Like I said, are there any reports or primary source information that emerged during the 1960s? These commissions during the Dengist reform period are called "Demaoization", of course evidence & claims were made up in the early 1980s to demonize those leftists & attempt making a mockery of the CR in the official national memory... 15 years after the fact
"Some have suggested that the cannibalism can be explained by “traditions” of the “minorities” in the region, but at least one writer rejects such analysis as nothing more than “Han chauvinism.”31 Nor can it be argued that communism impelled them to it: in the equally politicized environment of the KMT’s persecution of suspected “spies” and “enemy agents” in China before 1949, agents and torturers of spymaster Dai Li on occasion also consumed parts of their victims.32
Though it persisted in some areas as late as 1971, as a nationwide movement the cleansing of the class ranks generally wound down during the winter of 1968–69. By then, even Mao appears to have felt that perhaps it had gone too far. In Zhongfa [1968] 170, addressed to revolutionary and military control commit- tees all over China, he noted: “Among those who have committed capitalist- roader errors, the arch-unrepentant ones are only a minority, while those who are capable of accepting education and of correcting their errors are a majority. Hence you should not automatically assume that all of those referred to as ‘capitalist roaders’ are bad persons.”33 Later, at the CCP’s Ninth Congress in April 1969, Mao specifically criticized the handling of the movement at Peking Uni- versity. Out of 10,000 students and staff, 900 apparently had been arrested by the PLA’s 63rd Corps, whose officers and men had been sent to the campus “to pro- vide support to the broad masses of the left.” In Mao’s opinion, “to arrest some 0.1 percent, 0.2 percent, or 0.3 percent is enough. The rest can be set free . . . If they rebel, we can simply arrest them again.”34"
("MAO'S LAST REVOLUTION" by R. MacFarquhar & M. Schoehals pg. 259-260)
So it's not as though there are reports of "mass cannibalism", there were reports that emerged in the 1980s of these things happening on a limited basis in the more rural & culturally backward areas of the SW. And even still, I do not see any sources for this information that emerge before 1981... which means "Demaoization" is the reason for this historiography, not any kind of principled recollection of facts & events as they occurred
Are you asking whether Deng & the processes of "Demaoization" led to lies being conjured about the GLF & CR? Because I can prove they did
Hell, even in that "First investigation group" section on the Wiki, the "investigators" are attempting to settle on an ever-increasing number of dead... 100,000 then 150 & 200,000. Even 500,000? And yet it ends by saying ~70,000 were killed. So which is it exactly?
Going by that sort of dodgy statistical vagueness, it's no wonder that the other references in your Wiki link are trying to make direct comparisons to the Holocaust. That sort of "genocide" competition & ahistorical gamesmanship occurred all throughout the period after the late 1970s when real Holocaust memory began to be promoted more.
"Demaoization" and its more mendacious attempts at capitalist-roader nonsense & rightism can't be discounted here.
Find me some reports from the 1960s or even from before 1980, and I will be more keen to take it seriously. But hey, if you're convinced?
No I don't doubt demoization led to the spread of lies regarding the previous regime, I am wondering why in this specific instance you don't consider modern first-hand accounts to be reliable primary sources. Not saying youre wrong, I don't know much about any of this, but I'm trying to learn and i'm curious about your perspective
I want primary source information, because that's how context & dimension is given to these sorts of claims. We know the Holocaust happened because there is physical evidence & photos exist of the gas chambers among a mountain of other horrific indisputable context. All of this despite how much NS Germany worked to cover that evidence up & destroy it
I have a hard time assessing how well information would have traveled in that place at that time (or any time really). If it had happened, would there definitely be contemporaneous accounts of it? We have evidence for the Holocaust because germany fell and was occupied by invading forces, and the evidence of death camps is a lot more permanent than the evidence of eating people.
ty for responding i was afraid this post would die in the ether
"eyewitness testimony" 40 years after the fact is easier to revise & re-invent than is a personal diary written during the period in the region. i won't compare one to the other directly, but even something as wobbly as "Holodomor" primarily persists & bases its "legitimacy" in "eyewitness testimony" made by kulaks' nephews & the sob-stories of Ukraine emigres whose families never lived in USSR. The historiography relies on the sensational nature of the claims more than it relies on historical primary source evidence.
Eyewitness testimony decades later is not a "primary source" because it's subject to much revision & interpretation in the intervening time. we never step into the same river twice and all that
At least some photos of hearts being cut out or some recording of this kind of Violent Struggle resulting in that kind of behavior.
government orders and police documents & newspaper articles & charters signed during the time would also give more life to this story, and not just root it all in incredible accusations made 15 years after the fact
Ok thank you for these responses. I will try and do some more research, I don't know much about China in general and its hard to assess this stuff without a better personal apprehension of the context. Books or docs you would recommend?
https://youtu.be/2MRejhXtm-A this entire documentary series (but that section of the Generator Factory in particular) gives more of a fly-on-the-wall perspective of life during the early-70s wind-down of CR
http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=D40A871D5709D130EACC0F537089B9CD guess it's all about who gets to decide what a nation's political values ought to be?
Gao writes in another work:
"Denunciation of Mao and Farewell to Revolution
Although publicly and officially Mao is not totally denounced, and although Mao’s portrait still hangs on the gate of Tiananmen and his body
still lies in state at the memorial hall in the middle of Tiananmen Square, a systematic dismantling of the ideas of Mao and Mao era policies has been taking place for decades. The unofficial verdict has been that Mao achieved nothing positive since 1957 when the Anti-Rightist Movement started. This is the well-known late Mao thesis propagated for instance by people like Li Rui (1999). In the West the onslaught against Mao has gone even further. Through publications such as memoirs, biogra- phies and popular media, Mao is portrayed as “a murderer, a torturer, an untalented orator, a lecher, a destroyer of culture, an opium profiteer, and a liar” in the words of Chang and Halliday (2005: 121). The Mao era was a period of political repression and economic disaster. The CR was a * holocaust * the darkest age in Chinese history, producing ten years of calamities.
The Chinese neo-enlightenment intelligentsia have caricatured Mao as one of the emperors in the long stagnant history of China, as if the 1949 Revolution did not take place, as if the idea of the French Revolution, the ideas of Marx and socialism and mass struggle against injustice and oppression all over the world, had never been around and were unrelated to China. Gao Hua, a prominent Mao historian, for instance, asserts that there is a “Mao way of thinking” that can be summarized as: (1) others cannot be trusted; (2) any means to fight your enemy is justifiable; (3) struggle is absolute, everything consists of the two opposites and everything is either black or white; and (4) violent action is the preferable option. For Mao, according to Gao Hua, one is judged by whether one wins, and the winner possesses morality. Gao Hua further asserts that the “Mao way of thinking” is essentially a local Chinese product, grown out of China’s vast fertile soil. The Mao way of thinking originated from ancient ruling techniques based on empiricism but is expressed in folk language and is the accumulated residue of grass-root rebellion culture and rogue elements in society (Gao Hua 2008)."
Like I said, are there any reports or primary source information that emerged during the 1960s? These commissions during the Dengist reform period are called "Demaoization", of course evidence & claims were made up in the early 1980s to demonize those leftists & attempt making a mockery of the CR in the official national memory... 15 years after the fact
"Some have suggested that the cannibalism can be explained by “traditions” of the “minorities” in the region, but at least one writer rejects such analysis as nothing more than “Han chauvinism.”31 Nor can it be argued that communism impelled them to it: in the equally politicized environment of the KMT’s persecution of suspected “spies” and “enemy agents” in China before 1949, agents and torturers of spymaster Dai Li on occasion also consumed parts of their victims.32
Though it persisted in some areas as late as 1971, as a nationwide movement the cleansing of the class ranks generally wound down during the winter of 1968–69. By then, even Mao appears to have felt that perhaps it had gone too far. In Zhongfa [1968] 170, addressed to revolutionary and military control commit- tees all over China, he noted: “Among those who have committed capitalist- roader errors, the arch-unrepentant ones are only a minority, while those who are capable of accepting education and of correcting their errors are a majority. Hence you should not automatically assume that all of those referred to as ‘capitalist roaders’ are bad persons.”33 Later, at the CCP’s Ninth Congress in April 1969, Mao specifically criticized the handling of the movement at Peking Uni- versity. Out of 10,000 students and staff, 900 apparently had been arrested by the PLA’s 63rd Corps, whose officers and men had been sent to the campus “to pro- vide support to the broad masses of the left.” In Mao’s opinion, “to arrest some 0.1 percent, 0.2 percent, or 0.3 percent is enough. The rest can be set free . . . If they rebel, we can simply arrest them again.”34"
("MAO'S LAST REVOLUTION" by R. MacFarquhar & M. Schoehals pg. 259-260)
So it's not as though there are reports of "mass cannibalism", there were reports that emerged in the 1980s of these things happening on a limited basis in the more rural & culturally backward areas of the SW. And even still, I do not see any sources for this information that emerge before 1981... which means "Demaoization" is the reason for this historiography, not any kind of principled recollection of facts & events as they occurred
In your opinion the people quoted as witnesses in that article are promoting or parroting dengist propoganda?
Are you asking whether Deng & the processes of "Demaoization" led to lies being conjured about the GLF & CR? Because I can prove they did
Hell, even in that "First investigation group" section on the Wiki, the "investigators" are attempting to settle on an ever-increasing number of dead... 100,000 then 150 & 200,000. Even 500,000? And yet it ends by saying ~70,000 were killed. So which is it exactly?
Going by that sort of dodgy statistical vagueness, it's no wonder that the other references in your Wiki link are trying to make direct comparisons to the Holocaust. That sort of "genocide" competition & ahistorical gamesmanship occurred all throughout the period after the late 1970s when real Holocaust memory began to be promoted more.
"Demaoization" and its more mendacious attempts at capitalist-roader nonsense & rightism can't be discounted here.
Find me some reports from the 1960s or even from before 1980, and I will be more keen to take it seriously. But hey, if you're convinced?
No I don't doubt demoization led to the spread of lies regarding the previous regime, I am wondering why in this specific instance you don't consider modern first-hand accounts to be reliable primary sources. Not saying youre wrong, I don't know much about any of this, but I'm trying to learn and i'm curious about your perspective
I want primary source information, because that's how context & dimension is given to these sorts of claims. We know the Holocaust happened because there is physical evidence & photos exist of the gas chambers among a mountain of other horrific indisputable context. All of this despite how much NS Germany worked to cover that evidence up & destroy it
https://monthlyreview.org/commentary/did-mao-really-kill-millions-in-the-great-leap-forward/
Mountains have been moved to ruin Mao's legacy & revise the nature of China's mid-20th century strides in revolutionary political struggle
Where are the testimonies of this kind of behavior (outside of claims made about KMT during WWII-era) from before "Demaoization"?
I have a hard time assessing how well information would have traveled in that place at that time (or any time really). If it had happened, would there definitely be contemporaneous accounts of it? We have evidence for the Holocaust because germany fell and was occupied by invading forces, and the evidence of death camps is a lot more permanent than the evidence of eating people.
ty for responding i was afraid this post would die in the ether
"eyewitness testimony" 40 years after the fact is easier to revise & re-invent than is a personal diary written during the period in the region. i won't compare one to the other directly, but even something as wobbly as "Holodomor" primarily persists & bases its "legitimacy" in "eyewitness testimony" made by kulaks' nephews & the sob-stories of Ukraine emigres whose families never lived in USSR. The historiography relies on the sensational nature of the claims more than it relies on historical primary source evidence.
Eyewitness testimony decades later is not a "primary source" because it's subject to much revision & interpretation in the intervening time. we never step into the same river twice and all that
At least some photos of hearts being cut out or some recording of this kind of Violent Struggle resulting in that kind of behavior.
government orders and police documents & newspaper articles & charters signed during the time would also give more life to this story, and not just root it all in incredible accusations made 15 years after the fact
Ok thank you for these responses. I will try and do some more research, I don't know much about China in general and its hard to assess this stuff without a better personal apprehension of the context. Books or docs you would recommend?
https://youtu.be/Xv_Uz5y4yJw this guy has several books that give the perspective of growing up during the time period
some books by Prof. Gao http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=F3B2B6834C81EF8F7315CB42A5FB7A29
http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=6782BE362481DEA9D8D6A89E3E68334F
https://youtu.be/2MRejhXtm-A this entire documentary series (but that section of the Generator Factory in particular) gives more of a fly-on-the-wall perspective of life during the early-70s wind-down of CR
http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=D40A871D5709D130EACC0F537089B9CD guess it's all about who gets to decide what a nation's political values ought to be?
Gao writes in another work:
"Denunciation of Mao and Farewell to Revolution Although publicly and officially Mao is not totally denounced, and although Mao’s portrait still hangs on the gate of Tiananmen and his body still lies in state at the memorial hall in the middle of Tiananmen Square, a systematic dismantling of the ideas of Mao and Mao era policies has been taking place for decades. The unofficial verdict has been that Mao achieved nothing positive since 1957 when the Anti-Rightist Movement started. This is the well-known late Mao thesis propagated for instance by people like Li Rui (1999). In the West the onslaught against Mao has gone even further. Through publications such as memoirs, biogra- phies and popular media, Mao is portrayed as “a murderer, a torturer, an untalented orator, a lecher, a destroyer of culture, an opium profiteer, and a liar” in the words of Chang and Halliday (2005: 121). The Mao era was a period of political repression and economic disaster. The CR was a * holocaust * the darkest age in Chinese history, producing ten years of calamities.
The Chinese neo-enlightenment intelligentsia have caricatured Mao as one of the emperors in the long stagnant history of China, as if the 1949 Revolution did not take place, as if the idea of the French Revolution, the ideas of Marx and socialism and mass struggle against injustice and oppression all over the world, had never been around and were unrelated to China. Gao Hua, a prominent Mao historian, for instance, asserts that there is a “Mao way of thinking” that can be summarized as: (1) others cannot be trusted; (2) any means to fight your enemy is justifiable; (3) struggle is absolute, everything consists of the two opposites and everything is either black or white; and (4) violent action is the preferable option. For Mao, according to Gao Hua, one is judged by whether one wins, and the winner possesses morality. Gao Hua further asserts that the “Mao way of thinking” is essentially a local Chinese product, grown out of China’s vast fertile soil. The Mao way of thinking originated from ancient ruling techniques based on empiricism but is expressed in folk language and is the accumulated residue of grass-root rebellion culture and rogue elements in society (Gao Hua 2008)."
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