MysteriousFaith

Mao’s Myth - The Long March

Separating truth from friction is the keystone upon which insightful biographies and relevant histories need to be built, an endeavor never more fraught with difficulty than when the subject of the historian’s gaze is the centerpiece of a nation’s heritage and founding myth or an individual’s ascent to historical significance. Certainly no country is without its own mythology; most have elaborate ensembles of cultural myth which serve to introduce children to the country’s basic goodness and remind adults of the country’s endearing principles in their idealized form. In Sun Shuyun’s new book, The Long March: the True History of Communist China’s Founding Myth, she gracefully but forcefully goes back and re-examines the foundational myth surrounding the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) – the Long March.

A society’s tolerance for dissent and cultural maturity both guard against most foundational myths being taken too far. Left unchecked, these myths go untested and guide many to a point in their citizenship where the myth of “my country” can cause them to no longer question their nation’s motives, actions and outcomes. Some such myths are harmless and can be maintained without damaging a country’s ability to modernize and open itself up to the ongoing process of change and reform necessary to profitably participate in the world. But other myths are more incestuous, having at their core a misrepresentation of what a particular political ideology or leader did that led to decades of poverty, squandered opportunity and unnecessary internal strife.

Nowhere is the need to disassemble a particular national myth more necessary and relevant than in China, with the whole body of fabled legends that revolve around Chairman Mao. After wading through the almost 800 pages of Jon Halliday and Jung Chang’s magisterial biography of Mao, you turn to the final page where they remind the reader simply that Mao’s teachings still constitute the formal policy of the Peoples Republic of China. It seems inseparable to each of them, and to many other outsiders, that as long as Mao remains a figure impenetrably cloaked in nationalism and myth, it will be difficult for the next level of political reforms in the shape of increased openness and democratization to take place within China.

The always present ability to project backwards onto Mao’s teachings and the myths which surround his legacy empower those in China’s political class who fear the shape of a government more broadly accountable to the people and open to external reform. This makes it likely that reformers will be stymied as they face a towering myth whose principles certainly ran contrary to those behind China’s contemporary explosive economic growth. Sun Shuyun is certainly not the first to ask what China must now do with Mao, and in fairness her book does not ask this question directly, but her most recent work does a very good job at beginning the process of decoupling the mythology surrounding the Long March from what actually happened to the marchers and to those who watched them march by, rarely leaving behind anything which would remind their fellow citizens of the supposed ideals which made the Long March an honorable retreat.

One of the story lines which provides an opportunity to unpack the myths surrounding the Long March is the experience of Mao losing power in October of 1932. Shuyun emphasizes this event and provocatively asks the question:

“From then, till the Long March began in October 1934, Mao had no authority. How had he lost everything so quickly, so completely, when the Party owed him so much – their very survival? It was difficult to understand.” (pg. 52)

This question presents itself as she tours the Yudu Revolutionary Martyr’s Museum and with the brave words of a staff member on duty, Shuyun is able to pull together this part of Mao’s story and show that Mao’s loss of power during these years owed much to his darker side coming out.

Mao’s overreach began on December 7, 1930 when he acted to purge a group of Communist Committee members from Jiangxi. Mao found their leadership too lenient, writing to Party headquarters that “’The entire Party [there] is under the leadership of rich peasants … Without a thorough purge of their leaders … there is no way the Party can be saved.’” (pg. 54) As Shuyun then shows, Mao’s response was vicious and violent:

“120 members in all … were held under suspicion of being members of the Anti-Bolshevik Clique … For the next five days they were tortured to make them confess. The tortures were barbaric – their flesh was burned with incense sticks, they were hung up by the hands and beaten with split bamboo, bamboo splinters were forced under their fingernails, their hands were nailed on tables, burning rods were pushed up their backsides. They all ‘confessed.’ Even so, 40 of them were killed. (pg. 54)

While Mao’s tactics certainly borrowed heavily from the similar path of forced confessions Stalin’s Moscow was perfecting, Shuyun seems to suggest that this not only showed Mao’s lack of allegiance to any unifying ideology other than sustaining his own base of power, but also his propensity for moves which would prove to be self-destructive and weigh down the country with the implications of his fear and political paranoia. As she states,

“The purge weakened the Party at a time when it was most vulnerable, and it shook people’s faith in the man they thought was their leader … I began to understand why Mao lost his power – he had himself destroyed the very source of it.” (pg. 58)

While throughout Shuyun’s book her appreciation for the valor of those who made the Long March is repeated, she is quick to bluntly point out Mao’s many botched decisions in the battlefield and backroom. Her one continuing point of appreciation is his ability to propagandize, a realization about what was behind his coming to power that is in many ways best exemplified by how he spun the events surrounding Long March itself.

Early into the Long March, the disastrous Xiang River battle took place. When Shuyun travels to the Monument to the Martyrs of the Xiang River, she encounters a memorial for a battle many Chinese know very little about. Even the guide at the monument admitted how little is actually known about the events:

“’So many people died here – 50,000 men. It was a big defeat. We are used to talking about victories. Who wants to broadcast their failures? … The Red Army had 86,000 men when they left Jiangxi and there were barely 30,000 after they crossed the Xiang River. Fifty thousand men were dead. We have to explain to the people what happened. We have to respect history, but it takes time to admit a terrible loss such as this.” (pg. 71)

China would not be the first to memorialize a disastrous battle and attempt to spin it into a moment of triumph and national glory. But what Shuyun is doing is gently asking probing questions which seek to peel away the truth behind what actually happened on the Long March, and the leadership which made such a disaster occur:

“I was glad that the museum was built to commemorate the martyrs, and that the defeat was admitted. At least that was a step forward – a large on in the history of the Communist Party. The monument is so big, so splendid, no doubt costing a lot of money and considerable thought, but why is it so empty of explanations, of the lessons drawn from the battle? … Perhaps the truth is far too complicated, but whatever it is, this one-sentence explanation is too light to bear the weight of the tragedy. Or, as an English playwright has said, the best way to forget an event is to commemorate it.” (pg. 72)

Shuyun seems to be aware that taking this line of questioning too far would be easy and could negatively impact her ability to successfully penetrate the myth of the Long March. Throughout the book, even when she must tear down and rebuild a moment in time during this formative period in China’s history, she is quick to honor the sacrifice of those who survived the Long March:

“They endured so much, overcame so much. They were invincible. They paved the way for the Revolution. Every single one who came through was proud of what they achieved. I had to respect them, admire them.” (pg. 80)

Were these comments contained in a history absent a critique of the many horrors inflicted on innocent landowners, the effect would be to further advance the hagiography which surrounds too much of China’s internal memory; however, because Shuyun balances between respecting the ideals and sacrifices of those who survived the March at the same time she dissects the wrongness of many of its leaders and decisions made along the way, her resulting work is largely successful.

No revisiting of the myth surrounding the Long March would be complete absent a discussion of the crossing of the Dadu River on the precarious Luding Bridge. As with too many other components of the mythologies which would ultimately come to envelop Mao, Edgar Snow unwittingly amplified and enlarged the actual events surround the crossing of the Luding Bridge. Shuyun quotes Snow’s Red Star Over China, “The crossing of the Dadu River was the most critical single incident of the Long March. Had the Red Army failed there, quite possibly it would have been exterminated.” Shuyun, enamored with the story as most children growing up on tales of their countrymen’s heroism in the face of certain death tend to be, was shocked when a knowledgeable military historian in Beijing remarked, “’You call that a battle? Just a couple of men fell into the river, and it was over in an hour.’” (pg. 140)

It is no wonder that those who defend myths urge that we not gaze too long upon the actual events surrounding them for fear we will come to see disconnects in the facts and then begin to question the values the myths are designed to empower. When Shuyun actually travels to see the Luding Bridge, the myths of her childhood implode upon the obvious nature of the bridge:

“… the more I looked at the bridge, the more puzzled I became. It was only three meters wide, so the Death Squad could only get along it in twos and threes. If there were heavy machine guns defending it … how could any force, with no mortar fire or artillery in support, possibly get through … with the loss of only four men? Against a whole regiment? I found it hard to believe.” (pg. 144)

What does Shuyun make of these many inconsistencies between myth and fact? Some of her detractors will argue too little, that regardless of the valiant efforts expended by the many who survived the Long March, the death and destruction they left behind should give them no proper place in history other than one of disgrace. But Shuyun is dissatisfied with such a conclusion, and works to show the human side of those who marched, and the hardened idealism which characterized them then and now.

If we can draw out one particular shortcoming to her book, it is that in working so hard to provide a positive perspective on those who made the March, she often times overlooks the motivations they had in taking their first step into the Party and onto the March. The book at times lacks sufficient context beyond the events of the March itself for those who empowered it and Mao’s ensuing rise to leadership; consequently, some readers will feel too little is made of the complicity of those who walked alongside the Party leadership. With more of a historical setting of the original motivations, this criticism may have been moot.
At times throughout the book it seems she wants to both honor those who were victims of the March while elevating the ideals of those who participated within it; while a noble endeavor, the inevitable question is whether such a comparison is ever valid when so much innocent blood is spilled. However, Shuyun is among a small but growing class of Chinese journalists and writers who have the courage to even investigate whether the circumstances and interpretations of the country’s foundation are accurate. For those of us safely on the outside, criticizing her work as too conciliatory or not sufficiently judgmental as to the events themselves overlooks the reality that China desperately needs people such as Shuyun who cautiously but courageously are working not only to uncover the truth behind their country’s foundational myths, but empower today’s generation of Chinese to ask better questions and demand more of their political leadership. In this sense, Shuyun’s new book is a welcome addition to the growing body of scholarship surrounding an honest reappraisal of the foundation of the PRC.

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• November 21, 2007

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