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Chen, Da. Colors Of The Mountain. Anchor Books, 1999.

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Da Chen was born in 1962. He had a mother, father, grandpa, grandma, his sisters Si, Ke, Huang, and his brother Jin.
"I was born in southern China in 1962, in the tiny town of Yellow Stone" (3).

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Da Chen was born during a terrible time. Chairman Mao was the leader of the country at the time. In order to pay loans and avoid political conflict against the Soviets, he cut down meals or the food supply. This resulted in the death of many people through starvation.

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Da Chen's family members were landowners. Because of this they were terribly mistreated by communists. The family was treated unfairly when it came to labor, work, schooling etc. Their lives were negatively impacted. They were a poor family that lived with fear and hunger.
This is shown through one of the many examples, "When I asked Mom why we had to hide in our dark house all the time, she said that we were landlords, and that the people outside were poor peasants … making us suffer because the leaders were all bad. There was no fairness, no justice for us" (4).

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There were a lot of unfair and dangerous rules made when the Cultural Revolution started. The Red Guards and the whole communists society constantly hurt Da Chen's family and other landowners like them, putting them in danger and making them very feel unwelcomed.
As an example, some of the rules written to Da's grandpa by a commune cadre were, "He wasn't welcome in any public places, could not engage in any political discussions, and should look away if someone spit in his face" (7)

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Da's grandpa was beaten and hurt very badly. He was in such a poor medical condition that he had to take a break from work. Da, not even old enough to go to elementary school yet, was put in place for his grandpa to work out in the fields, chasing birds in the hot summer air.

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Not having enough tuition to pay for the schooling, Da's family asked for a waiver of tuition. He got into the school. The teacher, Mr. Sun, was very kind to him, helping create this possibility. Da was on top of his class, he was the smartest. He was also like the leader. He helped tutor kids during his free time.

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All of the teachers were sent to a training camp. Poor farmers took over the job and started teaching. They were not intelligent, they were made fun of. Da was no longer on top of his class. He was treated differently. He was bullied because of his family's political background. His new teacher ignored him and tried to bring him down whenever he could. A lie about Da was spread around the school.
"'You have been saying antirevolutionary and anti-Communist things to your classmates, haven't you?' 'No I haven't.' He was trying to paint me as a counterrevolutionary..." (25).

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Da's grandpa passed away. Not having enough money, the family couldn't afford a proper funeral, but still had a mini ceremony. He was burned to ashes. Grandpa's death made Da and the whole family upset and hurt.
Grandpa, however, not being abused and beaten anymore, was in a better place now.

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For his own safety, during winter break, Da went to an island with his Cousin Yan to get some seafood for the family and stay out of trouble. The Island was a new experience for him. The island was surrounded by the sea, which he loved. He learned about the kids living there and their uniquely given names. He went fishing with a man and his son. He enjoyed the peace and calmness of the trip, wanting to stay and live there. The son, however, wanted to live like Da as a city boy.
"I was a little embarrassed by the praise. Inside my heart. I would have traded anything just to have a friendly environment like this, not the daily battle I faced back home" (51).

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On New Years, after praying, eating, and spending time with his family, Da went out into the fields to a gambling field. There he met Sen, Mo Gong, Yi, and Siang. They were all close friends and he joined their friend group. The group was filled with 14 and 15 year olds. Da was the youngest (about 4 years younger). Those boys had terrible past situations with their families at home and practically lived on their own. They smoked daily and even drank alcohol. Da started to smoke as well. Even though the guys seemed like a terrible influence, they were actually nice and supportive towards him. He finally felt safe and wasn't bullied anymore. People were scared of their group and started to leave him alone.

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Ping Pong has become very popular in China. Da enjoyed playing Ping Pong. He was so good at it that he was the first elementary schooler to participate in a Ping Pong tournament under a high school team. Although he didn't win the tournament, he made it to the semifinals, which was a great accomplishment.
"I was the first elementary representative in our commune ever to be in a semifinal..." (108).

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"Before Grandpa died, he had had a minor stroke, and Dad, unable to afford an acupuncturist for him, would study books on the ancient art, staying up late every night, sometimes even taking the old classics on Chinese herbal medicine to bed with him" (108). After grandpa's death, Da's father was practicing more and more in this field of work. He helped many friends and neighbors that experienced strokes. Soon his reputation spread and more people started to reach out to him for help. Although Da's dad was willing to do the work for free, people still wanted to pay him back somehow. They did this not with money (because he really didn't want it) but by bringing the family goods (food/fruit) and also started to treat him and the whole family with more love, kindness, and respect. This really benefited the family.

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In 1973 society has changed.
Zhang Tie Shan was an army recruit from north China. On a school exam paper he wrote "To make revolution, one need not answer above questions" (114).
"Instantly, he became a hero throughout China … School was chaos. Everyone ran around mindlessly, doing nothing" (114).
Schools became chaotic. Kids weren't learning much. Kids could do whatever they wanted without getting punished. The teachers couldn't do anything against this because then it would ruin their reputation and make them seem counterrevolutionary. This is where Da changed his focus from school to music.

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Da was interested in music. His dad, having experience, taught him how to play the flute. He was good at it. That made him and his dad happy. However, he soon heard another beautiful and unique instrument that caught his attention. It wasn't popular in Yellow Stone. It was a Western instrument and he didn't know its name. He later learned that it was the violin.
"As my interest in music grew, I became fascinated with the violin" (118).
He liked the violin so much that he decided to learn it. He took lessons from a man who lived in a different town and became the first person to own and play the violin in Yellow Stone.

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Da was able to get into high school because of his father. His father helped the school's principal after his dad had a stroke. In return, he asked for this favor and opportunity. Da was happy because he was the first in the family to be able to go to high school. All his siblings didn't get this chance. They were only a few years older and were already working hours in the fields.
In high school, however, Da didn't really take advantage of this opportunity
Da met I-Fei. They became friends. They both skipped class and smoked.
They focused their time on the band. They got to perform a lot and had fun. They thought that the music industry would be their future. Da, however, realized that this wouldn't get him far in life.

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September 9, 1976 - The Death of the Leader... A Change of Events

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September 9, 1976 - The Death of the Leader... A Change of Events

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"On the ninth day of the ninth month in 1976, Chairman Mao died like an ordinary man" (137).
The death of the leader caused sadness for many communists. Da's family were landowners and they were happy.
This event resulted in a drastic change. Earlier, Da had no chance of getting into college because of his political background. Now, the new law explained that anyone, no matter what their political status was, could get into college. Everything was based on your level of education. This was a problem for Da because he hasn't been going to school very often, was 2 years behind in school, and was at the very bottom of his class. None of the teachers had respect for him and didn't care to help now.

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Professor Wei was an English professor. Her sister had a really bad stroke. Da's father was able to help. In return, Professor Wei agreed to give Da English lessons. She taught Da English and they built good friendship. She also taught him some of the Christian customs and showed him how things worked in her household.
All the English lessons helped Da realize that he wanted a major in English. Although it was be difficult he was determined.

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Da started to take school much more seriously. He and his brother were both determined to study hard for the upcoming national exams and get into the college of their liking. There was a lot of weight on both of their shoulders because if they didn't succeed, they would both have to work in the fields for the rest of their lives, just like their family and many other farmers did for generations. They wanted to break the cycle and help their family out.
Da (and his friend Dia, whom he was trying to help) focused on liberal arts rather than the engineering major (which was more popular and considered to be more successful).

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Throughout this entire time (especially on the Chinese New Year) Da and his mom prayed a lot to Buddha and many other gods. The mom has been always praying for the good health, well-being, happiness, and success of the family. She only wanted good luck for their family.
As the examination was approaching, Da and his mom have been praying more than ever (Da especially). This exam is so important to them... good results and Da and his brother getting into college could change the whole family's life forever.

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The exams were held at Hillside High School at the edge of Putien, Huang. The school has been turned into a camp for the three days of testing.
Da had to take a test in all of the different subjects.
He was the only one from Yellow Stone who registered in the English major.
He tested confidently and was relieved when he finished.

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After months, the test results came in. In order to go to college, you had to get a score of at least 300 out of 500. Jin got a score of 350. Da got a score of 380. They both were able to get into college!
Not only that but also...
"'According to the record, Da has one of the highest liberal arts scores in the province of Fujian, including the big cities of Fuzhou, Amoy, Chuangzhou, and Nan Ping - out of hundreds of thousands of test-takers" (291).
Jin got into the college of his choice, closer to home. Da, however, setting his dreams and goals high out and beyond, was admitted into the Beijing Language Institute's English department, a strong and high leveled college that he dreamed of getting into. Everyone was happy and proud. This was when things greatly changed for the family!

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The Great Starvation (as mentioned in the book) or The Great Chinese Famine.

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The Great Starvation (as mentioned in the book) or The Great Chinese Famine.

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Download PDF

Reviewed by Clayton D. Brown

Between 1958 and 1962, an estimated thirty-six million Chinese died of starvation in what became history's worst famine. Normally, such epic tragedies would yield a vast body of historical works, memorials, interviews, memoirs, conferences, and documentaries. Yet this epochal event is largely ignored outside of China and, more appallingly, actively suppressed within China to this day. Recently, Chinese, foreign scholars, and journalists have worked to remedy this ignorance to some effect; and in that spirit, Yang Jisheng has erected what he presents as a literary tombstone-a memorial of words to represent what does not yet exist in concrete.

In general, the story Yang relates is not new to those familiar with modern Chinese history. After taking power in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party achieved success with modest centralizing reforms and programs, but as Mao's vision for China became ever more ambitious, his goals outstripped reality. As indicated by the title, Yang focuses on the key years of 1958-1962, when the propaganda machine went into high gear and whipped the populace into a frenzy of support for the Great Leap Forward. With this campaign, the CCP intended to outproduce Great Britain-the mother of the Industrial Revolution-while simultaneously overtaking the Soviet Union to become leader of the emerging communist world. Production quotas for both industry and agriculture were raised to impossible heights, but in order to avoid criticisms, denunciations, and beatings, cadre reports were falsified. As a consequence, the leadership lulled themselves into delusions of spectacular achievement. When the state appropriated tax grain based on inflated figures, the farmers themselves were left with too little so that by the winter of 1960, they were starving in huge numbers. The entrenched totalitarian system exacerbated the famine by denying its existence, punishing those who tried to rectify it, preventing relief grain from reaching afflicted populations, and prohibiting migration or anything that would betray the deception of achievement. The epic scale of the disaster was officially blamed on bad weather and enemies like the Guomindang and the Soviets, but Yang's tombstone stands, as he explains, as a testament to "the system that brought about the Great Famine."

In its broad strokes, Tombstone confirms what we already know about this event from previous works. The second volume of Harvard sinologist Roderick MacFarquhar's series, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution, offered a seminal scholarly treatment of the Great Leap Forward back in 1983, and he along with Edward Friedman composed the introduction to Yang's book. In 1996, journalist Jasper Becker traveled China's countryside to collect local records and firsthand accounts of the famine for an exposé titled Hungry Ghosts, and more recently, in 2010, Frank Dikötter produced a synthesis in Mao's Great Famine. Like these foreign authors, Yang also provides a well-researched secondary account focused specifically on the Great Leap Forward, but he weaves something else into his story. At the same time that foreign scholars and journalists were researching the Great Famine, Chinese who had migrated abroad were able to offer an insider's perspective to a general readership through their broadly circulated firsthand accounts. In 1984, Liang Heng shared his story as a youth growing up in Mao's China in Son of the Revolution, and in the following decade, Jung Chang did the same in Wild Swans, as did well-known dissident and human rights advocate Wei Jingsheng in his translated autobiography. Mao's physician, Li Zhishui, complemented such on-the-ground perspectives with his own invaluable behind- the-curtain account of the upper echelons in his 1994 book, The Private Life of Chairman Mao. These Chinese memoirs are both engaging and informative, but in them the Great Famine is treated only briefly as part of a larger personal narrative, and in any case their experiences can only hint at the full effects of the famine. Tombstone accomplishes what none of the foregoing have done-it delivers a comprehensive study of the Great Leap Forward by a member of the Chinese Communist Party, who interweaves his own traumatic experiences into the historical account.

Yang is uniquely qualified to tell this story. The opening chapter of the book, titled "An Everlasting Tombstone," offers the reader a harrowingly detailed description of a teenage schoolboy returning to his hometown, which he finds silent and eerily deserted. Arriving at home, he discovers his father lying in bed, languid and starved. After three days of desperate but ultimately futile attempts to revive him, the lone teen buries his father's emaciated body in an unmarked grave. From this experience comes the title of his book and the resolve that drives him to uncover why it happened, both for his father and the other millions of his countrymen with similarly tragic stories to tell.

For this, Yang is also well-positioned. In 1964, he joined the Chinese Communist Party and built a career as a respected journalist with the official state-sanctioned Xinhua News Agency. He recounts with objective clarity his own naiveté in those early years, but his father's senseless death continued to haunt him. During the Cultural Revolution, he came to recognize the contradictions between facts and the propaganda he was obliged to promote. As Yang puts it, "I felt a responsibility to restore historical truth for others who had been deceived." On a mission now, he traveled throughout China in the decades that followed, conducting his official business while surreptitiously consulting archives, conducting interviews, and collecting files, thousands of which he has stored with an anonymous friend in the countryside for safekeeping. Based on a combination of these primary sources, recently published accounts, and his own experiences, Yang has compiled the most comprehensive and richly layered account to date.

In that vein, Tombstone is not a casual or general read. At over 500 pages of text, Tombstone does not offer a concise overview of the Great Leap Forward (for that readers should consider my article from the winter 2012 edition of Education About Asia). While Yang's prose is clear and accessible, the subject is heavy, and the statistics can seem dense and even overwhelming. But with it, Yang accomplishes his primary purpose: to offer a comprehensive and detailed account of the causes and repercussions of the famine grounded in a variety of reliable sources that collectively make the famine undeniable.

The original Chinese-language version of Tombstone was published in Hong Kong in 2008 and has already undergone several editions, with the much-anticipated English translation appearing in print just last year. But because the same authority is still in power in China and hangs its legitimacy on Mao, the Great Famine remains a sensitive subject. Yang notes that even today, over forty years after the event, "No full account of the Great Famine has been published in mainland China." His straightforward indictment of Mao and the Communist Party unsurprisingly failed to change history. But the fact that Yang still lives and publishes in Beijing may indicate some degree of progress on that front and offers hope that his study and others may one day become available where it will do the most good.

Nobel Prize-winning author Elie Wiesel suggested that to forget a holocaust is to kill twice. The Nanjing Massacre Memorial and other similar monuments exist to prevent us from forgetting needless deaths and reenacting similar crimes. But as noted in Yang's study, more Chinese were killed by the Great Leap Forward than by the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. In that sense, the greatest tragedy of Yang's book is that his account is available to everyone except those directly affected by the disaster. For this, he offers a plea and a warning to his compatriots: "Human memory is the ladder on which a country and a people advance. We must remember not only the good things, but also the bad; the bright spots, but also the darkness." This literary tombstone compels the Chinese- and every human being-to remember the Great Famine.

CLAYTON D. BROWN is an Assistant Professor of History and Asian Studies at Utah State University, where he teaches courses on Modern China, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution, as well as Asian and World History.

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Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958-1962 - Association for Asian Studies

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Reviewed by Clayton D. Brown Between 1958 and 1962, an estimated thirty-six million Chinese died of starvation in what became history's worst famine. Normally, such epic tragedies would yield a vast body of historical works, memorials, interviews, memoirs, conferences, and documentaries. Yet this epochal event is largely ignored outside of China and, more appallingly, actively [...]

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The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was a decade-long period of political and social chaos caused by Mao Zedong's bid to use the Chinese masses to reassert his control over the Communist party.

Its bewildering complexity and almost unfathomable brutality was such that to this day historians struggle to make sense of everything that occurred during the period.

However, Mao's decision to launch the "revolution" in May 1966 is now widely interpreted as an attempt to destroy his enemies by unleashing the people on the party and urging them to purify its ranks.

When the mass mobilisation kicked off party newspapers depicted it as an epochal struggle that would inject new life into the socialist cause. "Like the red sun rising in the east, the unprecedented Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is illuminating the land with its brilliant rays," one editorial read.

In fact, the Cultural Revolution crippled the economy, ruined millions of lives and thrust China into 10 years of turmoil, bloodshed, hunger and stagnation.

Gangs of students and Red Guards attacked people wearing "bourgeois clothes" on the street, "imperialist" signs were torn down and intellectuals and party officials were murdered or driven to suicide.

After violence had run its bloody course, the country's rulers conceded it had been a catastrophe that had brought nothing but "grave disorder, damage and retrogression".

An official party reckoning described it as a catastrophe which had caused "the most severe setback and the heaviest losses suffered by the party, the country, and the people since the founding of the People's Republic" in 1949.

Whose idea was it and what was the aim?

The Cultural Revolution was the brainchild of China's 'Great Helmsman', Chairman Mao Zedong.

Seventeen years after his troops seized power, Mao saw his latest political campaign as a way of reinvigorating the communist revolution by strengthening ideology and weeding out opponents.

"Our objective is to struggle against and crush those persons in authority who are taking the capitalist road... so as to facilitate the consolidation and development of the socialist system," one early directive stated.

Frank Dikötter, the author of a new book on the period, says Mao hoped his movement would make China the pinnacle of the socialist universe and turn him into "the man who leads planet Earth into communism."

Chinese red guards during the cultural revolution in 1966. Photograph: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images

But it was also an attempt by the elderly dictator, whose authority had been badly hit by the calamitous Great Famine of the 1950s, to reassert control over the party by obliterating enemies, real or imagined.

"It was a power struggle waged... behind the smokescreen of a fictitious mass movement," Belgian scholar Pierre Ryckmans wrote in his damning account of the Cultural Revolution, The Chairman's New Clothes.

How exactly did it start?

Most historians agree the Cultural Revolution began in mid-May 1966 when party chiefs in Beijing issued a document known as the "May 16 Notification". It warned that the party had been infiltrated by counter-revolutionary "revisionists" who were plotting to create a "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie".

A fortnight later, on 1 June, the party's official mouthpiece newspaper urged the masses to "clear away the evil habits of the old society" by launching an all-out assault on "monsters and demons".

Chinese students sprung into action, setting up Red Guard divisions in classrooms and campuses across the country. By August 1966 - so-called Red August - the mayhem was in full swing as Mao's allies urged Red Guards to destroy the "four olds" - old ideas, old customs, old habits and old culture.

Schools and universities were closed and churches, shrines, libraries, shops and private homes ransacked or destroyed as the assault on "feudal" traditions began.

Gangs of teenagers in red armbands and military fatigues roamed the streets of cities such as Beijing and Shanghai setting upon those with "bourgeois" clothes or reactionary haircuts. "Imperialist" street signs were torn down.

Party officials, teachers and intellectuals also found themselves in the cross-hairs: they were publicly humiliated, beaten and in some cases murdered or driven to suicide after vicious "struggle sessions". Blood flowed as Mao ordered security forces not to interfere in the Red Guards' work. Nearly 1,800 people lost their lives in Beijing in August and September 1966 alone.

What happened next?

After the initial explosion of student-led "red terror", the chaos spread rapidly. Workers joined the fray and China was plunged into what historians describe as a state of virtual civil war, with rival factions battling it out in cities across the country.

By late 1968 Mao realised his revolution had spiralled out of control. In a bid to rein in the violence he issued instructions to send millions of urban youth down to the countryside for "re-education".

He also ordered the army to restore order, effectively transforming China into a military dictatorship, which lasted until about 1971. As the army fought to bring the situation under control, the death toll soared.

Between 1971 and the Cultural Revolution's official end, in 1976, a semblance of normality returned to China. US president Richard Nixon even toured the country in February 1972 in a historic visit that re-established ties between Washington and Beijing.

It was, in Nixon's words, "the week that changed the world".

How many victims were there?

Historians believe somewhere between 500,000 and two million people lost their lives as a result of the Cultural Revolution.

Perhaps the worst affected region was the southern province of Guangxi where there were reports of mass killings and even cannibalism.

Appalling acts of barbarity also occurred in Inner Mongolia where authorities unleashed a vicious campaign of torture against supposed separatists.

Even China's feline population suffered as Red Guards tried to eliminate what they claimed was a symbol of "bourgeois decadence". "Walking through the streets of the capital at the end of August [1966], people saw dead cats lying by the roadside with their front paws tied together," writes Dikötter.

Yet contrary to popular belief, the government was responsible for most of the bloodshed, not the Red Guards.

"We read a lot of horror stories about students beating their teachers to death in the stairwell," says Andrew Walder, the author of China Under Mao.

"[But] based on the government's own published histories well over half, if not two-thirds of the people who were killed or imprisoned during the Cultural Revolution suffered that from 1968 to early 1970" as the army moved in to halt the violence.

The lives of some of the Communist party's most powerful figures were upended by the turbulence, including future leader Deng Xiaoping, who was purged in 1967, and Xi Zhongxun, the father of China's current president, Xi Jinping, who was publicly humiliated, beaten and sent into exile.

President Xi's half-sister, Xi Heping, is said to have taken her own life after being persecuted.

How were foreigners affected?

As chaos enveloped Beijing in the summer of 1966, foreign diplomats found themselves at the eye of the storm. "Earplugs became standard embassy issue," the former British ambassador Percy Cradock writes in his memoirs recalling how a cacophony of songs praising "our beloved Chairman Mao" became the soundtrack of life in the capital.

By the following year things had taken a more sinister turn. Red Guards laid siege to the Soviet, French and Indonesian embassies, torched the Mongolian ambassador's car and hung a sign outside the British mission that read: "Crush British Imperialism!" One night, in late August, diplomats were forced to flee from the British embassy as it was ransacked and burned. Outside protesters chanted: "Kill! Kill!".

Anthony Grey, a Reuters journalist in Beijing, spent more than two years in captivity after being detained by Chinese authorities in July 1967.

What was the Little Red Book?

The Cultural Revolution's official handbook was the Little Red Book, a pocket-sized collection of quotations from Mao that offered a design for Red Guard life.

"Be resolute, fear no sacrifice, and surmount every difficulty to win victory!" read one famous counsel.

At the height of the Cultural Revolution, Little Red Book reading sessions were held on public buses and even in the skies above China, as air hostesses preached Mao's words of wisdom to their passengers. During the 1960s, the Little Red Book is said to have been the most printed book on earth, with more than a billion copies printed.

Peasants study Chairman Mao's quotations in the Little Red Book - the 'bible' of the Cultural Revolution during a break from rice planting, 1970, Guangxi, China. Photograph: Sinopix/REX/Shutterstock

When did it end?

The Cultural Revolution officially came to an end when Mao died on 9 September 1976 at the age of 82.

In a bid to move on - and avoid discrediting Mao too much - party leaders ordered that the Chairman's widow, Jiang Qing, and a group of accomplices be publicly tried for masterminding the chaos. They were known as the "Gang of Four".

Jiang contested the charges claiming she had merely been "Chairman Mao's dog" but was sentenced to death in 1981, later reduced to life in prison. In 1991, on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the Cultural Revolution, she hung herself.

How did the Cultural Revolution affect China?

Mao had hoped his revolutionary movement would turn China into a beacon of communism. But 50 years on many believe it had the opposite effect, paving the way for China's embrace of capitalism in the 1980s and its subsequent economic boom.

"A common verdict is: no Cultural Revolution, no economic reform," Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals write in their book on the period, Mao's Last Revolution. "The Cultural Revolution was so great a disaster that it provoked an even more profound cultural revolution, precisely the one that Mao intended to forestall."

Another enduring legacy, experts say, is the obsession of today's rulers with stability and political control.

Leaders such as Xi Jinping, a 13-year-old Beijing schoolboy when the cultural revolution began, had a front row seat to the mayhem, and some even partook in the violence.

"They saw a China that was totally chaotic for about two years and they saw atrocities sometimes," says Walder, a Stanford University expert on the period. "They view the loss of the party's control as something that will lead to chaos."

Dikötter believes the nightmarish upheaval also served to destroy any remaining faith the Chinese people had in their Great Teacher. "Even before Mao died, people buried Maoism."

How is the Cultural Revolution remembered today?

After Mao's death, the Communist party made some attempts to confront the horrors of the previous decade. Some were punished for the violence while those unfairly purged or persecuted were rehabilitated.

But those efforts petered out in the early 1980s as Beijing became wary of implicating itself in the killing at a time of growing opposition from Chinese youth. Academics were discouraged from digging into the party's inconvenient truth.

Experts say Beijing would seek to mark this year's 50th anniversary with deafening silence.

"They won't go there - it is just too damaging to the party," says MacFarquhar. "The party is guilty of three massive blows to the Chinese people: the [Great] Famine, the Cultural Revolution and the destruction of the environment which is ongoing now and may in fact be more deadly that the other two in the long run. And the last thing it wants to say is that we were the guilty ones."

However, a bitter public row over a Mao-themed extravaganza held in Beijing earlier this month has unexpectedly thrust the decade-long upheaval back into the headlines.

What should I read to understand the Cultural Revolution?

The seminal work on the period is Mao's Last Revolution by Roderick MacFaquhuar and Michael Schoenhals, a blow-by-blow account of the turmoil.

An earlier book by Schoenhals - China's Cultural Revolution, 1966-69: Not a Dinner Party - contains a trove of documents, speeches and photographs, that chronicle the country's descent into anarchy.

Perhaps the most withering critique of the political mobilisation can be found in The Chairman's New Clothes: Mao and the Cultural Revolution, by Belgian scholar Pierre Ryckmans.

Ji Xianlin's The Cowshed: Memories of the Chinese Cultural Revolution is a harrowing first-person account of the period. First published in 1998 and recently translated into English, the book recounts the hardship of a Peking University academic who spent nearly nine months as a prisoner of the Red Guards.

Another powerful Cultural Revolution memoir is Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng, a Chinese graduate of the London School of Economics whose life was turned upside down by the Red Guards in 1967.

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The Cultural Revolution: all you need to know about China's political convulsion

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Fifty years ago one of the bloodiest eras in history began, in which as many as two million people died. But who started it and what was it for?

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50 Years Later, The Legacy Of U.S.-China ‘Pingpong Diplomacy’ Faces Challenges

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April 10 marks the 50th anniversary of when U.S. table tennis players first visited China in a diplomatic breakthrough. But today, the political winds have shifted — in both countries.

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How has China changed since Mao Zedong’s death?

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How has China changed since Mao Zedong’s death? While perhaps well intended, many of Mao Zedong’s policies were implemented to disastrous effect durin

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This is information on the college that Da was able to attend.

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This is information on the college that Da was able to attend.

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https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED205049