Shades of Mao: The Posthumous Cult of the Great Leader Read Online Free PDF Page A

egalitarianism, and national pride. Gradually, the image of Mao, long since freed from his stifling holy aura and the odium of his destructive policies,
     

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became a "floating sign," a vehicle for nostalgic reinterpretation, unstated opposition to the status quo, and even satire. In one early 1990s' Mainland study of the popularity of Mao among university students, the responses reflected a wide spectrum of opinion. Among other things, the survey found: Mao was popular among people who felt frustrated politically, but also among people with a desire to learn why Mao had been such a political success; there was a nostalgia for a simpler past; there was also a curiosity about previously forbidden information concerning Party leaders and their private lives; and there was a popular longing for a new sage-king, not to mention outright hero worship. 59
It was also in the late 1980s that artists such as Wang Guangyi, who was then based in Wuhan, began manipulating Mao's image in their works. Wang's clinical framing of a Mao portrait in a grid of red lines was one of the first works of its kind and a "rehearsal" of the Chairman that built on the surreal reprisals of Cultural Revolution culture first undertaken by Wu Shanzhuan in the mid 1980s when he created a work called "Red Humor," an installation of nonsense big character posters. 60 In the literary world, meanwhile, there were moves to reevaluate and even overthrow Mao's cultural canon. 61
As the Reforms further transformed Chinese society from the mid 1980s, cultural and economic dislocation began to have an increasing impact on the populace. Widespread resentment against the effects of Reform, in particular inflation, corruption, and egregious nepotism within the Party, began mounting to crisis level in 1988. It was also the year in which Mao Zedong initially showed signs of making a popular comeback. The six-part teleseries "River Elegy" featured documentary footage of mass Red Guard adulation for Mao and study sessions from the Cultural Revolution, the first of their kind to be seen on Chinese television for years. 62 Such scenes enthralled younger viewers who had grown up after the Red Guard movement in an age when the religious ecstasy of mass political action was virtually unknown. 63 In 1988 Mao's name also was featured in at least one popular rhymed witticism ( shunkouliu'r ) aimed against the Party leadership and their progeny. It ran: "Chairman Mao's son went to the front line [of the Korean War and died in service]; Zhao Ziyang's kid smuggles color TVs; Deng Xiaoping's son calls for donations [to his foundation for the handicapped]; while the children of the People deal in state bonds." ( Mao zhuxide erzi shang qianxian; Zhao Ziyangde erzi dao caidian; Deng Xiaopingde erzi gao mujuan; Renminde erzi dao dian'r guokuquan ). 64 And it was in a mood partially of playful exasperation and partially sincere protest that some workers and other residents of Beijing decided to carry portraits of Mao into Tiananmen Square during the heady week of the 1989 hunger strike in
     

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mid-May. Depending on whom you spoke to at the time, interpretations of Mao's joining the protests varied: He wouldn't have allowed the situation to deteriorate to such an extent without taking action, said one school of thought; he provided moral vision and a sense of self-worth in a way that the new leaders could not, said another.
Yet wit, protests against corruption, and portraits were not the only signs that Chairman Mao had a role to play in the movement. His spirit inveigled itself into the proceedings in a number of ways. The 26 April People's Daily editorial declaring that the student protests that erupted after Hu Yaobang's death were instigated by a small handful of plotters intent on overthrowing the Party, immediately revived memories of the official Maoist invective used to denounce the 5 April Tiananmen Square Incident in 1976.
Nor was the rhetoric of the protesters free of