10 facts about what happened in China during the reign of "great helmsman" Mao

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Mao Zedong - some of the dictators of the XX century and almost the bloodiest. He was a kind of add-on to the classic trinity of Marx, Engels, Lenin. And if he was distinguished from the first two theoreticians of communism by persistence, determination and ruthlessness, however, all these qualities made Mao akin to the "leader of the world proletariat." The Chinese were convinced that only Mao knew the right path and greeted him with the pompous ceremonies of the Chinese emperors, altered in a new way, and the ritual chant "Ten thousand years of life for Chairman Mao!" He played his political game with oriental cunning and knew for sure that he owned the whole of China, and he could do whatever he wanted with the country and its inhabitants.

1. Worship of the mango

In 1968, the Pakistani foreign minister presented Mao with a gift - a box of mangoes. For the minister, this was probably nothing more than a polite gesture. But in China, it caused a wave of complete madness. Mao distributed mangoes to several people during his propaganda campaign, and they reacted as if Mao took an angel from heaven and threw it at their feet.

The People's Daily published an article stating that "tears swelled in their eyes" with joy and that the workers began to "shout out words of gratitude with enthusiasm and sing." In a textile factory, mangoes were made into a shrine, and workers walked past it every day, bowing and saying thanks. When the mango rotted away, workers made a replica of it by placing it on an altar so that no worker could start their day without thanking Mao for the mango.

2. Sweet potatoes

Since most Chinese people had never seen a mango before, this juicy tropical fruit evoked different associations for everyone, but everyone spoke respectfully about it. More precisely, almost everyone except one person. When one dentist was shown the mango, the fruit did not impress him, and the man likened the mango to sweet potatoes. This made people angry. The dentist was arrested on charges of "counter-revolutionary speech." He was sent to prison, and soon after that he was executed for a crime … All he said was that mango looks like sweet potatoes.

3. Collecting stamps

Mao tried to put an end to every hint of the bourgeoisie in his country. Sometimes this meant the closure of certain businesses and the arrest of wealthy landowners. In other cases - the destruction of children's stamp collections. It is known that Mao hated stamps. He considered philately a bourgeois pastime and, when the Cultural Revolution began, forbade the inhabitants of the Celestial Empire to keep stamps in any form.

The decision remained in effect until Mao died. Ironically, the effect of Mao's ban is that Cultural Revolution stamps are now among the most valuable and sought after in the world.

4. Beatings of teachers

The Chinese Communist Party called for "cleaning out bad habits from the old society and destroying the old ideas of their ancestors." While there is no evidence that it was ever called directly, many took it as a call to "beat your teacher to death."In 1966, students from at least 91 schools dragged their teachers out onto the streets and beat them until they gave up their "wrong beliefs."

In some cases, students splashed ink on teachers' clothes and hung nameplates with their names crossed out with a red X. The students then beat the teachers with clubs and nails and doused them with boiling water, often until they died. By the end of 1966, students had killed 18 teachers, and many teachers committed suicide. Meanwhile, Mao ordered not to interfere with what the students are doing, and a similar situation continued for another 2 years.

5. Great Wall

During the 1970s, the Chinese government realized that less money could be spent on building materials for housing. In the end, why do this if you have the longest wall in the world at your fingertips, which also takes up space. As a result, people were called to dismantle the Great Wall, and they began to take it apart into bricks. Villagers near the Great Wall destroyed a number of sections of it and then used building materials in their homes.

Even the government destroyed a large section of the historic site and used this material to build a dam. The Great Wall eventually became a heritage site, but houses have survived to this day with "pieces of ancient history" embedded in their walls.

6. Tigers

In 1959, Mao suddenly took a dislike to tigers. After the farmers in China were attacked several times by these animals, Mao declared that tigers - along with wolves and leopards - were "enemies of the people" and must be destroyed. The Communist Party ran a series of "anti-pest" campaigns in which the predators were searched for and killed. In just a few years, the Chinese have killed nearly 75 percent of the South Asian tiger population and brought these animals to the brink of extinction.

7. Traffic light

The Red Guards were constantly looking for anything that could be counter-revolutionary. In September 1966, some of them noticed something "insidious" - for some reason people stopped their cars when they saw a red light at a traffic light. Since red was the color of the Communist Party, the leadership of these groups decided that stopping at a red light and continuing to move to green "impeded the progress of the revolution," and therefore demanded an end to this outrageous habit.

Fortunately, Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai did not approve of this decision of the Red Guards. Premier Zhou assured activists that the stop at a red light symbolizes how the party "ensures the safety of all revolutionary activities."

8. Tie

According to writer Liang Heng, people could have run into problems in Mao's time just because they dressed stylishly. Liang tells a story in which his father was almost sent to prison because a tie was found on him. The Red Guards broke into Liang's father's house and searched, during which they found a tie among his belongings. On this basis, the man was declared a "capitalist".

When Liang's father was found with a suit and cufflinks, he was called a “smelly intellectual,” and his clothes and books were then burned. Liang's father escaped jail by agreeing to declare that the burning of his property was "revolutionary" and a good thing. The Red Guards left his home, taking the radio and the monthly salary as payment for "their work."

9. Cannibalism

In Mao's China, cannibalism was a serious problem. According to some reports, a number of students who killed their teachers in 1966 ate their corpses to celebrate the triumphant victory over the counter-revolutionaries. The government cafeteria also allegedly showed the bodies of traitors in sacks and served their flesh for dinner. The worst cases were in Guangxi Province.

In the late 1960s, at least 137 people were killed and eaten in this province alone, with thousands of people eating human flesh. While there is little doubt that hunger was part of the cause of this horror, the people who did it did not see themselves as desperate. Acts of cannibalism were touted as a way to show how completely people were dedicated to a common cause and were willing to eat the enemies of China.

10. Women for sale

In 1973, in Mao's later years, he tried to negotiate with Henry Kissinger a bilateral trade agreement with the United States. At first, Kissinger reportedly tried to talk about serious topics, but Mao thought in a completely different way. Mao told Kissinger that China is "a very poor country" and has little to offer for sale, except, for example, women.

He proposed sending 10 million women to the United States, stating that China is still oversupplied and that they are only creating problems. When Mao made such a proposal, one of the close party members warned him that if "such words come out, it will cause public anger." However, the dying Mao did not look too worried. “I'm not afraid of anything,” the chairman said between coughing fits. "God is already calling me."

Needless to say, the great communist Mao always walked forward, not looking back and, apparently, not looking at his feet … He stepped over anyone and did not pay attention to the corpses on which he walked. You can hardly count all of them … Among these unlucky people who got in the way of the Great Helmsman were his families - wives and children. But that's a completely different story.