Cultural Revolution Quotes

“Now, faced with political cases like yours, all prosecutorial organs and courts would rather be too severe than too lax. This is because treating you too severely would just be a mistake in method, but treating you too laxly would be a mistake in political direction.”
― Liu Cixin, The Three-Body Problem

“Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a grammar school; and whereas, before, our forefathers had no other books but the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to be used, and, contrary to the king, his crown, and dignity, thou hast built a paper-mill. It will be proved to thy face that thou hast men about thee that usually talk of a noun and a verb, and such abominable words as no Christian ear can endure to hear. Thou hast appointed justices of peace, to call poor men before them about matters they were not able to answer. Moreover, thou hast put them in prison, and because they could not read, thou hast hanged them; when, indeed, only for that cause they have been most worthy to live.”
― William Shakespeare, King Henry VI, Part 2

“Disparities in economic standing drive radical differences in Americans’ values, causing a pronounced and antagonistic political ideologically. Americans are progressively viewing members of the domestic opposition party as the greatest threat to their wellbeing. Instead of fearing a war overseas, Americans are increasing distrustful of other Americans. A great American cultural war between the rich and poor is inevitable, unless corporate America and its wealthiest citizens voluntary commence accepting a larger load of taxation and the government implements dramatic steps to shore up the disparity that continues to widen between the people on contrasting economic poles.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“Why, when discussing China today, do I always return to the Cultural Revolution? That’s because these two eras are so interrelated: even though the state of society now is very different from then, some psychological elements remain strikingly similar. After participating in one mass movement during the Cultural Revolution, for example, we are now engaged in another: economic development.”
― Yu Hua, China in Ten Words

“We will acquire knowledge and science wherever they are to be found and we will stuff them into the head of every individual in the country. No limits, no conditions can be attached to knowledge and science.”
― Andrew Mango, Atatürk: The Biography of the Founder of Modern Turkey

“But these former Red Guards and the refugees from the Cultural Revolution-surely they're out of school?'

'No," Chen said. 'There's a whole army of night-school students.”
― Paul Theroux, Riding the Iron Rooster

“Here at Sudan the students humiliated their teachers,' she said. 'But in the high schools it was not unknown for students to beat their teachers to death.”
― Paul Theroux, Riding the Iron Rooster

“What could be crueler? I suppose the answer was: lots of things-an intellectual forced to shovel chicken shit, a Muslim forced to keep pigs, a physicist ordered to assemble radios, an historian in a dunce cap, a person beaten to death for being a teacher.”
― Paul Theroux, Riding the Iron Rooster

“Most intellectuals were sent into the countryside-to farms and into the mountains. They went to the most backward provinces, like Qinghai, Ningxia and Gansu. And Mongolia. Lots of intellectuals ended up in Mongolia. They had to suffer.”
― Paul Theroux, Riding the Iron Rooster

“To conceive of history as a process of the liberation of man is to consider as a historical conquest; it is to understand that the step from an abstract to a real freedom is not taken without a struggle against all the forces that oppress man, a struggle full of pitfalls, detours, and temptations to run away. Thw goal is not only better living conditions, a radical change of structures, a social revolution; it is much more: the continuous creation, never ending, of a new way to be a man, a _permanent_cultural revolution_.”
― Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation

“To conceive of history as a process of the liberation of man is to consider as a historical conquest; it is to understand that the step from an abstract to a real freedom is not taken without a struggle against all the forces that oppress man, a struggle full of pitfalls, detours, and temptations to run away. The goal is not only better living conditions, a radical change of structures, a social revolution; it is much more: the continuous creation, never ending, of a new way to be a man, a _permanent_cultural revolution_.”
― Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation

“At the meeting, Lu Dingyi made self-criticism, admitting that it seemed unbelievable that he could have lived with Yan Weibing for twenty-five years without knowing about her letters, but insisting on his innocence. 'Yan Weibing is now at the Ministry of Public Security, so please ask her. If I knew anything about her letters before reading the Ministry of Public Security files, please treat me like a chief conspirator and accomplice of counterrevolution and punish me more harshly.' In reply to Lin Biao's grilling, Lu said: 'isn't it quite common for husbands not to know what their wives are up to?' Lin Biao said: 'I'm itching to shoot you right here and now!' He went on, 'I've always had a liking for some intellectuals, and I've been especially fond of you, Lu Dingyi. So why do you engage in this kind of mischief? What's your intention?' When Lu Dingyi said he really didn't know about the letters, Lin Biao smacked the table and said, 'How can you not know when you're in bed fucking every day?' The denunciation turned farcical as Zhou Enlai hurled a a tea mug in Lu Dingyi's direction, and Yang Chengwu shook his fist under Lu's face and said, 'This is the dictatorship of the proletariat!”
― Yang Jisheng, The World Turned Upside Down: A History of the Chinese Cultural Revolution

“Minister of Public Security Xie Fuzhi approved an infantile demand by the Red Guards that traffic police replace their batons with Quotations of Chairman Mao, claiming that only Mao Zedong Thought could point people in the correct direction. Zhou Enlai managed to talk the Red Guards out of their demand to change traffic lights because red was the symbol of the revolution and should not be the color for obstructing progress. He and the commander of the Beijing Military Region, Zheng Weisan, were also able to convince the Red Guards to abandon their demand to march from west to east (i.e. away from capitalism) when being reviewed by Mao at Tiananmen Square, pointing out that reversing the direction would require Red Guards to salute Mao with their left hands and force Mao to look right rather than left from the gate tower.”
― Yang Jisheng, The World Turned Upside Down: A History of the Chinese Cultural Revolution

“The relationship between the rebel faction and the military and civilian bureaucratic cliques followed roughly the same pattern throughout the country, with the masses rebelling against the bureaucratic clique, followed by the bureaucratic clique's suppression of the rebels, and Mao alternatively playing the two sides off each other until he died and the rebel faction was vanquished forever. Mainstream public opinion has blamed all the evils of the Cultural Evolution on the rebel faction, but the vast majority of victims died while the rebel faction was suppressed under the new order of military and administrative bureaucratic control. The revel faction was indeed savage and cruel when it had the upper hand, but these periods covered only two years of the Cultural Evolution, and those who suppressed the rebels during the other eight years were even more savage, while the rebels were more brutally purged after the Cultural Revolution. The number of rebel faction victims and the degree of their persecution vastly outweighed those of the power-holders and royalist faction, but they became the scapegoats of the cultural revolution.”
― Yang Jisheng, The World Turned Upside Down Lib/E: A History of the Chinese Cultural Revolution

“It was Zhang Zhidong who suggested this guiding ideology during the reforms of the late Qing. 'Chinese learning at the base' meant preserving the political system of the late Qing, and 'Western learning for application' meant introducing and utilizing Western experience to strengthen the political system, consolidate rule, and prolong the life of the declining Qing dynasty. In Den Xiaoping's era, 'Chinese learning as the base' preserved the road, theory, and political system left behind by Mao, and 'Western learning for application' was aimed at developing the economy and thereby bolstering and prolonging the political system that Mao left behind. However, since the political system of the Mao era was mainly imported from the Soviet Union, it would be more accurate to say 'Soviet learning as the base.'
Economic reforms drew China into a new era, but the reforms were led by the bureaucratic clique that was the ultimate victor in the Cultural Revolution. They controlled all the country's resources and the direction of reform, and in objective terms decided who would pay the cost of reforms and how the benefits of reform would be distributed.”
― Yang Jisheng, The World Turned Upside Down: A History of the Chinese Cultural Revolution

“Make behavior your background, make behavior your culture, make behavior your identity, and the world will have all the uplift it needs.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Gentalist: There's No Social Work, Only Family Work

“As early as November 1966, the Red Guard Corps of Beijing Normal University had set their sights on the Confucian ancestral home in Qufu County in Shandong Province. Invoking the language of the May Fourth movement, they proceeded to Qufu, where they established themselves as the Revolutionary Rebel Liaison State to Annihilate the Old Curiosity Shop of Confucius.

Within the month they had totally destroyed the Temple of Confucius, the Kong Family Mansion, the Cemetery of Confucius (including the Master’s grave), and all the statues, steles, and relics in the area...

In January 1967 another Red Guard unit editorialized in the People’s Daily:

To struggle against Confucius, the feudal mummy, and thoroughly eradicate . . . reactionary Confucianism is one of our important tasks in the Great Cultural Revolution.

And then, to make their point, they went on a nationwide rampage, destroying temples, statues, historical landmarks, texts, and anything at all to do with the ancient Sage...

The Cultural Revolution came to an end with Mao’s death in 1976. In 1978 Deng Xiaoping (1904–97) became China’s paramount leader, setting China on a course of economic and political reform, and effectively bringing an end to the Maoist ideal of class conflict and perpetual revolution. Since 2000, the leadership in Beijing, eager to advance economic prosperity and promote social stability, has talked not of the need for class conflict but of the goal of achieving a “harmonious society,” citing approvingly the passage from the Analects, “harmony is something to be cherished” (1.12).
The Confucius compound in Qufu has been renovated and is now the site of annual celebrations of Confucius’s birthday in late September. In recent years, colleges and universities throughout the country—Beijing University, Qufu Normal University, Renmin University, Shaanxi Normal University, and Shandong University, to name a few—have established Confucian study and research centers. And, in the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Olympics, the Beijing Olympic Committee welcomed guests from around the world to Beijing with salutations from the Analects, “Is it not a joy to have friends come from afar?” and “Within the fours seas all men are brothers,” not with sayings from Mao’s Little Red Book.

Tellingly, when the Chinese government began funding centers to support the study of the Chinese language and culture in foreign schools and universities around the globe in 2004—a move interpreted as an ef f ort to expand China’s “soft power”—it chose to name these centers Confucius Institutes...

The failure of Marxism-Leninism has created an ideological vacuum, prompting people to seek new ways of understanding society and new sources of spiritual inspiration.
The endemic culture of greed and corruption—spawned by the economic reforms and the celebration of wealth accompanying them—has given rise to a search for a set of values that will address these social ills. And, crucially, rising nationalist sentiments have fueled a desire to fi nd meaning within the native tradition—and to of f set the malignant ef f ects of Western decadence and materialism.

Confucius has thus played a variety of roles in China’s twentieth and twenty-first centuries. At times praised, at times vilified, he has been both good guy and bad guy. Yet whether good or bad, he has always been somewhere on the stage. These days Confucius appears to be gaining favor again, in official circles and among the people. But what the future holds for him and his teachings is difficult to predict. All we can say with any certainty is that Confucius will continue to matter.”
― Daniel K. Gardner, Confucianism: A Very Short Introduction

“We are much more than a mouthpiece for a culture,
We are much more than a showpiece of our ancestry.
I am not saying that we gotta cut off our roots,
But we mustn't let roots become chains of slavery.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Amor Apocalypse: Canım Sana İhtiyacım

“When hate is habit,
It's the hate that we gotta 86.
Our ancestors taught us cultural 69,
It's time we outgrow such nonsense archaic.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Amor Apocalypse: Canım Sana İhtiyacım

“When integration is deemed illegal,
Every civilian must become an outlaw.
When human rights violation becomes law,
Everyday the civilians must break the law.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Amor Apocalypse: Canım Sana İhtiyacım

“There is no earth till all roots combine, till we crave for each other all roots are chains.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Amantes Assemble: 100 Sonnets of Servant Sultans

“Give me ten lovers who value love over tradition, and I shall give you a world without discrimination.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Himalayan Sonneteer: 100 Sonnets of Unsubmission

“Memorizing someone is not the same as cherishing someone's memories.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Yarasistan: My Wounds, My Crown

“States rise, states fall, but cultures are everlasting.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Aşk Mafia: Armor of The World

“Heroes of culture are often branded as enemy of the state.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Aşk Mafia: Armor of The World

“benevolent colonialism is still colonialsim”
― Xóchitl González, Olga Dies Dreaming

“If you love a culture, you gotta do something for that culture. It doesn't matter whether you are born in that culture - the real question is, what have you done for that culture?”
― Abhijit Naskar, Visvavictor: Kanima Akiyor Kainat

“If you love a culture, you gotta do something for that culture.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Visvavictor: Kanima Akiyor Kainat

“The manuscript seemed to shout less now; it was less stridently flag-wavingly English. As Stella had reinstated the Spanish oranges, the Dutch salad gardens and the Jewish fried fish, the accent of the text had changed. Instead of a clipped BBC English, it now spoke with a hotchpotch voice. Stella felt it more authentic for that, though, and her confidence in it began to return. It might no longer have a lion's roar, but this was a story of a trading and a hospitable nation, turned outward, not inward.”
― Caroline Scott, Good Taste

“Contaminate not the sweetness of soul,
with foul stench of segregated psyche.
Better stand civilized, without roots,
than be sentenced to inherited slavery.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Yüz Şiirlerin Yüzüğü (Ring of 100 Poems, Bilingual Edition): 100 Turkish Poems with Translations