My Grandmother, the Maoist

One family's revolution – by Lusha Chen

A version of this piece originally appeared on the Wang Post

December 26th was the 120th birthday of Mao Zedong. After three decades of market-based reform and the gradual “opening up” helped by internet and technology, his popularity and relevance are fading in China. But I want to talk about one Maoist’s memory of the leader – my grandmother, who passed away four years ago.

In the 1950s, Grandma used to be in the highest echelons of the Chinese working class, but she grew up as the last generation of poor Chinese peasants’ daughters, who had bound feet and were married as children. Her marriage to my grandpa lasted for 76 years, and they never got a marriage license. All by herself, she learned to be an expert in weeding, and then she worked in the logistics staff of China’s main national telecommunications company.

An industrial accident in 1958 blinded one of her eyes. It changed her life but not her resolve – she worked just as hard after the incident. She used to be a die-hard Maoist, because she believed it was Mao, nationalism and the Communist Party that saved her from the very bottom of society and granted her a new life. Without them, she felt, a half-illiterate workingwoman like her could never have become a model worker and won countless awards.

Finally, in 1968, she was chosen as one of the few representatives for millions of workers to meet Chairman Mao in Tiananmen Square.

After the meeting she was given two souvenirs – a red flag and a mug on which was printed “You are the greatest out of the ordinary, long waves your winning flag." She told me that Mao was standing at the tower and waving to the workers’ representatives, who had come from all around the country to meet him. She said he had seemed really happy that day, and that he had looked so tall.

It was the first time for her to see so many people gathered together. Everyone was so excited that they all yelled out, “Long live President Mao!” I asked whether she cried, but she didn’t answer. She simply folded the flag, and placed it under her pile of clothes.

But grandma was also a mother and a wife, not just a Maoist or a Communist.

In the early 1950s, Mao initiated the Three Anti and Five Anti campaigns to get rid of corruption and enemies of the state, and to consolidate his power base. It targeted Communist Party members, former Chinese National People’s Party (Kuomintang) members, and bureaucratic officials who were not Party members.

My grandpa was the director of teachers in a high school in Hengyang, Hunan Province. In 1953, when he was travelling around the country and enrolling new students, he was framed for corruption. Soon, he and the principal were carted off to jail. Under extreme pressure, and possibly under torture by the local administration, the principal and his wife committed suicide – she by hanging herself, him by lying down along railway tracks – in order to protest their innocence.

Grandpa confessed under the pressure, and said the money was hidden at his brother’s house. His brother committed suicide to prove his innocence. Later, grandpa said that the money was at his home. Grandma was sent to jail too, when nothing was found in their house. At that time, my grandma had just given birth to a daughter – my aunt. She brought her child with her to prison, as she was only a few months old.

She insisted on her husband’s innocence and stayed behind bars, while my grandpa remained in another jail for almost half a year until the court cleared him. The two “anti” campaigns together allegedly cost several hundred thousands of people their lives – a majority by suicide – and physically and emotionally damaged millions more, according to Philip Short’s Mao: A Life.

Neither my grandpa nor my grandma, two Communists and formerly firm Maoists, ever talked about this era openly to me. But every time I’m cynical about China’s politics, my grandma would always tell me, “We have to forgive the country for making mistakes.”

When Xi Jinping commented on Mao’s 120th birthday that revolutionary leaders weren’t gods but human beings, and that we should point out our predecessors’ errors, I remembered my grandma’s words. She and my grandpa have more than enough reasons to blame the government and the Party for failing them, but they always believed that China could learn from its errors, correct them, and move forward.

Lusha, held by her grandmother, with her brother and grandfather for a cousin’s birthday

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Lusha Chen grew up in Guangzhou, and is now an "FOB" living in New York

The Wang Post is a media platform bridging East and West, reporting and analyzing news and issues on technology, policy, and pop culture relating to China, East Asia, and the United States