The Chinese Communists are not prevented, in the popular view, from inheriting the imperial mantle merely because they lack blue blood. That most rational of sages, Confucius, established 2,500 years ago that nobility depends not on birth or wealth but on the capacity for greatness that all men have within them. And many new dynasties were, in fact, founded by commoners. The first Ming emperor to whom Dr. Sun Yat-sen made obeisance was a starving beggar at the close of the Mongol era- and “one of the ugliest men ever to appear on earth,” according to a contemporary account of the time.
—In 1932, Wong made the second film that, together with Piccadilly, would form the bulk of her legacy. Shanghai Express was directed by Josef von Sternberg and starred Marlene Dietrich as notorious prostitute Shanghai Lily with Anna May Wong in a smaller yet pivotal role as Hui Fei – a slightly less notorious prostitute – on their dangerous journey across China during the Civil War that began in 1927. The film is typically lavish von Sternberg, shot with such incredible chiaroscuro lighting that it won a well-deserved Oscar for its cinematography. And as with any von Sternberg picture it is a true Marlene-fest; while Wong mixes knowing glances with strangely demure (considering her profession) pyjama suits and cheongsam-collared nightwear, Dietrich is as extravagant as you could hope for from any Travis Banton-designed, Depression-era fantasy: a luminescent mirage in satin and cockerel feathers. —Read More:http://clothesonfilm.com/ready-for-my-close-up-anna-may-wong/22799/
The common touch was a particularly important ingredient in Mao Zedong’s charisma. His unselfconscious peasant traits ensured his popularity in a Politburo that had more than its share of intellectuals who were temperamentally aloof from the crowd. Equally important, Mao Zedong’s Communism represented a swing of the pendulum- away from the Confucianism that had become absurdly formalized, and back to a philosophy that stressed the forces of nature and the need for rulers to retain human contact with their subjects, for teachers to act in society as well as give exhortatory lectures.
—The events of 1967 and 1968 clearly demonstrated that the primary concern of most rebel organizations was merely to maximize their own share of power. There were, however, a handful of clairvoyants who were trying not only to reshuffle the bureaucracy but also to create a new society, a society modeled after the Paris Commune of 1871. What they represented then was called “new trends of thought” (xinshichao). By tracing the rise and evolution of xinshichao over the ten years between 1966 and 1976, this essay attempts to identify xinshichao theorists’ main contributions and assess their impact on the course of the CR.
The Cultural Revolution (CR) was a “revolution from above,” and the rebels did not rise of their own volition. Although they might have long been discontented with the establishment, few had ever seriously thought about what was wrong with the present socio-political system, let alone how to amend it. When reassessing the role in the CR of the rebels as a whole, a former rebel theorist points out that the rebels were basically a destructive force, which had enormous capacity to disturb and paralyze the existing system but had little sense about how to reform it….Read More:http://nutopia2sergiofalcone.blogspot.ca/2011/06/new-trends-of-thought-in-cultural.html
The view of the third century B.C. philosopher Chuang-tzu, that all rulers are robbers and tricksters, and the robbers the real aristocrats, came very much alive in 1967 when Mao Zedong encouraged the young Red Guards to “bomb the Communist Party headquarters” because it had become a haven for faint-hearted reactionaries. As a high party official in the 1960′s, “The first emperor is always the most glorious, but he is also the most fierce.”
—China could see a repeat of the Cultural Revolution’s deadly chaos without “urgent” political reform, Wen Jiabao warned Wednesday in a dramatic parting shot at his final news conference as premier.
Wen is widely considered the most progressive of China’s current leaders, but analysts said the comments, at the closing of the annual parliamentary session, were his strongest call yet for political reform in the one-party state.
“We must press ahead with both economic structural reform and political structural reform, in particular reform in the leadership system of our party and country,” he told reporters, adding it was an “urgent task.”
“New problems that have cropped up in China’s society will not be fundamentally resolved, and such historical tragedy as the Cultural Revolution may happen again.”—Read More:http://www.chinapost.com.tw/china/national-news/2012/03/15/334661/Wen-calls.htm
Mao Zedong and his successors have all made what they will of the political importance of the imperial pattern, and despite the curve ball of ideology this tradition can never be totally avoided. Even Mao Zedong once observed to his American admirer Edgar Snow, that it is difficult for the then eight hundred million citizens of China “to overcome the habits of three thousand years of emperor-worshiping tradition. It is well-nigh impossible for the political leaders of the People’s Republic of China to disregard these patterns and practices of imperial rule.
—For an interesting essay on Cultural Revolution music, see
Songs of the Red Guards: Keywords Set to Music
by Vivian Wagner (University of Heidelberg)
See also
“Serve the People”: Daily Life in China During the Cultural Revolution —Read More:http://www.wellesley.edu/Polisci/wj/China/CRSongs/crsongs.htm
For his part, Mao showed himself by no means shy in reaching for an imperial precedent or model where it suited his purpose. To the extent where his goal was to restore the health unity, integrity and world power of China, the ghosts of former emperors might well have applauded Mao as a modern emperor and his successors who adjusted the model of statehood, made the structural reforms, and guarded those deep rooted connections to the “long march” of history.
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