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Nothing but plaudits on Mao’s anniversary (GEOFFREY YORK - The TORONTO GLOBE & MAIL)
September 8, 2006 10:05 AM
Copyright The TORONTO GLOBE & MAIL
September 7, 2006
BEIJING — With gala concerts and flowery tributes, China’s Communist
rulers are paying homage to Mao Zedong this week, marking the 30th
anniversary of his death without any mention of the damage he
inflicted on millions of victims.
More than 500 performers and thousands of elite guests will gather at
the Great Hall of the People tomorrow night to venerate the Communist
leader at a concert titled: “The sun is the reddest and Chairman Mao
is the most beloved.”
Eleven of Mao’s poems will be recited at the gala performance of music
and dance in the palatial building on Tiananmen Square where China’s
parliament holds its annual sessions.
It’s the culmination of a week of exhibitions, plays, essays and other
celebrations in praise of the revolutionary leader who dominated China
until his death at the age of 82 on Sept. 9, 1976.
Even three decades after his death, China’s rulers are unwilling to
question the official verdict that Mao was a great leader whose
mistakes were made only in his old age. No serious debate on his
legacy is permitted. The mythology about Mao is deemed vital to
preserving the Communist Party’s legitimacy.
China’s state-controlled media have lauded the Great Helmsman this
year, giving a glowing portrait of vignettes from his life. They
trumpeted the news that a massive 35-tonne granite monument of Mao was
being erected in his honour in a town in Tibet.
Senior leaders have studiously ignored the millions of Chinese who
perished as a result of Mao’s decisions, including his brutal purges
of party members, the persecutions of his Cultural Revolution in the
1960s and 1970s and the man-made famines that resulted from his
industrial policies in the late 1950s.
A much different portrait of Mao was offered yesterday by Sidney
Rittenberg, an 85-year-old American and former Communist who first met
Mao in 1946 and worked closely with him for many years.
Mao, he said, was a “philosopher king” who was “terribly corrupted by
power.” He could be compassionate, but he could also be ruthlessly
cruel and reckless, and the Cultural Revolution became a “holocaust,”
Mr. Rittenberg said.
“Mao felt he had the right to launch these huge social upheavals,
affecting the lives of hundreds of millions of people, when he
admitted that he didn’t know what the outcome would be,” he said.
“In his later years, he turned into exactly the kind of despot that he
had fought against for half of his life. And I can’t help but think
that he was aware of it … His every word was law — like an
emperor.”
Mr. Rittenberg, who translated documents for Mao and often played gin
rummy with him in the 1940s, later spent 16 years in Chinese prisons
and labour camps, accused of being a spy. When he was interviewed by
Chinese state television recently, he was asked to summarize Mao in a
sentence. He said Mao was “a great historical leader and a great
historical criminal.” The line was deleted when the interview was
broadcast.
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