What do the Chinese think about Mao? Or to be more specific, what do a billion people think about Mao? My guess would be, a lot of different things.
But, Lee Feigon has made things easier by taking the traditional American, anti-communist, Mao Is Bad position and countering with, Mao was a great and brilliant leader (though heavily flawed.)
This is okay and I was eager to hear a defense of Mao. I got that defense and it has made me reassess my view of him, in some ways. Like, I'm open to the idea that he had a positive influence on the economy of the fifties and sixties, and that he was in favor, in word only, of democracy and opening up.
But, the unforgivable element of this documentary, is that it tries to represent the views of those billion or so people by selecting only three or four that agree with the guy's positive view of Mao and the Cultural Revolution.
Lee Feigon is a professor of Chinese History. I, on the other hand, am nothing more than a high school graduate who has lived and worked with Chinese people for the last six years. I'm also fluent in Mandarin and I read the newspapers (very slowly) and watch the T.V. here regularly.
The most common view encountered is that Mao is a hero for his liberation of China from the clutches of the KMT (GuoMinDang) 国民党and the Japanese.
People don't say “I love him because he was a Communist.” They admire him like Americans admire the founding fathers, as distant figures who preached good things that we appeal to but never follow. A couple weeks ago, I asked my mother-in-law about what it was like when she was a kid, which was around the start of the cultural revolution. Her family were dirt poor farmers.
She said they didn't have anything to eat or anything else. Some people wood go into the woods, or to the mountains, to dig up plants for medicine, but they would do it in secret or at night. If they got caught, they would be accused of being capitalists. Also, people would meet in secret at night to trade things, since this was also capitalistic.
She said the teachers sucked in those days, and when the cultural revolution started, nobody cared about school anymore.
She said a lot of people went to ChuanLian 串联, to unite and go do the work of communism.
She said a lot, but she never reflected on the ideology of any of it. She didn't like not having anything, but she didn't conclude that Communism or Maoism were failed ideologies, or that capitalist democracy was the way to go. Nor did she have much good to say about it.
A woman who works at a mandarin training center where I teach (English), said it was a 灾难 disaster. But she said she was from a wealthy family, and that she didn't like Mao at all. She said her family was destroyed by communism.
What you will be hard pressed to find here, are people who admire Mao because they are socialists or communists.
Feigon says that Chinese people have moved on, while westerners stay fixated on the communist era. He doesn't mention is that there is no free press here, and a lot of older people don't easily talk about it with their children.
He also doesn't mention the fact. That what Chinese people have moved on from, is that thing that Mao was trying to do, but never practiced in his own life: Communism.
You will find people in China who have all kinds of views on everything, much as it is with the rest of the world. I've heard people say they love Bush Jr., they love Hussein, they hate Americans, they love Jesus, they hate Japanese, they study Japanese. But what you don't hear, and what I have tried in vain to find for the last six years, are Chinese socialists/communists who admire Mao as a socialist/communist hero.
This is something easily found in most western countries. And there is no freedom of speech here, so it's fair to argue that the real problem is that people are afraid to speak up. But, if you spend long enough with people, you will here all kinds of illegal talk, like “America should attack China”, “I really want to know more about TianAnMen square, but the government won't let us.” “I think Hu Jintao is a criminal.” “The Communist Party is bullshit.”: and so forth.
I have heard many people here say “I am capitalist” and a few say “I'm a socialist”, but none say “We really have to fight these bosses and mobilize the poor people to strike and seize power” What you do hear, everywhere, from children to t.v. shows, is “I want to be a boss.” and “I want to start my own business.” In fact, I think the frequently expressed desire to have one's own business is just about as high on my Annoying Things I'm Tired of In China as all the business books I see, translated from English and featuring white guys with ties on the covers.
But, as I am tired of having to repeat, there are no socialists/communists here to be found.
The last two things.
How can you represent Mao, by using the sympathetic testimony of four Chinese people? If you don't have contrary views, than you are implying that these people represent the views of The Chinese, and that is the view that most viewers will take away. Never speak for a country, unless your damn sure you know what they think. Otherwise, you cause confusion and make yourself look dishonest.
The other thing is, this movie really made me realize that Mao was born into a upper peasant family, became a student (his tuition paid for by his father), then became a businessman and a principal, then a military leader, then an emperor. But never did he live as a classless citizen, a struggling proletarian, or a worker under the rule of the Comunist Party. He was, in the end, after power.
That is something he has in common with most of history's great leaders. And in this sense, Feigon's defense of Mao is worthy of it's attempt, for it shows that he really was not so different from any other leader, preferring hierarchy over god, country, socialism, and the rest.
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