More to Cultural Revolution than little red books
Updated
Throughout the Beijing Olympics, China was showcased as a modern, vibrant nation, challenging the old stereotype of a nation teeming with red book waving cadres.
The image is a hangover from China's turbulent cultural revolution, when the Chinese Communist Party moved to rid the nation of middle-class sensibilities and other traces of the liberal Bourgeoisie. It was generally considered to be the 10-year period from 1966, when masses of young members of the Red Guard would report counter-revolutionary activities, and local officials conducted brutal "criticism sessions". Now, a new book takes a fresh look at this period of upheaval.
Presenter: Corinne Podger
Speaker: Paul Clark, Professor of Chinese at Auckland University and author of "The Chinese Cultural Revolution"
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PODGER: The popular perception of the cultural revolution is one of destruction and turmoil but you've found it was a time of creativity as well how so?
CLARK: Well the usual view of the Cultural Revolution takes a political angle and indeed there was chaos and uncertainty and a huge tension and in that respect. But if you look at what was cultural about the Cultural Revolution you do get a somewhat different picture.
PODGER: It was a time of innovation in cultural terms?
CLARK: Yes indeed, the book argues that we should put the Cultural Revolution back into the 20th century context and by placing those tenures in the broader sweep of cultural change in 20th century China then we can see how efforts by artists. opera performers and directors, filmmakers and so on that had begun in the 1920s and 30s indeed reach something of a climax during the ten year period and produced some works that have real value. Politically those works are somewhat dubious, but in terms of the attempt to make some of these old forms modern and viable and relevant to real life today. They were quite extraordinary.
PODGER: Periods of repression and oppression if you like are often associated with a dimming of cultural and creative expression, and this period sent China almost to the brink of a social and political civil war. How do you explain the dichotomy?
CLARK: Well one thing that we need to bear in mind is that the years of real turmoil ended after about three years. By the 1970s life was a little steadier somewhat duller for most people. But the innovation, a lot of the innovation of these years apart from the works that were chosen, yes for official approval and were plugged ad nauseam in all media and context, beyond that there was a thriving by the mid 1970s underground artistic and cultural scene, which was not able to present itself publicly very well, but in fact fed into public performance, and also laid a groundwork for the innovation in things like Chinese film in the 1980s after the Cultural Revolution.
PODGER: How are we seeing that now reflected now that many years on from the Cultural Revolution the groundwork that you're describing there. You talked about the 1980s film but we're now twenty years on from the eighties, what are we seeing now that is if you like a fulfilment of that?
CLARK: Well the film directors for example who emerged in the 1980s are still active. Zhang Yimou himself was of course in charge of the opening of the Olympic Games, which was quite extraordinary mix I thought of harking back to the sort of mass assemblies of the Cultural Revolution era combined with high-tech and very new things. A rather curious mix.
PODGER: What was it that impressed you most about the Cultural Revolution that persuaded you to embark on a historical reassessment of that period?
CLARK: Well part of it was personal, I was there as an exchange student from New Zealand from 1974 to 1976, the last two years of that period. And what really prompted it apart from that personal experience was wanting to sort of correct the standard version of the Cultural Revolution, which is of chaos and misery and suffering. There seems to be a great western interest in reading books about Chinese suffering, I don't know why. And I wanted to just share with readers I guess my impressions that by the tail-end of the Cultural Revolution life was less tense and chaotic and just plain dull, and rather routine.
PODGER: Living there in China Professor Clark, aside from the cultural caricatures like the red posters and shrill plays and communist operas what was unique for you about living there?
CLARK: Well in my second year at Peking University for example our class in the history department had 20 Chinese classmates and about 25 we ended up western or foreign classmates with the odd Japanese, and we studied together in Chinese history and also lived together in the dormitories, we studied politics together in small groups, and even went on open door schooling to the countryside for a three-week period and to the capital steelworks for a two-week period.
