Qian Liqun, "Mao and his Era"

Qian Liqun, “A Few Questions Concerning Mao Zedong and his Era”

“Preamble” from 钱理群,毛澤東時代和後毛澤東時代：1949-2009， 另一種歷史書寫 [The Mao Era and the Post-Mao Era: 1949-2009, an Alternative Historical Narrative]. (Taipei, Lianjing, 2012).

N.B.  This is a partial translation.  The full text is available for purchase as part of the volume Voices from the Chinese Century:  Public Intellectual Debate in Contemporary China, Timothy Cheek, David Ownby, and Joshua A. Fogel, eds., (New York:  Columbia University Press, 2019). 

Translation by Dayton Lekner and Song Hong

Introduction by Dayton Lekner
 
This text is drawn from the first of a series of lectures given at National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan in 2009, by Qian Liqun 錢理群 (b. 1939). Qian was Professor of Chinese literature at Peking University until his retirement in 2002. He remains an active and leading proponent of May Fourth humanism in post-Mao literary and cultural criticism. His key areas of research are modern Chinese literature, with a focus on Lu Xun - the continued relevance of whom he continues to advocate - and the plight of the intellectual in 20th century China. Particularly influential in the academic community have been his efforts toward a summation of, and reflection upon, the 20th century Chinese experience.
 
Introduction
 
This talk is a call , in Qian Liqun’s own words, for a “thorough clearing up of the Mao Zedong thought and culture,” which Qian sees as persisting as the major cultural and intellectual undercurrent of contemporary China. Without such an appraisal, Qian argues, China will remain under the influence of Mao – not the man, but the deeply ingrained social and intellectual practices that were formed both in conformity and in tension with his leadership of the CCP and China. A deeply reflexive work, in it Qian admits that any such “clearing up” must also be a critique not only of his generation (who he sees as complicit in the propagation of Mao culture), but of Qian himself – no less complicit. Qian claims ownership of this Mao Zedong culture, both for himself and his generation, and in the process illustrates the extent to which divisions between the Party and intellectuals and between the propagators and followers of Maoism are largely illusory and finally misleading. His own confession 交代 of culpability serves as starting point for a critique and an attempted purge of what he calls the “cancers” of Mao Zedong thought and culture.

​At the same time, however, as we translated we could not help but notice that the text itself is in many ways an artefact of the Mao era. In fact, Qian’s writing is so redolent of what Li Tuo calls the “Mao genre” 毛文體, and Geremie Barmé calls “New China Newspeak” 新華文體, that it serves at once as critique and homage. Perhaps most striking is Qian’s adoption of Mao’s rhetorical strategy of positioning himself with, and among, the people. A member of the intellectual elite by education, career and status, Qian yet identifies himself (whether categorically or rhetorically) as part of that most elusive and nebulous group, the 民間 (loosely, “among the people” but Qian’s floating use of the term forced us to translate it with equally light feet as “folk,” “grassroots,” “popular,” “heterodox” or “outside the establishment”), a technique deployed by Mao throughout his political life and particularly at times when he felt his position threatened.

But far from rendering the text a cliché, Qian’s deployment of this mode is a testament to its potential elegance and attraction. For the reader, the result is a deeply layered experience, as Qian both critiques, and speaks from within, the Mao Zedong thought and culture that is his subject. Indeed, Qian helps those of us who study the Mao years with what I see as one of the biggest impediments to innovative research on the period – the tendency to paint its writing (if not its culture) with a drab grey brush. This outlook has left us flummoxed by the extent to which intellectuals such as Qian went along, often fervently, with Mao’s revolution, and resorting to explanations of Party discipline, United-Front coercion, or cult-like worship. What Qian gives us is a chance to sit behind the wheel and see what he saw – the allure he found in Mao and that he conjures again for us here. Our job, I think anyway, is to see the immense value in what Qian does for us – to show us the phenomenological state undergirding the totalitarian state. 

In four sections, Qian establishes Mao’s sweeping influence (as thinker and doer, as icon, as poet, and as culture) for his own life, his generation, contemporary China, and 20th century history. A rhetorical moonwalk (à la Michael Jackson, not Neil Armstrong), Qian’s text moves forward while looking back. In the closing sections, he argues that the clearing up of Mao Zedong thought and culture is necessary as part of a grander project: the summation of the global experience of the 20th century. The past century, Qian argues, has seen the dissolution of two great myths – the myth of the West as purveyor of universalist liberal capitalism, and the myth of communism as its counterpart. These, according to Qian, are two utopian dreams that have been shown to be misguided. With the monkey (and tiger) of Mao off his and his nation’s back, Qian hopes that the Chinese experience can combine with the global experience and form together the basis of a new kind of critical thought, one that transcends the cultures of both capitalism and socialism. But again, Qian finds himself channeling Mao’s utopian urges, and again I thank him for the ride. As Qian himself says, it is not so easy to “walk out from under the shadow of Mao.”
 
Translation
 
To begin with, let me express my thanks to National Chiao Tung University and the Institute of Social Research and Cultural Studies for inviting me to come and teach. It is a personal gratitude I feel, and an emotional one, because I have a kind of “blood bond” with Taiwan. During regime change 60 years ago, as the whole nation underwent division and turmoil, my father and I parted ways in Nanjing . He moved to Taiwan in 1948 and my mother and many brothers and sisters remained behind in Mainland China. My father passed away in 1972 and is buried near here on Mount Yangming - we were never to meet again. I visited Taiwan in 1995 and 2007, but both were hurried trips. This time I have the chance to teach for three months, and I made a point of choosing the topic, “My 60 years with the Republic and Mao.” It is a subject laden with my own personal motives, because it is also 60 years since I was separated from my father. I wanted, through teaching this class, to recount to my father all my diverse experiences of the last 60 years. So today, as I teach, I feel as though he is here, listening to every word. This is a dream I have had for many years, so I thank you for today giving me the chance to fulfil it.

I also have another dream, which is to take this opportunity to have an exchange of the heart with the younger Taiwanese generation.  I have, in this life, always communed with the young, and have maintained a close spiritual connection with six decades of young mainland Chinese. First are those born in the late forties and fifties, the generation of the Cultural Revolution, the Red Guards 紅衛兵, and the Educated Youth 知青. Then came those born in the sixties and seventies, known in the mainland as the “June 4th” generation. Finally come those born in the eighties and nineties, known as “post 80” and “post 90.” I have a close spiritual relationship with these generations born from the late forties to the late nineties - of this I am proud. Now, in coming to Taiwan I don’t know whether or not I will be able to make use of this opportunity to establish a dialog of the heart and an exchange of ideas with young Taiwanese. This is what I yearn for, and at the same time I can’t avoid feeling a little anxious, because while I have abundant experience conversing with young mainland Chinese, I have none with young Taiwanese.

So, in coming to Taiwan, what should I talk to these young Taiwanese about? This is a question I discussed at length with Professor Chen Kuan-Hsing 陳光興 (b. 1957- ) and many other friends, finally settling on two individuals as central subjects: Lu Xun (1881-1936) and Mao Zedong (1893-1976). I arranged two classes, one held on Tuesday evenings (tonight’s class) that focuses on Mao Zedong, and one held for undergraduate students on Thursdays at Tsing Hua University that will focus on Lu Xun. Why choose these two people? The decision is related to a theory of mine: I have previously raised the concept of the “20th Century Chinese experience” and emphasized the great importance of a summation of this experience. Contemporary China, whether the Mainland or Taiwan, confronts many problems. In facing such problems, both spiritual and intellectual resources must be sought, for which the intellectual mainstream in mainland China advocates one of two paths - one that looks to the West, and one that looks to ancient China. I believe both sources to indeed be very important, but between them is lost something that I see as paramount, that is the 20th Century Chinese experience - which of course includes the experience of Taiwan.

It is this experience that most tightly enfolds us, but is neglected on the mainland and, I suppose, to an even greater degree in Taiwan. To understand this 20th Century Chinese experience, one must start from three people: Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925), Mao Zedong, and Lu Xun. The 20th Century Chinese experience is concentrated and embodied within these three figures. Beginning with them will facilitate a concrete grasp of the 20th Century Chinese experience and a squaring up to the many problems facing us today. In Taiwan, all are very familiar with Sun Yat-sen, but are somewhat estranged from Mao Zedong and Lu Xun. This of course is related to the cold-war split of the two sides of the Taiwan strait beginning in the 1950s. On the Chinese mainland however, Mao Zedong and Lu Xun have had profound influence. Whether one’s assessment is positive or negative, whether enamoured with them or not, their existence cannot be ignored. In discussing or researching the 20th Century Chinese experience, we absolutely cannot skirt around these two figures.