp. 134-38. For a translation of this essay, see Barmé and Minford, eds.,
Seeds of Fire,
pp. 381-84.
13. Ye Yonglie, a writer of reportage, was one of the most prolific writers of popular Cultural Revolution-related semi-fictional literature. Born in Wenzhou, Zhejiang, in 1940 and a graduate of Beijing University, he published numerous biographical works of "faction" which he called "Party history literature" (
dangshi wenxue
). See Ye, Yonglie "Lishi xuanzele Mao Zedong,"
Xinyuan (Jijian Mao Zedong zhuanhao),
1992: 4, p. 144. See also the inside cover of his book
Hu Qiaomu.
14. The "red sea" (
hong haiyang
) policy was pursued by Red Guards. The result was that revolutionary slogans, Mao quotes and portraits were painted on all available surfaces and buildings.
15. The Lin Biao and Jiang Qing cliques consisted of: Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan, Wang Hongwen, Chen Boda, Huang Yongsheng, Wu Faxian, Li Zuopeng, Qiu Huizuo, Jiang Tengjiao who were tried in 1980, and those who predeceased the trial: Lin Biao, Kang Sheng, Xie Fuzhi, Ye Qun, Lin Liguo, and Zhou Yuchi.
16. Before the Cultural Revolution, Chen Yi was Minister of Foreign Affairs, He Long was the head of the Sports Commission, Peng Dehuai a general purged in 1959 for criticizing the Great Leap Forward and attempts to rehabilitate him in the 1960s became the ostensible cause of the Cultural Revolution, Deng Tuo was an editor and writer whose satirical essays led to his demise, Lao She was a leading playwright and novelist who committed suicide after being denounced, Fu Lei was a famous translator of French literature who killed himself. Zhang Zhixin was a Party member who was executed in 1975 for denouncing the Cultural Revolution.

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