105
Coming to terms with the Cultural Revolution
The Party posthumously expelled Kang Sheng and Xie Fuzhi,
deceased leaders of the security system; even the eulogies delivered
at their funerals were officially rescinded. Massive purges at the
local level accompanied suicides of some leftist activists. The trial of
the Gang of Four signaled a second round of local purges, including
people who had been Red Guard activists nearly two decades before,
as well as late Cultural Revolution “heroes” such as university exam
critic Zhang Tiesheng, who received fifteen years for subversion.
Many once-vanquished officials were returned to high office,
sometimes only in honorific roles, sometimes with vengeance
on their minds. Many were rewarded with foreign travel. Less
formally, their children often received preference in promotions.
As more general public symbolism, a new design for China’s paper
currency added a bespectacled intellectual to the Maoist trio of a
worker, peasant, and soldier, making official the renewed respect
for intellectuals.
The state returned much property confiscated during the Cultural
Revolution. By 1985, the Beijing Cultural Relics Bureau “Office
for Goods Ransacked During the Cultural Revolution” put 30,000
unclaimed art works and 170,000 books on display, so that citizens
might file claims for their return. Unsurprisingly, some of the most
desirable items attracted multiple claims.
Yet critics wanted more. Why criticize the Cultural Revolution but
not the Great Leap Forward? Others wanted a Party renunciation
of the anti-rightist campaign of 1957. Still others wished for a
renunciation of the revolution itself. Party and state leaders could
not satisfy all of China’s citizens, who ranged from workers whose
lives had improved to intellectuals who had suffered bitterly. In the
end, China dealt with its controversial past, as other societies have
done—with frustrating limits.
Within these limits, the signals were clear. The Party positioned
itself rather defensively, shifting as much blame as possible to