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| 2014: (9) Liu Nianchuns Novel??????? The Catastrophe at Zhongnanhai Chapter Nine |
| Posted on Friday, November 14 @ 00:01:08 PST (11 reads) | |
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Liu nianchun’s novel ???????Serialized on this blog:
the chinese text follows the english translation.
chapter nine — mao zedong and jiang qing
without imperial etiquette, unspoken mutual understandings were hard to reach.
the music from the zhongnanhai ballroom had just died away. The lights in the lotus spring hall brightened from dim to full. Mao zedong set down the young woman in his arms — yue rong — and looked up. He saw deng xiaoping coming toward him, small and cautious, almost shrinking into himself. Mao already knew what he wanted.
before deng could speak, mao said, “we’ll talk after the dance.”
deng, knowing better than to press, went back to his seat. He thought, who knows how long that will be.
the chairman rested a while, but his spirits did not fade. When the dance music rose again, he walked quickly toward yue rong, who sat with her head bowed in thought.
several pretty girls stood to greet him, smiling, but he did not see them.
he went straight to her, took her small hand again, and said, with a kind of rough tenderness,
“you’re young yet — one dance and you’re tired already? Come, little ghost, let’s dance once more.”
the chairman’s hand seemed to possess a strange magnetism—it pulled her back to reality in an instant. She had no choice but to draw close to him, to dance gracefully in the sound of the music. Her body arched slightly into a bow shape; she could not bear the chairman’s scent, yet she dared not resist too openly. Foolishly, she glanced up at him—her face flushed crimson. At that moment, she felt the strength pulsing through his large hand, through the spaces between his fingers. Before marriage, she had only a hazy idea of the ways between men and women; afterward, she suddenly understood. The message conveyed through the chairman’s eyes and fingers left her no choice but to blush.
the chairman asked her to dance again, catching her by surprise and leaving her dazed. When the surrounding actresses saw him approach, they all rose eagerly to greet him, but she stayed seated, secretly pleased, thinking she had escaped. Only when the chairman brushed past the others and suddenly took her hand did she realize—he had chosen her once again as his partner. Her figure was proportioned according to the golden ratio; she was a natural dancer, light and ethereal in movement. In primary school she had been selected for the school’s art troupe, and in middle school she was admitted to the beijing ballet school. She loved dancing; when she danced passionately, she forgot both body and mind, easily entering a state of selflessness—something only first-rate dancers could achieve.
but today was different. Dancing with the chairman—a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity—her mind wandered. She could not concentrate as before, could not, as before, follow the rhythm freely and intuitively within the harmony of the music. In the past, her partners followed her lead, turning round and round in her rhythm. Today, it was all reversed—by some unseen force, she found herself following the chairman’s steps, spinning around him. What was happening to her today? She could not make sense of it no matter how she tried.
before, her partners had followed her lead, turning and turning, lost in her flow. Tonight, everything was reversed. Some strange force moved her instead. Without thinking, she followed the chairman’s step, circling him lightly, orbiting like a small moon around a heavy star.
what was wrong with her tonight? She could not say. The question turned in her mind with the music, unanswered.
she had no way of knowing that when the chairman danced, he always did it his own way. He never followed the rhythm the band was playing. He moved as he pleased—where his feet wanted to go, they went.
when wang dongxing hosted the first formal dance for mao in zhongnanhai, he discovered what a problem that was. It troubled him. He scratched his head for a long time and couldn’t think of a solution. At last, he thought of the premier. The premier was clever. He had a way of seeing through problems and finding a way out. There was no time to waste. Wang went straight to the western pavilion to ask for help.
when zhou enlai heard the story, his eyes lit up. He looked at wang, whose brow was furrowed in worry, and smiled. Wang didn’t understand. This was a real problem, and yet the premier was smiling.
zhou laughed, still watching wang’s anxious face. “That’s easy,” he said. “I’ll tell you a way to fix it once and for all. When the chairman steps onto the floor, tell the bandleader to forget the music. Have him watch the chairman’s feet. Left, right, left—just follow his steps. Let the chairman set the rhythm. Then everything will be fine.”
the words struck wang like a splash of cold water on a hot day. Suddenly everything was clear. The clouds parted, and the light came through. He felt happy and ashamed all at once—and secretly grateful. He had gone to the right man. His admiration for the premier reached the point of absolute reverence. He never would have imagined that such a simple solution could have eluded him no matter how hard he tried.
wang dongxing instinctively slapped his forehead hard—yet he was also amused by the premier’s humor and wit.
from that night on, the band conductor followed wang dongxing’s order.
when the chairman stepped down to dance, the conductor’s eyes locked on the chairman’s feet.
wherever the left foot landed, there went the rhythm.
it was a strange duty.
he had never heard of such a thing, never done it before.
but it was an order from the party.
a sacred task.
he dared not falter.
dancing with yue rong, mao zedong was not only enveloped by her fragrance but also felt suddenly ten years younger. Her bright eyes—half smiling, half teasing—and her skin, smooth as a ball of pink silk, captivated him completely by the end of the dance. To dance with her, he felt, was not only a pleasure for the body and mind but a great spiritual delight, as though a new door in life had opened before him, leading down a fragrant, untrodden path that filled his heart with strange sweetness.
after moving into zhongnanhai, the chairman deliberately chose to live apart from jiang qing—an arrangement drawn from the hard lessons of his life with he zizhen. Back in yan’an, he zizhen could not bear mao’s constant flirtations and scattered affections, and their quarrels often became fierce. Guards at the entrance of the cave dwelling would see and hear everything—wanting to laugh but not daring to, their faces turning crimson. Mao, however, took it lightly. To him, such things were only human nature. What cat doesn’t steal a bit of fish? What man isn’t drawn to women? A trifling matter! Gossip did not trouble him; in his heart he believed “since ancient times, all emperors have been lovers of beauty.”
that is why he composed a poem, listing all founding emperors up through the yuan dynasty. The poem’s climax was this line: “all are gone—count the truly remarkable men, and look to the present age.”
the poem was vast in scope, free of any imperial obsession; few others could have written such words. Of course, mao was writing about himself. The poem carried two meanings: first, that his achievements surpassed those of all previous emperors; second, that his romantic conquests were equally unmatched. For what were the emperors of old? Their harems of “three palaces and six courts, seventy-two concubines” were all merely domestic flowers—while mao, he thought, had tasted the wild ones, whose fragrance was far sweeter.
qinyuanchun · snow
by mao zedong (1936)
north country scene—
a thousand miles sealed in ice,
ten thousand miles of whirling snow.
from the great wall within and beyond,
only vastness stretches everywhere;
along the mighty river,
its rolling waves have suddenly stilled.
mountains dance like silver serpents,
plateaus gallop like waxen elephants,
trying to compete in height with the heavens.
when the sun shines clear,
see the land dressed in red and white—
so enchanting, so fair beyond compare.Such beauty of rivers and mountains
has drawn countless heroes to bow in homage.
pity the qin emperor and han wudi—
their talent fell somewhat short;
tang taizong and song taizu—
their charm was not quite as fine.
and genghis khan, the proud son of heaven—
he knew only how to bend his bow and shoot eagles.All are gone!
to count the truly great among men,
look to the present age.
all his life, mao zedong had loved wildflowers. He loved the ones at home, too—but he lived longer among the wild ones. It was fate, more than choice. Even if he had wanted to, he could not bring back the empire—no three palaces, no six courts, no seventy-two concubines, no eunuchs to guard the harem.
in the end, mao’s life turned cold. He was split inside—half god, half man—and never found what he sought. The flowers of home and the flowers of the wild were both left untended. He was drunk on power, absolute and solitary, yet could not rebuild the old rites that gave such power its meaning.
in those last years, it was not his kin who stayed with him—not his children, not even jiang qing. He was kept company by two or three wildflowers, nameless and passing, who followed him to the end of his road. He could not bear to live long within a home, in the warmth and small equality of family life. That kind of closeness, that sense of equals under one roof, was something he feared.
he thought his life had been a climb—always upward. And when at last he reached the peak, where “one can look down and see all the mountains small,” he would not share that height with anyone—not wife, nor child, nor friend.
but one mountain is always higher than another. Mao died uneasy, still restless that he had never become the true emperor in flesh and spirit, and that the absolute power he held could not pass clearly and wholly to the mao family.
a mountain cannot hold two tigers. Two strong men cannot stand together.
????????????Mao believed this was not only true in fact, but truer still in feeling.
an emperor is lonely. His imperial power is his, and cannot be shared — not with friends, not with wife or child. Imperial power is selfish by its nature. Mao knew that if he ever shared that feeling, if he ever let another breathe it beside him, then it would no longer be the feeling of an emperor.
in his final years, he kept zhang yufeng by his side. It was not love. It was not the foolish romance of an old man chasing twilight. It was the sound of her name — yufeng — like music from the heavens, something pure and distant. In those rooms of zhongnanhai, where the old imperial rites could never return, she became the spell that built for him a phantom empire. She gave form to the emperor that still lived in his mind. She filled his growing hunger for that ghost of glory — his deepening imperial narcissism.
in those last years, jiang qing, though his wife, could not see him without going through zhang yufeng. It was not a matter of affection; it was the logic of struggle, the emperor’s logic. By then, in mao’s heart, yufeng was empress in all but name. In his will, he named her to the highest circle of power.
the people of his country could not understand this. The foreigners understood even less. But in mao’s world, there was room for only one ruler — and one echo to his throne.
when mao zedong sensed someone challenging his absolute power, he could never forgive it—no matter who it was. He had learned his lesson from he zizhen. With jiang qing, he would strike first, before trouble had a chance to grow.
he remembered a line from the analects of confucius: “only women and petty men are hard to keep—if you draw them near, they become insolent; if you keep them at a distance, they grow resentful.” In this, mao’s heart was like cao cao’s—better resentment than defiance. Better that all the world should hate him than that anyone should stand above him.
once his mind was made up, mao showed the same cold cunning as ever. He would not speak to jiang qing himself. He knew too well from his earlier marriages that when a man and a woman begin to untangle their feelings, the knots only grow tighter. So he gave quiet orders to the chief of the secretariat of the politburo. Ren bishi, in the name of the party organization, was to speak with jiang qing—and set down three iron rules she would have to obey.
ren bishi came on behalf of the central committee, speaking in the party’s name.
he met jiang qing, and when she looked into those determined, superior eyes behind ren’s thick myopic lenses, she was stunned—struck as if by a heavy concussion that left her mind dazed and broken. Something in her changed that day. She forgot what a marriage was, what a home was. From then on, what she had with mao was no longer the bond between man and woman, but the obedience of subordinate to superior.
once jiang qing’s hands and feet were bound—metaphorically, though in time it felt otherwise—mao entered zhongnanhai and began to hunt. He hunted beauty, youth, the kind of women men dream of when they are young and powerless. He hunted them across the great mainland like a lord of the savannah, without shame or restraint.
in the early years after moving into peking, his appetite was fierce, stronger than any young man’s. A young man might have the hunger but not the reach. He could only see the flowers in the mirror, the moon in the water—never to be touched. But mao was different. As ruler of zhongnanhai, his power was a bow drawn by the gods. Whoever caught his eye, he could have. It was like shooting cupid’s arrow—never missing, always finding the heart.
at first he could hardly believe it. Could he really be so irresistible? But time passed, and each conquest became proof. The more it happened, the more he believed. Sometimes mao would stand before the mirror and scrutinize, in minute detail, that broad chinese face worn down by the passage of years. He would fall into long spells of contemplation. Why was it like this? Did those women who had shared his bed truly love him? And especially those much younger girls—did they really love him?
to resolve the doubt, he did not hesitate to ask, and asked more than one beautiful young woman. Their answers were almost always the same. Mao found them deeply unsatisfactory—until he asked yu wen, from whom he finally received a clear answer that greatly pleased him. From then on, mao regarded her differently, showing her special favor.
mao rarely wrote letters to girls he had slept with; yu wen was one of the few exceptions. After she left zhongnanhai, mao maintained long-term correspondence with her, feeling that in interacting with yu wen he could utterly relax—an uncommon kind of comfort and pleasure. Yu wen was like a wastebasket for mao’s thoughts: whatever he wrote, she gladly and cheerfully accepted.
on days like these, jiang qing’s heart could not be still.
to say her soul had gone wandering off somewhere would not be off the mark.
since the communist party had entered the city, things had changed. The men who come up from mud and hunger now wore new suits and new faces. One after another, they left the wives who had waited for them in the villages. Divorce papers moved like windblown leaves.
jiang qing lived through it in fear. Each night she waited for the blow. She was afraid the chairman, seeing the fashion of the time, might take the chance to cast her off. He had done it before—three times, maybe more—and each time the story ended in silence. One woman gone, another already in his bed.
she knew all of it, as clear as looking into a mirror. And in that mirror she feared she saw her own face—soon to become the second yang kaihui, or the second he zizhen.
jiang qing was pitiful to see. When she came to peiping (beijing), she lived every day and night in zhongnanhai filled with worry and dread. She feared neglect. She feared some accident, some lapse in care, feared being cast aside like yang kaihui or he zizhen, giving another woman a chance to slip in. Then regret would come too late. Out of self-protection she did things that were foolish and sad—foolish to those looking from outside, but to her they meant survival.
now having jiang qing well under control, once mao moved into zhongnanhai, he no longer had any scruples about hunting across the mainland for young, stunning beauties who caught his eye. Especially in those first years after entering beijing, mao’s appetite for such pursuits surpassed that of any young man. Even if a young man had such desires, he lacked the ability—still less the authority—to act on them; he could only admire flowers in the mirror or the moon reflected in the water, never touching the real thing. Mao was entirely different. During his years governing from zhongnanhai, as long as he took a liking to someone, it was as if he held cupid’s divine arrow in his hand—almost every shot hit its mark, and he never missed.
mao repeatedly sought the new and the novel, shifting his affections again and again. His continual success created a kind of illusion. At first, mao did not believe it was real—was he truly that charming? But as time passed and his romantic encounters multiplied, he could not help believing it. Sometimes mao would stand before a mirror, studying the face that the years had worn down, his “great china face,” and fall into deep thought: why was it like this? Did those women who had shared his bed really love him? And what about the youngest girls—did they truly love him?
to resolve his doubts, he put aside his dignity and asked directly—indeed, he asked more than one beautiful young woman. Their answers were almost all the same. Mao was deeply dissatisfied, until he asked yu wen. Only then did he receive a clear answer—one that pleased him greatly. From that moment on, he regarded yu wen differently and looked upon her with particular favor.
mao rarely wrote letters to the girls he had slept with; yu wen was a rare exception. After yu wen left zhongnanhai, mao kept up long-term correspondence with her, feeling that his interactions with her allowed him to relax completely—something genuinely pleasant and comfortable. Yu wen was like his wastebasket: no matter what mao wrote, she received it gladly and with delight.
in those days, one can easily imagine jiang qing’s state of mind—distraught would not be an exaggeration.
after the communist party entered the cities, the mid- and upper-level cadres were no longer what they had been in the past. A wave of divorces immediately swept through them. Those whose families were in the countryside rushed to formally divorce their rural wives. Against this backdrop, jiang qing lived every day in fear and trepidation, terrified that the chairman would be influenced by the prevailing trend and seize the opportunity to cast her aside.
the chairman had a prior record of dismissing his wives—at least three times, by the official count—and each dismissal had been murky and unexplained. Before one woman even received her letter of repudiation, another had already entered the house and shared his bed. Jiang qing understood these old stories perfectly well, and she feared deeply that she would become another yang kaihui—or another he zizhen.
jiang qing was truly pitiful. From the moment she entered beijing, she spent every day and night in zhongnanhai worrying and feeling distressed—afraid that if she were not properly cared for, some mishap might occur, and she would end up neglected like yang kaihui or he zizhen, giving a third party the chance to step in. That would be regret beyond repair. Out of a sense of self-preservation, jiang qing did some things at the time that were both laughable and tragic—of course, only laughable and tragic to outsiders. For jiang qing herself, they were absolutely vital.
after mao zedong became the number one figure on the mainland, all the distinguished young ladies, delicate beauties, film stars, and stage performers were already within easy reach. Naturally, his visits to jiang qing grew fewer and fewer. Ever since ren bishi, speaking in the name of the party organization, had gone to talk with her, jiang qing no longer dared, in public, to quarrel and make scenes like he zizhen. In private, she had neither the means nor the authority to discuss countermeasures with others, nor the standing to confront mao face-to-face and stop his affairs.
there was only one thing she could do—and the only thing she dared do. In the first years after moving into zhongnanhai, every time mao favored her, jiang qing would use a bit of cunning: before a group of attendants, she would tirelessly recount her intimate moments with mao, describing even the details with vivid precision, to show that although mao had new loves, he had not forgotten the old—that he still cherished her deeply.
with a woman’s sensitivity and attentiveness, jiang qing would seize any opportunity to describe, in colorful detail, the specifics of her conjugal relations with mao, to demonstrate that the bond between her and the chairman was no ordinary marriage, but a profound affection no third party could ever replace. She wanted everyone—from the ordinary staff to the senior figures around mao—not to belittle the marital bond she shared with him. In truth, it was an act of utter helplessness.
but mao zedong’s personal physician, dr. Li zhisui, once he obtained a set of passes that allowed him to enter and leave mao’s quarters in area a of zhongnanhai with some ease, would occasionally witness—right in front of the attendants of group one—jiang qing boasting about her intimate relations with mao. Each time, he felt a deep sense of disapproval.
dr. Li had been steeped in confucian culture, especially the neo-confucianism of the cheng–zhu school. To the cheng–zhu tradition, matters between men and women were taken extremely seriously. It held that starving to death was a small matter, but losing one’s chastity was a great one; that a woman should be faithful to one man for life; and that a widow should not remarry. From this emerged all sorts of strict prohibitions—men and women should not touch hands when giving or receiving objects; boys and girls over seven should not sit together; and by the ming and qing dynasties these prescriptions went even further. A well-bred young lady, it was said, should not go out even through the first gate of the household, let alone the second, and she should strictly observe the three obediences and four virtues—only then was she a “good woman,” a “true woman.” Out of this mindset evolved, and was promoted nationwide, the tradition of self-mutilating foot-binding.
dr. Li was not as extreme as the confucian scholars of past dynasties, but even so, he could not stomach jiang qing’s open talk about her sexual life with the chairman. He found her language vulgar, her conduct inconsistent with the confucian ideals of womanly virtue.
little did dr. Li know the bitterness and hardship jiang qing bore as a woman and as a mother. As a wife and a mother, she had resorted to this as a last ditch measure, compelled by circumstances. The joys and sorrows, sweetness and bitterness, all the mixed flavors of her experience—these could not easily be spoken to outsiders. Yet one thing is perfectly clear: if jiang qing had not even had this means of defending her rightful interests as a woman—or at least a place to vent them—she might not have survived to the 1990s; she might well have hanged herself in zhongnanhai in the 1950s.
in that case, chinese history would never have recorded the image of jiang qing, relying on mao’s authority during the cultural revolution, commanding the storms of politics with a fierce and dazzling presence.
jiang qing’s tragedy lay in bearing the title of “madame” without ever enjoying the substance of it. Thereafter, she devoted herself entirely to securing the position of first lady, doing everything she could to make the title match reality—to obtain the status and the rights that, in her view, ought to accompany it. Mao zedong granted her the name of “wife,” but never granted her anything commensurate with that name.
mao visited the soviet union twice and never took jiang qing with him. When receiving foreign heads of state inside china, even when those leaders were accompanied by their own wives, mao rarely allowed jiang qing to join the occasion. It was to such an extent that jiang qing ended up competing with mao’s “wild flowers” for favor. On one occasion, mao, looking at the photograph of a beauty he had recently enjoyed, even composed a regulated seven-character poem for her. Jiang qing took this very seriously; fearing comparison and feeling overshadowed, she quarreled with mao and insisted that he compose a poem for her own portrait as well.
mao lifted his brush and, on the spot, wrote a seven-character quatrain for jiang qing’s small portrait:
“in the twilight’s vastness, behold the rugged pine;
through swirling clouds, it remains serene.
nature created a fairy grotto;
infinite splendor lies on perilous peaks.”
from this we can see that jiang qing’s anxieties were not mere hypochondria. Jiang qing became one of the tragic figures of chinese history. In the end, she could only bring her turbulent and dazzling life to a close by suicide—a fate brought about entirely by mao zedong and the chinese communist party.
however, compared with the other women involved with him, mao zedong’s feelings for jiang qing were indeed far more genuine—no mistress of his could ever replace her. Of course, zhang yufeng was an exception; she belonged to a different category altogether, the “other half” of mao’s imagined imperial world. Mao loved beautiful women, and he loved his wife and children as well. But he loved himself more—and even more than that, he loved the absolute power in his hands. Family affection, friendship, romance—when weighed against absolute power, all of them were insignificant in mao’s eyes and heart.
no one in the party saw this more clearly than zhou enlai. During the cultural revolution, because of the sun weishi affair, jiang qing once slapped zhou enlai hard across the face in public. It happened so suddenly that zhou had no psychological preparation whatsoever. For a moment his face flushed red; he was on the verge of anger, then realized something was wrong. He paused, thought again, and suddenly smiled.
those standing nearby, not understanding the deeper meaning, were stunned by jiang qing’s violent gesture. They stared blankly at the premier’s reddened cheek, thinking that in his extreme anger he had suddenly swung from grief to joy, laughing in a strange and unsettling way. How could they have known what was actually going on inside zhou’s mind?
when zhou first felt the surge of anger, he immediately reconsidered and treated the slap as if it had been delivered by mao zedong himself. In front of jiang qing, he dared not show the slightest dissatisfaction. Zhou’s attitude toward jiang qing differed from that of other party leaders; privately, he regarded her as the “revolutionary empress.” Since he had been struck publicly by the revolutionary empress, zhou mulled it over and did not feel the least bit wronged or humiliated. On the contrary, he thought that throughout china’s dynastic history, there had never been a precedent of an empress personally striking the prime minister. To find himself unexpectedly granted such an “opportunity” might not be a bad thing. In the long river of chinese history and culture, who could say—perhaps this episode would even become a much-told anecdote.
zhou’s mind was quick, sharp as a knife. The pain faded. The humiliation faded. What was left was something lighter, almost sweet—like a strange joy that comes after the storm, when the clouds break, and the sky opens.
jiang qing slapped zhou enlai across the face.
she did it in public.
it wasn’t a small thing, not a sudden flare of temper. It was the kind of thing that happens only when contempt turns to rage and there’s no place left for it to go.
why did jiang qing slap zhou enlai—and slap him publicly at that? Clearly, only when her contempt and anger toward zhou had reached the extreme could she have done such a thing. Jiang qing was not someone with a habit of hitting people; none of the other senior officials around mao, nor those who had served her, had ever experienced such treatment, which proves the point. Jiang qing had the straightforward, sharp-edged temperament typical of shandong natives.
among the top ccp leadership, there were two people she despised the most: zhou enlai and wang dongxing. Her disdain for wang dongxing came from the fact that he was forever dropping to his knees before the chairman—at least that was plainly visible to all. But she looked down on zhou enlai even more. To mao, zhou displayed servility and obsequiousness unmatched by anyone else in the party—craven in private, yet pretending to be upright and dignified in front of colleagues and subordinates. Jiang qing’s anger toward zhou sprang from the particularly complicated emotions of a woman.
when the ccp entered beijing and established its government in zhongnanhai, mao zedong began sowing romantic attachments across the country, from north to south. Naturally, jiang qing was deeply wounded emotionally; but even more than wounded, she was terrified—terrified of losing her status as first lady of the mainland. She dreaded that mao might cast her off as inexplicably as he had cast off his previous wives, yang kaihui and he zizhen. Jiang qing’s worry and fear turned inward and became self-discipline; that self-discipline transformed her into exactly the kind of woman mao wanted her to be. She handled every matter, big or small, according to mao’s wishes, without a shred of independent judgment—becoming, in effect, the “darling” depicted in the works of the great russian writer anton chekhov.
mao shaped jiang qing into the version of her he wished to create, and in doing so, china lost an opportunity—lost the chance for the emergence of another empress lü, or wu zetian, or empress dowager cixi. Though jiang qing suffered a period of severe emotional setback, with anxieties and fears she had no way to release, it did not develop into a closed-off personality. She remained outwardly cheerful, and except when dealing with mao, she continued to act straightforwardly and in character in her relations with others.
jiang qing and sun weishi arrived in yan’an around the same time, and in those years both were counted among the most strikingly beautiful young women in the area. Naturally, each had heard of the other and they had met, but between them there was no conflict of interest—each stayed in her own lane. After jiang qing reached yan’an, she devoted all her energy to mao. Sun weishi, for her part, secretly adored zhou enlai, that talented and high-ranking pillar of the party.
not long after the cultural revolution began, sun weishi was suddenly thrown into prison. Jiang qing, being an insider, knew very well the underlying reasons and believed that all of it was zhou’s fault. In a moment of emotional loss of control, without a second thought, she raised her hand and slapped zhou enlai hard across the face.
sun weishi was brutally murdered by prison guards at the beijing public security bureau detention center. Rumors outside claimed that jiang qing had ordered her death — but that is to know what happened without knowing why. In truth, the chief culprits behind sun weishi’s killing were mao zedong and zhou enlai. Jiang qing, along with the then–public security chief liu chuanxin and the guards who carried out the deed, were merely accomplices.
why did jiang qing seek to frame sun weishi? The common explanation is that sun had an affair with mao, and that jiang, out of jealousy, struck back in fury. But this story is gravely mistaken. The real tale is long; to put it briefly—
in those days, sun was without question the most beautiful woman in yan’an. And the man she secretly loved was none other than the gallant and urbane zhou enlai. Zhou, though not untouched by her affection, was bound by his marriage to deng yingchao and mindful of his public image inside and outside the party; thus, the affair could never come to fruition. This restraint, too, was a matter of temperament. If mao’s nature was that of a free-flowing ink painting—unrestrained, sweeping, and bold—then zhou’s was a meticulous gongbi painting—precise, deliberate, each stroke within its bounds. Zhou’s character made it impossible for him to do as mao had done, casting off he zizhen or yang kaihui to take another wife.
sun weishi, whose father had long before died a martyr of the communist party and whose mother had been absent for years, carried within her a deep subconscious longing for an older male companion. In the late 1930s, when she arrived in yan’an, it wasn’t long before she became enamored of zhou. Despite knowing he was married, her love was singular and consuming—she loved no one else, as though she were determined never to marry any man but zhou. Somehow—no one knows exactly how or when—zhou eventually acknowledged her as his adopted daughter. The familial affection between them seemed warm and harmonious.
not long after the cultural revolution began, sun weishi was inexplicably taken into custody by the beijing municipal public security bureau and held in a tiny cell in “building no. 2,” which detained only major political prisoners. She was kept in solitary confinement. Pitifully, she never understood why—disaster had suddenly fallen from the sky! Even more tragically, she died without ever knowing that the arrest warrant had been personally signed by her dream lover, premier zhou enlai. Because of this, she kept hoping—up until her last breath—that zhou enlai would reach out a hand to save her; yet she also feared that doing so might implicate the man she adored. She was truly torn, caught in a misery that tormented her terribly. By then, although she had long since married the playwright jin shan, she still could not forget the premier. One can see how deeply and single-mindedly she loved zhou—“even heaven and earth would be moved” is hardly an exaggeration.
zhou enlai, careful to protect his reputation, had already acknowledged sun weishi as his goddaughter before the cultural revolution, yet feared gossip and slander that might tarnish his image as a great proletarian revolutionary. Therefore, he personally acted as a matchmaker, arranging for his twenty-eight-year-old goddaughter to marry the fifty-year-old playwright jin shan—thus settling one worry in his heart.
mao zedong, being a man with a roving eye, naturally took notice—within a hundred li of yan’an—of such a dazzlingly beautiful young woman, the very flower among all the local beauties. He saw her, and inwardly he coveted her. Yet mao always calculated with precision what was the primary contradiction and what was the secondary one. He loved power first and women second; otherwise, failing to restrain a small desire could disrupt a great plan. What is more, at that time this famous beauty already had someone in her heart. Before zhou enlai she was lively and flirtatious, full of laughter and charm, but before mao she became an aloof, cold beauty. Such a scene, such a feeling—how could mao endure it? Jealousy welled up inside him, desire left unfulfilled, and a concealed resentment gradually took root. Mao was indeed a master of forbearance: he suppressed it all, living out the old saying that “he who can endure becomes king.” After he had secured power over the mainland, the resentment he had long held back finally erupted when the moment was ripe.
it happened on the special train bringing mao back to china from moscow. Sun weishi was among the entourage. Using work as a pretext, mao arranged to be alone with her in a compartment. Regardless of her wishes, he forced himself upon her, releasing in her body all the pent-up dark energy he had accumulated over the years. Sun weishi at that time was as pure as a young girl; she had never encountered such a fierce, predatory man. Looking at mao’s face, distorted with excitement, she felt only tearless despair. After mao had finished, sun fled with tears in her eyes. Zhou enlai, who was also a principal member of the delegation, was the first person she thought of—the closest one to whom she could pour out her anguish after what mao had done to her.
when zhou enlai saw sun weishi push open the door—with her clothes disheveled, her hair in disorder, and her eyes swollen from crying—he understood instantly, with the experience of many years handling delicate matters, what had happened. He hurried toward her with a swiftness out of keeping with his age, and quickly shut the door tight behind her.
sun weishi was just about to burst out wailing when zhou clamped a hand over her mouth. With his other, less nimble hand, he held her by the waist. Leaning close to her ear, he whispered urgently, in a trembling voice: “don’t cry. Don’t speak. Everything must be subordinated to the overall interests of the revolution!”
sun had known zhou for years, but she had never heard such a strained, altered voice from him. She froze, then, regaining her senses, could not help but let tears pour down like rain, sobbing soundlessly.
with a voice shaking from fear, premier zhou repeatedly warned her: “the party’s cause stands above everything—above the life of each and every one of us! We are people of the party. We must never do anything that could harm the party’s cause.” The closer he came to the end of his words, the more his voice quavered, as if the one violated were not sun weishi, but zhou enlai himself.
seeing that sun weishi’s emotions had finally begun to settle, zhou enlai allowed himself to relax a little from the tension he had been holding.
back in yan’an, zhou had observed from the shadows and already knew that mao harbored improper intentions toward sun weishi. He had, on several occasions, hinted to sun that she should recognize the larger political situation and put the interests of the revolutionary cause first by taking the initiative to accept mao’s advances. In doing so, she could avoid danger before it ever took shape, and everyone would come away pleased—a transformation of decay into wonder, a deed of boundless merit.
but sun weishi’s infatuation with zhou had already sunk to the marrow; it could not be dispelled by a few words. And even if zhou could somehow make her understand, whether sun would willingly act on it was another question entirely. Because of their respective positions within the party, zhou could not speak too plainly.
just as zhou found himself trapped between all sides, wracking his brains for some perfect solution, mao suddenly struck without warning.
when zhou enlai saw sun weishi push open the door of the soft-sleeper compartment—her eyes vacant, her clothes disheveled—it struck him like a blow to the head. He instantly lost his composure. His first reaction was: sun must not cry, must not speak. He had to uphold mao’s authority—because to uphold mao’s authority was to uphold the image of the party.
in the early yan’an years, zhou enlai had already regarded mao as the “emperor” of the revolution. During the yan’an rectification campaign, he even knelt down to mao in public, formally, in front of everyone. But at that time mao was not yet psychologically prepared to become an emperor. He did not understand what zhou was doing. Seeing zhou suddenly kneel before him in a crowd, mao was momentarily stunned, frozen on the spot. Then he immediately sensed something was wrong, instinctively dodged to the side, and scolded him: “aren’t you treating me like some feudal emperor!”
zhou enlai rose hesitantly, but in spirit he never stood up again. With genuine sincerity he explained: “no, not at all. You are the emperor of the chinese revolution. Comrade shaoqi and i reached this understanding back when the red army first arrived in yan’an.”
after entering beijing, once the communist party had established its one-party dictatorship, zhou went even further: he came to believe mao was the chinese communist party—he was the party organization itself.
therefore, when sun weishi—after being violated by mao—suddenly appeared before him, the terror that seized zhou, the shock he felt, its force and intensity, can well be imagined.
but zhou enlai was no ordinary figure. He was a man who had come through storms of blood and blades, long tempered by every sort of trial. He quickly regained his composure. Zhou drew in a deep breath, then slowly exhaled, steadying the chaotic rush of emotions. With one arm around sun’s shoulder, he whispered softly into her ear: “personal suffering is a small matter. The interests of the party and the state stand above all.”
then, speaking with grave earnestness, he raised his voice, fixed his eyes on sun weishi’s swollen, reddened face, and solemnly warned her once more: “the cause of the party, the interests of the party, the image of the party stand above everything—above the life of each and every one of us!”
at this point, zhou took her cold hands firmly in his other hand. With a serious expression he said, “this is the oath that every party member must remember always—at every moment, in every matter, in every place. It is also the touchstone for testing whether a party member’s party spirit is steadfast or not. You must guarantee with your party spirit that you will keep this secret locked in your heart.”
seeing that sun’s emotions had fully settled, zhou stood up and said, “sit for a while. I’ll be right back.” At that moment, zhou enlai had already calculated everything in detail. This matter had to be reported to the chairman truthfully—and the sooner, the better.
zhou enlai had been cautious all his life. Once he chose mao zedong as the object of his loyalty, he cast himself in the role of zhuge liang. His lifelong devotion—straining every nerve until death—did carry a faint echo of zhuge liang. But only that much. In every other respect, the two could hardly be further apart.
liu bei listened to zhuge liang in all things. Zhou enlai, by contrast, sought instructions from the chairman on every matter great or small, obeying every command. His instinct for self-preservation was also something zhuge liang never had. Eighty percent of zhou enlai’s shrewdness and capability, he spent on protecting himself.
at this moment, zhou’s overriding concern for survival was: he had to get out of this muddy situation. He felt that on this special train, the chairman had made sun into a chess piece—a piece to test zhou’s loyalty to the party and to the chairman himself. Ever since moving into zhongnanhai in ’49, zhou enlai had sensed that, although he followed the chairman closely, serving at his side and bending over backward to please him, mao’s suspicions toward him had never truly been dispelled. For many years, premier zhou suffered bitterly for this—often lying awake the whole night—yet he could never figure out a way to make the chairman’s mistrust disappear once and for all.
zhou enlai walked softly to the door of the chairman’s bedroom and had the guard announce him. Mao zedong, hearing zhou’s voice from the study that had been fashioned out of an entire carriage section, called out, “enlai? Come in.”
zhou enlai saw that the chairman was flipping through a thread-bound book and quickly stepped forward a few paces. “Chairman, i have a small matter to report to you.”
mao zedong set down the thread-bound classic printed on xuan paper and pointed to a chair beside him. “Sit down and talk.”
zhou enlai smiled and said, “chairman, it’s nothing serious. I just noticed that young sun suddenly has a bit of a cold. I was worried she might pass it on to you.”
mao was extraordinarily sharp in dealing with people. Even if something was left unsaid, he could already grasp it instantly. All the more so now, when zhou—whether intentionally or not—was hinting at what had just happened here a moment ago, pointing it out without saying it. Mao burst into hearty laughter: “don’t worry. She can’t infect me.”
zhou enlai laughed along with him. “Yes, indeed—how could anyone infect the chairman, with such robust health! Still, i can’t help worrying. Chairman, you must take great care. Your health is linked to the hearts of the entire people, and to the hearts of the whole party. You simply can’t afford to be careless.” Zhou enlai spoke from the bottom of his heart, sincere and earnest.
outsiders might think that zhou enlai was making a fuss over nothing, taking the junior zhang yufeng—who had only joined the party in the early 1960s—far too seriously. But that is not the case. This incident shows how meticulous zhou’s thinking was: even with death approaching, he would stop at nothing to achieve his aims. At that time, mao suffered from severe eye disease and worsening chronic neurological problems. His temper was explosive; he would fly into rages, smash things, and curse people. After his stroke, his speech became slurred, and the only person who could still understand what he was saying was zhang yufeng, who had served at his side for many years. It was also only zhang yufeng—who shared mao’s turbulent, erratic final years with him—who could possibly soothe his manic and depressive moods.
zhou understood all this perfectly. Naturally, he realized that if he wanted his letter to be effective, zhang’s opinion of him was crucial. Thus, when he pleaded with yufeng in the letter, he repeatedly urged her to wait until the chairman was in good spirits, well rested, and had time—then read the letter aloud to him, so that it would have the best possible effect.
on the train, and in mao’s study-bedroom, zhou enlai did not openly insinuate—let alone directly state—that mao had raped sun weishi. But everything was conveyed without words. Zhou, with great subtlety, cleansed himself of any blame, yet in doing so planted the seeds for sun weishi’s later, unspeakably brutal death during the cultural revolution.
before zhou arrived, mao zedong was sitting alone in the train-car that served as his study and bedroom, stewing in silent frustration. Though he now possessed the whole mainland, he still struggled to win the heart of the beauty he desired. After venting his lust, he saw sun weishi holding back tears. He did not spare her even a glance—he simply turned around and hurried off. His mood suddenly soured; all interest vanished at once.
mao was an old hand at plucking flowers. With his supreme status and power on the mainland, once he moved into zhongnanhai, pursuing women had always been smooth and effortless. Since ascending to the throne in november 1949, he had never encountered a woman as strong-willed as sun weishi. To refuse him so bluntly, to show such an ugly expression, and to walk away the moment the act was over—this was a first. Mao always mulled over things, was deeply suspicious by nature, yet never reflected on himself. He failed to realize that his own violence had inflicted tremendous harm on sun weishi’s body and mind. Instead, he became suspicious of zhou enlai, placing blame on zhou. He believed zhou must have spoken ill of him to sun behind his back—otherwise she would never have dared behave this way.
zhou arrived at just the right moment, alleviating some of mao’s suspicion, though not entirely dispelling it. Only after the bodyguards reported exactly what zhou had said to sun in the inner room did mao finally let go of his doubts. He concluded that zhou had nothing to do with the affair—that it had been entirely sun weishi’s own doing.
from that point on, mao hated sun weishi so much that his teeth itched. And during the period when mao wielded absolute power, whoever earned his hatred would inevitably be struck down; not a single person escaped calamity. Sun weishi, of course, was no exception.
mao liked women, and of course he had his own aesthetic standards—that was one aspect. On the other hand, he cared even more about whether the woman knew how to flatter and cater to him. As his position and status changed, his expectations in this regard also changed noticeably. After mao “ascended the throne” in november 1949, not only did he demand that the masses shout “long live!” Three times on major occasions, he also would not tolerate anyone brushing his dragon scales the wrong way—even in matters between men and women.
his personal physician, li zhisui, recorded a trivial but revealing private incident in his book. A young, beautiful actress, while making love with the chairman and reaching the height of passion, failed to satisfy him with the proper flattery. Mao kicked her off the bed—completely naked—with a single blow. The commotion was loud, and the guard at the door happened to be new. Ignoring the strict standing order never to enter without being summoned, he heard a heavy thud inside, and before he could think, instinctively pushed open the door—nly to stand there, dumbstruck, witnessing this living tableau of erotic chaos.
sun weishi died in an extremely horrific manner, her torture and abuse almost identical to the methods later used on liu shaoqi. Likewise, in this tragic case one can also see mao zedong’s shadow everywhere. Sun weishi received an official arrest warrant from the procuratorate. It was only after zhou enlai signed the internal review authorizing her arrest that the procuratorate dared issue it.
because sun weishi’s family background was unique, her connections within the party were extensive, and she herself was a figure of considerable political sensitivity and influence—someone with “hands that reached the heavens”—the beijing public security bureau would never have dared act without zhou enlai’s signature. In a certain sense, this political murder was a joint undertaking by mao zedong and zhou enlai.
in fact, in order to protect the image of mao and the communist party, zhou enlai was even more anxious than mao to eliminate sun weishi. He feared that one day she might fail to keep silent and reveal that mao had once raped her. As the saying goes: “the emperor is not anxious, but the eunuch is.” And in this case, zhou enlai displayed even more concern for the emperor’s physical and mental well-being, and even more worry about the son of heaven’s loss of virtue, than any eunuch of the old imperial age.
to say that zhou felt no affection or sympathy for sun in this situation would probably not match the circumstances at the time. Zhou enlai, too, was acting under compulsion—doing what he felt he had no choice but to do. Here, he could only choose the lesser of two evils, or the greater of two goods. This was a battlefield without smoke. Zhou felt that in this situation, he could only “behead ma su with tears in his eyes.” His heart could not bear it, yet he felt he had no other option.
the famous poem by sándor pet?Fi (1823–1849), if one changes just two characters, can rather accurately convey zhou’s complex state of mind at that moment:
life is truly precious,
love has a price still higher,
but for the ccp’s freedom,
both may be cast aside.
ever since the shanghai massacre in which the entire family of the party traitor gu shunzhang was murdered to silence them, killing to eliminate witnesses had already become zhou enlai’s fundamental method for resolving major hidden dangers within the party. After the zunyi conference, having lived year after year under the political terror and suffocating pressure created by mao and the party apparatus, zhou enlai’s stockholm-syndrome-like condition had, without his even realizing it, seeped deep into his bones. His sense of right and wrong, good and evil, honor and shame—all fused with mao’s will, rising and falling with mao’s moods.
when the lin biao incident suddenly erupted, shaking the foundations of party morale, army morale, and public confidence, zhou enlai—despite his bladder cancer having reached a late stage, despite his body ravaged by disease, weakness, and relentless pain that pierced to the bone—still clenched his teeth and refused to rest in bed unless absolutely necessary. He rushed tirelessly around beijing, doing everything he could to calm the fears and resentments of senior party elders who were discontented with the cultural revolution, and to reassure those who had suffered attack and persecution.
he visited luo ruiqing—still under house arrest, permanently disabled after surviving a suicide attempt by leaping from a building under unbearable torment and humiliation—and, filled with deep emotion, repeatedly urged the long-bedridden luo, who could no longer care for himself and whose heart still burned with anger and indignation:
“all hatred must be concentrated on the counterrevolutionary clique of lin biao; all gratitude flows from our great leader chairman mao.”
sun weishi did not die in the cultural revolution at the hands of frenzied, irrational red guards, but was brutally killed inside the prison of a state security organ. The prison—pillar of the dictatorship—never suffered any subversive assault from red guard rebel factions during the cultural revolution; it did not lose its capacity to obey orders, follow commands, and come immediately when summoned, ready to act. Thus sun weishi was deliberately tortured in the beijing prison and then murdered. This political killing therefore bears all the marks of careful premeditation.
when the upper beam is crooked, the lower beams will be slanted. In order to preserve the chinese communist party’s one-party dictatorship, the malignant energy of absolute power can radiate from top to bottom. Such evil genes can also be passed down from one generation to the next. After mao zedong’s death—the “june fourth massacre,” the “mass killings and torture of falun gong practitioners”—in all these crimes against humanity, we can still see and hear the same pattern: the utterly vile, base tactics of killing one’s own compatriots without the slightest regard for conscience or humanity, leaving no evidence, no written record—murder carried out purely to silence and erase.
in those years, sun weishi—once known in the yan’an period as a “red princess”—died in a manner too horrifying to look at. Her entire body, stripped naked by guards at the beijing detention center acting under special instructions, was covered with wounds. Fearing she might “come back to life” after death and reveal the truth, the executioners took an extra, “precautionary” step: they drove a rusty iron spike, more than two inches long, into her skull. She was left lying on her back on the cell’s tattered straw mat.
but who could have hated sun weishi with such unending, blood-deep enmity—who would not only kill her, but debase her corpse afterward? All the more so because between sun and mao there was never any mutual romantic affection—only mao’s violence. A vulnerable young woman, brutally violated in life and left depressed and desolate for more than a decade, was then murdered during the cultural revolution by conspirators in an act of sheer inhuman cruelty. Even after her death, they would not leave her body in peace; they smeared filth upon her very name. Only party lackeys—those repeatedly brainwashed and driven mad—could commit such deeds.
the communist party later pushed all of this onto jiang qing, hoping to cover up the truth but only making the deception more obvious. Jiang qing was merely the announcer of mao’s orders, not the executor of the special-case investigation team. Human relationships were tangled and exhausting, and true peace for even a single day was hard to come by. Just as jiang qing began to feel weary of it all, she decided to leave the big city—this place of constant disputes—and withdraw from the entertainment world of the time, heading to yan’an to seek a new direction for her life and career.
for someone like jiang qing who had “seen the vast seas and thus found other waters shallow; seen the clouds over mount wu and thus found other clouds unworthy,” she naturally would not take seriously those simple village-style stages in yan’an, with their strong rustic flavor and monotonous, tedious political performances.
if she had truly harbored murderous intent every time a popular actress upstaged her onstage, then she would have had far too many actresses to kill during the cultural revolution—and even if she wanted to start, sun weishi would not have been anywhere near the front of the line.
sun weishi had an older full-brother named sun yang, who, before the cultural revolution, was already the party committee secretary of renmin university. After their father sacrificed his life for the communist party, the brother and sister came together to yan’an in the late 1930s. Their mother, ren rui, and daughter sun weishi had both been students at the anti-japanese university in yan’an—something that, back then, became a much-recounted anecdote among the upper ranks of the communist party.
the mother, ren rui, died of illness in 1949, which only brought the siblings closer to one another. Shortly before sun weishi’s brutal death, sun yang was found kneeling, strangled to death against a radiator in the detention room at renmin university. The person who strangled him clearly possessed the skill of a professional killer.
if the killing of sun weishi inside zhongnanhai was meant to silence her, then the assassination of sun yang was nothing more than collateral damage, the pond fish scorched by the burning gates: regardless of whether sun weishi had told her brother that mao had raped her, it was safest to kill him first and eliminate any future trouble. This was obviously mao’s intention, and characteristic of zhou’s style.
during the cultural revolution, another person who was strangled in the same manner was li zhen, the minister of public security who succeeded xie fuzhi. He was strangled to death in an underground secret passage—the only such passage from the ministry of public security leading directly to zhongnanhai. It is said that very few people even knew this passage existed, and even fewer were permitted to use it. Minister li, with mao’s special approval, was allowed to use it.
perhaps in a moment of excitement, minister li forgot the taboos involved. Even if one had permission, one still had to request instructions from mao zedong before using it; only after mao gave the green light could it be entered. Otherwise, given mao’s suspicious temperament, it would be easy to make him think one harbored improper intentions.
of course, there is another possibility: that in his position as minister of public security, li zhen’s curiosity got the better of him, and he peeked at many top-secret party documents far above his clearance level—or learned secrets he should never have known. For that, mao may have ordered trusted special operatives to silence him.
in truth, some things—especially the details—are impossible to explain clearly; once a person is dead, they become even harder to clarify. Commander tan furen of the yunnan military region had never imagined that one day a secret and a disaster would descend upon him together. As the old saying goes, “good fortune never comes in pairs, and misfortune never comes alone.” “?????????”
one day in 1969, tan received an urgent, top-secret order from the central military commission: he was commanded, at a specified time and date, to shoot down a civilian aircraft passing through yunnan’s airspace. Tan furen, being cautious, did not allow the ground-based missile unit to bring the aircraft down directly. Instead, he ordered two fighter jets to scramble and force the civilian airliner to land.
when the plane touched down and the cabin door opened, one person stepped out. The moment tan furen laid eyes on him, he broke into a cold sweat. It felt as if he were standing at the edge of an abyss. His eyes froze, and he stood there stunned on the spot.
the person who made tan furen break out in a cold sweat and stare in shock was zhou enlai. As soon as zhou enlai got off the plane, relying on his unique political sensitivity and the experience gained from years of intelligence work, he immediately understood what had happened. The moment he saw tan furen giving him a military salute, tan’s tense lips trembled uncontrollably, as though he wanted to say something but hesitated, looking deeply conflicted.
at that moment, zhou enlai already saw everything with perfect clarity: within the military, the only person who could give orders to tan furen, and the only person who could know zhou’s exact movements, was chairman mao zedong. Aside from mao, no one in the party—not even lin biao—could have known his precise itinerary. It was obvious that the person pulling the strings behind this incident was mao zedong.
zhou enlai was inwardly struck by indescribable dread, but his face remained calm and unruffled. He did not press tan with a single question; he simply instructed him, without revealing any emotion, to prepare a military jeep. Zhou enlai then rode the jeep straight to kunming railway station, switched to an express train, and returned to beijing.
once he reached zhongnanhai, how zhou presented himself before the chairman and how he expressed his unwavering loyalty—loyal as the sun and moon bear witness—cannot be known. No trace was left behind, and it would be impossible to speculate wildly.
three days later, in the dead of night, tan fureng was assassinated in his home inside the heavily guarded military district compound. The man who carried out the assassination was the director of the political security department of the yunnan military district.
in a restricted internal bulletin—circulated only to cadres at the division level and above—the ccp claimed that tan fureng’s assassination stemmed from a personal grudge between him and the security director. According to this explanation, the security director had been sent to a study class for investigation, harbored resentment toward tan, and acted out of dissatisfaction. The bulletin further declared that, after strict political vetting, it had been discovered that the security director had concealed his “class background” and was in fact a class-alien element hidden within the revolutionary ranks; thus, the assassination of a military district leader was said to be motivated by “class revenge.”
translator’s note: see, via google translate, [“the whole story of the investigation into the murder of general wang guangyi and general tan furen” (??? ????????????) On the cultural revolution and modern history website.]
clearly, this narrative was a smokescreen—an intentional attempt to downplay the gravity of what was in reality a monumental political assassination, crudely reframing it as a case of personal grievance leading to “class retaliation.” At the time, “class retaliation” was a stock phrase in the official red-letter documents.
with no independent judiciary, no freedom of speech, and news reporting tightly controlled by the communist party, the mainland public had no right to know and no way to learn—from any official or media source—the truth behind this political murder.
in those years—and even now—it has always been the same: as long as the communist party refuses to abandon one-party dictatorship, and refuses to give up the political system in which the party leader and the politburo standing committee monopolize the reins of state, this situation will continue. Namely: any case related to mao zedong, any case connected to a newly installed party leader, any major political case that touches the foundations of communist party rule will always be kept tightly sealed. They will never “open the skylight” to illuminate what goes on inside the black box.
li zhen was assassinated in an underground passageway in zhongnanhai, yet the party has always responded evasively, fabricating a story full of holes—insisting that li committed suicide because of excessive psychological pressure, an obvious lie. Li was someone who had come through the war years, rose to the rank of general, and had repeatedly commanded troops in real combat. What sort of danger or pressure had he not seen? He didn’t kill himself during wartime—why would he suddenly, inexplicably commit suicide in peacetime?
moreover, right before his death, li zhen had not been purged; on the contrary, he enjoyed a high level of trust. Clearly, this explanation only exposes the truth: li died for no reason, with no explanation—meaning he had no motive or cause to kill himself, and the suspicious circumstances at the scene point naturally to homicide. Claiming he killed himself because of stress simply does not hold water. Such a clumsy lie was obviously meant to conceal an unspeakable truth. In the end, because the case was connected to mao zedong, they were compelled to fabricate a falsehood.
li zhen died in a humiliating, baffling way. His wrongful case has never been redressed.
all of this is also connected to the fact that the communist party’s organizational discipline resembles the codes of secret brotherhoods in the jianghu—and is in fact even more frightening and severe than those codes. Anyone who swears an oath to join the party develops a sense of belonging to a brotherhood, and thus a sense of identification with it. The vow made upon joining—that one’s heart will never change even should the seas dry up and rocks crumble—resembles the pledges of the jianghu, but the party’s tightly knit organizational discipline is even harsher than those.
its strict system of secrecy, the stratified “three-six-nine grades” of internal access to information, the salary system for twenty-odd ranks of cadres, and the special privileges and special supplies available only after reaching certain levels—all these things combine to make the chinese communist party a mysterious and foreboding organization.
it is not only non-party people who feel that the party is cloaked in an eerie mystique; even members of the party’s upper echelons sense that there are many inner secrets they have no chance—and no right—to know. Should someone come to know top-secret matters that their rank is not permitted to know—whether by crossing ranks or exceeding authority—then disaster will cling to them like maggots to bone, ready to descend at any moment.
minister li was strong, tall, and skilled in martial arts. Normally, three or five sturdy men couldn’t even get close to him. But in a secret tunnel leading into zhongnanhai, he encountered a killer whose skills surpassed his own. That huge man was strangled until he curled up into a ball, forced into a kneeling crouch against the side of the passage, squeezed into a corner barely 1.5 meters high where the heating pipes ran. When the case was reported to the party’s upper ranks, it was announced that li had committed suicide—nobody believed it. A far more plausible explanation is that minister li learned a secret far above his clearance level, or that he forgot the iron rule that anyone entering zhongnanhai via the underground tunnel must first ask for permission. Violating one of mao’s deadly taboos, he was strangled by an assassin lying in ambush in the passage and killed against the hot-water pipes, silenced forever.
sun yang and li zhen were both full minister–rank senior cadres of the ccp, entitled to special privileges and exclusive supplies. The circumstances of their assassinations were similar: the same pattern, identical methods, and all within the city limits of beijing, with only a small span of time between them. If the beijing public security bureau’s criminal investigation unit had dared to open a real case and pursue the killers, the two cases would certainly have been merged into one investigation. The ccp had strict regulations detailing the special political and material treatment minister-level cadres were to enjoy, and these rules were enforced to the letter. Sun yang and li zhen could never have imagined while alive that, when they were secretly murdered, their political treatment would also be more or less the same.
earlier, general xie fuzhi—li zhen’s predecessor—also appears to have learned secrets he was not supposed to know. While he and general li tianyou were riding in a military jeep and passing through beijing’s dongsi pailou, assassins lying in ambush there opened fire. Li tianyou was hit directly in the head and died on the spot. Xie fuzhi was struck twice in the liver and died after being taken to the hospital.
it is said that xie fuzhi’s son—“a tiger born at a general’s gate”—knew his father had been assassinated, and no matter what, he could not swallow this grievance. Imitating the method used on his father, he organized an assassination group inside the military. Not only did they fail to kill their target, they were easily uncovered. More than a dozen members—none of them escaped. All were sentenced to death and immediately executed. Xie fuzhi’s son died with his eyes unclosed.
he thought to himself: killing my father was as easy as turning a hand—am i really so stupid? Xie fuzhi’s son was not stupid, and he was quite capable organizationally. But he overlooked one simple fact: the assassination of xie fuzhi was an operation carried out by the party’s special branch, a top-down order. Naturally, the task was easily accomplished. But the group he organized was an unauthorized operation—precisely the kind the communist party harshly suppressed. At the slightest unusual movement, they were already in the sights of the party organizations within the army; naturally, they could not escape extermination.
since the founding of its armed forces, the ccp has always taken extremely severe and bloody measures to purge dissent or so-called “non-organizational behavior” within the military. In the political context of the time, the only person who could give the order to have xie fuzhi and li tianyou assassinated—and ensure that no one dared investigate—was mao zedong, who alone possessed such privilege within the party.
in a society under one-party dictatorship, under totalitarian despotism, there is no truth in cases of political murder—there is only the will of those who hold absolute power.
in fact, that little drama mao zedong carefully staged back in yan’an was performed for one person only: jiang qing. It was for her eyes alone, for her ears alone. After witnessing it, jiang qing was deeply shaken. From that point on, she no longer dared—as he zizhen once had—to make a scene over other women, or over mao’s extramarital affairs and promiscuity. She did not even dare utter the slightest complaint in public. One can imagine how powerful an impact mao’s backstage-directed play had on her. It was an episode carried out at mao’s instruction, approved by the politburo standing committee, and executed in the name of the party organization, aimed at reshaping jiang qing’s views on marriage and thoroughly remolding her understanding of life with mao after marriage.
from then on, the relationship between jiang qing and mao zedong followed a pattern that was neither traditional nor modern—an arrangement that felt strange and hard to define. Like the man of handan trying to copy others’ steps, no one really knew what rhythm existed between them. Yet the fundamental dynamics of their marriage were perfectly clear: if jiang qing was a kite, mao zedong was the hand that held the string; if jiang qing was a fierce, terrifying tibetan mastiff, mao was her one and only master.
the cultural revolution was not merely launched by mao zedong; it was also directed in concrete detail by mao through jiang qing and zhou enlai. In all things, where there is benefit, there is also harm. What mao did not foresee—or perhaps never bothered to consider—was that his precautions against jiang qing during his lifetime left her first lady status hollow and nominal, which in turn affected the execution of his final wishes and the transfer of absolute power. Unintentionally, rather than intentionally, he himself undermined the foundations for the mao family to inherit the communist party’s imperial enterprise. But that is another story.
when mao zedong summed up his own life, he believed he had done two major things: first, he drove the nationalists onto an island; second, he launched the cultural revolution. He even regarded the cultural revolution as the most important undertaking of his entire life. These were words he spoke in his old age, knowing that the end was approaching, to his trusted subordinates—an unguarded expression of his true feelings.
if one examines the pattern of mao’s actions closely, it is not hard to see that the cultural revolution was not merely a struggle for power, not merely a purge of the contemporary elite, not merely a campaign to destroy the “four olds,” nor merely mao’s attempt to make himself the eternal spiritual guide of the chinese people or to pass absolute power to mao yuanxin and jiang qing. More importantly, it was a movement to vindicate himself—to claim for himself, while still alive, the name and legitimacy of an emperor.
mao was essentially an atheist; what he valued most were matters in this life. His principle was: whatever must be done today is done today—never leaving loose ends. In his bones he was a solipsistic agnostic who inwardly embraced the pleasure-centered doctrines of the greek philosopher epicurus. Of course, that applied only to himself; as for others, he preferred they be as ascetic as buddhist monks or puritan christians. His encounters with women were conducted in the same spirit—never leaving space for romantic reflection afterward, always swift and decisive.
while demanding that the masses “fear neither hardship nor death,” he himself pursued pleasure in a timely fashion. And through organizational and propaganda work, he strove—by every possible means—to secure in the minds of the people his status as an emperor. This drive to establish and entrench his imperial stature guided the actions of mao’s entire later life.
after liu shaoqi fell from power and the central cultural revolution group was dissolved, jiang qing and the other main members—credited with meritorious service during the cultural revolution—were all appointed by mao to enter the politburo. At that time, the ccp politburo and its standing committee had, in effect, already become mao’s grand council (junji chu). Every word mao uttered had become golden and incontrovertible; no one could oppose him, and no one dared to. Even though mao’s confidence in his own rule suffered to some extent after the lin biao incident, this iron fact could not be changed: the politburo standing committee had already become the office through which mao issued imperial commands.
during the cultural revolution, mao’s aspiration to assume the title and authority of an emperor was fulfilled in concrete form. He realized the long-cherished desire that had haunted his soul for years. His only regret was that he could not revive the great courtly rites of the imperial era—three kneelings, nine prostrations, and the thrice-shouted cry of “long live!” Mao by then stood high above everyone, just like the emperors of old; every sentence he spoke became an imperial edict. Each of his utterances carried even greater authority than imperial decrees of past dynasties, and they sent shockwaves through society on the mainland.
when mao felt his health deteriorating, worsening day by day, he once observed a meteor streaking rapidly from the purple tenuity palace (ziwei xinggong) in the night sky toward the northeast. Mao firmly believed in the correspondence between heaven and man. Witnessing this celestial phenomenon, he felt a shock in his heart and took it as a sign that his lifespan was nearing its end. Even at that point, mao still found it difficult to relinquish absolute power. But the pleasure he once took in issuing commands and forcing subordinates to obey him on the spot had diminished considerably. Reluctantly, and with some pain, he decided he had no choice but to summon his nephew mao yuanxin back to beijing with great haste from his position as head of the shenyang military region, so as to guard against unforeseen events. Mao appointed mao yuanxin to act as his spokesman in conveying directives to the politburo and the politburo standing committee. This arrangement was deliberate—mao’s sincere, carefully planned choice in his final years.
mao’s selection of liu shaoqi as his successor, his choice of lin biao as vice commander-in-chief and designated heir, his naming of wang hongwen as vice chairman of the party, and his appointment of hua guofeng as acting premier and party vice chairman—all of these bewildering “auditions” were false, insubstantial performances. Only this final move—bringing his own nephew mao yuanxin to beijing, placing the “imperial sword” in his hands, and having him transmit the “sacred edicts” to the politburo and its standing committee—was genuine, heartfelt, and real.
mao zedong’s decision to elevate wang hongwen into the politburo and make him a vice chairman of the party looked casual on the surface, but in fact concealed the strategic calculations of an emperor. It was a way to “warm up” the transition of absolute power to jiang qing and mao yuanxin after his death—one of the purposes behind launching the cultural revolution in the first place. Wang hongwen and mao’s nephew mao yuanxin had very similar backgrounds: both were young, and before the cultural revolution neither had held important positions in the party. But their political origins were worlds apart.
mao thought that as long as he spoke a single word, he could bring wang hongwen into the highest levels of power and make him a leader of the party and the state. In the same way, so long as his political testament existed and since mao yuanxin was his own nephew—politically absolutely reliable—having mao yuanxin take over absolute power and assume the post of chairman of the central military commission would naturally follow, without major uncertainties. Still, mao did not feel completely reassured. Because of this lack of confidence, he designed a practical test—one that he carried out with great care.
not long after lin biao’s violent death, at a high-level military conference held in huairentang in zhongnanhai, mao zedong produced a roster he had prepared beforehand and signaled to wang hongwen to read out the names. It was wang hongwen’s first time in such a setting, and he lacked the instinct for quick political improvisation. Believing that with the chairman’s great tree to shelter him—and now that he himself was party vice chairman and vice chairman of the military commission—who would dare fail to answer when he called their name? Careless and overconfident, he casually picked up the roster from the table and, without offering the usual tactful niceties appropriate to the occasion, began reading the names. His heedlessness and rashness made him miss his chance. He forfeited what should have been his—what later became hua guofeng’s: the qualification to serve as the transitional figure holding absolute power.
that day, the first name wang hongwen called was xu shiyou, commander of the nanjing military region. Back when he was the rebel leaders’ “commander” in shanghai, wang hongwen had interacted with xu shiyou face-to-face many times. Each time he encountered this former shaolin warrior-monk, a man who had come up through the ranks and was notorious for his explosive temper, he felt like a mouse meeting a cat.
whenever xu shiyou saw wang hongwen, his anger would flare uncontrollably. This was because xu held an extremely strong sense of seniority and rank within the communist party; he instinctively felt that without the party’s hierarchy—built on seniority and battlefield merit—where would his own prestige come from? He thought: “i went through countless hardships, carried my head in my hands, risked my life again and again, fought who knows how many battles. Only then did i claw my way up from an ordinary soldier to a majestic commander of a major military region. But this brat wang hongwen—he never contributed an inch to winning the country, has never once been on a battlefield with real knives and bullets, not to mention commanding a war—yet he somehow ended up as a commander too. Worse still, what i can hardly accept, what fills me with indignation, is that this street-punk commander who has never led a single battle has now become the party’s vice-chairman and vice-chairman of the military commission—my superior.”
today, by terrible coincidence, the first name on the roster was xu shiyou. The moment wang hongwen saw that name, his heart gave a jolt and cold sweat broke out. With no way out, he could only brace himself and call xu shiyou’s name. “Xu shiyou”—the voice was as soft as it could possibly be. The hall was utterly silent.
wang hongwen assumed xu shiyou hadn’t heard, so he raised his voice and called the name again. Still no response. Panic surged inside him; his legs began to tremble slightly. His gaze finally settled on the audience—on xu shiyou’s face, already distorted with rage. Forcing his voice into a steadier tone, he repeated once more: “xu shiyou.”
before the words even hit the ground, there was a tremendous bang.
it turned out that xu shiyou had been holding in a bellyful of fury with nowhere to vent it. He had been glaring viciously at the smug wang hongwen onstage, and upon hearing his name called the third time, he could no longer restrain himself. He suddenly grabbed the porcelain teacup on the table and slammed it hard onto the desk. The blow completely stunned wang hongwen; he stood frozen onstage in panic and shock, utterly speechless.
mao, seated on the rostrum, watched the entire scene from beginning to end. His mouth was tightly shut, his face dark as iron, and he said not a single word.
sitting beside the chairman, zhou enlai had already taken in everything from beginning to end. Seizing the moment, he urgently cast a covert, inquiring glance at mao, who sat next to him. Seeing the chairman give a slight nod—signaling permission—zhou hurriedly rose from his seat to rescue the situation.
zhou enlai stepped forward and took the roster from wang hongwen, who was still standing rigidly in place, eyes vacant, like a wooden dummy. Zhou gave a few perfunctory, scene-setting remarks: “the cultural revolution is a people’s war personally launched and led by the chairman. Unlike in wartime, this is a war without gunpowder. We will still follow the old rules. Chairman mao has instructed me to call your names. When your name is called, stand up and respond.”
at this point, zhou turned and saluted the chairman; then he faced the hall again. His sharp gaze swept across the entire audience, and he raised his voice. In a tone that brooked no refusal, he repeated, “when your name is called, you must stand up and respond loudly!”
zhou enlai first called the name of xu shiyou. Xu immediately rose, came to attention, turned toward mao seated on the rostrum, saluted him, and shouted, “present!”—The entire sequence of movements crisp and clean.
the result of this test left mao feeling even more uncertain. Still, he had no intention of handing over his absolute power—while alive—to jiang qing and mao yuanxin. Yet there was one thing that pleased him greatly: among the senior ranks of the military, no matter who they were, their loyalty to him remained unwavering.
no one expected it—and perhaps mao zedong himself chose not to think about it. Mao yuanxin, like wang hongwen, was a hopeless “incompetent whom no one could prop up.” ?? ????? Even someone as mild and simple as hua guofeng could still show his hand at a critical moment. Yet when mao yuanxin found himself in a moment where life and death hung in the balance, all he could say was: “keep your eyes wide open and pay attention to new developments in the class struggle.” This was nothing like someone who shared mao’s blood.
mao’s quick wits, his effortless command of political maneuvering, his cunning ways of winning people over—mao yuanxin had inherited none of it. His fatal flaw was that his eyes were higher than the top of his head; he could never lower himself. He was like a child spoiled rotten by adults—because during the cultural revolution he was accustomed to garlands and flattering smiles, he assumed that no matter when or where, there would always be flowers and smiling faces waiting for him.
mao handed him the “imperial sword of authority,” and for more than half a year, mao yuanxin did nothing. He simply waited for mao to depart this world so that, as a matter of course, he could sit at jiang qing’s side and receive the homage of senior party leaders and the masses. In the end, however, he could only squat in a prison cell, alone and forgotten, grinding through more than a dozen long springs and autumns.
this also confirmed what the honest hua guofeng said after he was forced out by deng xiaoping and the other veteran revolutionaries. While revisiting the old dazhai site in shanxi, he happened to run into chen yonggui and confided his true feelings: “jiang qing and mao yuanxin were too honest—they didn’t know how to play schemes and intrigues.” Such was the fate of the pampered scions of the “eight banners.”
however, mao yuanxin did act ruthlessly at least once. When he served as the top leader of the shenyang military region, the life or death of zhang zhixin ultimately rested with him. Ignoring chen xilian’s opinion that she should be kept alive as a negative example and sentenced to life imprisonment, he casually said, “a brazen bad element like this—if we don’t kill her, what kind of person would we kill?” With just such an offhand question and reply, zhang zhixin’s fate was decided.
zhang zhixin’s head was forced down onto a rough red brick by prison guards, and they used a rusty little knife to slit her throat. They then inserted a stainless steel tube and took her to the execution grounds.
the communist party’s regime is a system of rule by men, not rule of law. The top party secretary at every level holds an absolute power—large or small—not subject to checks from outside the party, and such unrestrained authority can at any time lead to the tragic outcome of treating human life as worthless.
mao yuanxin, jiang qing, zhang chunqiao, yao wenyuan, wang hongwen and the others lived in an era when universities across the country were allowed to study nothing but the quotations and mao’s selected works. They studied the quotations and the selected works until their minds were dulled. There is nothing surprising about this: people shut inside a single linguistic environment inevitably end up speaking only that language. And that is still the fortunate scenario—if a person is confined alone in a room, within a few years anyone will more or less lose their language ability.
mao yuanxin and jiang qing, unlike mao zedong, had never studied the comprehensive mirror, the twenty-four histories, the four books and five classics, the art of war, the thirty-six stratagems, and so on; nor had they long practiced and mastered their application in real political struggle. Compared with mao zedong, their political cunning was practically zero.
mao zedong, it seems, was well aware of this. That is why he exceptionally promoted the seemingly honest and guileless hua guofeng—so that after his own death, the absolute power in his hands could smoothly be passed on to jiang qing and mao yuanxin. This was also one of mao’s original motivations for launching the cultural revolution.
but mao zedong also had moments when his calculations went wrong, especially concerning matters after his death. He never imagined that the seemingly simple, clumsy hua guofeng—who had always acted according to jiang qing’s mood—would, the instant mao died, suddenly rise up, transform into a completely different person, and become a “wolf” who recognized neither kin nor faction, but only himself.
nor did mao anticipate that because he himself had never taken jiang qing seriously, once he departed this world, the other politburo members would likewise refuse to take her seriously. Thus the old idiom of “the fox assuming the tiger’s majesty” came true: once the tiger dies, no one in the forest pays any attention to the fox.
hua guofeng had also grasped this point: he understood that jiang qing’s authority came entirely from mao zedong. Once mao was gone, jiang qing became nothing more than a lone fox. In truth, she was nowhere near as cunning as the fox in the fable—naturally, she was not frightening at all.
wang dongxing, too, greatly feared the prospect of jiang qing and mao yuanxin rising to the top and seizing supreme, absolute power, which would be detrimental to him. So, on the very night the chairman died, he went straight to hua guofeng’s residence in zhongnanhai to probe the situation. When they met, the two men tested each other briefly; after only a few words, they already understood one another’s intentions, tacitly aligning at once.
after repeated discussions, they finally decided not to wait for the funeral arrangements to be completed, not to bother with any organizational procedures, and not to seek a politburo decision. All they needed was to notify a few top party elders—such as ye jianying and li xiannian—who had long been dissatisfied with the gang of four, and then act before others could. They would use the military authority held by wang dongxing over the 8341 unit, send a few bewildered soldiers to conduct a sudden raid, and arrest jiang qing, mao yuanxin, and the other people the chairman had trusted most—so as to prevent “long nights filled with many dreams.”
after deng xiaoping replaced hua guofeng as the operator of supreme power, chen yonggui had no choice but to step down from the position of vice premier. He returned to dazhai in shanxi, resuming the plain character of an old shanxi peasant.
one day in dazhai, chen yonggui unexpectedly ran into hua guofeng—the “honest fellow” who had already been forced by party grandees like deng xiaoping and chen yun to step down from his posts as chairman of the party and chairman of the military commission. Out of curiosity, and ignoring hua guofeng’s tightly closed lips and gloomy expression, chen pressed him again and again:
“back then, wang dongxing and i repeatedly warned you not to let deng xiaoping come back out. But you wouldn’t listen—you were full of confidence, saying that you had ‘liberated deng xiaoping,’ and that deng would surely be grateful to you, would repay your kindness, and would never do anything to wrong you. And now look—everything the chairman devoted the second half of his life to has all been ruined in your hands!”
hua guofeng looked helpless and wronged, forced a stiff smile, and said, “neither you nor i are cut out to be top leaders. When it comes to schemes and intrigue, we are no match for those people.”
chen yonggui thought, why is he dragging me into this? He brusquely pressed further: “jiang qing, mao yuanxin, zhang chunqiao, yao wenyuan, wang hongwen—these were the people the chairman trusted most in his later years. And weren’t you the one who had every last one of them arrested?!”
hua guofeng replied crisply and without hesitation: “that was because, at critical moments, they were too honest — they didn’t know how to engage in intrigue or trickery.”
some things chen yonggui never figured out, even to his dying day. In the two years after the chairman’s stroke, he no longer attended politburo meetings. At every politburo meeting in which the chairman was absent, the proceedings would not begin so long as jiang qing had not appeared. Once jiang qing arrived, everyone would stand to welcome her, and only then would the meeting’s chair announce that the session was officially beginning. But as soon as the chairman died and the politburo met again, these unwritten rules that had been in place for two or three years suddenly vanished without a trace. Why did this happen? Chen yonggui knocked on his head wrapped in a white cloth for a long time, but still could not figure it out.
chen yonggui had always respected jiang qing, and he did not change his previous attitude just because the chairman had passed away. During politburo meetings, when everyone stopped standing up to welcome jiang qing, he felt awkward about standing up alone; but in his heart he remained uncomfortable about it. He felt that jiang qing had no airs, was approachable, and not at all delicate. When she, as the chairman’s wife, came to dazhai to inspect and guide work at the grassroots, she would sometimes join the commune members in the fields to do farm labor. Chen yonggui believed that jiang qing’s working in the fields was not for show — she really threw herself into it, and once she started, she would work for most of the day. Therefore, he had always felt favorably toward her.
chen yonggui was a farmer, and he had his own standards—formed over many years—for judging people’s character. He believed that anyone willing to put in real effort, who wasn’t afraid of hardship, dirt, or exhaustion in farm work, was a good person.
jiang qing’s sudden, theatrical arrest struck chen yonggui—who had been given no mental preparation—like a thunderclap exploding directly over his head on a clear day. He was utterly stunned. His first instinctive thought was that only a few days earlier, a grand memorial service had been held for chairman mao in tiananmen square, with over a million people participating. Countless mourners had beaten their chests, stomped their feet, wept, and wailed. How could so many people change their faces so quickly? Turning against her as easily as flipping a page? The shift was far too sudden. Before chen yonggui could make sense of what was happening, the colleges, government agencies, and mass organizations in beijing were already spreading the news to one another, spontaneously and solemnly celebrating the fall of the gang of four. Their arrest became a great carnival jointly celebrated across the entire mainland.
it didn’t matter that mao’s enormous portrait still hung over the tiananmen gate. In tiananmen square and along chang’an avenue, for the first time—and without any organizational directive from work-unit leaders—most people inside and outside the party in beijing spontaneously surged into the streets, holding massive celebratory parades for several days in a row. Soon afterward, the party’s official media and the flood of wildly circulating rumors portrayed jiang qing as something less than human. Some claimed she was bald and that the glossy black hair on her head was a wig. Others said she imitated chiang kai-shek’s wife soong mei-ling by bathing every day in several buckets of fresh milk, and so on endlessly.
chen yonggui truly could not figure it out: how could the entire country, without any organized discussion or formal decision, suddenly join forces to vilify jiang qing—the great standard-bearer of the cultural revolution and the chairman’s wife? Why was this happening!? Chairman mao was gone, but his spirit remained; mao zedong thought remained; mao’s giant portrait still hung on tiananmen gate; and his body lay in the crystal coffin for the whole nation to view. Doing this—where did that leave the chairman’s face? How could he be shown such disrespect?
although chen yonggui became a vice premier of the state council thanks to mao’s nomination, his way of thinking never rose to match his new title. He remained, in essence, an old shanxi peasant—simple and unadorned. Gratitude was gratitude, resentment was resentment; a road was a road, a bridge was a bridge. No matter how he tried, he simply could not understand why hua guofeng and the others, without convening a politburo meeting and forming an organizational decision, would violate the chairman’s last wishes and arbitrarily arrest jiang qing, mao yuanxin, and the others.
before chen yonggui passed away, lying on his sickbed, he expressed to his family and the villagers who came to visit him the words an old farmer had held in his chest for years: “deng xiaoping is a good man. I contradicted him many times. Yet he never held a grudge, never had me imprisoned. He let me live out my later years in peace, with good food and good care.”
what chen did not say aloud was this: mao, in his final years, repeatedly worried that the transfer of absolute power would take place amid a blood-soaked storm. But that prediction did not come to pass. For years, the party’s mouthpieces—people’s daily, pla daily, and others—had repeatedly warned that if capitalist-roaders or counterrevolutionary revisionists came to power, there would be torrents of blood, millions of heads would roll, and the common people would suffer a “second round” of bitterness and hardship.
yet after mao died, every one of the party representatives he relied upon in his later years was brought down and arrested—without exception. And still, the terrifying scene of blood and storm that the chairman had predicted never appeared.
mao zedong openly said that he had accomplished two great undertakings in his life, but in private he believed he had accomplished three. The third undertaking was kept in his heart, always difficult to speak of, yet it was the one he took the greatest pride in—an affair filled with lingering emotion, affection, and loyalty; also the one on which he spent the most time and energy, and valued throughout his life. Mao was convinced that, in matters of men and women—of marriage—he had completely overturned the traditional confucian model of marital rites. This great undertaking was mao’s “flower-pinching finger,” a riddle on a plate, left behind for later generations to grasp through sudden enlightenment.
there is a detail in journey to the west: when sun wukong left flower-fruit mountain to seek a master and learn immortal arts, the immortal master refused to teach him anything in front of the other disciples. At last, harassed to anger by sun wukong’s persistence, the master struck him three times on the back of the head, then walked into the main hall with his hands clasped behind him and casually closed the door. The other disciples, not understanding, blamed sun wukong for offending the master. Sun wukong paid them no mind; inwardly he rejoiced, for he understood the master’s intention: the taps were a hint to go to the backyard at the third watch of the night, where something unexpected and wonderful awaited him.
this is what chan (zen) buddhism reveres: sudden enlightenment. Mao had carried a deep affinity for chan buddhism since childhood. When he studied at changsha normal school under yang changji, his attachment to chan became even stronger. The essence of chan is sudden awakening; mao not only knew this thoroughly but also applied it flexibly. His famous lyric poem uses precisely this artistic technique of awakening through sudden insight. Its final line contains the poetic eye: “all past is gone; count the heroic figures—look to the present age.” The “heroic figures” implied here can only be emperors. Only when one suddenly perceives that the subject is “emperor” does the meaning of the poem’s context fit together. A romantic, unrestrained emperor—an emperor unlike any other—one who broke free of worldly conventions and overturned the confucian marital traditions of generations. Mao’s attachment to and emphasis on this “third great undertaking” can be glimpsed in this poem.
in matters between men and women, mao differed from emperors throughout history and from ordinary people as well. He had something of the boldness and uninhibited flair of a western avant-garde artist—an air of “heedless of all constraints.” He disliked the conf |
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| The Massive Thrift Store In Pennsylvania Where You Can Build A New Wardrobe For |
| Posted on Friday, November 14 @ 00:01:08 PST (9 reads) | |
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Ever had that moment when your wallet’s screaming “ramen for dinner again” but your closet’s begging for a refresh?
reuzit on state in ephrata, pennsylvania is the answer to this fashion emergency – a treasure trove where your style dreams and budget realities can finally make peace.
let me tell you something about thrift stores – they’re like box of chocolates, except sometimes you bite into what you think is caramel and discover it’s actually a vintage armani jacket for $8.
and reuzit on state isn’t just any thrift store; it’s the mothership of secondhand shopping in lancaster county.
when i first walked into reuzit, i felt like i’d stumbled into some kind of alternate universe where marie kondo’s discarded “joy-sparking” items had gathered to form their own civilization.
the sheer size of this place is enough to make your average mall department store look like a closet.
but unlike those sterile retail temples where everything costs more than your monthly car payment, reuzit feels like being invited into the world’s most organized garage sale – if that garage belonged to the entire population of central pennsylvania.
walking through the doors of reuzit on state is like entering a parallel dimension where retail therapy doesn’t require actual therapy afterward to deal with the financial guilt.
the store sits proudly on state street in ephrata, its modern exterior with that distinctive red roof beckoning to bargain hunters from miles around.
inside, the space opens up like some kind of tardis effect – it’s way bigger than it has any right to be.
the lighting is bright but not harsh – none of that interrogation-room fluorescent vibe that makes you question if those jeans really look good or if you’re just hallucinating under the glare.
instead, there’s an almost gallery-like quality to how items are displayed, as if someone actually cares about the presentation of these pre-loved treasures.
and the organization? It would make a librarian weep with joy.
clothing sections are arranged not just by type but by size, color, and sometimes even brand.
it’s like someone took the chaotic energy typically associated with thrift shopping and ran it through a german engineering firm.
the aisles are wide enough that you’re not performing an awkward tango with strangers every time you try to move from shirts to pants.
this might seem like a small detail, but anyone who’s ever been trapped between a rack of xxl hawaiian shirts and a determined grandmother in a typical thrift store knows exactly how important spatial planning can be.
the clothing department at reuzit is where fashion trends go to be reborn, like phoenixes rising from the ashes of last season’s must-haves.
racks upon racks stretch before you in a seemingly endless parade of possibilities.
men’s, women’s, children’s – all neatly segregated so you don’t accidentally try to squeeze into a toddler’s t-shirt (though we’ve all been there after holiday eating, haven’t we?).
what sets reuzit apart from other thrift stores is the quality control.
unlike some places where you have to sift through seventeen stained t-shirts to find one wearable item, the selection here has been curated with a discerning eye.
garments with obvious damage or wear have already been filtered out, saving you from that moment of heartbreak when you find the perfect jacket only to discover it has a mysterious stain that looks suspiciously like evidence from a crime scene.
the designer section is particularly impressive – a little island of luxury in this sea of affordability.
i’ve spotted brands that would make fashion influencers drop their ring lights in shock – all at prices that won’t require selling a kidney on the black market.
from barely-worn j.Crew to occasional high-end finds like coach or even the rare burberry piece, it’s like a treasure hunt where x marks the spot of amazing style at absurd discounts.
the seasonal rotation is another brilliant touch.
unlike retail stores that try to sell you swimwear in december, reuzit’s inventory shifts with the weather.
come fall, the lightweight summer dresses make way for cozy sweaters and jackets.
in spring, those heavy winter coats disappear to make room for breezy blouses and shorts.
it’s almost as if they understand that humans experience different temperatures throughout the year – a concept seemingly foreign to many retail establishments.
now, about that $30 wardrobe claim – it’s not just clickbait, folks.
with most clothing items priced between $3-$8, you can legitimately walk out with an entire outfit revolution for less than the cost of a single new pair of jeans at the mall.
let’s break down the math of a potential $30 haul: two pairs of quality jeans ($12), three shirts ($9), a sweater or light jacket ($6), and maybe even accessories like a scarf or belt ($3).
that’s an entire week’s worth of mix-and-match options for less than what most people spend on coffee in a week.
the real magic happens when you discover items with the original tags still attached – the holy grail of thrift shopping.
there’s something deeply satisfying about finding a brand-new item with a $50 retail tag still dangling from it, knowing you’re about to pay one-tenth of that price.
it’s like legally getting away with something that should be illegal – the shoplifting high without the criminal record.
for those with patience and a keen eye, the designer section can yield returns that would make wall street investors jealous.
i once witnessed a woman find a genuine diane von furstenberg wrap dress for $7.99 – the kind of fashion mathematics that defies explanation and makes you believe in miracles.
while clothing might be the star of the show, reuzit’s home goods section deserves its own standing ovation.
it’s like bed bath & beyond had a baby with your eccentric aunt’s attic collection.
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the furniture section alone could furnish an entire apartment with character pieces that tell stories no ikea assembly could ever match.
from solid wood dining tables to surprisingly comfortable armchairs, these pieces have already survived one household – they’re practically pre-vetted for durability.
the kitchenware aisle is a particular delight for anyone setting up their first home or looking to replace that blender that finally gave up after a particularly ambitious attempt at crushing ice.
cast iron skillets with decades of seasoning, quirky coffee mugs that make morning caffeine intake more entertaining, and enough casserole dishes to host thanksgiving for your entire extended family – twice.
the book section is another hidden gem, organized with enough care that you can actually find specific genres without developing carpal tunnel from tilting your head sideways to read spines.
from bestsellers that everyone was reading last year to obscure cookbooks from the 1970s with questionable gelatin-based recipes, the literary selection is both extensive and entertaining.
and let’s not forget the electronics section – a technological time capsule where you might find anything from a practically new bluetooth speaker to a vcr that would make any 90s nostalgia enthusiast weep with joy.
yes, some items might be outdated, but in an age where vintage is cool again, even that ancient alarm clock radio could be considered retro chic rather than just old.
if regular reuzit shopping is exciting, then their seasonal sections are like the super bowl of thrift experiences.
around october, the halloween section materializes like a phantom, filled with costumes and decorations that let you transform your home into a haunted mansion without the haunting debt.
the christmas section, which typically appears sometime around thanksgiving (bless them for not rushing the season), is a winter wonderland of decorations from decades past.
vintage glass ornaments that your grandmother would recognize sit alongside more recent holiday decor trends, creating a time-traveling holiday experience.
easter brings baskets and bunny-themed everything, while summer ushers in picnic supplies and outdoor entertaining essentials.
these seasonal rotations keep the shopping experience fresh and provide specialized items that you might only need once a year – without paying full retail for something that spends 11 months in storage.
what makes reuzit truly special goes beyond the bargains and treasures – it’s the purpose behind the price tags.
as an mcc (mennonite central committee) thrift store, reuzit operates with a mission that extends far beyond retail.
the proceeds support relief, development, and peace projects around the world.
that $4 shirt isn’t just saving your budget; it’s contributing to disaster relief, education initiatives, and community development projects globally.
the store operates largely with volunteer support, creating a shopping environment where the person helping you find the perfect jacket might be there simply because they believe in the mission.
this creates a warmth in customer service that’s increasingly rare in our automated, efficiency-obsessed retail landscape.
these volunteers know the inventory, can tell you when new donations typically arrive (monday mornings are apparently prime time for fresh finds), and genuinely seem happy to be there – a retail unicorn if ever there was one.
the donation process itself is another smooth operation.
around back, a well-organized drop-off area makes contributing your own no-longer-needed items painless and efficient.
the cycle of giving and receiving creates a sustainable ecosystem of consumption that feels good from every angle.
every regular thrifter has their legendary find – that one item that makes all the hours of browsing worthwhile.
at reuzit, these stories circulate like folklore.
there’s talk of the woman who found a small painting that turned out to be worth hundreds, the college student who discovered a vintage leather jacket that could have been in a museum, and the countless wedding dresses – still in perfect condition – that have given budget-conscious brides their dream day without the nightmare price tag.
my personal favorite reuzit legend involves a set of first-edition books discovered by an english professor who recognized their value immediately – while the store had priced them at standard book rates.
he reportedly paid the full amount and then made an additional donation to match their actual worth, a testament to the kind of community that surrounds this special place.
the jewelry counter offers its own treasure hunt experience, with glass cases displaying everything from costume pieces to the occasional genuine silver or gold find.
the staff behind this counter are particularly knowledgeable, often able to tell you about the era a piece comes from or the materials used.
like any worthwhile adventure, successful reuzit shopping requires strategy.
first rule: visit often.
the inventory changes daily as new donations arrive and treasures are discovered by other shoppers.
tuesday mornings are reportedly prime time, after monday’s donations have been processed and put out on the floor.
second rule: check every section.
sometimes items get misplaced, meaning that designer blouse might be hiding among the regular tops, or that valuable book could be shelved in the wrong genre.
third rule: seasonal transitions are gold mines.
as the store shifts from one season to another, there’s often a higher volume of donations and more aggressive pricing on out-of-season items.
fourth rule: bring measurements, not expectations.
sizes vary wildly across brands and eras, so knowing your measurements is far more useful than looking for your “usual” size.
a measuring tape is the savvy thrifter’s secret weapon.
fifth rule: examine everything carefully.
while reuzit does an excellent job of quality control, it’s still wise to check for any missed stains, tears, or missing buttons before heading to checkout.
in a world of fast fashion and disposable consumerism, reuzit on state stands as a monument to sustainability, affordability, and community impact.
it transforms the act of shopping from a transaction into something more meaningful – a way to express personal style, manage a budget, reduce environmental impact, and contribute to global good all in one fell swoop.
for pennsylvania residents, having this thrifting paradise in ephrata is like having a secret weapon against both fashion emergencies and financial strain.
for visitors to lancaster county, it’s worth adding to your itinerary alongside the more traditional amish attractions and pretzel factories.
to get more information about store hours, donation guidelines, or special sales events, visit reuzit’s website or facebook page.
use this map to find your way to this thrifting wonderland and prepare for a shopping experience that’s as good for your closet as it is for your conscience.
where: 1054 s state st, ephrata, pa 17522
next time your wardrobe needs a refresh but your bank account needs a break, remember: in the heart of pennsylvania dutch country lies a fashion oasis where thirty bucks can make you look like a million. |
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| Washington State Tennis Adds Three New Players With One Big Standout |
| Posted on Friday, November 14 @ 00:01:08 PST (9 reads) | |
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Washington state tennis adds three promising recruits to the program
washington state tennis just got a lot deeper-and a lot more international. Head coach josh graetz has officially announced the signing of three standout recruits: ava-monet sycamore from australia, katiana gonzalez from texas, and clara-marie schön from germany. Each brings a unique skill set and competitive pedigree that could make an immediate impact on the program’s trajectory.
let’s break down what each player brings to the table and why this trio could be a cornerstone for cougar tennis moving forward.
ava-monet sycamore | sydney, australia
joining: spring 2026
sycamore is set to arrive in pullman this january and will be eligible to compete during the upcoming spring season. The australian native comes in with a resume that shows shes no stranger to winning on the international stage.
she dominated the j60 itf event in lautoka, fiji, sweeping all four of her matches in straight sets-a strong indicator of her ability to control matches from start to finish. She’s also picked up three itf doubles titles, including back-to-back wins at j60 events in fiji and another at a j60 tournament in darwin. Add in a national u16 doubles title in australia and a finalist finish the same year, and you’ve got a player who knows how to perform in high-stakes moments.
currently ranked 1197 in wta singles and 1193 in doubles, with an itf junior ranking of 172, sycamore brings a solid foundation of international experience. She plans to study marketing and international business, showing the same ambition off the court that she brings to it.
coach graetz is optimistic about her transition: “she has a big game, curiosity to learn and plenty of potential to develop. Ava has strong competition experience which will only help her transition into the college tennis system.�
translation? She’s coming in ready to compete now, with the upside to grow into a major contributor.
katiana gonzalez | houston, texas
joining: fall 2026
gonzalez is a five-star recruit out of houston, and she’s been climbing the junior tennis ranks with purpose. Her résumé includes a career-best usta ranking of no. 2 in texas and no. 15 nationally-numbers that speak to her consistency and ability to perform against top-tier american talent.
she’s reached a j30 singles final and picked up doubles titles at both j60 and j30 levels, showing she’s comfortable in both formats. Gonzalez has been training at newks tennis academy, one of the most structured and competitive junior programs in the country, which means she’s already used to a high-performance environment.
coach graetz is clearly excited about what gonzalez brings to the team: “she has an infectious personality... Not only will she bring great energy, but she knows how to compete.�
she plans to major in sport management, and it’s clear she’s approaching her college career with the same focus she’s brought to the court.
clara-marie schön | dresden, germany
joining: fall 2026
schön adds more international flavor to the cougars’ recruiting class and brings with her a strong reputation from germany’s highly competitive junior circuit. Ranked no. 7 nationally among u18 players in germany, she’s already proven herself with multiple wins at national-level junior tournaments. She also holds a current german women’s national ranking of 92, which puts her in elite company.
she attends sportsgymnasium in dresden, a school known for developing top athletes, and she’s shown a well-rounded game that makes her effective in both singles and doubles. Coach graetz highlighted her movement, shot-making, and doubles iq-three traits that should translate well to the college game.
but it’s not just her on-court skills that stand out.
“what impresses us most about clara is her kindness, team-first approach and family values,� Graetz said. “She will fit in great at wazzu.�
schön plans to study media, marketing, and international business-another student-athlete with a global perspective and a clear sense of direction.
what it means for the program
this recruiting class gives washington state a strong mix of international and domestic talent, singles and doubles experience, and personalities that fit the culture coach graetz is building in pullman. Sycamore brings immediate impact potential, while gonzalez and schön project as foundational pieces for the future.
the cougars are not just adding players-they’re adding competitors who’ve proven they can win at a high level. And in college tennis, that’s the kind of depth that can shift a program’s ceiling.
keep an eye on this group. Their arrival could mark the beginning of something special for cougar tennis. |
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| This Vintage Drive-In Theater In Ohio Will Take You Back To Simpler Times |
| Posted on Friday, November 14 @ 00:01:08 PST (9 reads) | |
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In the outskirts of dayton, where the city lights begin to fade and the ohio sky opens up above you, sits a monument to american leisure that refuses to be relegated to the history books.
the dixie twin drive-in stands as a delightful contradiction in our digital age – a place where the past and present collide in the most entertaining way possible.
as you approach the distinctive yellow and red entrance booths, you can almost feel yourself traveling backward through time to an era when entertainment was an event, not just a casual swipe on a smartphone.
the dixie twin isn’t just surviving in the streaming era – it’s thriving as a beloved cultural institution that offers something no amount of technological advancement can replicate: authentic communal experience under the stars.
those iconic entrance booths serve as a gateway between worlds – the hectic modern day on one side, and on the other, a more leisurely approach to entertainment that encourages you to slow down and savor the experience.
the concept is beautifully simple: park your car, tune your radio to the right frequency, and watch movies on a screen so massive it makes your home theater setup look like a pocket calculator.
yet within this simplicity lies the magic that has kept drive-ins in our collective imagination long after many have closed their gates.
as you pull into the sprawling lot, you’ll notice the careful organization that allows each vehicle optimal viewing.
the gentle slope ensures that whether you’re in a low-riding sports car or a towering suv, you’ll have a clear sightline to the massive screen that commands attention against the darkening ohio sky.
the grounds maintain a perfect balance between nostalgic charm and practical functionality.
while the classic speaker poles remain as decorative reminders of drive-in history, the audio now comes crystal clear through your car’s sound system – a thoughtful blend of tradition and modern convenience.
the pre-show atmosphere at the dixie twin is an attraction unto itself.
families spread blankets on the ground in front of their vehicles, creating impromptu living rooms under the open sky.
groups of friends arrange camp chairs in semicircles, sharing snacks and conversation as they wait for darkness to fall.
children burn off excess energy at the playground area, their excitement palpable as they anticipate the rare treat of staying up late for a double feature.
the concession stand deserves special recognition as the beating heart of the dixie twin experience.
unlike the astronomical prices at indoor multiplexes, here you’ll find reasonable prices for authentic movie snacks that taste exactly how movie snacks should.
the popcorn comes in buckets large enough to last through both features, freshly popped and glistening with that perfect balance of butter and salt.
hot dogs sizzle on rollers, waiting to be nestled in soft buns and dressed with your choice of condiments from the self-serve station.
nachos come topped with that particular cheese sauce that exists nowhere in nature but somehow tastes perfect in this setting – a bright orange concoction that defies nutritional logic but satisfies on a primal level.
the pizza slices are generous, with cheese that stretches impressively when you take that first bite.
for those with a sweet tooth, the candy selection covers all the classics, from chocolate-covered raisins to licorice ropes long enough to serve as emergency jump ropes.
soft drinks flow freely from the fountain machines, providing the necessary sweetness to complement the savory snacks.
the concession building itself is unpretentious and efficient, designed to serve hungry moviegoers quickly so they can return to their vehicles before the feature presentation begins.
as dusk deepens into true darkness, a palpable shift occurs across the lot.
conversations quiet down, children settle into their seats, and all eyes turn toward the massive screen as it flickers to life with previews of coming attractions.
there’s something democratizing about the drive-in experience that feels quintessentially american.
here, the luxury vehicles and modest sedans sit side by side, their occupants united by the shared experience of outdoor cinema.
the ceo and the factory worker, the college professor and the student, the grandparents and the teenagers – all find common ground in this asphalt paradise.
when the feature presentation begins, you’re reminded that despite the retro setting, the dixie twin shows first-run movies with state-of-the-art digital projection.
the picture quality rivals any indoor theater, with vibrant colors and sharp details that pop against the night sky.
action sequences take on new life when viewed on a screen of this magnitude – car chases seem more thrilling, explosions more impressive, and panoramic landscape shots more breathtaking.
there’s something uniquely satisfying about watching these larger-than-life stories unfold in an environment that matches their scale.
during the intermission between features, the social aspect of the drive-in experience comes alive again.
people stretch their legs, visit the restrooms, and make another pilgrimage to the concession stand to refuel for the second movie.
strangers strike up conversations about what they’ve just watched, debating plot points and predicting what might happen in upcoming sequels.
this intermission ritual highlights one of the drive-in’s greatest strengths – it encourages interaction in a way that indoor theaters, with their hushed atmospheres and quick exits, simply don’t.
the dixie twin operates seasonally, typically from spring through fall, which only adds to its charm.
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the limited availability makes each visit feel more special, a seasonal treat rather than an everyday option.
each phase of the season offers its own unique atmosphere – the fresh excitement of spring openings, the balmy perfection of summer nights, and the cozy charm of fall viewings when blankets become necessary as the evening cools.
for children, the drive-in provides an adventure that seems almost magical in its novelty.
kids raised on tablets and streaming services are genuinely amazed to discover they can watch movies outside, from a car, under the actual stars.
the freedom to react loudly to the movie without disturbing others, to move around more freely than in a traditional theater, and to wear pajamas in public all add to the sense of joyful rebellion.
many parents report that bringing their children to the dixie twin is a way of passing down a cherished tradition, creating memories that will outlast the latest technological innovations.
for teenagers, the drive-in represents something entirely different – a social gathering spot with the perfect balance of structure and freedom.
it’s a parent-approved venue that still feels cool, a place to see friends and maybe experience the butterflies of a first date, all under the guise of watching the latest blockbuster.
many an ohio teen has experienced milestone moments at the dixie twin, creating stories that will be retold at high school reunions for decades to come.
the drive-in has weathered challenges that have shuttered many similar venues across america.
the rise of multiplexes, home video, cable television, and streaming services have all posed existential threats to this format, yet the dixie twin endures.
its longevity speaks to both smart business practices and the enduring appeal of this unique entertainment experience.
there’s a certain irony in the fact that as our entertainment options become increasingly isolated and personalized, many people are seeking out these communal experiences more than ever.
the drive-in offers a temporary reprieve from the isolation of individual screens, replacing them with a massive shared screen that demands collective attention.
weather, naturally, plays a significant role in the drive-in experience.
a clear summer night with a gentle breeze provides ideal viewing conditions, while a light rain creates a cozy atmosphere as droplets create gentle patterns on your windshield.
the dixie twin operates rain or shine, though severe weather may occasionally force cancellations.
some of the most memorable viewings happen when the on-screen weather coincidentally matches the actual conditions – watching a storm scene while distant thunder rumbles beyond the screen creates an immersive experience no 4d theater could replicate.
the drive-in’s appeal extends beyond just watching movies.
it’s about the entire ritual – the anticipation as you gather blankets and pillows, the strategic timing of your arrival to secure a prime spot, the careful selection of concession treats.
these elements combine to create an experience that transcends the films themselves.
for couples, the drive-in offers a uniquely romantic setting.
there’s an inherent intimacy to watching a story unfold under the stars, sharing snacks and whispered commentary in the privacy of your own vehicle.
the shared experience creates natural conversation topics, making it an ideal date night option whether it’s a first date or a fiftieth anniversary celebration.
as summer transitions to fall, the drive-in experience takes on a different character.
the earlier sunset means movies start sooner, and there’s often a chill in the air that necessitates hoodies and blankets.
these autumn viewings have their own special appeal, with the scent of fallen leaves sometimes mingling with the aroma of popcorn and the changing foliage visible in the ambient light before the show begins.
the dixie twin represents something increasingly rare in our fragmented entertainment landscape – a truly communal viewing experience.
in an era when family members can all watch different programs on different devices while sitting in the same room, there’s something powerful about hundreds of people directing their attention to the same story unfolding before them.
the shared laughs, gasps, and applause create a connection that’s increasingly hard to find elsewhere.
for visitors to ohio or residents looking for a weekend activity that breaks from routine, the dixie twin offers an experience that can’t be replicated at home, no matter how sophisticated your home theater setup might be.
it’s worth noting that the drive-in experience is remarkably family-friendly from a practical standpoint.
parents of young children don’t need to worry about their kids disturbing other moviegoers if they get restless during the film.
the car provides a contained environment where families can enjoy the movie on their own terms, making it less stressful than a traditional theater outing might be.
for more information about showtimes, upcoming features, and special events, be sure to visit the dixie twin drive-in’s website or facebook page.
use this map to plan your route to this beloved dayton institution that continues to delight generation after generation.
where: 6201 n dixie dr, dayton, oh 45414
as the final credits roll and headlights illuminate the path back to the main road, you’ll understand why the drive-in has maintained its hold on our collective imagination.
some experiences simply can’t be upgraded, digitized, or improved upon – they’re perfect just as they are, under the vast ohio sky. |
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| Son Heung-min & MLS: Spring Soccer System Confirmed for 2027 |
| Posted on Friday, November 14 @ 00:01:08 PST (9 reads) | |
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mls announces landmark schedule change, aligning with global soccer calendar
a sweeping overhaul of major league soccer (mls) is set to reshape the league’s competitive landscape, bringing it into closer alignment with the world’s top soccer leagues. The changes, announced on november 14th, will see the introduction of a summer-spring season system beginning in the summer of 2027.
the mls secretariat stated that the shift represents “one of the moast important changes in league history,” and comes after a two-year review process culminating in a board meeting held in palm beach, florida, on november 13th. Currently operating on a february to december schedule as its launch in 1995, mls is aiming to enhance its global competitiveness and player progress by mirroring the conventional european soccer calendar.
a new era for north american soccer
“this change to the league system is the most important decision in mls history,” declared mls commissioner don garber. “It marks the beginning of a new era for our league and north american soccer.” The move is intended to strengthen clubs’ ability to compete on the international stage and create more favorable opportunities in the player transfer market.
the new system will combine elements of both global soccer traditions and the existing north american sports framework. While details regarding adjustments to the mls cup playoffs are still under review,the league is committed to a modernized postseason structure. A key component of the change is the introduction of a winter break,spanning from mid-december to february,effectively eliminating games played in january.
fan support and league structure
the decision to move to a summer-spring schedule was overwhelmingly supported by fans, with a recent survey revealing that 92% favored the change. Moreover, club owners have voted to abandon the current east and west region division, opting for an integrated regular league format.
according to one u.S.National team coach, mauricio pochettino – who has extensive experience in spain’s primera liga and england’s premier league – the adjustment is a “big step forward for mls to keep up with the world’s best leagues,” adding that aligning the schedule with international fixtures will positively impact players, coaches, and clubs.
addressing past criticisms and future outlook
historically,mls has faced criticism for scheduling games concurrently with international matches and major summer competitions. This often led to diminished viewership and a perceived lack of prioritization for national team players. The overlap with the nfl and american college football seasons has also been cited as a factor hindering box office performance during the playoffs.
the league plans to hold a regular season consisting of 14 games, followed by playoffs and the mls cup, from february to may 2027, with a full-fledged spring festival anticipated to launch with the 2027-2028 season.
son heung-min and the changing landscape
the schedule shift also impacts players like son heung-min, the “sonsational” star who joined la fc last august after leaving tottenham. Currently preparing for the mls cup western conference semifinals against vancouver whitecaps on november 23rd, son is experiencing “autumn soccer” for the first time. Rumors persist regarding a potential short-term loan to a european club during the upcoming winter break. |
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| Clemsons Corian Gipson Shines as Opponents Keep Targeting One Weakness |
| Posted on Friday, November 14 @ 00:01:08 PST (9 reads) | |
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Clemson’s secondary in the spotlight as young dbs step up late in the season
if you’ve been watching clemson football closely this season, you’ve probably noticed a trend - teams aren’t even pretending to try and run the ball against the tigers. And honestly, who can blame them?
with a defensive line anchored by disruptive forces like peter woods, clemson’s front four has been a problem all year. Opponents are steering clear of that unit, instead opting to test a secondary that’s been, at best, a work in progress.
the result? Clemson is facing 37.3 pass attempts per game - the fourth-most in the country.
that’s not just a stat. That’s a strategy. And it’s working.
the tigers are giving up 245.1 passing yards per game, which ranks 109th in the fbs - a glaring weak spot for a program that’s prided itself on defensive excellence. New defensive coordinator tom allen has brought in a 4-2-5 base look, but it’s tough to run that scheme effectively when youre breaking in new safeties and still searching for a reliable answer at nickel.
nickel woes and a fresh face
that nickelback spot has been a revolving door. Misun kelley, a converted wide receiver, was the first to get a crack at it.
then came shelton lewis, who saw some time before deciding to transfer out in october. Enter redshirt freshman corian gipson - and here’s where things get interesting.
gipson, a former top247 prospect, is finally seeing the field after spending last year recovering from an acl tear. He didn’t play a snap on defense in clemson’s first four games this season, used only on special teams. But over the last five games, he’s logged 76 defensive snaps - including a career-high 26 in last weekend’s win over florida state.
and he made them count.
it was gipson’s deflection late in the game that set up ricardo jones’ game-sealing interception, a moment that felt like a turning point - not just in that game, but maybe for the tigers’ secondary as a whole.
“he couldn’t play last year. He wasn’t ready,� Dabo swinney said this week.
“he’s just a redshirt freshman. He’s getting better, he’s in the process.
people forget that. If a freshman isn’t amazing right away, something must be wrong - but that’s not how this works.�
swinney’s not wrong. Gipson’s development has been a slow burn, but now that he’s healthy and gaining confidence, the staff is starting to trust him in meaningful situations. And that’s huge for a defense that’s still trying to find its identity on the back end.
“his confidence is growing, his knowledge is growing, his strength - everything is different now,� Swinney added. “You don’t just run out there and play nickel. That position’s a whole different world than playing corner.�
the cornerback shuffle
clemson’s cornerback rotation has also seen some shakeup. Veteran jeadyn lukus started the year as a co-starter alongside ashton hampton and avieon terrell, but he hasn’t seen the field since the boston college game. And it’s not because of injury.
“just playing the guys that have earned it,� Swinney said. “It’s not anything with lukus - it’s what branden strozier has done. He’s really made a move.�
strozier, another young defensive back, has quietly climbed the depth chart and is now getting more opportunities. With clemson still fighting for bowl eligibility - they need two wins in their final three games - these late-season reps are more than just developmental. They’re crucial.
why bowl eligibility matters more than usual
getting to a bowl game this year isn’t just about salvaging a .500 season. For clemson, it’s about time - time to coach, time to evaluate, and time to develop young players like gipson and strozier.
“there’s a lot of young talent on this team that could really use some bowl-type prep,� Swinney said. “Another spring practice is basically what you get.�
and he’s right. Those extra practices in december could be the difference between a young player breaking out next fall or still being a step behind. It’s a chance for the coaching staff to see what they’ve got before the offseason transfer portal carousel begins spinning.
next up: louisville
all eyes now turn to friday night’s acc finale against louisville, where both gipson and strozier are expected to see significant snaps. Kickoff is set for 7:30 p.M. Et on espn.
with clemson’s bowl hopes hanging in the balance, and a young secondary starting to show signs of life, this isn’t just another game - it’s a proving ground. And for players like gipson, it’s another chance to show that the future in clemson’s secondary might be arriving sooner than expected. |
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| 10 Slow-Paced Towns In Texas Where Life Is Still Simple |
| Posted on Friday, November 14 @ 00:01:08 PST (9 reads) | |
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Looking for peaceful towns in texas where time seems to slow down?
these 10 charming communities offer a break from big-city stress and a chance to enjoy the simple pleasures of life!
1. Jefferson
jefferson is like stepping into a time machine that takes you back to the 1800s.
the brick streets and historic buildings make you feel like you’ve wandered onto a movie set.
this little town sits near the louisiana border and was once a busy river port.
today, you can take a horse-drawn carriage ride through the historic district.
the downtown area features beautiful old buildings with shops selling antiques, candy, and crafts.
you might spot the statue in the town center, standing tall and proud like a guardian of the past.
jefferson is famous for its bed and breakfasts in victorian mansions.
ghost tours are popular here too, if you’re brave enough!
the locals move at their own relaxed pace, always ready with a friendly “howdy.”
when you’re hungry, the local diners serve up comfort food that tastes like it came straight from grandma’s kitchen.
2. Llano
llano sits in the heart of the texas hill country, where the llano river flows gently through town.
this place is known as the “deer capital of texas” because of all the wildlife in the area.
the downtown square features historic buildings made of red brick and local stone.
you’ll notice the courthouse standing tall in the center, a landmark that locals are mighty proud of.
fishing is a big deal here, with folks casting lines into the clear river water almost any day of the week.
the pace is so slow that sometimes it seems like the only thing moving fast is the river itself.
local barbecue joints smoke their brisket the old-fashioned way – low and slow, just like life in this town.
rock hunters come from all around to search for rare minerals and gems in the nearby fields.
the newspaper office on main street still reports on community events and local happenings.
when you visit, don’t be surprised if strangers wave at you from their porches – that’s just the llano way.
3. Wimberley
wimberley is tucked away in a valley where cypress trees line the banks of clear, cool creeks.
this artsy town has a personality as colorful as the wildflowers that bloom in spring.
the town square is filled with unique shops selling everything from handmade jewelry to texas-themed gifts.
artists have been drawn to this place for decades, inspired by the natural beauty all around.
blue hole and jacob’s well are natural swimming spots where locals escape the texas heat.
you might see people floating down cypress creek on inner tubes, waving lazily as they drift by.
the saturday market days bring folks together to shop for crafts, produce, and homemade treats.
houses are spread out among the hills, giving everyone room to breathe and enjoy the view.
at night, the stars shine extra bright here, away from big city lights.
the community comes together for events like the butterfly festival and outdoor concerts where neighbors catch up on local gossip.
4. Goliad
goliad holds a special place in texas history as one of the oldest spanish colonial settlements.
the town is built around a historic square where the courthouse stands watch over daily life.
presidio la bahía, an old spanish fort, reminds visitors of the town’s important role in texas independence.
the pace here is as slow as molasses in january, and that’s just how locals like it.
main street features buildings that have stood for over a century, now housing small businesses and shops.
you might see cattle grazing in pastures just a stone’s throw from downtown.
the san antonio river winds its way near town, offering peaceful spots for fishing or picnicking.
local festivals celebrate everything from texas history to the annual watermelon crop.
neighbors still know each other by name and often stop to chat on the sidewalk.
time seems to stretch out here, giving everyone a chance to appreciate the simple things in life.
5. Castroville
castroville calls itself “the little alsace of texas” because of its unique european heritage.
the town was settled by people from alsace, a region between france and germany.
you’ll notice houses that look different from typical texas homes – they have steep roofs and stone walls.
the medina river flows alongside town, creating a green oasis in the texas landscape.
locals still make traditional alsatian foods like pastries and sausages using old family recipes.
the historic district features buildings dating back to the 1840s when the town was founded.
pecan trees line many streets, providing shade in summer and nuts in fall.
life moves at a gentle pace here, with no need to rush from one place to another.
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you might see farmers working fields that their great-grandparents once tilled.
the community takes pride in keeping their unique cultural traditions alive through festivals and celebrations.
6. Comfort
comfort lives up to its name as one of the most welcoming small towns in the hill country.
german settlers founded this community in the 1850s, and their influence is still visible today.
the historic downtown features buildings made of native limestone that have stood for generations.
high street is lined with shops, restaurants, and galleries housed in well-preserved old structures.
cypress creek offers cool relief on hot summer days when locals gather to splash and swim.
you won’t find many chain stores here – most businesses are locally owned and operated.
the town has managed to keep its authentic character while still welcoming visitors.
comfort is known for its bed and breakfasts in historic homes where you can rock on the porch and watch the world go by.
antique shops are popular stops for treasure hunters looking for pieces of the past.
the pace of life here reminds you that not everything needs to happen in a hurry.
7. Salado
salado grew up around a natural spring that still bubbles up clear, cool water today.
this village between austin and waco has become a haven for artists and craftspeople.
salado creek runs through town, crossed by an old stone bridge that’s perfect for photos.
the main street is lined with galleries, boutiques, and restaurants in historic buildings.
stagecoaches once stopped here, and you can still feel that connection to texas history.
local shops sell everything from handblown glass to custom cowboy boots.
the pace is unhurried, giving you time to chat with shopkeepers about their crafts.
bed and breakfasts in victorian homes offer a chance to slow down and relax.
you might spot deer wandering through neighborhoods, especially in the early morning.
the community comes together for events like the christmas stroll and shakespeare festival.
8. Port isabel
port isabel sits at the southern tip of texas where the land meets the gulf of mexico.
this coastal town moves to the rhythm of the tides and the gentle gulf breeze.
the historic lighthouse, painted bright white, has guided sailors since 1852.
fishing boats bob in the harbor, bringing in fresh catches that go straight to local restaurants.
pelicans and seagulls soar overhead, adding their calls to the peaceful soundtrack of town.
the causeway to south padre island offers stunning views of the laguna madre waters.
seafood markets sell shrimp and fish caught just hours before by local fishermen.
life here follows the seasons – busy during summer tourism months, quiet and local the rest of the year.
you might see people crabbing off the piers or casting nets in the shallow waters.
the salty air and slower pace remind everyone that some things, like the tides, can’t be rushed.
9. Fort davis
fort davis sits high in the mountains of west texas, surrounded by some of the state’s most dramatic scenery.
at over 5,000 feet above sea level, the air here is cooler and clearer than most places in texas.
the historic fort that gave the town its name still stands, telling stories of frontier days.
stone buildings line the main street, housing small businesses that serve both locals and visitors.
the night skies are so dark and clear that the mcdonald observatory was built nearby.
you might see deer and javelinas wandering through town, especially in the early morning.
the davis mountains provide a stunning backdrop to daily life in this remote community.
local ranchers still work cattle on horseback, keeping western traditions alive.
the hotel limpia has welcomed guests since 1912, offering a taste of old-time texas hospitality.
time seems to move differently here, measured by sunrises and sunsets rather than clocks.
10. Alpine
alpine nestles in a valley surrounded by desert mountains in far west texas.
this college town (home to sul ross state university) has a quirky, artistic vibe that sets it apart.
murals brighten downtown buildings, telling stories of the region’s history and culture.
the amtrak train still stops here, connecting alpine to the wider world beyond the mountains.
local cafes serve strong coffee and homemade pastries to ranchers and professors alike.
you might spot pronghorn antelope grazing on the outskirts of town.
the historic holland hotel has welcomed travelers since the early 1900s.
bookstores and art galleries give the town a cultural richness unusual for its remote location.
the annual cowboy poetry gathering celebrates the ranching heritage of the area.
big bend national park is just an hour’s drive away, but many folks are content to enjoy the beauty right here in town.
these texas towns remind us that there’s still value in taking things slow.
each has its own special charm and character that can’t be found in big cities.
why not pack up the car and discover your own favorite spot where life moves at a gentler pace? |
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| 25+ Best Lender Incentives multi wild slot machine & Advertisements of Oct 2025 |
| Posted on Friday, November 14 @ 00:01:08 PST (9 reads) | |
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sending your fast monetary tales that you can bank for the. If they’lso are consuming its early morning coffees or winding off with many teas, so it adorable cup will become an essential inside their daily life. It comes within the seven colors, you’lso are destined to find one that suits the design. Incorporate the word hygge because of the snuggling for the a good blanket, preparing an attractive walk, and you may communicating with a pal. Which discussion video game has 330 inquiries to ignite reports, memory, and higher a way to learn about almost every other professionals. Rather than prompts, it could be hard to find the in, outs, and quirks of these near you. |
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| MLS plans change to summer-spring schedule to align with top global leagues |
| Posted on Friday, November 14 @ 00:01:08 PST (9 reads) | |
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In a move to align with the world’s top soccer leagues, major league soccer announced plans thursday to start its season in late summer and wrap up in the spring starting in 2027.
since its inception in 1996, mls has begun its seasons in the early spring and ended with its championship match in late fall. Its current 34-match regular season started feb. 22 and wrapped up on oct. 18, with the playoffs underway and set to end with the mls cup on dec. 6.
in a move to align with the world’s top soccer leagues, major league soccer announced plans thursday to start its season in late summer and wrap up in the spring starting in 2027.
since its inception in 1996, mls has begun its seasons in the early spring and ended with its championship match in late fall. Its current 34-match regular season started feb. 22 and wrapped up on oct. 18, with the playoffs underway and set to end with the mls cup on dec. 6.
the proposed schedule change will start mls’s season in mid-july of 2027, ending with the playoffs in may 2028. The league said it plans to interrupt the season with a lengthy hiatus during winter, from mid-december to early february.
next year’s schedule will not reflect those changes, although there will be a break in the middle to accommodate the 2026 fifa world cup , hosted jointly by the united states, canada and mexico. Then, according to mls, it will stage a 14-match “transition” season in 2027, followed by playoffs, with a truncated february-to-may format aimed at allowing the 2027-28 season to commence later in the year as planned.
“the calendar shift is one of the most important decisions in our history,” mls commissioner don garber said thursday in a statement. “Aligning our schedule with the world’s top leagues will strengthen our clubs’ global competitiveness, create better opportunities in the transfer market, and ensure our audi mls cup playoffs take center stage without interruption.
“it marks the start of a new era for our league and for soccer in north america.”
mls said its board of governors approved the new schedule structure during a meeting thursday in palm beach, florida. That followed a meeting of league officials in december, at which garber said they were “considering more than ever” making such a drastic change.
the new schedule structure, if implemented, could help limit disruption for mls teams carrying out personnel changes during fifa’s global transfer windows. In addition, the teams will be less prone to losing players to international competitions, many of which take place during the summer.
“moving to the international calendar is going to be a massive game-changer, especially for roster-building,” l.A. Galaxy general manager will kuntz said in a statement shared by mls. “It finally allows us to operate in sync with the global transfer market. We’ll be able to sign players when the biggest talent movement happens — in the summer — instead of midseason when integration is difficult.”
mls also touted the new schedule’s postseason window. By taking place in may rather than from october into december, games should be less affected by inclement weather, and mls would have a showcase that’s not overshadowed by the nfl and college football.
the league also noted that, per initial projections for the 2027-28 season, over 90 percent of its games would fall within the current schedule’s calendar footprint. To a large degree, the beginnings and ends of its seasons would simply be inverted, particularly if mls follows through on its plan to limit the number of games it stages around the midwinter hiatus.
one issue could be colder conditions in some matches held at the home fields of mls’s more northern teams, with a trade-off that the league would no longer be scheduling games during some of the year’s hottest weather. In addition, mls would be competing directly with soccer’s most high-profile leagues for the attention of fans of the sport.
another possible complication could be reaching agreement with the mls players association, which did not immediately respond thursday to a request for comment. Espn reported thursday that a source described discussions with the players union as “ teetering ,” while a league official said a “very good dialogue” was taking place.
“having mls on the same timetable as the rest of the world is great,” former league standout clint dempsey, now a soccer analyst, said in a statement. “Whether you’re in mls, europe, or anywhere else, being aligned means players are sharper when they get called into camp and it’s easier for everyone — players, coaches, and fans — to follow the game year-round.”
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| The Leninist Barrier to Socialist Reconstruction |
| Posted on Friday, November 14 @ 00:01:08 PST (11 reads) | |
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Ben debney || the centenary of the russian revolution of october 1917 presented an opportunity to recall a momentous period of working-class struggle and a beacon of hope for anyone who has ever dared to dream of a basically sane and just world. At the same moment, it was also an occasion for forgetting, insofar as historians partial to the leninist ideology of the bolshevik revolution appeared anxious to salvage the century-old foundations of leninism from its historical consequences. As this paper argues, this wilful forgetting also reflects the ongoing politicisation of the history of the russian revolution, apparently with a view to salvaging leninism as such from the trainwreck of stalinism. The ahistoricism of this logic presents serious issues not only for empirical rigour, but for efforts at socialist reconstruction and any kind of prefigurative socialist politics relevant to the conditions of the world a century on from the events of 1917.
if the past can be reduced to the failings of an individual, the complicity of an entire culture and its participation in that individual’s misdeeds need never come under scrutiny.
– sardar, nandy and davies, barbaric others
marxism is the last refuge of the bourgeoisie.
– paul mattick
the centenary of the russian revolution of october 1917 presented an opportunity to recall a momentous period of working-class struggle and a beacon of hope for anyone who has ever dared to dream of a basically sane and just world. At the same moment, it was also an occasion for forgetting, insofar as historians partial to the leninist ideology of the bolshevik revolution sought to salvage the century-old foundations of leninism from its historical consequences through politicisation and militant forgetting. A representative example of such appears can be found in the press release for a biography of lenin timed to coincide with the 2017 centenary, alleging that
v. I. Lenin’s originality and importance as a revolutionary leader is most often associated with the seizure of power in 1917. But, in this new study and collection of lenin’s original texts, slavoj Žižek argues that his true greatness can be better grasped in the last two years of his political life. Russia had survived foreign invasion, embargo and a terrifying civil war, as well as internal revolts such as the one at kronstadt in 1921. But the new state was exhausted, isolated and disorientated. As the anticipated world revolution receded into the distance, new paths had to be charted if the soviet state was to survive (verso 2017).
the emphasis in this formulation on the difficulties of ruling the soviet state is at the outset indicative of this politicisation and sanitation; russia had survived foreign invasion, embargo and a civil war, but it was the soviet state (the bolsheviks, in other words), used interchangeably with the russian people, that had suffered; it was only their suffering that was worthy of visibility, much less to say compassion. The russian sailors who instigated the revolt at kronstadt in 1921, as well as many of the other revolts taking place against the bolshevik state at the time, were apparently not russians, or russians worthy of consideration. These assumptions are unmistakable the implicit claim that the popular workers’ revolution and the bolshevik political revolution were identical; to do harm to the state was to do harm to the people (deutscher 2003; trotsky 2008; serge 2015; miéville 2017)
the paper that follows proceeds from the contention that the habit of conflating the russian people and the state, in particular by refusing to acknowledge the fundamental distinction between the popular revolution in the factories and the political revolution carried out by the bolsheviks, is the first of two major errors in leninist historiography of the russian revolution. This, coupled with the assumption that the nature of a state depends on the real or alleged beliefs of those in control of it, and not what they do—that, labels, in other words, speak louder than history, and that they permit a double standard based on who any action serves (or is alleged to), not by its nature or consequences (particularly in terms of the harms it causes)—is indicative of the ongoing politicisation of the history of the russian revolution for ideological purposes, for the sake apparently of sparing those who embrace it the work of reconstructing their politics on the basis of new information.
this process, this paper argues, results, in the end, in a concerted forgetting and ahistoricism, presenting serious issues not only for empirical rigour, but for efforts at socialist reconstruction and prefigurative socialist politics relevant to the conditions of the world a century on from the events of 1917 (leach 2013). Energy that can be much better spent dealing with the problems of the world in 2017 and beyond is instead devoted to salvaging the theories of 1917 from the century that followed; innovations in the present are devalued and reduced to a sacrifice zone, along with much of the world and the people socialist theory should, in theory, be looking to empower, in the name of upholding received dogma through recourse to confirmation bias. What follows then can only be scapegoating logics and virtue signalling to the ideologically faithful from within closed ghettoes, based on ad hominems serving to avoid the debate entirely (debney 2020, 231-240). Nevertheless, the historical record defies this militant, collective forgetting (brinton 1970; smith 1985; sirianni 1982; avrich[ 1963a; avrich] 1963b; rosenberg 1978; aufheben 2015; jones 2017). Against the historical record, we find double standards served by a scapegoating logic of ‘if you think for yourself, the enemies of the revolution win.’
to this logic, sincere expressions of doubt based on evidence or principled critiques of leninism are impossible; they can only be the product of a reactionary agenda, conscious or otherwise, brought into existence with what cohen calls ‘deviance production’—ideological deviance in this case being a subjective concept based on who has the power to control the interpretation of the term, not of anyone thus labelled (cohen 2002, 2-8). Leninism can only be innocent of any derivation from the founding principle of the first international that ‘the emancipation of the working class will be carried out by the workers themselves,’ apparently because that is what historians looking to salvage leninism from the lessons of soviet history prefer to believe.
on this basis then, the honest work of historical remembrance is reduced to a work of deviance production, politicised on the one hand by conflating the state with the people, and by associating doubt with counter-revolution, via the ‘false dilemma’ fallacy, on the other (cohen 2002; debney 2020). Deviance production wielded against defenders of the historical record functions not least to suppress the distinction of the difference between the popular, russian revolution and the political, bolshevik revolution—and with it, the fate of the factory committees and soviets—understood here as the expression of revolutionary power—under bolshevik rule, or of those who dared to fight for the ideals of socialism when they came into conflict with the political ambitions of the bolsheviks.
this paper contends that the tendency to identify critical perspectives on the russian revolution with attacking socialism (again, the ‘false dilemma’), accounts in no small part for the inability of the left to learn from the history of the russian revolution, and so to reconstruct socialism out of the wreckage of the bolshevik revolution; it makes it harder to identify the same dynamics at work on the political right, and to identify broader historical patterns recurring on that basis (debney 2019, 236). If, ultimately, the issues related to the historical conditions that produced stalinism pertain to issues of means and ends, politicised histories of the russian revolution must dodge this issue by privileging beliefs over facts and casuality. In empiricist historical perspective, however, actions speak louder than words—a fact that must ultimately be respected for the sake of socialist reconstruction.
basic orthodoxies
the founding principle of the first international was that ‘the work of emancipation will be carried out by the workers themselves.’ Eugene debs well-articulated the rationale for this principle in pointing out that ‘those who lead you into a revolution can lead you back out again’—one of the more significant lessons of the thermidorian reaction (darsey 1988). If the working class was not permitted to organise and express itself autonomously, and if it was forced to carry a new set of masters who had learned to speak the language of workers’ rights and justified class oppression in the name of the rights of labour, then politics of class justice would degenerate into a rhetorical mechanism for the social reproduction of class privilege. Labels did not speak louder than history (eckhardt 2016).
while rhetorically the bolsheviks were committed to revolutionary change, in practise they did not believe that a classless society was possible in russia. Marx had theorised that economic development proceeded in distinct historical stages reflecting the underlying mode of production, leading lenin and trotsky to assume that communism was impossible in russia without the development of an urban proletariat. Such was only achievable through a transition period that could bring russia out of feudalism and into capitalism, creating the basis for the urban proletariat who could then struggle for socialism (lenin 2015). To this, trotsky added that the russian bourgeoisie were too weak and ineffectual to carry out a political revolution to overthrow the tsar in a comparable manner, and since this was the case, the urban proletariat such as it was would have to enter into an alliance with the peasantry to do so, enabling resolution of the land issue and facilitating the development of an industrial proletariat that could carry out a second revolution and establish the basis for the cooperative, classless economy associated with full communism (trotsky 2010).
precluded from immediate change (in their own minds, at least), the bolsheviks sought to take and maintain state power, suppress the capitalist reaction and develop the semi-feudal and predominantly agrarian russian economy such that it would in turn produce a proletariat that could act as a social base for industrialisation, and eventually socialism. Upon the development of a proletariat that could struggle for full communism in the form of workers’ control of production and the abolition of classes, lenin theorised, the state would simply wither away (lenin 1917). The fact that it did not in practise is typically account for by pointing to the failure of european communists to extend the revolution over to in the west, precipitating a strategic crisis that stalin was then able to exploit to assume leadership of the russian communist party and turn it into a vehicle for his own designs on absolute power (trotsky 2008).
as the leader of the left opposition, trotsky provides the main source of criticism of stalin, not least of which being that stalin left the new economic policy (nep) in place, abandoning the project of working through the alleged stages of economic development from socialism to full communism by prioritising ‘the law of value’ over ‘the law of planning,’ while leaving the soviet state to degenerate into bureaucratism (twiss 2015). Trotsky was particularly vocal in his criticism of stalin’s policy of ‘socialism in one country.’ Such an abandonment of worker internationalism, he pointed out, subordinated communist movements around the world to the needs of soviet foreign policy, having a markedly destructive effect on radical opposition to the world capitalist status quo—western anti-communist paranoia notwithstanding. The conduct of the stalinists during the spanish civil war and revolution (1936-9) in breaking up peasant collectives was a particularly egregious example (broué & témine 2008).
the great purges
prior to the purges of the 1930s, stalin was already prone to the fallacy-ridden style of the false dilemma (‘those who are not for me are against me,’ or ‘there is no difference between being criticized and being attacked’) that criticism of his personal dictatorship over the party could only come from those who were imbued with petit-bourgeois bias, not because the soviet union was a terror-ridden inferno (oplinger 1990; debney 2020). In the results of the first five-year plan (1933), stalin declared that
we must bear in mind that the growth of the power of the soviet state will increase the resistance of the last remnants of the dying classes. It is precisely because they are dying, and living their last days that they will pass from one form of attack to another, to sharper forms of attack, appealing to the backward strata of the population, and mobilizing them against the soviet power. There is no foul lie or slander that these ‘have-beens’ would not use against the soviet power and around which they would not try to mobilize the backward elements (stalin 1933).
of note in this passage is the absolutist binary invoked between ‘the power of the soviet state,’ and ‘the last remnants of the dying classes.’ Being the sole recipient of that power (much more so in the wake of the purges shortly to follow), stalin self-servingly conflates ‘the power of the soviet state,’ and his own personal power as dictator. His willing confusion of the two set the scene for the association of dissent with ‘counter-revolutionary opposition elements from among the trotskyists,’ who, in being the only dissident group left, would be the main targets of the coming purges, associated with right deviationists in the abovementioned formulation through a free conflation of criticising someone and attacking them.
in this ‘you are either with us or you are with the counter-revolution’-type logic, the false dilemma is overt; so too is cohen’s deviance production. As cohen noted, since prevailing interpretations of deviance depended on the power to impose their definition on public discourse, deviance production requires control over the channels of mass communication and could thus be generally understood as elite-driven phenomena (cohen 2002; debney 2020). The stalinist state media reflected control of a class elite over bolshevik discourses around deviance patently when, on 1 december 1934, head of the leningrad soviet and politburo member sergei kirov, was assassinated in moscow. It immediately cast kirov’s assassination as the handiwork of the renegade trotsky and his petit bourgeois, counter-revolutionary terrorist supporters, who were immediately targeted for liquidation during the ensuing great purge and moscow show trials (abramovitch 2017; knight 1999; lenoe 2010; conquest 1988; conquest 2008).
enabling the purges from this point on, and as a result of this process, was a conspiracy theory centred around the myth of a trotskyist cabal operating in cahoots with western capital to undermine and destroy the revolutionary state. By means of this conspiracy theory, reflecting deviance production and the false dilemma, the machinery of stalinist repression cemented the absolute power of the red tsar and sealed the last nails in the coffin of the workers’ revolution in the name of defending it from its enemies. Anyone who failed to worship stalin with the requisite level of awe, were demonized and associated with the conspiracy theory on the logic that, ‘if you think for yourself, the bourgeois reaction wins’ (debney 2020, 48; 235).
unmistakable in this logic was the cognitive dissonance between the rhetorical ideals stalin invoked to rationalise the purges, and the actually-existing values that motivated him to root out the last fires of dissent in the name of their defence against an existentialist threat—values which, suffice it to say, were far less selfless and benign. Such cognitive dissonance is hardly unique (mencken 1921; hofstadter 2012; feldman 2011; reich 1970; fromm 1942; adorno 1950; eco 1995; brinton 2004; saîd 2003; klein 2007; oplinger 1990; shafir, meade & aceves 2013; debney 2019). The really burning question is the extent to which such parallels, and so the attendant conclusions consistent with more general warnings of history against hubris and overreach, can be drawn within.
stalinism and trotskyism
a paradox is evident within leninist historiography insofar as the pretext of ‘extenuating circumstances’ stalin cited as justification for the policies trotsky found so abhorrent were mirrored in those the latter cited to justify suppression of strikes and other expressions of working-class discontent after 1917 (debney 2020, 235-8). Primary amongst such cases was the massacre of the revolutionary sailors, ‘the cream of the revolution,’ at the kronstadt naval base outside petrograd in 1921 (avrich 2014; getzler 2002; mett 1973). The same dynamics of deviance production, along with victim playing, victim blaming, and conflating criticism with support for the enemy per the false dilemma evident in the stalinist purges are also evident in the suppression of the kronstadt uprising, treated by trotsky at the time as a regrettable necessity to defend the revolution. The extenuating circumstances of the russian civil war demanded the bolsheviks massacre the revolutionary sailors of kronstadt, whom trotsky had earlier hailed ‘the cream of the revolution,’ once their creamlike qualities became a hindrance, rather than an aid, to their own ambitions.
the reason trotsky had celebrated the revolutionary sailors of kronstadt as ‘the cream of the revolution’ was for their mutiny which weakened the repressive powers of the tsar and provided decisive support to the revolutionary cause immediately prior to october 1917. ‘The battleship potemkin,’ which portrays the revolutionary sailors’ involvement in the 1905 revolution, including the classic massacre scene on the waterfront steps at odessa, highlighting the violence and brutality of the tsar and the importance of the revolutionary sailors to the growth of the movement.
having helped the bolsheviks into power, however, the kronstadt sailors watched with growing unease as the new revolutionary government began to mimic the lately overthrown autocrat, usurping the power of local soviets, suppressing opposition newspapers, forcing the revolutionary factory committees to submit to the control of vertical, party-controlled unions, and forbidding strikes, in the name of the claim that state power and the economic power of the revolutionary workers and peasants were one and the same thing—as long as the former had the right label. The values professed in party newspapers, and broadcast over state-controlled public radios were more meaningful and relevant than the values manifest in actions, if not, where usurpers sought to reinvent themselves as solutions to problems of their own making, their oft-unforseen consequences.
bolshevik repression of a series of strikes in petrograd early in 1921 was enough to break the camel’s back. On 28 february, meetings aboard the petropavlovsk and sevastopol battleships approved the 15-point ‘petropavlovsk resolution,’ demanding new elections to the soviets, freedom of speech and of the press, and free right of assembly (libcom.Org, 2017). It is worth noting at the outset of the petropavlovsk resolution that nowhere does it demand the restoration of the tsar or of capitalism, or anything that could even be interpreted as such—except by later historians applying the false dilemma in service to the politicisation of history.
indeed, resolutions 11 and 15 demand greater economic freedom with the specific stipulation that such freedom does not utilise wage labour (by contrast, such concerns did not appear to be a feature of lenin’s new economic policy). Hardly demonstrating concerns with the freedom of small-scale traders as in the nep, the petropavlovsk resolution expresses discontent with the functioning of the soviets under the bolsheviks, with specific reference to their responsiveness to the needs of civil society and the increasing domination by the central government over all areas of social and economic life. The demand for ‘all power to the soviets’ merely repeated lenin’s much-vaunted slogan of 1917—one that the bolsheviks had apparently now traded for ‘all power to the party’ by executive fiat now that they controlled a monopoly over the means of violence (lenin 1917).
with the adoption of the petropavlovsk resolution, the kronstadt uprising was underway. In response, trotsky cabled the kronstadt rebels via the committee for the defence of petrograd on 4 march 1921 to inform them, ‘if you persist, we will shoot you down like partridges’ (volin 1921). The choice of game hunting as a metaphor is itself a telling statement on the growing expanse between the living conditions of inner party members in moscow and the greater mass of the russian people (it is traditionally associated with the landed aristocracy, who had both the spare time to hunt for leisure and lands on which to do so). Proposing to release the hounds of revolutionary justice, trotsky invoked an unfounded conspiracy theory predicated on the same logic of false dilemma that would later form the basis for his own persecution:
do you see where the rascals have led you? Here is your position. The greedy fangs of former tsarist generals are already showing themselves behind the social-revolutionaries and the mensheviks. All these petrichenkos and toukins are manipulated like puppets by the tsarist general kozlovsky, captain borkser, kostromitinoff, chirmanovsky and other proved white guards. They are duping you! They tell you that you are struggling for democracy, but two days have hardly passed and you see that you are not really fighting for democracy but for tsarist generals. You have permitted a new wrengel to put a rope around your necks (volin 1921).
in sending the red army across the baltic ice to butcher the cream of the revolution a week or so hence, now that their creamlike militancy was a hindrance rather than a help to his own political ambitions, trotsky denounced the kronstadt rebels as ‘white guardist’ supporters of the tsar, a claim he repeated over a decade later is a series of tawdry apologetics the prophet outcast penned from unforeseen exile in mexico (trotsky 1979; deutscher 2003). Such issues appear to escape the history published to commemorate the centenary from the perspective of the prophet (miéville 2017)
making a series of unsupported allegations revolving around a theory of changing class composition within the kronstadt garrison, hue and cry over kronstadt is notable for the lengths to which trotsky goes to demonstrate that the kronstadt garrison were against him because they weren’t for him; in this sense, trotsky’s apologetics appear to be unique in the annals of blame-shifting in that, rather than simply invoking the false dilemma, he tries to prove it empirically (trotsky 1979). For all his sophistry, however, trotsky is unable to explain what is counter-revolutionary about the petropavlovsk resolution, other than not liking it. He doesn’t even bother to mention it. Nor does he explain how the de facto leader of the uprising, stephen petrichenko, fits into his theory of shifting class composition in the kronstadt garrison, given his eight-year history in the navy.
the lack of answers in this respect begs the question as to the shifting class composition of the bolshevik party as it became more and more inured to power, bureaucratic and out of touch with the same working class whose interests it claimed up uphold. By 1920, lenin was insisting that, contra his famous cry of ‘all power to the soviets,’ he had stood for one-man management ‘from the beginning’ (brinton 1970, 65). Furthermore, other details were coming to light, such as the ‘white’ professor who ‘reached omsk in the autumn of 1919 from moscow,’ reporting that
at the head of many of the centres and glavki sit former employers and responsible managers of business. The unprepared visitor to the centres who is personally acquainted with the former commercial and industrial world would be surprised to see the former owners of the big leather factories sitting in glavkozh, big manufacturers in the central textile organisations, etc (brinton 1970, ibid).
in lieu of addressing such issues, trotsky takes approach that excused him from any need to reflect on his own basic operating assumptions. Hue and cry over kronstadt drips with bitter incredulity that people dare to doubt his judgment, or to take note of facts that he prefers to avoid. ‘The present disputes around kronstadt revolve around the same class axis as the kronstadt uprising itself, in which the reactionary sections of the sailors tried to overthrow the proletarian dictatorship,’ trotsky concluded.
conscious of their impotence on the arena of present-day revolutionary politics, the petty-bourgeois blunderers and eclectics try to use the old kronstadt episode for the struggle against the fourth international, that is, against the party of the proletarian revolution. These latter-day ‘kronstadters’ will also be crushed—true, without the use of arms since, fortunately, they do not have a fortress (trotsky 1979).
the prophet did not get the chance, as it turns out, in being a ‘kronstadter’ himself to stalin. Of additional interest is trotsky’s failure to make any mention of his conspiracy theory at the time, not least at the tenth party congress (8-16 march 1921) in moscow, which was running throughout the period of the kronstadt uprising. There would have been no better opportunity to expose a counterrevolutionary plot within the navy; it would have gotten a deal of attention considering the status of the revolutionary sailors as key players in both the 1905 and 1917 revolutions.
as it happens, however, trotsky did not make a single mention of the ‘shifting class composition’ conspiracy theory at the party congress, alleging instead of the cream of the revolution shortly after massacring them, and of related tendencies within the revolutionary movement, that
the workers opposition have come out with dangerous slogans. They have made a fetish of democratic principles. They have placed the workers’ right to elect representatives above the party. As if the party were not entitled to assert its dictatorship even if that dictatorship temporarily clashed with the passing moods of the workers’ democracy (mandel 1995, 83; brinton op. Cit., 371).
it was not trotsky who had been corrupted by the exercise of absolute power; it was the fault of the russian working class for asserting workers’ democracy in the midst of a workers’ revolution, long decades in the making. As well as demonstrating a practical understanding of the difference between a party dictatorship, the workers’ power it was supposed to be, and the workers’ movement in whose name the bolsheviks had seized power, trotsky had also demonstrated the practical application of terror as a function of state power, whether the state identified as communist or otherwise.
fascinatingly from the point of view of the conventional historiography, ernest mandel reaches much the same conclusions. While noting the logistical difficulties created by the civil war, the decline of the urban working class to 35% of its former size and the collapse of much urban industry, mandel nevertheless rallies against the ‘dark years’ of trotsky’s ‘substitutionalism’, in which he abandoned the need for the workers’ party to be ‘an accompaniment to the self-activity of the masses,’ and argues that this ‘hindered rather than promoted’ it during these vital first years. In support of these claims mandel quotes trotsky’s comments to the tenth party congress in 1921 referred to above, also making note of comments to the second comintern congress in 1920, in which he stated
today we have received a proposal from the polish government to conclude peace. Who decides such questions? We have the council of people’s commissars but it too must be subject to certain control. Whose control? The control of the working class as a formless, chaotic mass? No. The central committee of the party is convened in order to discuss the proposal and to decide whether it ought to be answered. And when we have to conduct war, organise new divisions and find the best elements for them – where do we turn? We turn to the party. To the central committee. (Mandel 1995, 83).
as mandel himself concedes, such commentary reflects trotsky’s assumption that, outside hierarchies of political control exists only chaos and formlessness—a conspicuously bizarre assumption for a paragon of class solidarity and the purported withering away of the state.
in being a unique departure from the orthodoxy, mandel’s commentary on this topic also at the same moment demonstrates the rule: if stalin demonised trotskyists as ‘petit-bourgeois counter-revolutionaries,’ and this was the same basis on which trotsky demonised the kronstadt rebels fifteen years prior, this would suggest that the othering discourses against threats to power are the same because the underlying victim-playing and victim-blaming defences against acknowledging one’s true motivations—or indeed, acknowledging the consequences of those actual motivations—were the same (debney 2020).
root historiographical politicisation
as noted above, the marxist mythology of historical stages was alleged to justify a binary between ‘scientific’ socialism and ‘utopian’ socialism. The difference allegedly was that ‘utopian’ socialism indulged in utopian daydreams about a perfect society, or constructing isolated cooperative communities long removed from the class struggle, or worrying about what was actually possible given prevailing conditions. In contrast, ‘scientific’ socialism took into account material conditions and alleged iron laws of history to place revolutionary praxis in historical context (aufheben 2011, 6-46). The binary dualism was rationalised more or less on these grounds and incorporated into a version of dialectical materialism that ultimately asserted the moral superiority of the thesis-antithesis-synthesis analytical model on the logic if, ‘if you question the veracity of binary dualisms and othering of political opponents real or imagined, the utopians win.’
according to this reading of dialectical method, then, placing revolutionary theory and practise in historical context meant coming to terms with a ‘historical-economic succession of events,’ political superstructures historically reflecting their underlying modes of production—monarchist autocracy alongside feudalism, which in reaching crisis point opened a window for bourgeois-democratic revolutions that enabled capitalist industrialisation, economic liberalisation and the development of an urban working class, thereby establishing suitable conditions for revolutionary struggle. Permanent revolution was predicated on the idea of adopting a consistent revolutionary strategy and avoiding political alliances with the bourgeoisie against the aristocracy, lest revolutionaries inadvertently help to strengthen the social basis for reaction by helping to strengthen their class enemy politically, in favour of a worker-peasant alliance (trotsky 2010).
this belief fed the conviction amongst the bolsheviks in the impossibility of a revolution in an underdeveloped country like russia—hence the understood need to export the revolution to the more industrially advanced countries of western europe, to give russia the room to develop an urban proletariat as a social base for proletarian revolution. Since the proletarian revolution was off the cards, the best that could be hoped for, the bolsheviks felt, was a ‘bourgeois-democratic’ revolution that could abolish remaining traces of feudalism, secure political rights and ‘expand the floor of the cage’ as it were for revolutionary struggle (lorimer 1998). All of this hinged on the orthodox leninist belief that ‘iron laws’ of history could be applied to revolutionary activism, while evidence to demonstrate why conditions not of men’s choosing were a greater determinant of historical outcomes than their free will, remained elusive (rocker 1937). The impossibility of communism without respecting alleged iron laws of capitalist development justified not fighting for the socialisation of the means of productions and the abolition of classes and the commodity form at all—much less to say implementing state capitalism in its stead (chattopadhyay 1996; brinton 1970; aufheben 2015).
that such continues to be the case in conventional histories of the revolution casts significant doubt on the claim that the laws of history demanded a series of transition stages culminating in a state capitalist revolution as a prelude to the development of an urban industrial proletariat. If for no other reason than it recognised the existence of an individual subjectivity rooted in self-awareness that could act in history as well as being acted upon, even if they did not decide the circumstances (cf. Marx: “men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please . . . The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living”) (marx 1852). While industrialisation in england and france had given both countries large proletarian bases for socialist revolution, it had also subjected them to the autocratic hierarchies inherent to capitalist relations of production. If liberal capitalist democracy involved formal political rights, such ended at the threshold of work, which remained as internally autocratic as the political sphere had ever been under feudalism. Engels noted as much waxing lyrical about this fact in the process of explaining that overcoming the autocracy of capitalist social relations required embrace them:
along with the constantly diminishing number of the magnates of capital, grows the mass of misery . . . Grows the revolt of the working class, a class always increasing in number, and disciplined, united, and organized by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist production itself . . . The expropriators are expropriated (engels 1877).
engels’ comments are belied by scholarly research into the pernicious and toxic influence of authoritarian psychology and its corrupting effects on individual subjectivity, which in this case point to the fact that, subject to the autocratic hierarchies inherent to capitalist relations of production workers of the west were—and remain subject to—capture-bonding, or stockholm syndrome. This precipitated and appeared to go some way to accounting for the willingness of the mass individual to cooperate in their own exploitation (reich 1970; fromm 1942; fromm 2012).
to the extent that the capitalist economy became a class-based prison, trapping workers within wage- and debt-bondage, this also applies to questions of political economy. In both cases the result was repressed, dogmatic and inflexible personalities, paralysed by terror in the face of freedom—tantamount from their co-dependent perspective to abandonment, and no less painful a prospect. The fact that ‘destructiveness is the outcome of unlived life’ was a potential source of all sorts of irrational energy for someone who knew how to channel it, whether they were an engels looking to harness the ‘mechanism of the process of capitalist production itself’ for purportedly revolutionary purposes, or a business owner looking to inspire greater productivity out of his or her rentals by applying benevolent paternalism of the kind associated with henry ford (meyer 1980: 67-82). To the extent that capitalism involved the rise of a hereditary class of hirelings conditioned to capture-bonding by the prevailing mode of production, introducing capitalism as a strategy for overcoming it made about as much sense as inducing cancer as a cure for cancer, and was about as irresponsible (lazzarato 2015).
the failure within the orthodox historiography of the revolution to account for the authoritarian dynamics of capitalist relations of production also appears to have failed to account for the monopolistic and otherwise totalitarian tendencies within capitalism, tendencies that are playing themselves out before us as late capitalism mutates into global neoliberal casino corporatism as we speak. On the one hand, a historically unprecedented transnational corporate empire renders national governments mere puppets and masks, eviscerating whatever token rights remain in pursuit of total corporate supremacy. On the other hand, the political representatives of the international corporatocracy claim to represent the popular will, scare monger about existential threats in the face of unfolding economic, social and environmental crises in the name of leveraging them for the sake of defending class privilege from the existential threat of political demands for change—and otherwise doing everything in their power to forestall any potential for political institutions to respond to the needs of the mass of humanity (lofgren 2016; wolin 2008; hardt & negri 2001; carey 1995). According to the conventional historical view, this constitutes preferential conditions for the development of revolutionary class struggle.
this also raises the question as to why these conditions were not present at the decline of feudalism, which was likewise a class-based society though one based around manorial production and the master-slave relation between the manor lord and the feudal serf (hilton 1990). As well as failing to account for the monopolistic tendencies within capitalism, vulgarised historical materialism, which within leninism became the ideological pretext for conflating the class power of russian workers and peasants with the party dictatorship of the bolsheviks, also sits increasingly at odds with contemporary scholarship on the historical origins of capitalism.
in this respect, federici (2005) traces the breakdown of feudal social relations and the rise both of peasant rebellions and agrarian forms of self-management in the aftermath of the black plague, as the mass dying that targeted believers and sinners alike revealed the lie of a higher plan to the cosmos and gave fuel to heterodoxy, apostasy and rebellion. Federici raises the question of whether the forms of collectivism that were springing up around the commons, especially in places like italy, didn’t demonstrate the viability of alternate forms of economic organisation based on sharing and cooperation, established within an agrarian rather than industrial context (federici 2005). As federici demonstrates, the catholic hierarchy certainly seemed to think so, which appears to account for the fact that an alliance of it and other privileged interests launched a campaign of theocratic terror in the form of the european witch hunts, which ran for 300 years.
the mythology of the existentialist threat of the witch established an ideological pretext for class warfare, enabling the european ruling classes to smash alternative movements at odds to the process of ‘primitive accumulation’ building momentum behind the development of the capitalist economy, and to force the european peasantry into roles consistent with capitalist modalities – not least of which being the forcing of peasant women into the home under patriarchal rule to perform the role of brood mares for capital. ‘It is no exaggeration to say that women were treated with the same hostility and sense of estrangement accorded ‘indian savages’ in the literature that developed on the subject after the conquest,’ federici writes.
the parallel is not casual. In both cases literary and cultural denigration was at the service of a project of expropriation . . . The demonization of the american indigenous people served to justify their enslavement and the plunder of their resources . . . Always, the price of resistance was extermination (federici 2005).
if the three centuries of theocratic terror associated with the european witch hunts can be understood as the midwife of capitalism as it emerged out of the crisis of feudalism, accompanied as it was by colonial adventures that created a related set of problems all of their own, this would seem to indicate that the path from feudalism to capitalism was anything but historically inevitable (said 1978). Rather, it necessitated centuries of institutional terror to shut down the robust peasant rebellions taking place at the time and the alternative economic experiments to which they were giving rise (cohn 2011; hilton 2003; mustin 2015; beer 2010). In light of what we know now about the actual means by which the continuance of class privilege and a master class in the face of a rebellious european peasantry was ensured, the waxing lyrical of marx and engels in the communist manifesto about the glorious doings of incipient capitalism appear somewhat disastrous.
the means of production and of exchange, on whose foundation the bourgeoisie built itself up, were generated in feudal society. At a certain stage in the development of these means of production and of exchange … the feudal relations of property became no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces; they became so many fetters. They had to be burst asunder; they were burst asunder (marx & engels 2002).
they were burst asunder with the aid of three centuries of state terror, as were the alternative paths of cooperative development springing up around parts of europe where feudal bonds had ceased to have influence, mirroring the russian obschina or mir which predated serfdom. Many of the other famous comments within the communist manifesto regarding ‘all that is solid melts into air’ and similar commentary suffer from similar shortcomings, not least given the fact that the bourgeoisie never lifted a finger to do anything marx and engels describes; it was all done either by slave labour, or by the hirelings who, in allowing the emerging capitalist class to free up capital costs associated with owning and maintaining the labour supply, were no longer owned, but rented.
as marx himself later observed in the first volume of capital, the history of the extirpation of the working class from the bonds of feudalism ‘is written in the annals of mankind with letters of blood and fire,’ a far more prescient observation (marx 1990, 875). Nevertheless, the communist manifesto alleged that the glorious bourgeoisie were not only doing all the work, but they were civilising the barbarians as well:
the bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation. The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians’ intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate (marx & engels 2002).
approvingly invoking orientalist binaries against subject colonial populations does not seem particularly indicative of those with superior insight into the dialectics of historical development, but rather the product of people who were products of their age. Perhaps it was this blindness to their own authoritarian overreach that made the founders of communism incapable of perceiving the cognitive dissonance associated with the implication that the inherently superior dynamics of private accumulation were behind the subjugation of colonial possessions, not to mention the subjugation of women or the expropriation of the commons, other parts of the same process of primitive capital accumulation (federici 2005; perelman 2000; moore 2015).
at the same time, the reductionism and determinism inherent to the theory of iron laws of historical development created a need for political leadership by a cadre of ‘advanced workers,’ which in practise meant a cadre of professional party activists trying to introduce socialism to russian society through social engineering of industrial capitalism to produce proletarians ready for class struggle. While expressing surprise that the reversal of cause and effect resulted in a party dictatorship exercising power in the name of the working class and a ruling class freed of ‘the passing moods of the workers democracy’ (to borrow trotsky’s terminology), defenders of this vulgarised materialism sought to explain away the logical cul-de-sacs and double standards as utopianism and revisionism on the part of anyone who acknowledged them.
the a priori assumption here was that any notion that revolutionaries might maintain a basic harmony between means and outcomes, such that lived values as manifest in actions be consistent with professed values in speech was simply inconsistent with reality. The conventional history of the russian revolution appears in part an attempt to maintain a performative, make-believe monopoly over causality because leninists don’t feel like being wrong about their claims regarding alleged iron laws of historical development, and this being the root justification for the vanguard party model—for a party of trained cadres who can rule the masses in the name of emancipating them from their own ignorance of history, and then also inevitably from themselves. The history that celebrates this a priori logic inevitably also perpetuates it–along with the increasingly unconvincing claim that this is the only form of prefigurative politics that can see beyond class and other social hierarchies.
the question of the state
in lieu of recognising the problems associated with trying to fix history with a label, the practical application of vanguardism produced party dictatorship over the working class, while acting in its name, which degenerated into a dictatorship of one person over the working class, while acting in its name. Stalin was able to substitute his own power for that of the party, after all, because the habit of substituting something else for the self-activity of the working class was already in place, making up the rules as they went along in the name of the fulfilling the stages of history preceding communism as had been standard practise since the bolsheviks reinstituted market social relations through the new economic policy (nep) in the name of saving the revolution. As ever, this torturous logic was enabled by a free conflation of a state self-labelled ‘working class’ and the cooperative self-activity of the mass of russian workers.
on the basis of this logic, the reintroduction of state capitalism through the nep, implementing market mechanisms in the name of the long-term viability of socialism, was held to be a revolutionary course of action because it maintained the power of the incumbent political class—nothing more. Lenin freely admitted the bolsheviks detested the idea of agrarian socialisation as an affront to the ideological justifications for their hold on power, but that he was obliged to take it up as their own, seeking at the same moment however to educate the peasants in the error of their ways.
…when enforcing the land socialisation law — the “spirit” of which is equal land tenure — the bolsheviks most explicitly and definitely declared: this is not our idea, we do not agree with this slogan, but we think it our duty to enforce it because this is the demand of the overwhelming majority of the peasants. And the idea and demands of the majority of the working people are things that the working people must discard of their own accord: such demands cannot be either ‘abolished’ or “skipped over.” We bolsheviks shall help the peasants to discard petty-bourgeois slogans, to pass from them as quickly and as easily as possible to socialist slogans (lenin 1918).
as soon as ‘socialist’ is understood to mean ‘the political power of the bolsheviks’ and not ‘the class power of the russian workers and peasants, exercised directly and without intermediaries,’ the potential for abuse is not hard to miss. It becomes readily apparent in the willingness to confuse popular demands for land redistribution in aid of the agrarian cooperative economy of the obschina or mir with ‘petit-bourgeois slogans’ and reactionaries attempting to defend the old order.
if the existence of russian peasant cooperatives potentially signalling an agrarian path out of economic crisis cast doubt at the very least on reductionist or deterministic theories of historical stages, then it made sense for lenin to adopt the logic of the false dilemma: ‘if you question my judgement, the counter-revolutionary trotskyists win.’ To do otherwise was to acknowledge no place for politicians and the self-proclaimed vanguard of the proletariat in the revolution—or even that sophistries recasting a new ruling class as a revolutionary workers dictatorship had been the basis for a new ruling class using the revolutionary aspirations of russian workers and peasants as a stepping stone into power. Since there was there was no bad way of serving the cause, no objective measure of success or failure outside of self-serving ideology which defined anything as a good as long as it was invoked with the right pretext, lenin could claim in 1917 that
socialism is merely the next step forward from state capitalist monopoly . . . Socialism is merely state capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly (lenin 1917).
lenin neglected to elaborate on what the interests of the whole people were and how state capitalist monopoly served them. He neglected to elaborate on how this kind of phrasing might not be abused in such a way as to identify the personal vested interests of the tyrant or demagogue with the interests of the people, thereby making any assertion of the popular interests, needs or goals of the popular mass a counter-revolutionary prospect. It appears to have been at this stage of the bolshevik revolution—the bolshevik usurpation of the class power of russian workers and peasants in their name—that the problematic nature of prioritising values as expressed in speech or values as demonstrated in actions and policies, and their consequences, reaches a crisis point for the conventional historiography. A capitalist workers state is, after all, one in which the ‘workers’ commodity form’ prevails; the need to remain militantly ignorant of this fact would appear to go some way towards explaining its tawdriness. Labels and who benefitted remain more important than what happened and what was done.
we have already examined how this propaganda line was adopted under stalin to demonise dissent as an attack on the revolution; much of the additional evidence discussed since has been provided in the name of demonstrating this attitude as a characteristic feature of the bolsheviks more generally. Similarly, in 1921,
state capitalism would be a step forward as compared with the present state of affairs in our soviet republic. If in approximately six months’ time state capitalism became established in our republic, this would be a great success and a sure guarantee that within a year socialism will have gained a permanently firm hold and will have become invincible in this country (lenin 1921, 329-365).
by this logic, state capitalist monopoly was not exploitative or oppressive because the people controlling the state capitalist monopoly called themselves socialists; the extraction of surplus value was no longer indefensible as a matter of principle, but a matter of the greater good, as long as those extracting that surplus value claimed to be anti-capitalists. Such problems beg the question as to why, if the bolsheviks were in control of the state capitalist monopoly, why not just hand over power to the factory committees that had been set up in 1917. If the factory committees had already seized the means of production, it was hardly necessary to relinquish control unless the bolshevik revolution had come at the expense of the workers’ revolution. The vertical integration into the state effected under bolshevik state capitalism was in this sense reminiscent of vertical integration of unions under italian fascism (mussolini had, after all, described fascism as the ‘corporate state’). But nevertheless,
the state capitalism, which is one of the principal aspects of the new economic policy, is, under soviet power, a form of capitalism that is deliberately permitted and restricted by the working class. Our state capitalism differs essentially from the state capitalism in countries that have bourgeois governments in that the state with us is represented not by the bourgeoisie, but by the proletariat, who has succeeded in winning the full confidence of the peasantry (lenin 1922).
the numerous armed revolts that had to be put down and the forced requisitioning of grain that came later would appear to suggest that the bolsheviks had somewhat less than the full confidence of the peasantry. In the state and revolution, possibly his most libertarian work, lenin had pointed out truthfully enough that ‘freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient greek republics: freedom for slave owners’ (lenin 1917) at the same time, however, ‘freedom is a bourgeois prejudice,’ as lenin declared in response to appeals from anarchists emma goldman and alexander berkman to respect the freedom of the russian working class.
we repudiate all morality which proceeds from supernatural ideas or ideas which are outside the class conception. In our opinion, morality is entirely subordinate to the interests of the class war. Everything is moral which is necessary for the annihilation of the old exploiting order and for the uniting the proletariat. Our morality consists solely in close discipline and conscious warfare against the exploiters (lenin 1920).
these comments are in keeping with the conflation of the first international principle of ‘the workers’ themselves’ with autocratic state power acting in the name of the workers, though not populated by them. If everything necessary for the annihilation of the old order was moral, then anything was moral as long as the target could be associated with it—the kronstadt sailors, the trotskyist left opposition, and finally anyone who failed to fall in line with the stalinist cult of personality with the requisite level of awe. If the worker’s state failed to wither away because it never was one, the fact is lost on the ‘substitutionalist’ historiography that fails to recognise a distinction between the bolsheviks and the working class, much less to say the state and society.
the matter of wartime expediencies
just as leninist ideology used the concepts of the institutional power structure of the soviet state and the mass of the russian people interchangeably, freely conflating the vested interests of those in charge of the state and common interest, so too did they use the defence of soviet russia from its external enemies and the grip on power of the bolshevik party interchangeably in the same way. As we have seen, scare-mongering about existential threats, politicised for the sake of justifying one or another expediency born of crisis that in calmer and more dispassionate times are considered beyond the pale, is the classic propaganda device for imposing authoritarian controls in the name of situational expediencies that sustain the power of ruling classes at the expense of popular rights and freedoms (debney 2020). It turns up in no end of historical contexts and serves no other ultimate purpose.
in his exploration of the scare-mongering dynamics associated with witch panic, historian norman cohn formulates what he describes as an ‘ancient fantasy’—what we might describe these days as a propaganda trope for elite crisis management. The essence of this ‘ancient fantasy’ was, cohn argued, that ‘there existed, somewhere in the midst of the great society, another society, small and clandestine, which not only threatened the existence of the great society but was also addicted to practices which were felt to be wholly abominable, in the literal sense of anti-human.’
the fantasy changed, became more complex, down through the centuries. It played an important part in some major persecutions; and the way in which it did also varied. Sometimes it was used merely to legitimate persecutions that would have occurred anyway; sometimes it served to widen persecutions that would otherwise have remained far more limited. In the case of the great [european] witch hunt, it generated a massive persecution, which would have been inconceivable without it. In pursuing its history one is led far beyond the confines of the history of ideas and deep into the sociology and social psychology of persecution (cohn 1993, ix).
during the suppression of the kronstadt uprising, the bolsheviks used the same trope cohn identifies as the ‘ancient fantasy’ to play the victims of tsarist reaction, even though there was nary a reactionary in sight (outside of the ruling class of bureaucrats in the process of successfully colonising the hammer and sickle, which they then used to colonise the rest of the soviet empire—effecting workers’ primitive accumulation). Plans by white guardists to provoke the kronstadt sailors into revolt are generally referred to as the ‘smoking gun’ of proof of a conspiracy, though trotskyist conspiracists can neither point to proof of any influence over the sailors, or explain why a conspiracy would be necessary for the revolutionary sailors to need outside influence to reach the point of insurgency where the bolsheviks were concerned.
the plain fact is that far more bourgeois elements could be found amongst the rapidly expanding bureaucracy in moscow, a fact that suggests the bolsheviks had other motivations for claiming that a party dictatorship was necessary to meet the military threat. Nestor makhno’s anarchist partisans held off ukrainian nationalists, austro-german imperialists, hetmanates, the whites, and the red army for good measure. Non-statist modes of military organisation similar to makhno had similar triumphs against regular forces, the zapata-lead insurgents during the mexican revolution only a few years beforehand being not the least of which (womack 2011).
stalin’s use of the false dilemma cast himself out to be a victim of a vast international trotskyist conspiracy, rationalising his persecution of trotskyists with what we can today identify as conspiracism (cichocka et al, 2015). Trotsky, as we have seen, did the same, casting himself as a victim of a vast international conspiracy come to malevolent, destructive fruition in the kronstadt rebellion. We might draw a similar parallel between the false dilemma as applied in the abovementioned examples of cohn’s ‘ancient fantasy,’ in the existential threat of witches, the brides of satan, and the attempts by leninists to justify the establishment of a political monopoly on the grounds of situational expediency—in this case, the alleged existential threat of tsarist reaction. If makhno and zapata demonstrate the efficacy of non-state military organisation, but such options are off the table, cries of existential threats then only exist as an ideological pretext for taking state power. Unless of course, defenders of the leninist orthodoxy recuse themselves from leadership of the revolution.
conclusion
while conventional histories of the russian revolution follow orthodox leninist ideology in blaming stalin’s personality, the expediencies of the white invasion and the failure of the working classes in western europe to follow up with revolutions of their own for the failure of the revolution, ascribing decisive faults on factors external to bolshevik ideology as such is convenient and easy. On the same logic, we might blame the pathology of wall street on the personalities of wall street bankers, not on the pathologies interwoven into finance capital as an institution, and capitalism as an autocratic (some might say totalitarian) social relation.
in looking at institutional power dynamics, by contrast, the evidence suggests that lenin, trotsky and stalin were not as different as conventional histories of the russian revolution tend to reflect. The penchant of all three for the logic of the false dilemma, for the deep defensiveness that made stalin, trotsky and lenin prone to demonising and labelling any source of criticism and associating it with either passive (‘petit-bourgeois, utopian dilettantism’) or active (thinking differently) support for the capitalist reaction, draws an unbroken line from the bolshevik revolution of 25 october 1917 to the stalinist purges and beyond.
thus, in the absolute logic of, ‘if you cast doubt on the bolshevik party the enemies of socialism win,’ born of the false dilemma, there was only room to tell the revolutionary leaders what they wanted to hear, or to be classed in the same category as tsarist militarists and capitalist oligarchs. The logic of ‘‘if you cast doubt on the bolshevik party the enemies of socialism win’ was as evident in trotsky’s denunciation of the kronstadt rebels as ‘white guardists’ as it was in stalin’s denunciation of his opponents as ‘petit-bourgeois counter-revolutionary trotskyist terrorists.’ It accounts for lenin’s tendency to demonise his enemies as ‘infantile leftism’ and conflate thinking differently with being a weekend dabbler in radical politics—though demonizing and labelling anyone with the audacity to cast doubt on the majesty of your judgment was perfectly rational.
patent unwillingness to address these issues, if nothing else, is reflected in the conspicuous lack of social histories of worker self-activity to accompany the new biographies of lenin published to mark the centenary of the russian revolution. That they do remain unexplored and unexplained within the political tradition that wrought them, even after a century, suggests that historians who subscribe to that political tradition find it easier to envision the end of the world than the end of leninism, and politicise the histories they write accordingly. This process of politicising the history of the russian revolution to avoid the conclusions about the nature of leninst vanguardism as such indicates that the reassertion of self-serving ideological orthodoxies continues to take precedent over critical appraisal of the revolution’s legacy, encumbering efforts at socialist reconstruction with the dead weight of century-old ideological dogma, and empowering the class enemy by reinforcing the mentality that the state is not per se an instrument of class domination, but more or less oppressive depending on the beliefs of those who wield state power.
the ultimate tragedy and irony of this militant ignorance and obstinate refusal to change and evolve is that the mentality that state terrorism is good because it benefits the right people is a characteristic feature of everything this tradition claims to oppose—much less to say the militant ignorance and obstinate refusal to change and evolve. For socialism as a whole to change and evolve, the evidence from the history of socialism tells us all we need to know in terms of the plain fact that we must, much less to say something of the consequences that lay ahead if we refuse. Socialist reconstruction can only take place if we act like history matters, even—or especially—when we don’t like the lesson.
ben debney is a independent researcher, currently investigating the role of othering and blame-shifting in the origins and consequences of fossil ideology, the group of ideological belief systems that have sought to rationalise and legitimate the historical conditions behind the climate emergency.
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