Modern Chinese History

Son of the Revolution

As a young person, I identify with the struggles that Liang Heng went through in the book Son of the Revolution that was set during the reign of Mao. I empathize with trauma that the young boy was going through as his absolute Maoism is slowly swayed through his personal trauma and strife. He slowly begins to disregard what the Communist Party says and the puts himself and his family first. Also, I can empathize with the confusion of rank and file people such as Liang Heng and his family who did not know how to behave to please the officials. The party line kept changing constantly and one did not know always where they stood. Is life was very tumultuous, having been born on the day of the Vietnamese victory atttt Dien Bien Phu (Heng & Shapiro, 1984, 7). The book follows Liang Heng through several of his childhood memories until his defection from China in his twenties. The book puts a real face on the important moments during periods like the Cultural Revolution. In this melee, the effects of "the cult of Mao" upon society, Liang Heng, and his family are analyzed from the personal perspective of a survivor.

The contradictions can be seen during the time of the Hundred Flowers Campaign. Here, the party urged the Chinese masses to speak out and to criticize the Party's shortcomings. The mother of Liang Heng was originally skeptical about her son speaking out. However after she was urged her bosses, she decided to speak out publicly to please the Party (ibid, 8) The Hundred Flower Movement then suddenly switched to and Anti-Rightist Movement in which every people's unit was given a quota to find a certain quota of rightists to meet and they found out that Liang Heng's mother's name was on the hit list at the Public Security Bureau (ibid).

The regime was crazy, as were the times. It was a very difficult thing for the young boy and his family since the regime of Mao constantly went from one extreme to another. Like most people, they were just trying to find their way in the world and probably at a base level could not have cared one way or other about the party or politics except as far as it was necessary to have a decent life and to get ahead. This cultural craziness was followed up later with the Cultural Revolution (ibid, 116). All of this chaos was combined with food shortages, so the quality of life was not good for Liang Heng's family (ibid, 16-17).

It is amazing that Liang Heng is able to keep his humanity. He is told "You're a human being, not an animal. You have the right to be loved" (ibid, 262). This is the crux of issue. What is impressive about Liang Heng is that he is able to preserve his humanity, even with all of the dehumanization that he and his family suffered at the hands of the Maoist regime.